How to Retain Information and Facilitate Your Learning
Updated on January 31, 2024
5 min read

How to Retain Information and Facilitate Your Learning

Table of Contents

The brain can retain information and facilitate learning if there is constant engagement in intellectual fitness and cognitive exercises. Thus, new powerful connections will develop and improve your brain’s ability to retain information and, most importantly, utilize what was learned.


A human brain is exposed to tons of new information daily. Millions of bits can be processed by our unconscious mind. However, only a small amount of that information can be handled consciously. If you want to make your brain absorb more incoming information and hold more memories for their further recalling, you can explore the most recognized ways how to improve memory. Even those individuals who can’t retain information or have lost memory acuity and keenness of thought may harness the brain’s hidden potential. The reason is that the brain can adapt and develop more powerful connections if being constantly engaged with intellectual fitness and cognitive exercises.

Learn Faster and Retain More with These Proven Tricks


Lots of research-proven strategies are designed to strengthen your ability to retain new knowledge. The well-created algorithm of actions for retaining information assists in growing and developing nervous tissue that plays a significant role in memory and emotions. It also stimulates such skills as reasoning, problem-solving, concentration. Each time you devote yourself to cognitive training and challenge your mind, you broaden your brain capacity. Thus, think about whether your mind is agile enough and how quickly you can learn new information, definitions, complex subjects, and processes. If you have come to the conclusion that brain efficiency must be boosted, then following tips on how to retain information can help you to evolve mental skills, become more organized during learning, and shape the agile mindset.

For improving your efficacy during studying, you can try a technique known as learning by teaching. While you are engaged in preparing, revising, and presenting different kinds of material and data to others, your neurons stay active. Moreover, some students can comprehend and memorize the material better if simply explaining it to others. Teaching someone else pertains to conveying material and ideas clearly and effectively. Thus,  interacting with the content promotes a more in-depth understanding and permanency of the acquired knowledge. Apart from better retaining information, some extra hidden benefits from such an approach are greater communication skills, higher mental productivity, and self-reliance.

Detecting why it’s so hard to capably grab new knowledge and pay attention can be quite useful for your learning experience. There is a range of reasons why I can’t retain information.  Inability to determine the optimal time of the day when your brain can reach maximum mental productivity is one of them. Every learner must recognize when the mind is the most alert and awake during the day since it varies from person to person. For example, someone can easily kick-start the brain immediately after waking up. Others are more productive in the middle of the day.

The next tip on how to retain information is to try focusing on one subject and learn it carefully before moving to another. The method opposite to this is known as an interleave tactic when concepts and academic material are mixed and interleaved. Both methods are quite practical and can bring a difference to how you memorize things. No matter which way you go, when switching between topics and mixing them up or focusing directly on one subject, remember that pause is an integrated component of the learning process. It helps your brain not only retain material but even to integrate information for generating complex responses and solutions to the problem more capably. Interrupting your learning allows creating a mental space for reflecting and reviewing notes, ideas, concepts that are hard to understand.

For collecting, categorizing, and refining new knowledge and concepts, you can also try writing them down. Researching the writing effects on the brain, Mueller and Oppenheimer have obtained results that bring them to a conclusion: writing by hand involves several cognitive processing, stimulates deeper memorization, comprehension, and retention, and can have a good impact on your academic results, especially if compared to using a laptop and simply typing. Through such automated and effortless information and thoughts processing as writing, you will be able to insert new data into your long-term memory system, and use encoded content whenever you need it.

Learning styles vary, and studying patterns are usually based on emotional and mental factors and an individual’s prior experience. But making it interesting is always a good idea. It’s hard to argue that personalizing content is a great chance to make your learning more exciting and productive. Just think about how gained knowledge will benefit your future growth and career success and motivate yourself to attain impressive academic heights.

Exercise to Improve Memory Recall

To keep new knowledge for future use, the human brain must collect and organize information, so it can be found and accessed at any time. Applying memory and brain tactics that work perfectly for you is a foremost pillar for retention success: write notes, try visualization techniques and the Method of Loci, teach others, take care of an appropriate stimulative learning environment. But sometimes, more obvious tricks can have a positive effect on how we perceive and consume new information. Let’s take a quick look at those alternative tools to enhance your memory storage even more.

Struggling with a consistently bad memory and being incapable of remembering a long string of information, try to chew gum while working with new content and executing academic objectives. This is how you can ensure that areas that take responsibility for our attention will be saturated with a sufficient amount of oxygen. Enough oxygen is proven to be vital for boosted cognition and for efficient coping with any mental objective that requires intensive cognitive efforts.

As for coffee intake, its beneficial effects on our mental performance and learning are still a debatable matter. However, recent research has shown that the transformation of temporary memories into long-lasting information that is stored in our long-term memory can be enhanced if consuming a moderate amount of caffeine. The results stem from the way how the main coffee ingredient stimulates the nervous system, increases focus and boosts mood.  

One more science-backed solution for how to retain information more efficiently, gain exceptional memory, and develop strong mental skills is meditation. The brain needs time to apprehend, process, and classify new knowledge, as well as to strengthen the memories an individual has created during the day. The practice of meditating can give that time to your brain and even become an indispensable tool for making your working memory more powerful. It is a great assistant for emptying your mind and clearing up space for new information. Incorporating meditation into your strategy for gaining excellent memory, it is possible to improve the recall of stored concepts, facts, definitions, increase awareness, and speed up decision-making. Moreover, meditation can nurture the brain, so anyone will be capable of obtaining mental clarity and expanding memory to store more information.

Conclusion

Some individuals tend to have more difficulty concentrating on academic tasks than others. Attention span troubles during learning and the inability to comprehend new information quickly can be explained by an array of external influences. Luckily, there are well-designed ways to eliminate triggers of poor retention. Individuals who can’t retain information are able to totally transform their learning approaches with the right memory aids and brain-boosting practices.

Building strong memory can be a fascinating journey. You can unleash the natural potential of your mind and enjoy simplified and fast learning. But growing mental capacity is a process that cannot be rushed and done neglectfully. It is a set of consistent and well-thought-out actions that assist in synthesizing information and keeping more of it in your memory storage.

FAQ

How to learn faster


Being surrounded by a great deal of information and complex academic data, it is of high importance to create a powerful system to organize your learning.

How to memorize more


Experiencing memory issues, apply the right mind-training tactics for speeding up the brain processes. Combining several mind tools is recognized as the best way to retain information.

How to concentrate


To enhance your mental ability and easily direct efforts toward your educational goals, train your brain daily. Challenge your mind with new experiences and memory aids that require focus and attention.

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