Be Happy – Review Yourself

In course of time, you can achieve a lot if you work sincerely to accomplish your realistic dreams - a lot, not fully due to some unavoidable circumstances coming up in mid-way. At that time when you are about to finish your work and see that you are able to get to the destination as smoothly you had perceived, you need to carry on self-analysis. You need to see yourself in a mirror - you can find out where you made a mistake or where you need further improvement. It is your self-assessment. It changes the life system.

Here, an old story is worth mention. A man constructed a splendid house. Friends who came were delighted. The rooms on the ground floor were large and well-decorated. They saw the first floor, the second floor and the third floor also. They observed that the upper floor rooms were simpler. Friends asked, “Where do you reside?” He replied, “I like to live on the third floor and my servants live on the ground floor.” They were astonished, “what a strange situation, the master resides in simple rooms and servants live in well-furnished rooms!” The owner clarified that there was a time when his own mother was also a servant. His mother had to eke out a living as a house help. He knew therefore that servants, after having to work hard all day, deserved at least some comfort.

What are the hurdles that vitiate the simplicity and dignity of life ruthlessly? Contemplation of hurdles will pave the way to change our lifestyle. Deception is a hurdle. In that state, solutions will not be workable. Problems will follow and continue. Faith begets faith and deception generates deception. In cunningness, first of all man assumes others to be wicked. He will talk sweetly in front of others and backbite later. Deception is the biggest encumbrance to attaining liberation.

The second hurdle is desire. To have desire is natural but to have endless desires is not. Today’s economist declares that when we feel content our development will stop. Ultimately development also has to be categorically defined and limited. A single man perpetuates development till he economically and geographically makes an empire for himself. This cannot be termed as development. This will be tantamount to an injustice, atrocity, exploitation and cruelty towards humanity. Development ought to be in the correct perspective.

Is development spreading out, extending to the whole cosmos? If a man is gentle, virtuous, and does everything virtuously and ethically then even if he is not doing well monetarily, it is fine. On the other hand, if someone makes a huge pile of money by fraudulent means, it spells disaster. When a man is thin, he looks handsome and graceful. When his body becomes obese, then his future is not good. Doctors agree that if one is thin and lean then he will live comfortably and have longevity.

The membership of the Mayo Club, USA, is restricted to only those who have attained a hundred years of age. A person from that club observed that so far all club members happen to be thin and lean. A thin man can move, sit and stand comfortably. Sometimes fat is not favourable to good health. The gist of development is not only expansion but also limited growth.

Today we are unable to find solutions because the interpretation of development by economists is causing difficulties. Yesterday a man said, “You said in the discourse that there has to be some limitation or boundary, then how can development take place?” if somebody really puts himself behind in the race to let achieve, then he will be the most fortunate man in the world. Where are such lucky people? Where is such sacrificing capacity? Everybody is running, without knowing where this competitive race will terminate.

In the field of self-development, we can be limitless but there we have clearly limited ourselves. When the outlook becomes false, limitless desires crop up. A peaceful and tension-free life is threatened by three encumbrances, namely, false outlook, limitless desires and deception.

For a true life, we must give up false outlook, limitless desires and deception for our own interests. We must carry on review of ourselves as to where we stand. If we do introspection, we would surely give up the bad intentions and become happy, truly.

Be Happy - Express Your Love Freely

Valentine's Day - a day that celebrates love, romance, passion in every way, the world over. It is also a holiday where people honor friendship, affection, and love for others. Valentine's Day is named after Saint Valentine, the patron saint of lovers and is celebrated on February 14th every year.

Valentine's Day is named in the memory of St. Valentine of Rome. Emperor Claudius II arrested him for helping Christian martyrs. Saint Valentine also became the patron saint of lovers as the church assimilated the fertility festival Lupercalia into their calendar.

Saint Valentine's Day (commonly shortened to Valentine's Day) is an annual holiday held on February 14 celebrating love and affection between intimate companions. The holiday is named after one or more early Christian martyrs named Valentine and was established by Pope Gelasius I in AD 496. It is traditionally a day on which lovers express their love for each other by presenting flowers offering confectionery, and sending greeting cards (known as "valentines"). The holiday first became associated with romantic love in the circle of Geoffrey Chaucer in the High Middle Ages, when the tradition of courtly love flourished.

In another version, it is said that what we call Valentine's Day was at one time the Feast of St. Valentine. It was a religious holiday. According to church tradition St. Valentine was a priest near Rome in about the year 270 A.D. At that time the Roman Emperor was imprisoning Christians for not worshipping the Roman gods. During this persecution Valentine was arrested for refusing to give up Christianity. While in prison Valentine continued to pray to Jesus and spread the love of Christianity. He was said to have restored the sight of a jailor's blind daughter whilst in prison. When the emperor heard about this he was furious that Valentine was still making converts even in prison, so he had Valentine beheaded. He died on February 14, 269 A.D. Legend also says that St. Valentine left a farewell note for the jailer's daughter, who had become his friend, and signed it "From Your Valentine".

Whatever be the story, it is an opportunity to express your love to your beloved, and to celebrate the spirit of love. Present a rose or a bunch of roses or something you feel appropriate but sincerely.

Be Happy - Express Your Love Freely.

Be Happy - Stay Fit From Your Seat

Generally, most people sit for more than nine hours a day. It is pretty a long time, being in the same posture. We must not let all that time go to waste. Whether you're on the bus or train to work or sitting at your desk, you can make some creative use of your chair time and give yourself some muscle-toning benefits.

It is a well known fact that exercising while you're sitting won't pump you up like being at the gym. However, some simple exercises can help strengthen and tone muscles. Plus, it's a great way to take a break from work. We can undertake some exercises to relax ourselves, say, refresh ourselves for a while.

Straighten Your Legs.

How to: Sit slightly forward away from the backrest, and lift one leg at a time about 3 inches off the ground. Then, tighten your leg muscles and hold for five to 10 seconds. Relax and repeat two times a day on each leg.

Benefits: Because this exercise works your quadriceps, the big muscle in the front of your thigh, it may increase circulation. It may also help knee and hip stability and your balance.

Alphabet Writing by Your Feet.

How to: If you can, slip your feet out of your shoes. Sit up straight in your chair with both feet on the floor. Raise one foot high enough so you swivel in all directions. Then with your big toe, write the alphabet. Repeat with the other foot. As you make letters, spread and curl your toes. Try this two or three times a day.

Benefits: This exercise may help ankle strength and flexibility of the feet and toes along with stretching your Achilles tendon. It's also a good way to work toes that may get bunched up in shoes.

Scrunching Your Cheeks.

How to: Sit up straight in your chair with your feet flat on the ground. Tighten your butt muscles for five to 10 seconds. Relax, and repeat five to 10 times twice a day.

Benefits: Even while driving or commuting on a bus or train, you can sneak in this exercise.

Chair Pushing

How to: If you have a chair with wheels and are on a surface that allows your chair to easily scoot, try this one, carefully. Sit in the middle of your chair with your back away from the backrest. Lean slightly forward until your chest is 2 inches from your desk. Grab the desktop with both hands at about shoulder width. Your elbows should be bent along your sides. Push out until your arms are almost fully extended, leaving a slight bend in your elbows. Then, pull yourself back to the starting position. Repeat 10 to 15 times once a day.

Benefits: You use all your upper-body muscles including your triceps, biceps, chest, and shoulder muscles, along with your core muscles.

Pelvic Tilting.

How to: Sit in the middle of the chair with your feet flat on the floor. Arch your lower back so your butt feels like it's sticking out. Keep your hands on your desk and don't let your legs do the movement; make your abs work. Slowly pull your hips underneath your stomach as you bring your butt back underneath you, sort of like you're doing a crunch. Hold for two to four seconds and push back to the original position. Repeat 10 to 20 times, three to four times a day.

Benefits: This move helps tone your abs and may even make sitting less tiring. It also aids in flexibility for doing all kinds of everyday activities, such as reaching and lifting.

Arm Circling.

How to: Sit straight up, feet flat on the floor. Lift your arms out to your sides and parallel to the floor. Extend your fingers and make 20 small, tight circles in each direction. If there happens to be someone sitting to your left or right, you can also extend your arms to the front or over your head. Do this exercise once a day.

Benefits: This exercise helps strengthen the neck and the trapezius and latissimus dorsi muscles of the upper back.

Be Happy – Stay fit by undertaking some physical exercise even when you are in chair.

Be Happy – Create Your Own Reality

Your time is an illusion, a purely formulation made by you, designed for convenience in order to measure a perceived "past", "present" and "future". The illusion of "time" on Earth is maintained by means of a scientific measurement of the relative positions of the Earth and the Sun in the Universe in order to observe the seasons and the time the Earth takes for a complete rotation relative to the Sun in the measurement of ongoing "time", in turn measured by various physical instruments such as clocks, calendars and charts. Beyond the perceptions of most of those in the physical world, "time" simply does not exist. We do concern with the present, when everything is happening. After some time, that will become our past.

The entire Universe from The Source, The First Cause, God is Energy vibrating at a frequency relative to The Source, The Source being the very centre of the Universe of Energy and the physical world being the outermost shell, the physical three dimensional Universe as observed by means of the physical senses and by science, existing at the lowest rate of vibration and the highest density. It should also be mentioned that the physical Universe of matter represents only a tiny fraction of the Universe of Energy and vibration in its entirety.

All Energy is influenced by the causation of thought before configuring under the influence of that thought, manifesting as an observable effect in the plane at which the thought originated. Everything that happens, ever happened and ever will happen in the entire Universe therefore, including the physical world, first originated as a thought originating from the Mind of a Being, and which thought in turn has its corresponding effect on the Energy of the Causal Spheres of the Universe while becoming the corresponding and potentially observable effect.

The Ultimate act of Creation by The First Cause, The Source, God of the entire Universe in all of its glorious spheres, planes and dimensions originated in the very beginning as a thought in the Mind of God. It can be truly said therefore that we all exist as "expressions", within the Mind of God, made in the true Spiritual image of God.

Since the beginning of the human concept of "time" mankind has sought to live life based around that concept, thereby always thinking in terms of past present and future rather than Present. The Universe and the Energy we influence in the creation of our own individual realities have no concept of time, only Present, and as a result there is a no past or future irrespective of how much mankind forces his own existence around those erroneous notions. This tendency to force everything to happen in compliance with a notional concept of "time" has a very profound effect on the lives of those who do not fully understand these realities.

When a person thinks in the future tense, for example " I will", "I want", "I could" then the Energy being influenced by those thoughts that can manifest into individual reality will be influenced only in the present, with the perceived future never actually arriving. So if someone thinks, says or behaves in a manner that implies "I want", then that person is placing themselves into a perpetual state of "wanting" but never of actually receiving. The vast majority of the human race today exists to some extent in a state of such wanting, while never being in a state of Mind, Energy and vibration to receive that which they "want".

The Universe, The Source, God is immutable, absolutely perfect in every possible respect, and will accordingly always respond to a thought in its absolute terms rather than a human concept. "I want" literally creates a state of "wanting" perpetually until if or at such time whatever is associated with that thought is shifted to a state of "having" in the present, which will then allow the object of that thought to manifest from a perpetual want into the actual Present, and accordingly into the individual, observable reality of the person originating that thought.
We always need to remember, there is nothing that you cannot be, do or have.

The importance of the Eternal Present must be fully grasped and fully understood as a continuous aspect of enjoying total fulfillment, joy and evolution. How we think has the most profound effect over the effects that occur in our lives; nothing has a more profound effect. It is not sufficient to only recognize and express these fundamental Universal laws when it suits us, when we desire something or when there is a situation that demands it, it is absolutely necessary to live life completely in accordance with these immutable Universal laws. Those who do live their lives, either consciously or subconsciously according to these Universal laws will always seem to others to live a "charmed", "lucky" "fortunate" existence, when in fact they are in reality living a Magical life, always in total control over their own individual reality, and always in a higher degree of harmony, Energy and vibration with the Universe compared to their less notionally "charmed", "lucky" or "fortunate" family, friends and others around them.

