the first thing that comes to mind when I think of vagus nerve is like the the welcome to Las
Vegas sign students out there like you know you go through the material you you try to conceptualize
it as best as you possibly can and then you apply the memory techniques so is there when you're
actually get to the specifics you guys have it some examples right now on how you actually take
what you what you've done in the memory world and apply it to the studies yeah we have some examples
yeah you want to take the first one hurrah I kind of yeah you kind of yeah we do that so yeah so
we you know we pretty much use the techniques when we're studying anything these days so you
know one one ad example of that is when you're learning anatomy so Anatomy is obviously a very
memorization heavy discipline and unfortunately unfortunately Anatomy was one of those courses
that we took right at the beginning med school and we had really nailed down the techniques too
well so full disclosure this is an example that I just came up with because you know we don't have
any that many great ones from from Anatomy but you know going back to Anatomy if I were to retake it
I definitely would use it so here's a quick one so you know in medicine and you're talking about the
digestive tract there's basically three sections that people split it into one is called the
foregut and then the mid gut and the hindgut so for gut mid gut hindgut you know so for get sort
of starting at your at your mouth and going down your esophagus and not to get into many specifics
but you know one thing you might want to have to remember is the blood supply and the nervous
system innervation for each of those sections so they you know part of the reason they're split up
into those categories is because they each have a unique blood supply and innervation so you know
let's just go through those real quick so you know looking kind of at the room behind us you know
what would happen in the actual memorization process for us is we would see that you know
information and decide okay I want to commit this to memory using memory techniques and then say
you know in our palace at the time we might be imagining that we're in this particular room so
let's just use that as I guess as an illustration so for each foregut made getting hind get I would
use one locus for each of the those pieces so maybe the first locus that I choose is the C
for for gut so the feeling would be my for gut locus and then the blood supply to the to the
for gut is a celiac artery so one reason why I chose the ceiling is because it sounds sort of
like celiac so I I can just imagine this because it's the ceiling I think of celiac artery and then
the innervation is the vagus nerve cranial nerve 10 so you know for that one the first thing that
comes to mind when I think of vagus nerve is like the welcome to Las Vegas sign or is it yeah leave
a Las Vegas or welcome Ellis you know that kind of like you know the famous sort of diamond looking
sign so I imagine that that you know that Vegas sign is hanging from the ceiling so now you know
in this ceiling locus I've got feeling for celiac artery and the Vegas sign for vagus nerve so that
would be my kind of for gut locus there movie would you create an image for for guts cause
I know that okay this I know that this is for gut or would it be an x-ray image so that that's kind
of a subtle thing we did we deal with often you know whether or not kind of encode the the topic
yeah and and you know what I might recommend for kind of people starting out it is to do that more
if you have you know kind of a doubt about it just go ahead and encode the topic as well so maybe you
know for for gut maybe you imagine like you know a number for kind of painted on the ceiling shut
something like that basically what we found is that when you when you kind of do this process
of reviewing a lot like I mentioned before you find that the your association of the topic to
the location becomes very natural so you know once your view you've you're viewed a few times at this
particular room houses before got mega hindgut material it's almost unnecessary to have that
any odors like that that's and of course there's no perfect way to do it but that's that's the
strategy that we've kind of fallen into is you know not really encoding that as much and both
of you have found that this this works right it's not like Oh addicts out of Edwards for addicts
because he memorizes often you as well right Kathy like this process it like you just said
it feels like this is a and it feels like this is amid good area right so you do you also not
have to always encode the the actual topic oh yeah I don't have to I think when we both started out
one of the things we tried was encoding but for me you know and that's one thing that we like to talk
about it out is the world memory champion but I'm just you know the world memory chip is like like
you know so I don't I don't do these techniques competitively but it definitely works for me and
just the other day we were in our hometown and we you know sprinkled these palaces all over our
hometown where we grew up and we were driving around and we're like oh my gosh like it just
feels like cardiac stuff here you know you kind of have that sense and one thing we even thought
was pretty funny where's we've been walking around in these places in our mind so much that it almost
feels like we've been there recently you know yeah so feeling I mentioned before it is did we
recently went to Baltimore which is where I went to college at Johns Hopkins in um it was weird I
haven't been there in almost three years now but I would go back to some of these places on my my
you know home campus and and feel like I was just there because I had been you know using it for
using interesting yeah that is weird because I'd memorized The Avengers movie or like scenes from
The Avengers I use that as a memory pellets and and I use that word I use that the real memory
competition for cards - all training for that I believe that like that rel Pacific Lee and then
I just saw a poster of the adventures somewhere out of nowhere but I saw the poster and then it
just triggered like the entire movie just kind of flashed in my mind yeah yeah but that's so
truly like it and it triggers like memories from the world and feels like it yeah here's the thing
I think the biggest thing always like be okay with dreams okay because that's you know what
what the top people are doing right now you know the Mullins family is doing they're creating these
locations to store the information so be okay with screen the location and don't get overwhelmed with
the idea that you have to have thousands of locations right from the get-go before you
can get started with learning information you can start just by thinking of your home right
now that place information along that route it's like well we're going to a during the next few
examples you know what I'm thinking of the palace I don't really I never look at pictures or like
go to the actual Palace right so in my mind is you should use the person that comes to mind
maybe it's like the stairs you know down sort of there I don't know if you can see them right there
