Memory, Improvement and Personal Growth
Why You Need to Train Your Working Memory to Become the Best Version of You
Have you ever seen the film Limitless? In it, the main character ‘Eddie Mora’ takes a pill that boosts his brain power on every possible dimension. He becomes more driven, more creative and far wittier and smarter.
The result is that he makes powerful friends, finishes writing a book, gets rich from day trading and then goes on to become a powerful politician.
Memory, Improvement and Personal Growth
Does such a thing really exist? While there are certainly ‘nootropics’ (brain pills) out there, the answer is, unfortunately, a resounding no. But that’s not to say there aren’t other ways to get a similar boost.
And the best way? Train your working memory with dual n-back training!
What is Working Memory?
There are plenty of dual n-back games out there that you can play online or on your smartphone and all of them should have the same benefits for your working memory. I’m not going to talk in depth about what it is here then. All that really matters is your working memory and why this is so important for your success.
The best way to think about working memory then is as RAM. This is the memory that you use in the short term in order to store information that you are currently working with. While your long-term memory stores autobiographical memory, your working memory is instead used for remembering phone numbers while you go to grab a pen or carrying numbers over in your mind as you are doing long multiplication.
Why Working Memory is Crucial
But working memory goes much further than this. You see, working memory is really just your ‘mental bandwidth’. Any information that needs to be stored so you can work with it will be kept in working memory and that means:
- The subject of a conversation you are engaging in
- A map of your physical surroundings
- Your priorities at any given time
If you can maintain and build your working memory then you will become wittier because you’ll have more information available to work with when responding to someone.
You will become better at sports and navigation because your cognitive map will be more up-to-date and easily accessible. You will be better at math and you will be more motivated.
So work on your working memory one way or another and prepare to become Limitless!