Just imagine that our brain memory is like our phone memory. Once we store something in it remained store there forever. Yeah! At least till your phone is damaged. I know that many of you are thinking that it will be a great boon. But wait, if it would be very beneficial for us then in due course of evolution many of us might have achieved it. At least we medicos might have achieved it because we'll all have to memorize a lot of stuff. Drugs, Sings and symptoms, triads, tests, anatomy a lot of things. But still, we tend to forget everything.
So, it is because forgetting is a defense mechanism for an
individual. Without forgetting things our survival will be very difficult.
Imagine you had a bad past experience that haunts you every day. It’s better
to forget that experience. There can be many bad experiences like heartbreaks,
any big loss, or something like that. Now, think again what if your memory is
like your phone memory. It will be completely impossible for you to move on
from that experience. Our body is designed to survive and forgetting the things
is a crucial part of survival
“Time heals everything” is a very popular phrase we all know
that. But what does it actually mean? That means as time passes our brain
reduces the intensity of that past experience.
Ok, Ok I know that you guys might have been thinking that
how it will help us? How forgetting things could be beneficial for making our
memory strong. For that I want you to know about the physiology of forgetting.
Why do we forget?
It’s the main root of all problems. You are medical students
and many of you might know about it. So, there is a process in our brain that
is called “Synaptic Plasticity”. Synaptic Plasticity means that when we learn
something new our brain tries to keep it in memory and for that, it makes some
new neuronal connections. As you all know that our neurons can’t divide and
they are limited.
When a child learns
things new things like language his neurons make new connections and he could
be able to learn the language easily. But as we grow old we learn a lot of things.
Due to this our neuronal connections get saturated. Now when we try to learn
new things we tend to forget any other old thing. When we try to learn
something new neuronal connections form an old connections break.
 |
| P.C:- Wikipedia |
That is the simple science behind forgetting things.
There is a German psychiatrist Hermann Ebbinghaus who gave a forgetting curve.
Forgetting curve is a curve that hypothesizes the decline of memory retention
in time. This curve shows the relation of memory with time.
How can we use forgetfulness as a strength?
Forgetting things is very normal. We all forget things and
it’s beneficial too as I said earlier. It could be used as a strength also.
Consider your brain neurons like your body’s muscles. We do exercise and hurt
our body muscle a little which is a result they become bigger and stronger.
Now apply the same concept to your memory, forget some part
of your information and review it later. It will make your memory strong.
How to use it for Revisions?
I know that you have been waiting for this part. I wanted to
create a mindset so that you can understand the main part of this article
that’s why I talked about all those things previously.
We all know that revision is a crucial part of the studies.
But how can you get the maximum benefit of it? For getting the maximum benefit
of revision you need to know that you must have to forget some part of the information before revising it again. Revising the topics or any other thing
will have no benefits for your memory. We all revise things but the way might
not be the correct. Here I will tell you one of the most popular methods of
revision.
Spaced Repetition
This is the most popular technique of revision among students. This technique is developed after forgetting the curve. According to this technique, you can reduce memory erosion in a long run by flattening the forgetting curve.
For applying the spaced repetition method you need to have a proper revision schedule. I am giving an out view of a study schedule here.
You can Revise like:-
- Revision 1 - Same day i.e. Day 1
- Revision 2 - Next day i.e. Day 2
- Revision 3 - After 1st week i.e. Week 1
- Revision 4 - After 2nd week i.e. Week 2
- Revision 5 - After 1st month i.e. Month 1
- Last revision - After 2nd Month i.e. Month 2
How will it be useful?
Our brain always tries to work with the least workload possible. When it comes to memory our brain only tries to keep that part of the information that is considered useful to the brain. We have long-term memory and short-term memory.
When we learn something, it gets stored in ou short-term memory and started to evaporate quickly. After 1 day for instance we just have 60% of the information that we read a day before, so there is an erosion of memory. Now on revising that part again there will be positive enforcement to our brain that that information is useful.
Now our brain will try to retain it
for some longer duration. But we still lose some part of it. Now again after
some time revise it, now the portion of information lost will be less and
the duration of information retained has been increased. Keep that repletion either
according to your schedule or by using my provided outline.
Eventually,, your brain will shift that information from short-term memory to long-term memory.
Conclusion
We all forget things but it's very normal. It’s an important
defense mechanism for our survival. Forgetting things help us to move on from
our past experiences.
Here in that article,,, I have discussed the best way to revise
any subject so that it could remain in our mind for a long time. I discussed
the fact that why do we forget things. There is a phenomenon called synaptic
plasticity due to which when we learn new things our brain makes new connections
with neurons and breaks some old connections. New connections formation leads
to the formation of new memory whereas old connections breakdown leads to erosion
of memory.
There is a forgetting curve that describes the relation of
memory retained with time. And we can utilize the forgetfulness of things to
build a strong memory. It’s simply like doing a workout to build strong muscles.
Study and try to retain information, obliviously there will be some memory erosion.
Revise that topic again when you feel that there is some part of the information
that is missing. This process is called Spaced Repetition. That will tell your
brain that it’s a useful part of the information and it should be stored for the long
term. This is how you can keep information in your long term memory.
I hope that that article helped you. Share this with your
friends and other students.
0 Comments: