How to effectively improve memory and expand one's vocabulary?

[Scholar]

Do you guys know of any good resources that give insight into how to increase your memory? I frequently struggle with describing things both because I lack the vocabulary, or sometimes I cannot recall a specific word.

Do you guys know of effective ways to actually increase one's vocabulary in a way so that one actually can use it effectively? People usually say to read more books, but I do feel like the words don't stick in my memory. I remember Leo was talking about whenever he would come across a word he didn't understand he would write it down and then google it, but my issue would then be, what is a good methodology to as effectively as possible memorize these new concepts or words?

 

I would also appreciate resources on memory in general, I know it's kind of treated like it's own field of mastery, where people go really deep into mastering how to memorize things. I am more interested in long term memory, but anything might be useful. I just don't know enough about this field to be able to tell what high quality ressources on this would look like.

[Raze]

Try berg learning 

[something_else]

You could memorise an entire dictionary with mnemonic techniques like a memory palace or method of loci

I’m sure there was a dude who didn’t speak French but won a French scrabble tournament by literally just memorising all the legal French Scrabble words

[UnbornTao]

Some nootropics can help memory. Research what those are. Optimizing your brain in general is useful for this purpose.

Memorizing becomes effortless or at least much easier when you like what you're doing. If it were boring, you would have to force yourself to do it, which would be less effective.

Invest more time into the activity or field of your choice. Throw yourself into it. Keep your brain engaged.

This focus clears out your daily life of distractions and other things that subtly hold your brain down. This in turn frees up space for a more effortless kind of memorization to occur.

Like a muscle, it has to be improved through practice. Doing math, coding, or learning a new language are among the things that can help.

Edited May 31, 2022 by UnbornTao

[Asayake]

Have you tried Lion's mane mushroom? It's a supplement that can help with memory and cognitive function.

[integral]

Word games might be what your looking for?

[Carl-Richard]

6 hours ago, Scholar said:

I frequently struggle with describing things both because I lack the vocabulary

That's called being an intuitive thinker. Imo, masterfully expressing intuitive ideas is mostly a matter of repetition, not necessarily about increasing raw memory capacity. I have a friend with a nearly photographic memory who is not very verbally sophisticated at all. It's more like a delicate process of articulation than a retrieve-from-storage type deal. It's dynamic and recursive. It's also more about how you make the pieces fit, not necessarily which pieces you use (structure over content).

In a way, verbal expression is a kind of feminine thing, like a dance (however cliché that sounds). You have to give yourself up to it, but also not too much that you lose balance, or else you'll become a poet, or even worse – word salad. Terrence McKenna comes to mind as somebody who likes to float a bit over on the poetic side, such that it becomes almost more about the aesthetics than the ideas (which is actually a symptom of mania in bipolar disorder; "clanging"). So maybe that's a place where you want to take a modicum of inspiration from, however limited that may be (genius and madness are indeed related)  

 

6 hours ago, Scholar said:

or sometimes I cannot recall a specific word.

That happens to me all the time  

[Scholar]

6 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

That's called being an intuitive thinker. Imo, masterfully expressing intuitive ideas is mostly a matter of repetition, not necessarily about increasing raw memory capacity. I have a friend with a nearly photographic memory who is not very verbally sophisticated at all. It's more like a delicate process of articulation than a retrieve-from-storage type deal. It's dynamic and recursive. It's also more about how you make the pieces fit, not necessarily which pieces you use (structure over content).

In a way, verbal expression is a kind of feminine thing, like a dance (however cliché that sounds). You have to give yourself up to it, but also not too much that you lose balance, or else you'll become a poet, or even worse – word salad. Terrence McKenna comes to mind as somebody who likes to float a bit over on the poetic side, such that it becomes almost more about the aesthetics than the ideas (which is actually a symptom of mania in bipolar disorder; "clanging"). So maybe that's a place where you want to take a modicum of inspiration from, however limited that may be (genius and madness are indeed related)  

 

That happens to me all the time  

I am already highly intuitive, that is the problem. I am so intuitive that I never recall anything from memory, rather I reconstruct ideas on the fly as I try to express something. I know what I want to say, and I know the precise concepts I want to use, I just lack the precise word for it, that's the issue I have. And it's not that I never heard the word, it just doesn't come to mind.

It's specifically a memory recall thing, it seems because I rely so little on memory, and do things intuitively, which just becomes highly ineffective at some point, that kind of aspect of my mind has become rusty. It makes me better at thinking, but I basically have to reconstruct each concept each time I talk about it.

I know this is mostly a habit and a way I have engaged with conceptualization and so forth, what I need is a high quality ressource that specifically goes into solving such problems, which there must be somewhere.

Edited June 1, 2022 by Scholar

[Carl-Richard]

@Scholar

I was mostly talking about how intuitive ideas themselves are inherently difficult to express in words, in the sense that anybody would have problems expressing them. You seem to be talking more about a thinking process that is specific to intuitives, which probably has some truth to it as well.

[Ninja_pig]

Take notes on the topics you are learning about. Keep a journal and write in it regularly as well as writing essays on topics you find interesting. Whenever you see a word you don't understand, record it. Eventually you will have a collection of words to memorize. After you read something or watch a video, make sure to go back over what you specifically remember from the content and write about it. Writing forces you to think and is the only way to truly know how much information you have retained.

I like to use Quizlet for memorizing lists of words/definitions. Just make flash cards with words and definitions and go through them for a certain time period each day. It's a tried and true method that will cause you to remember things for long periods of time.

The practice of consistently taking notes and holding yourself accountable to the knowledge you consume will train your mind to become more attentive whenever you are learning anything.