In order to begin the process of living the life of your desires in which you have a total control first of all requires awareness. Rather than thinking random thoughts, all of which will have their corresponding effects whether observable or not, start to become fully aware of how, what and why you are thinking what you are. This is where powers of concentration as developed by virtue of the exercises in the previous chapter of this book are so valuable. Presence of Mind, awareness and concentration are a very powerful combination indeed in creating your own reality and living that Magical life that many can only dream of.

Always think as you wish things to Be, Present.

Two of the most powerful words that you can possibly think or say are "I Am". As you live your life therefore the first stage of awareness is to always stop your thoughts short of a statement that implies the future tense and to transmute it into the present tense. So "I will" becomes "I am", "I want" becomes "I have" and "I might" becomes "I do". Also keep in Mind that there is absolutely no such concept as "try". We either Do something in the present , or we do not Do anything; "try" simply does not exist except as a concept of a person wishing to achieve something.

I "want to feel well" should not be allowed to proceed as a thought and should be immediately become "I am feeling so well". This thought takes the reality of feeling well from some point in the perceived future that never arrives, to actually feeling well in the present. So a strong thought of "I am feeling so well" will manifest into your reality in the Present, and you will indeed feel well in accordance with the effect of the causation of your "I am feeling so well" thought on the causation of the Universal Energy involved.

Similarly, if you have a bill that needs paying and you believe that you do not have the money, another human construct, to pay the bill, never think in terms of "I want the money to pay this bill", but rather "I have the money to pay this bill effortlessly". Bringing this statement into the present tense rather then a future statement of lack will cause the means by which the bill can be paid to manifest into your reality, and the bill will be paid in full.

Please always keep in Mind; the Universe always delivers in absolute accordance with your thoughts; there are no exceptions to these Laws. Again, "I might succeed at this objective" implies never "actually" succeeding. The "might" places the success into the indefinite and infinite range of possibilities and never as an actuality. So "I might succeed with this objective" should become "I am enjoying complete success with this objective", and that success will then become your reality as that vibration of Universal Energy has its effect.

In summary, always think in terms of the present tense, and always remember those words "I Am", using them all the time in the context of the reality you wish to create for yourself. Creating your own reality is an ongoing, joyous and productive life, not just something to "do" when it suits you or to conform to the demands of others, vanity or ego. Those who understand and consciously apply these facts to their lives will be richly rewarded with health, wealth and happiness to the exact extent of the focus of the thoughts that created the same reality.

Be Happy - Create Your Own Reality.

Be Happy - Simplify Your Life

Life is too tough if we simply see upon the challenges and do not do anything to meet them. Life is too simple if we keep ourselves active every time to hit on every opportunity to proceed on. What will you do if you know that you have got a limited period to live on? Say, you have got only ten years of active life more to enjoy. Would you like to use this period in your office, or filing taxes, or would you spend more time with your family? Would you allocate more time to fight with your mother-in-law, or would you walk away to hills?

If you brutally eliminate all actions that serve no purpose, and you allocate the least possible energy and effort to the tick-tock humdrum things you have to do, you will find a lot changed. For example, let's say doing the weekly groceries takes you two hours by the time you get to the store, buy the stuff and bring it all back home. Maybe you can order on the Internet and have them delivered. Never run when you can walk and never walk if you can hire someone else to do the job for you. If you buy one hundred stamps at time you may only have to go to the post office once or twice a year. Here, you may like to calculate the financial costs involved in stocking one hundred stamps for a longer period. What is the cost of your time you may waste every time in going to the Post Office and purchasing the ticket? Yes, if you purchase one hundred tickets in advance, you are saving your valuable time being spent in less important area.

