Hi, I'm Jazzy Jordz,
and you're watching Crack Your Career,
Today, we're going to talk about Greek gods,
Thomas Aquinas and memory champions.
In this tutorial, we'll explain how your brain works
and how to train it every day
to make it better and faster at learning.
You've come to the right place.
Welcome to JobTeaser.
One day, in a not-too-distant future,
we'll be able to learn a new language
just by plugging a USB stick into our brains.
No, wait,
that's the plot for The Matrix.
Until we get to that point,
we'll have to train our brains, sorry.
Welcome to your brain gym.
Metaphorically speaking, hey, because our brains aren't a muscle.
But the good news is that it is totally possible to train our brains.
Usually, our brain gets good at the tasks we train it to do.
That's how memory champions can temporarily retain
500 phone numbers and repeat them back
pretty much immediately.
They train their brains.
But they might also forget their best mate's birthday
the month after.
By the way, today Oscar is 234 years old.
Having fun, bro?
He's the life of the party.
Memorising phone numbers only uses our working memory.
But remembering birthdays needs both our working memory
to get it into our brains in the first place
and our semantic memory to keep it there long-term.
"What's the point in having billions of neurones?" I ask you.
I get it. All those apps that
promise to grow everyone's grey matter are tempting.
But if we train our brains to memorise as many numbers as possible
or do mental maths,
we're only temporarily improving our ability
to hold more information.
Same goes for if we train our brain to click on shapes or colours
as quickly as possible
or spell out words.
That doesn't make us better at arithmetic or crosswords.
Lining up rows of sweets on a screen
doesn't make you clever either,
needless to say.
But don't worry. All is not lost.
Your brain is still a plastic organ.
It's just that the tasks
that commercial brain training games prepare us for
are too basic and estranged from reality
to be really effective.
Basically, they don't give us skills that we can transfer over
into our day-to-day lives.
You have to tackle complex tasks
if you want to resist the effects
of age or cognitive conditions.
These tasks need to activate your brain
and trigger multiple cognitive processes.
One example is learning a new language.
Whatever you're learning, from Spanish to Mandarin,
you call on various skills.
Which include
your ability to mute your first language when you're speaking your new one,
your long-term semantic memory,
your inferential and analogical reasoning,
which means your ability to resolve
a completely new problem using deduction
or solutions you've used for similar puzzles,
your verbal abilities,
your active listening abilities
and even your social skills
when you're practising a new language.
For instance, should I eat the last nachos?
My social skills are telling me no.
F**k.
Guys, I'm going to need another shirt.
It's been shown
that people who speak multiple languages
are less likely to develop Alzheimer's.
Because they counteract the disease,
they tend to show symptoms much later on in life.
So, the key to keeping your brain healthy is complexity.
Learning a new language, performing in a play,
writing and discussing the books we've read,
these are all more stimulating than reading alone,
which is a passive activity.
So, you could play Trivial Pursuit with your mates or even better,
devise your own boardgame.
Anyway, you get the idea.
The more intellectually difficult something is,
the better it is for your neurones long-term wise.
You know me, generosity is my middle name.
Now you've taken on board my first tip, here's another one.
You'll see it's a step-up from tip number one.
To train your brain, you need to go all in
on neurofeedback and biofeedback.
Biofeedback is when you observe your bodily reactions as they happen,
such as how fast your heart is beating,
the rhythm of your breath or your temperature.
Neurofeedback is when you observe your brain's reactions
using a helmet, which presses electrodes against your head.
Obviously, we don't all have access to one of these at home,
but it is a really effective way of seeing how activated our brains are.
Admit it. You're a bit tempted.
When we watch how our biological or neuronal responses change,
we can start to figure out strategies for managing them.
In reality,
not everyone experiences bio- and neurofeedback in the same way.
Around 30% of people can't learn
how to control their physiological or brain reactions.
Looking on the bright side,
this means that it does work for 70% of us.
The important thing to remember is that it doesn't hurt to try.
Are you ready to do a quick biofeedback exercise?
Instead of the electrodes,
we'll start with a light version.
All you need is a device for measuring your body's responses.
That could be a smart watch that measures your heart rate for instance.
Or you can do the same with your breathing.
So, now put yourself in a situation,
which usually provides a strong bodily reaction in you.
Don't go mad.
You obviously don't need to put yourself in any danger to test how you react.
