You might have heard that you can use hypnosis for memory improvement. Well, if you did, I’m sure you’re curious to find out how it works and what you improvements you can expect to see after following a hypnosis audio session.
How Are Memories Formed?
Our brain’s plasticity is essential for our memory formation
We can’t really get into how hypnosis for memory improvement works if we don’t understand how memories are formed, first.
As you know, the human brain simmers with activity. The nerve cells in our brains are divided into groups, and each group is responsible for different thoughts or perceptions.
For an oversimplified explanation, we can consider that some groups trigger emotional responses, while others trigger rational ones. But when our brain receives a nervous impulse, the impulse doesn’t activate a single group of neurons.
For example, when we’re eating something we like, the nervous groups responsible for our appetite, smell, pleasure, and digestion are activated at the same time.
When a memory is formed – say, eating your favorite food on a particular happy Sunday evening – our brain registers every group of neurons that was activated, and it recreates an echo of that activation when we recall that memory. We can’t really taste the food we ate two years ago, but we remember how good it was.
You might be wondering how that’s possible. This is where our brain’s synaptic plasticity comes in handy.
How The Synaptic Plasticity Helps With Memory Formation
Our neurons communicate with one another with the help of connections called synapses. But the brain is the most effective computer in the known Universe, and it doesn’t maintain all the synapses between our neurons at all times because that would require a tremendous amount of energy.
No, the brain strengthens and weakens the connections between neurons depending on how often they are activated. Active connections constantly get stronger, while those which aren’t used often weaken over time, until they eventually disappear entirely.
A connection between neurons becomes stronger as the neurons communicate with one another. When one neuron – let’s call it “A” for the sake of the argument – consistently activates the second – called “B” in our case – it creates an action potential. The brain recognizes this action potential and strengthens the bond between the neurons so that B will react to A’s calling faster.
On the other hand, if A’s calling fails to make B react, the brain will gradually weaken the connection between the two and strengthen others that make B react.
This continuous change of connection strength, as well as the creation and elimination of new and old connections are critical to memory formation. But that’s not the entire story
Neurogenesis And Its Role In Memory Formation
Neurogenesis is an important part for memory formation
Changing the strength of the synapses between neurons is not the only type of plasticity taking place in our brain. In some parts of the adult brain, especially in the hippocampus, new neurons are created in a process called neurogenesis.
By increasing the number of neurons in the hippocampus, the brain is actively improving your memory. Curiously enough, exercise has been shown to significantly increase the volume of the hippocampus in humans. This brings evidence that new neurons are created to improve our physical performance, balance, and coordination. The same neurons will also improve our mental performance in memory tasks.
Using Different Neuron Groups For Memory Formation
Memories come to life when specific groups of neurons are reactivated. Everything we do – from blinking to flying space shuttles – is called a stimulus and it triggers some sort of impulse in the brain. Our brains activate certain neurons in a more or less particular sequence for everything we do.
When you’re thinking of your cat, certain groups of neurons become active. When you’re driving, other groups of neurons are activated, and so on. The strengthening and weakening of the synapses we talked about before make particular patterns of neuronal activity more likely to occur.
What Makes Memories Stronger?
You experience the world through your senses. Our brains create memories with the help of our sight, touch, taste, smell, and hearing. However, some memories seem to be seared into our brains, whereas some are merely wisps or recollection. What makes our memory strong and long-lasting?
Emotion
Strong emotional content makes our memories robust and long-lasting. That’s why you probably remember your first day at school, your first kiss, or where you were when you learned that your family dog passed away. This happens because the amygdala is activated by emotional events.
The amygdala boosts our brain’s memory formation capacity by enhancing our attention and perception. The amygdala is also responsible for the release of stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol which can boost our arousal.
But while our memories of a stressful event can sometimes be enhanced, stress seems to have an overall negative effect on memory formation, especially for the events that happen at the same time as the event that caused the stress.
Stress also alters the way our brain processes the information, changing the brain’s reaction to a simple stimulus – response association instead of a proper association of multiple senses. Not only can this change the nature of the memory, but it can also change what we can recall under stress.
Neural pathways can be associated with tracks in a forest.
A simple analogy for memory formation is the formation of a track in the woods. The more people walk on the same path, the clearer the path becomes and the easier it is to follow it through the wood. Moreover, when we become familiar with the track, we can see how taking a short route off track can lead us to the same destination faster.
The same thing happens in our brain when a memory forms. The more we think about something, the easier it is for us to recall it. Not only that, but as the memory becomes more familiar, we can also recall related experiences or feelings we associate with that particular memory.
Hypnosis For Memory Improvement – How It Works
You can use hypnosis to improve your ability to recall information you might have forgotten, such as where you put your keys, a safe combination, or you can use it to improve your ability to memorize information you might need later for a test, an exam, or a career promotion.
