Want to become a memory champion? Learn how to visualize

Are you ready to become a memory champion? Would you like to win the Memory Olympics? OK, maybe that’s a little overreaching, but what about improving your memory skills by using the techniques of the USA Memory Champions?

Ronnie White and Nelson Dellis are the 2010 and 2011 USA National Memory Champions, respectively. On the video below they (and others) share their techniques and experience preparing for this annual event. Both champions have two things in common: they practice like crazy and both of them use visualization techniques to help them remember names, numbers and memory cards (which are the categories of the olympics).

Connecting mental images or pictures to the content you’re trying to learn is a powerful technique that help most people remember and recall information. This technique works even better when the images used are meaningful to you.

For example: lets say you need to learn the parts of the human body; instead of using a book diagram to practice and study, you can use a full body picture of a loved one (brother, sister, mother, father, etc.). That way your brain will make a connection between the content you’re studying and something that is meaningful to you, improving your chances of remembering that information when you need to.