And remember, if you have a heart or neurological condition
or you suffer from epilepsy,
please consult your doctor before trying any of these exercises.
Okay, let's get back to it.
Put yourself in a stressful but safe situation.
If heights scare you,
that might be watching a GoPro video
of someone bungee jumping,
and if you fear spiders,
you might watch a documentary about Australian spider infestations.
Sorry for that.
You can also imagine what you'll say to your crush at the next party.
That's for my shy people.
And if you're shy, scared of spiders and heights,
obviously all you have to do is picture declaring your love,
while bungee jumping in Australia.
Your heart should be beating faster now.
It's time to take control and slow it back down.
"How?" you ask. I'll be honest with you.
There are no silver bullets here.
You'll have to figure out which mental strategies work for you.
Don't look so disappointed.
Trial and error is what it's all about
because it lets us use
what we'd learn in other contexts.
We never said it'd be easy.
Once you've found the mental strategy that works for you,
try using it with other stimuli.
Imagine you're in a job interview or giving a presentation
or you've just rocked up naked to a team meeting.
I guess it's not exactly stressful for everyone.
Now we've trained our brains,
let's see how you can learn more effectively.
Again, there are no silver bullets here.
Practice makes perfect.
If you want to recall something long-term,
it's better to learn a little bit every day
and repeat it regularly.
Every time we remember something,
we reactivate and reinforce
the cerebral connections we made when we learnt it
to embed it into our memory.
Thanks to these solid foundations,
even if we forget what we know because we've not recalled it for a bit,
it will be easier to relearn.
That's how times tables work.
You will never forget them.
Mnemonic devices are another thing that can work well.
One of the most famous mnemonic device is
the memory palace.
This technique can help you remember long lists of words
like passages from a book,
the latest Megan Thee Stallion song or other stuff
by mentally storing them somewhere you know really well.
But how do you actually do that?
Well, what you do is associate what you want to remember with objects.
Let's look at a really simple example. A shopping list.
You've written
tomato purée,
gnocchi,
mozzarella,
parmigiano
and basil.
Yes.
You're having Sorrentino gnocchi tonight. One of my favourites.
The idea is to spot the objects as you retrace the route in your mind.
And there you go. You've turned your shopping list into a game.
This technique is effective
because our memory works by associating ideas.
My advice to you would be to visualise rooms
you know well and can imagine without having to think about it.
Doesn't have to be a palace.
Could be the flat you live in or even the route you take to work.
The bigger your place is,
the more memories you can store there.
So, if you're Harry Potter,
maybe don't choose your childhood bedroom.
You can also turn the information you're storing
into rhymes or set it to music.
Another tip is to associate the things you want to remember with your senses.
We're better at retaining things
that trigger several of our senses.
You'll be better at remembering your mozzarella
if you can feel it melting in your mouth
with a bit of basil and a dash of olive oil
and a pinch of salt.
Oh, sh*t. Guys, have you got another T-shirt?
This is why you can use different senses to remember the same thing.
For instance, you might use a visual,
then an auditory memory,
then a story.
Then associate this with a sensation.
Contrary to popular opinion,
we don't learn using just one sense alone.
So, no more excuses about having just a visual, auditory memory.
We're all multisensory beings.
And the more we use our senses to remember information,
the better we'll retain it.
The harder you make it to remember something,
the harder our brain works to mobilise
all its massive concentration abilities to do it.
And this in turn helps to embed things
even deeper into our memories.
As far as our brains are concerned,
why do things the easy way when you can complicate it?
If you want to learn some text
or points to bring up at a job interview
or important presentation,
be sure to do a dress rehearsal.
You need to throw yourself into it.
You could even ask a friend to pretend to be a tough interviewer.
Put on your best suit and remember to smile.
This is a way of associating your knowledge
with a particular situation,
and your brain won't lose track on the big day.
Practise the questions that the interviewer might ask you.
But change your order every time you go over it.
And feel free to throw in a biofeedback exercise
to complete the experience.
Nabbing your job is going to be a piece of cake.
Last but not least,
I feel you're going to like my last tip.
Sleep.
If you've not slept well the night before you try to learn something,
your tired brain will struggle
to use its concentration to embed new information.
The good news is
that your brain keeps working while you sleep
to consolidate all your new knowledge
in your long-term memory.
So, just like that,
you'll become champion learner
and memoriser in your sleep.
I'm off to work on my memory.