Contrary to popular belief, people do not sleep when they’re hypnotized. When you are hypnotized, you are in a state of mind where your focus increases. The hypnotic trance also induces a state of relaxation, so you can concentrate better on the matter at hand.
Have you ever noticed that when you can’t recall something, you give up on trying to remember it, only to remember it when you are thinking of something else?
Well, that happens because our brains are very good at remembering things when we are relaxed and pretty bad at remembering when we are stressed. Thinking of something else gives your brain the opportunity to relax a little, which brings forth the memory.
The same relaxation occurs when you listen to a self-hypnosis audio session. But here’s the kicker, hypnosis also increases your focus. You know that your mind wanders and all sorts of memories come up when you’re feeling relaxed. Well, that doesn’t happen when you’re under hypnosis because you have an improved ability to focus on what you’re doing.
How To Use Hypnosis For Memory Improvement
Here’s a quick guide of what you can expect to learn from my “Improve Your Memory” hypnosis audio session.
1. How To Induce Hypnosis
The audio session will teach you the basic principles of hypnosis and how to use it to open your mind and induce hypnosis on yourself.
2. Deeper Relaxation
Now that you know how to induce hypnosis, you can gradually increase the relaxation you feel when you’re under a trance. As you could see in the previous sections, stress can severely affect your ability to memorize and recall memories, so a deeper relaxation will improve your learning and recalling abilities.
3. Positivity And Improved Cognition
Hypnosis helps your memory
Hypnosis is beneficial for your learning and recalling abilities not only because it improves your relaxation, but also because it improves your positivity.
Remember when we compared the neural pathways to a track in the forest? Well, beating yourself up because you can’t recall something as well as you would like doesn’t do anything but create neural pathways leading to thoughts such as “My memory is not good enough” or “I won’t remember that”.
Thanks to the positive aspect of the “Improve Your Memory” audio session, your brain will create new pathways that lead to thoughts like “Remembering this will be easy”, “I believe I can memorize this if I read it again”, and so on.
4. A Better Mindset
The hypnosis audio session will help you develop a better mindset. If your goal is learning new things and memorizing them, the hypnosis session will help you create a positive expectancy and improve your learning ability.
By encouraging you to discover and memorize new things, the audio session will help you develop a winning mindset that will also help you in other aspects of your life.
5. Improving Your Short-Term Memory
Most peoples’ memories discard the large volume of information they’ve just learned at a short time after learning it. And once the process of losing information starts, they continue losing it until nothing remains.
Now, cramming a lot of information in a short time might seem like an ideal solution when you want to learn to pass an exam, but learning things and remembering them over years is more helpful in the long run.
The “Improve Your Memory” audio session will help you recall the information fast and at regular intervals, creating new neural pathways for your memories with minimal effort. This will help you remember things and improve your overall memory.
How To Improve The Effects Of The Hypnosis Session
Even though the “Improve Your Memory” hypnosis audio session will improve your memory and recalling abilities on its own, you can further boost its effects by following the next tips
Using multiple senses boosts your ability to memorize things
1. Minimize Distractions
We live in the era of distractions. We can access all the information available on the Internet on our phones, tablets, and laptops. Some people are even convinced that they can carry out two or more mental tasks at the same time without botching up any of them, but research shows that’s not true.
You should avoid multitasking when you want to memorize something because chronic multitasking impairs both your long-term and your short-term memories.
2. Spread Out Your Learning Sessions
You might be tempted to procrastinate and postpone your learning to the last possible moment. Splitting the information you have to memorize in several chunks and spacing your study sessions is far more effective than cramming it in a single session.
Spacing your study sessions will help with your long-term retention ability.
3. Use Active Testing
Quizzing yourself or forcing yourself to recall the information from time to time improves your brain’s neural pathways.
For example, a study done in the US on foreign language learning showed that University students who tested themselves retained more words than those who didn’t.
4. Use More Senses
You might recall that our brain uses all our senses to create memories. Using more senses when you’re trying to learn something will improve your ability to recall it over time because the brain will create stronger neural pathways for the memory.
The easiest way to do this is combining your visual and auditory senses. Using images while you’re repeating something or talking out loud when you’re reading could do wonders for your memory.
5. Use Stories
Stories are powerful things. Our brains have developed to appreciate stories more than anything, probably because our ancestors used stories to teach essential survival skills before writing was invented.
Some stories, such as that of Hercules or Achilles have been around for thousands of years. If you develop a habit of expanding the subject you need to learn about how you would a story, you might improve your recalling ability.
The Benefits Of Hypnosis For Memory Formation
Using hypnosis for memory formation will help you relax your mind, memorize, and recall more information. Listening to the “Improve Your Memory” hypnosis audio session will help you develop a better memory.
Mark Bowden is a Solution Focused Hypnotherapist & Mental Performance Consultant. He is a best selling author and works with Premier League Football players on mental performance.
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