so you know that let's make that the mid gut for instance so the I'm going to go ahead and imagine
Lionel Messi standing there on tummy or maybe it's kind of a more miniature version of him standing
on those steps holding up a Vegas one of those same Vegas signs above his head like kind of in
a victorious way and so now explain what those are for so so the so that's the mid gut and then the
blood supply to that is the superior mesenteric artery and so messy you know Lionel Messi's world
famous soccer player is kind of representing that superior mesenteric Messi mesenteric and then he's
kind of looking victorious so that's kind of how I encoded the superior part and you'll see that's
important because the next thing for the for the pine gut is the inferior mesenteric so so he's
holding up kind of victoriously you got messy four mesenteric holding up this Vegas sign and that's
because the Vegas also does the nervous system the innervation to the mid gut so he's you know
got that Vegas on medicine superior mesenteric Vegas I mean maybe the next place is the kind of
couch I'll just use over here you know maybe we're doing me that painting there maybe that's in my
memory cost and time got its inferior mesenteric for the artery and pelvic nerves for the nerves
so you know again I'm going to use some sort of Nessie type image for the mesenteric so maybe now
we have Messi on that on that counter there and he's just sort of slumped on the ground feeling
like he may be injured or something like that in a game and he he's feeling very inferior so it's
inferior mesenteric and then the innervation is the pelvic nerve so pelvic I just think of Elvis
which does first come to month thing comes to mind so maybe I'll topic through us really so you got
Elvis sort of bending over messy you know seeing what's wrong with him maybe trying to help so you
just got that you know all these images you know you can remember the Vegas signs you know stealing
Celia you got victorious messy with the Vegas sign and you've got Elvis and Messi over here
I know it's just be some quick cues to queue into the different blood supply's innovations so here's
a question that I often get yeah when you're reviewing the information all right so you've
seen the stories you're seeing Alvis bending over trying to help out Messi you have noticed
many times especially like during the first like review you might get one or two like real triggers
meaning you'll get one or two like translations for what that visual represents some times you're
like I have absolutely no idea what Elvis was doing or what I was represented does that ever
happen to you guys when you're like seeing these images when you're reviewing and you're like what
is that even say why did I picture that person are doing that action does that ever happen to
you guys sometimes yeah yeah um and the way I usually handle that is if it's something that
I that I think is not immediately obvious to me why that images what it is in my note of that
mnemonic so like I said we have you know this way of taking notes all right like you know Elvis and
then I'll write equals pelvic curves you know and so that way if there's any candy if I think there
might be any confusion about what it represents I'll have that notes there I can always go back
and see what it was that's it okay so you guys take extensive notes on all of this it's not just
like you're you're storing it on the location and then you walk away and that's it like you
you actually go back and you do your note-taking on top of like creating these visuals right yeah
it's like you said earlier right it's it's kind of misleading if you just think about it as like
oh I put it in there and now I don't ever have to you know review it again right so that's one
of the things we do take notes on it that way we can consistently review it in the same way
that we encoded it so that it just you know we're not kind of imagining something different every
time and then it's all messy messy but intended yeah good and so okay here's another one reusing
characters or like images that you've already used for for other terms so if you have there
anything else that that you would use messy for or like it we'll stick with that example because
we used it twice already so if you ever see like messy again will that always represent something
that has to do with the gut or when you use messy like that player for something completely separate
and different if you see that term somewhere else so we try to keep it consistent so that
if we saw Messi again it would be something to do with the mesenteric arteries and that's actually
part of what Alex is talking about in terms of organization because that does allow us to
kind of quickly scan through and say you know where it's and where have I seen Messi before
and then you just start having this sense right a sense that we were talking about earlier for when
you see that image what it means all the things associated with it it's one thing I say is like
you know if I asked you to think about all the pizza places in your hometown you can easily think
of you know where all the pizza was and everything that kind of is associated with this restaurants
and so when we keep those images consistent it kind of allows us to do that quick scanning and
quick thinking yeah and so just to add on to that you know we try to keep those images consistent
for sure the one thing we might do like is we try not to reuse the images so like if something else
comes up it sort of sounds like messy I will do my best to not make it messy again just because
you know it can sometimes get confusing if you've got a bunch of messy is running around that are
doing different things um you know so but what I will say is it like if maybe you know if let's
say the inferior mesenteric vein comes up your mesenteric veins obviously are a little different
in the arteries what I might do just to kind of come up with an image for that easily is use some
sort of category and so maybe I'll imagine like a different Argentinian soccer player for the veins
right so you know it'll be a Saltine every time I think Messi it will be for the art medicine does
enteric arteries and then maybe there's this maybe it's the Argentine goalkeeper and I have no idea
who that is but just kind of the general notion that it's that goalkeeper or somebody else will
cue me into it being the mesenteric veins instead of they are today that feel related that way right
right because then at that point you're seeing a soccer player right and like wait okay well that
was messy but that was an artery oh this one must be the vein right yeah I mean it would trigger
that so that's good tip right there um it's kind of like permitted as similar to when I memorize
names when we memorize names and faces so for me like for every AL like al I picture the birds an
owl right and Alex I'll picture like an Alf Lexi maybe I like change it up a little bit an Albert
it's like an owl but his body is a burrito top of it yeah right so it's like I'll use something
similar which is an owl but then I like morph it into something else for you you morphed it
into like another soccer player right so it's the Messi in a way but it's just a soccer player yes