How Your Brain Works: Memory Consolidation

How to harness the power of Memory Consolidation–the magical process by which short-term memories are transformed into long-term memories…

Table of Contents

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Prerequisites

LOVE of music and the discipline to study and practice the right things the right way.

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Lesson Goal

To accelerate the process of learning a difficult concept or skill by appreciating and taking full advantage of Memory Consolidation.

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What is Memory Consolidation?

Memory Consolidation is the unconscious process that creates long-term memories (declarative or procedural) by restructuring the electro-chemical connections in your brain.

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Study and Practice Habits that Optimize Consolidation

Making the most of this behind the scenes long-term memory formation process is enabled by four study and practice habits:

1. Focused Attention on what you want to learn.
2. Repeated Exposures to what you are trying to learn.
3. Sufficient Soak Time for the new concept or experience to fully register in short-term memory.
4. Association or Relation of the new information to something you already know.

As you incorporate these habits into your daily practice, be patient. Realize that learning may not occur immediately. While simple things may be consolidated in a matter of seconds with just casual attention and a single exposure, more complex concepts and skills my take intense focus and repeated exposures over the course of days, weeks, or even months. This is especially true when learning a complex fine motor skill.

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The Importance of Sleep

Another huge aspect of memory consolidation if this: The prime time for your brain to catch up on and permanently store what you studied and practiced today is while you are sleeping. And so, every day presents a potential consolidation cycle that consisting of the alternating activities of focused study and brain-restructuring sleep. This is one reason why studying and practicing a little bit every day beats doing a lot a bit once a week.

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Takeaways

1. One minute of focused attention beats one hour of unfocused attention.
2. You attention must be focused on something “small enough” to fit within the capacity of your short-term memory.
3. Pay attention long enough for the subject to make a meaningful impression.
4. Relate new information to things you already know.
5. Take advantage of every sleep by studying and practicing every day.
6. Be patient. As long as you keep trying, you WILL get it!

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learn more… How Your Brain Works