Essentially, minimal movement is analyzing what is very important to you, slightly important and not important at all, thus focusing on what serves you best. In business, it is usually the case that eighty percent of your money comes from twenty percent of your clients. So you butter up the good ones and you offer politeness and pre-printed information to the less profitable ones, but you don't waste a lot of personal time on them unless they suddenly come good.

There are people in your life that are warm and valuable and important to you, a few say, and there are loads of marginal dead-beats that are emotionally disturbing, expensive, and a complete waste of time. Minimal movement requires that you politely eliminate them. A few good ones are way better than a hundred dubious ones. The less people you are emotionally involved with the fewer obligations on your time. Sooner or later everyone wants something.

I have the philosophy of (if possible) never agreeing to attend anything -- wedding, funerals, functions etc. Then sometimes (very rarely) I capitulate. I don't mind going to the horse races on Boxing Day as I enjoy that, so it is allocated an 'okay' in the minimal movement file.

Respect the "Now" by Saying "No".I met a shaman who is a very kind man, but he has absolutely no ability to say "No" to anyone. He travels on a bus for twenty-two hours to go and do sacred ceremonies for people who don't pay him and he says they never change one jot because of his efforts. Then he takes the bus home. The trip takes him five days in total. I held his hand and took him to a mirror and had him practice saying "No". We laughed a lot as he couldn't even do it in the mirror.

The trick to saying "No" when feeling awkward about something is to start by telling the recipient of your decision how fond you are of them, or how much you respect them, then you tell them how uncomfortable you are saying what it is you are just about to say. Then you politely and firmly decline their kind invitation but you are not coming. Don't lie as an excuse, just be brave and tell them you do not want to attend—period, full stop. Try it in the bathroom mirror first if needs be.

Once you don't have to pander to your Mr. Nice Guy illusion then many obligations fall away and you can concentrate on living life and being creative. People pleasing is not allowed in minimal movement as people pleasing is often a burden and usually it has an agenda that either feeds your dark shadow (you covertly want something), or your white shadow (you seek to create an impression). You need to act coherently and fairly explaining your self well to people and not be arbitrary, and of course, dismissive. You hope they are pleased with your actions, but you didn't come to the earth plane to keep people happy that was not on your list of prior instructions, and you should never be burdened as the custodian of another's happiness.

This is especially true in relationships where one partner might use anger or threat to force the other into becoming his or her slave. So the slave trots about endlessly trying to please the aggressor under the threat of emotional or physical retribution, or financial punishment of some kind, the withdrawal of funds say. You don't need that. You need to make a list of what is important and what is not and you evaluate each thing carefully deciding what it offers and what defined benefit or pleasure you derive from the outcome of each action. You should agree to make everything around you simple, clean and Zen, so you don't waste time looking for things and you are not surrounded by confusion and clutter. And if you can afford to you put all your domestic bills into the automatic payment system at the bank you will never have to mess with that stuff ever again. You start to design your life with you in the center like a general at a military headquarters, you make everyone come to you whenever possible and you stand in the middle in a Zen-like stance in your minimal-movement-mode as much of the time as you can.

If you have a job your time is not entirely your own but you can still put minimal movement into the work you do and get more done with less effort and time. Essentially you should think about guarding your kilojoules of energy—heat. You should not become exhausted after a day's work as your function in working it to provide you with a nice life. If work destroys your heat so that you collapse in a heap you've lost the plot a bit. Insist on minimal movement with the people you work with. Require them to be brief and precise and stop them when they want to waffle and waste your time.

What is it?
How much is it?
When can you deliver if I want it?
Three seconds of heat….Next!

If you rise one hour earlier each day and you go to bed one hour later by that's seven hundred and thirty hours extra each year, the equivalent of thirty days a year or one extra month—amazing. You can have the equivalent of thirteen months in every year but just altering how long you sleep and when you rise. Now is certainly the only time you have got, an extra thirty days of 'now' is a valuable asset.

