 In this video, I want to take a look at the next element in the hurry or model as we've been examining each one independently, but now we're ready to take a look at remembering. So as you know, there are six elements that we're taking a look at here, H-U-R-I-E-R. They stand for hearing, understanding, remembering, interpreting, evaluating and responding. So right now we're going to be in that remembering area of where we're at. Now if we look at this in the context of the model, you know, the letters are kind of a little bit out of order. So we've talked about hearing and understanding. Now we're going to eventually talk about interpreting and evaluating, but jump ahead a little bit to talk about remembering. Memory is an important part of the listening process. We've got to be able to remember it to different degrees and different extents. So let's take a look at what that looks like. So the memory process, not to get too detailed with it here, but this is essentially the memory process. We have different stimuli that enter our perception. Things that we hear, see, touch, taste, smell, however they come into our awareness and to our being, we process those stimuli and then they go into our immediate memory, which is very, very short term. Just things we need to remember for like right in this second. And now then eventually some things will process into our short term memory. Things that we'll remember through the end of this conversation or through, you know, the end of the day or through the end of, you know, a specific period, but not for very long. So we have the short term memory where we have a large amount there. And then we have the deep files, the long term memory, where things will go that we need to hang on to for longer periods of time. And it's basically, you know, this is a very oversimplified version of it, but essentially that's what happens. There are different stages of memory and we kind of triage information as we go through, filter things out that, you know, we don't necessarily need to remember past the immediate moment and then even further past the short term memory. And so we get down to what does need to remain then in the long term memory. And we try and file that away as best as possible. There are lots of things that get in our way sort of in terms of memory, ways that memory can be affected in a negative way and put up obstacles and barriers to keep us from remembering things. One is repression. The mind is pretty amazing. The human psyche and the human mind is pretty amazing. And there are some things we just pushed out. We just repress memories, especially if they're overly traumatic, overly negative, then we will repress those things. You find this a lot with victims of abuse, for example, especially young children who are sexually abused or physically abused will repress that their memory will literally locked out away somewhere in their mind and not allow them to access those memories. They don't remember those things. So repression can be a barrier to effective memory. If we can't remember everything, if our mind is not allowing us to access those memories, then obviously that's going to impact the effectiveness of our memory in that situation. Physiological noise. So noise with our body. It's hard to remember and hard to focus and really hard to pay attention and even recall information that we may have stored away. If we're hungry, if we're sick, if we're tired, we know that those things affect the way that that we retain memory and that we access memories that we have and our ability to recall those things. So physiological noise can be a massive barrier to effective memory. The primacy effect can have a significant effect on memory, meaning we tend to remember things that happen first. So if I were to give you a list of words, odds are you would remember out of a list of 50 words, you're going to remember more in the first 10 than you are the rest of the list, probably combined, right? So the primacy effect signifies that we tend to remember best what happens first. On the flip side of that, we also have the recency effect, which is that we have a tendency to remember what happens last, what happens most recently, in other words, more clearly than things that are kind of in between there. So we need to be aware of the fact that what happens first on our initial contact or our initial memories with a particular incident will have a lasting effect. You see, it's a lot with people, for example, who have a negative incident with a dog or another kind of animal when they're younger. And that's their first experience with that. And that carries through. And that memory, the primacy effect of that, anytime you run into a dog after that, tends to come back and say, no, no, no, this is bad. This is something to be afraid of and this represents danger, so to speak. So the primacy effect will do that. And then what happened most recently? What was your last experience with that person, with that situation, with that whatever? That will stick in our memory as well and affect and dictate how we respond to a situation. The rigid thinking is another significant impact on memory. Just the fact that we have a hard time changing those things. When we have a bad experience with an animal or with a person, we have a hard time thinking of them in different ways. Also, when we see this a lot in family dynamics, for example, when you have the family roles that develop when you're younger and when your children tend to stick with you. If you are the slacker when you're younger, it doesn't matter what you do when you grow up, you're always going to be the slacker for your family, that's how they're going to see you because we have trouble seeing people in different ways. So, you know, and that happens with all of us. If you run into somebody you knew a long time ago, you're probably going to think of them in that same way. We have a hard time updating that, at least without some really conscious thought and with effort, we can change those things. But we tend to have this rigid thinking. We tend to stick to our ideas and have a hard time changing or updating those things. So, these are all things that can make memory more challenging, can be a barrier to effective either establishing memory or recalling memories. But there are things that we can do as well to improve our memory. Things that we can do to enhance our memory, to make it more likely that we're going to remember something or that we're going to be able to recall something later when we need it. So, one of the things we can do is develop a system. We can develop a system for taking notes for, you know, if you're somebody who struggles with names, maybe you come up with a particular name game that you find something that it rhymes with or you find something that you can connect with or whatever system works for you or when you're taking notes. Over the years, I've seen all kinds of different note-taking systems that are some formal ones or some that people just develop on their own. For example, I used to take tons and tons of notes and I still have them in college. I have all these notes from college. But my method was to take all these notes. I never looked at them afterwards. So, looking at notes never was helpful to me in studying and recalling information and things. But the process of writing things down and taking those notes was very helpful for me. I had friends, though, that would study their notes all the time, would go back and review notes and look at those notes. It was very helpful for them. You have to focus on what works for you. Everybody's going to be different, so you got to find a way and develop a system that works for your particular needs. So, develop a system for remembering names and remembering dates and information from whatever else you need to. Eat right. Eating right can play a significant role in improving memory, right? It can be very helpful in memory when we eat properly. Excuse me, we eat these high-brain foods and we eat foods that are good for us and good for our mental acuity and that keep us sharp as opposed to foods that really kind of slow us down and may make us crash a lot of times after you eat a bunch of sugar a couple hours later, you'll be crashing and that doesn't help at all. So, we can eat right. We can take care of our body, which will help take care of our mind. We can increase our creativity. Studies show that people are more creative and engage in those creative activities. It increases your memory to a great extent. So, we can do whatever we want to do creatively. We can write, we can paint, we can play music, whatever creative endeavor you have, do some crafting, whatever, that will help increase and improve your memory by just keeping your brain in shape and giving it that workout and allowing it that access to that part of the brain. We can reduce stress. It's hard to remember things when we're stressed, right? When stress is occupying our mind and our mind only has so much energy and effort to give and when it's giving all of it to these stressful situations, then it's hard-pressed to provide us in a lot of energy from memory. So, we can reduce our stress as much as possible so that we can then focus our mind on those important memory tasks, whether that's committing things to memory or whether it's recalling things from our memory. We can do that by reducing stress. If you have questions about the memory process or about anything related to listening in general or how remembering fits into the listening process, please feel free to email me. I'd love to hear from you there. In the meantime, I hope that you will take some steps to improve your own memory and seek to understand how the important process of memory and remembering fits into that larger, hurryer model of listening and plays an important role in our ability to listen effectively.