Review: A Great Guide for Memory Training
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 11 5, 2012
In his book, Memory: Simple, Easy and Fun Ways to Improve Memory, John Parker delivers exactly what the title promises. There's no need to plow through pages of text and take notes before achieving significant memory improvement.His introduction explains how your brain functions, how memory can be improved with exercise, and what strategies for memory retention will be presented.. Then, in the first chapter, you're off and expanding your memory through repetition, something we're all familiar with; however, Parker expounds upon it in an interesting and enjoyable way that continues throughout the book.If you've ever wondered how some people have great memories while you have trouble remembering where you parked the car at the mall, you may benefit from the other memory-related factors Parker discusses, such as your lifestyle, sleeping habits, diet and beliefs. He explains how these things can be adjusted to get your brain and memory functioning at peak efficiency. He gives tips for how to work with boring subjects that are difficult to pay attention to and makes learning actually fun (while reading this book, I learned facts about the Civil War, the legend of Atlantis and the introductory lines of the Gettysburg address presented in such an entertaining way that I still remember them).This book is designed to reach all sorts of people, students obviously, but also business people, homemakers, seniors, and the children of seniors who may be concerned about their parent's ability to remember. His style is direct and conversational, which makes the book quite enjoyable to read. When he presents a technique, he works in an example to show you how easily the technique can be adapted to real situations. I especially found useful his techniques for remembering names when you're introduced to people. I've always had problems with this as I tend to concentrate on the act of meeting the person and not their name and, as a result, have been embarrassed on many occasion by not knowing an important contact or client's name. After reading this book, I'm not worrying about that happening again.I was a little sorry to reach the end of the last chapter, and I'm planning on following the author's advice to read it several times. I've already incorporated a number of Parker's suggestions and techniques into my mental strategy but I am intrigued by the memory systems he presents in the later chapters. I highly recommend it to anyone who's interested in memory retention.