How to Get More Done in Much Less Time

It's the perfect solution for you if you regularly find yourself looking back at your life wondering what in the world happened to all your time, and why you have very few results to show for it. It's going to help you take care of all the things you have to do on a regular basis, from the small stuff like checking email and reading the news, to the more important tasks, like building your business and spending quality time with your family. It's so effective, I recently used it to take an idea from my initial thought about it to a complete ready-to-install software product in only 5 days.

Better yet, I still had plenty of time to eat 3 meals a day (or more), get plenty of sleep, watch all my favorite TV shows, hang out with my friends, and generally do what I normally do. In other words, it turned me into an action machine!

You may look on the following lines more carefully:

1. Write down all the things you want to get done for the day. Everything from writing, creating content, or planning your next project to answering your email and balancing your checkbook.

2. Assign a specific time to each task or group of tasks. Anything from 15 minutes to 2 hours. Chunks of 30 minutes or less work best.

3. Select a task, start a timer (like an egg time), and focus on nothing but accomplishing that task. This means you don't answer the phone, you don't get up for a drink, you don't log onto any social network like Facebook, Twitter etc. - none of that. You remain focused on the task-at-hand!

If you practice these three simple steps regularly, it will totally revolutionize the way you get things done in your life - guaranteed! It's as if it awakens an unstoppable force inside you that's been asleep for way too long.

Take a look at them again, then take 30 seconds and allow the structure and purpose behind these three steps to sink in. You'll instinctively see the genius. Our brains love goals, big or small, because they're built to be goal-seeking machines. Give your brain a goal, and it immediately goes to work finding ways to achieve it. Once your brain has a goal, a deadline is the fuel that motivates it act! The shorter the deadline, the more revved up your brain gets. Instead surrendering yourself to lackluster results because you see your day as an overwhelming, uncontrollable mess, this system breaks your day down into small, manageable pieces that you actually see yourself getting done with ease. When you believe you can, you will be able to simplify your life for more results.

Be Happy-Simplify Your Life.

Be Happy – Improve Your Memory (Part 13)

Many times, we forget the names of those persons who might have met us some time ago and when they meet again, we have to cut a sorry figure. Sometime, we try to remember the name but fail to recollect. It is also a weakness of our memory. Remembering people's names needs a slightly different approach though the techniques to be used are quite simple.

Remembering People's NamesSystems Needed:

• The Link Method
• The Roman Room Mnemonic

Using the Tools:

We may use the following tools:

1. Face association

Examine a person's face discreetly when you are introduced. you must try to find an unusual feature, whether ears, hairline, forehead, eyebrows, eyes, nose, mouth, chin, complexion, etc.
Create an association between that characteristic, the face, and the name in your mind. The association may help you to link the person with someone else you know with the same name. Alternatively it may be to associate a rhyme or image of the name with the person's face or defining feature.

2. Repetition

When you are introduced, ask for the person to repeat their name. Use the name yourself as often as possible (without overdoing it!). If it is unusual, ask how it is spelled or where it is comes from, and if appropriate, exchange cards. Keep in mind that the more often you hear and see the name, the more likely it is to sink in. Also, after you have left that person's company, review the name in your mind several times. If you are particularly keen you might decide to write it down and make notes.

Summary

The methods suggested for remembering names are fairly simple and obvious, but are useful. Association either with images of a name or with other people can really help. Repetition and review help to confirm your memory. An important thing to stress is practice, patience, and progressive improvement.

Be Happy - Enhance Your Social Network by improving Your Memory to recollect the names easily.

Be Happy – Improve Your Memory (Part 12)

It is really very difficult to remember Lists and Long Numbers all the time. With advent of computers which can keep lists and long number stored and the same can be retrieved whenever we require. But if this facility is not available, only human memory can help but with weak memory, what can you do? Only repentance is there. For improving our memory, we may need various systems like:

• Link Method
• The Number/Rhyme Technique
• The Number/Shape Technique
• The Alphabet Technique
• The Journey Technique
• The Major System

Using the Tools:

Remembering lists are what many mnemonics are for. You can code almost any information into these mnemonic lists. All that you need is the imagination to come up with the relevant associations.

To memorize short lists, use:

• The Link or Story Methods
• The Number/Rhyme System, or
• The Number/Shape Method

To remember intermediate and longer lists, use:

• The Alphabet Technique, or
• The Journey Technique

As with lists, using mnemonic systems, remembering numbers becomes extremely simple. There are a number of approaches, depending on the types of numbers being remembered:

1. Short numbers

The easiest, but least reliable, way of remembering numbers is to use simple Number/Rhyme images associated in a story. A better way is to use a simple peg system, where, for example, you can associate digits from the Number/Rhyme System into positions organized with the Alphabet System.

2. Long numbers (e.g. Pi)

You can store long numbers most effectively with the Journey System. At a simple level, single numbers can be stored at each stop on the journey using Number/Rhyme or Number/Shape images. At a more advanced level you can increase the number of digits stored at each stop by using the Major System. By using all the simple techniques together you should be able to store a 100 digit number with relatively little effort. Using the more powerful systems, holding it to 1000 digits might not be too much of a challenge.

3. Telephone Numbers

These can be remembered simply by associating numbers from the Number/Rhyme system with positions in either the Alphabet Technique or the Journey System. You can then associate these with the face or name of the person whose number you are remembering.

For example, to remember that someone's phone number is 735-3458, I can imagine myself traveling to their flat: with my destination firmly in mind, I envisage the following stops on my journey:

1. Front door: the door has sprouted angel's wings, and is flying up to heaven! (7)
2. Rose bush: a small sapling (tree, 3) is growing its way through the middle of the bush.
3. Car: some bees have started to build a hive (5) under the wheel of my car. I have to move it very carefully to avoid damaging it.
4. End of road: a tree (3) has fallen into the road. I have to drive around it.
5. Past garage: Someone has nailed a door (4) to the sign. Strange!
6. Under railway bridge: the bees are building another hive (5) between the girders!
7. Beside the river: A rusty farm gate (8) is blocking the road.

Often, we can laugh these small incidences off, but why settle for that? Researchers may have just uncovered a simple way to improve your memory during sleep. Neuroscientists (brain specialists) at Northwestern University recently conducted a small but interesting study that demonstrated that playing sounds associated with objects (such as the sound of keys jiggling) during a person's sleep helped their memory regarding these items when awake.

The sleep-memory connection certainly is not a new scientific concept. Researchers have concluded over the years with various forms of sleep-memory studies and interventions that, basically, improved sleep equals improved memory.

Here I will review the basics of "sleep hygiene" and some sleep-memory "games" - and hopefully help you to not only sleep more soundly, but also remember where those car keys are in the morning!

Step by Step Instructions
• Things You'll Need:
• A review of your sleep pattern. Ask your sleep partner!
• Possible medical evaluation for any sleep disorders such as sleep apnea
• "Brain Games"

• Step 1

Start a good night's sleep with a routine ritual and good sleep hygiene. Getting ready for bed should be a winding down of your day and not a rehashing of events either great or small (see article in Resources below).

• Step 2

• The brain needs its nourishment.
• Make sure your sleep memory is not being diluted by a physical issue such as the common condition of sleep apnea Sleep apnea can literally range from brief to prolonged periods of breathlessness during sleep that deprives your brain of much-needed oxygen.

Consider oxygen "brain food," and if your brain is not getting the "food" it needs, it will take the partial "food" that is available and use it for vital functions. So your brain is actually very smart; it takes whatever oxygen or "food" is available and utilizes it for life-sustaining functions first, before it bellies up to the memory bar!

• Step 3

Games are not just for kids. Brain games can actually help with memory.
• Have someone play a simple recording of your car keys jiggling while you are asleep. This is a simple way to "replicate" the study done at Northwestern University to see if listening to sounds associated with objects during your sleep can improve your memory. The recording should be played after you have fallen asleep and needs only to at the "whisper" level of sound. One or two playbacks should do it.

• Step 4

Play some "brain games" while you are awake. These are exercises for the mind that activate several different neurological functions and "pump them up," which in turn helps with memory during sleep.

Tips & Warnings

• Never take chronic or recent-onset "forgetfulness" for granted. It could be a sign of an underlying medical condition.
• Do not be afraid to let your medical provider know you may be having more-than-normal memory issues. Simple tests and treatments are available.

Be Happy – Improve Your Memory For Easy Remembering Lists And Long Numbers.

Be Happy – Improve Your Memory (Part 11)

Each and everyday, every man has to appear in some examination to accomplish his dreams. Even the basic needs require your skill to be applied for smooth working. The importance of examination goes up for a student who has to ascertain by appearing in an examination as to what he had actually learnt. How do you learn? This you can do either by practice or by memorizing the relevant details, facts, figures, formulae etc. With a weak memory, how can you do it? Approaching exams put on a lot of mental pressure over all the students if they have not prepared well in time, not carried out the practice sufficiently or memorized the critical matters. Presently, we may concentrate how to remember information for exams.

How To Memorize For The Examination

In earlier posts, some tools have been mentioned for improvement of memory. For memorizing the matters for the examination, out of those tools, we may need some systems specifically, like the Number/Rhyme Technique, the Number/Shape Technique, the Alphabet Technique, the Journey Technique and Concept or Memory Maps.

How to Use the Tools:

A very effective way of structuring information for revision is to draw up a full, color-coded concept or memory map of a subject. This will help you to see the overall structure of the topic and show you the associations between pieces of information. A good concept map can be an effective mnemonic in its own right.

The problem with this is that you can forget the label on a line on a concept map. A more reliable method is to take your concept map, and break it down into a numbered list of important points. You can then use one of the peg techniques to remember the items on the list. Alternatively you can use the journey technique for longer lists.

By associating items on a list with a peg system or journey, you can check that you have retrieved all items held by the mnemonic. Supporting facts can be associated into images or sub-mnemonics. These could be triggered by the pegs for the peg systems, or at landmarks if you use the journey system. Alternatively you can loosely associate this information with the facts coded.

Retrieving all the facts necessary to answer an exam essay question becomes as simple as running through the mnemonic in your mind. As you go, jot down the retrieved facts that are relevant to the question. Once you have written these down, you can apply any other mnemonics you have coded, or note any associated facts and connections that occur to you. This should ensure that you have all possible information available to you, and should help you to produce a good essay plan.

Be Happy - Improve Your Memory.

Be Happy – Improve Your Memory (Part 10)

How it would be nice if you can speak some foreign language apart from your mother tongue, regional language and/or national language! Your mother tongue, regional language and national language can be one language or two but learning a foreign language has its own charm. But due to weak memory, many of us are not able to accomplish the dream of mastering over some foreign language. This becomes more painful when we have been seeing influx of tourists from other countries and we find ourselves unable to exchange our views with them due to our weakness to speak in their language. We need to learn some foreign language.

How to Learn a Foreign Language

Systems Needed:

• Link Method
• Roman Room Mnemonic

Using the Tools:

Foreign languages are the ideal subject area for the use of memory techniques. Learning vocabulary is often a matter of associating a meaningless collection of syllables with a word in your own language.

Traditionally, people have associated these words by repetition - by saying the word in their own language and the foreign language again and again. You can improve on this tedious way of learning by using three good techniques:

1. Using Mnemonics to Link Words

This is a simple extension of the link method. Here, you are using images to link a word in your own language with a word in a foreign language.

For example, in learning English/French vocabulary:

• English: rug/carpet - French: tapis - imagine an ornate oriental carpet with a tap as the central design woven in chrome thread
• English: grumpy - French: grognon - a grumpy man groaning with irritation
• English: to tease - French: taquiner - a woman teasing her husband as she takes in the washing.

This technique was formalized by Dr. Michael Gruneberg, and is known as the 'LinkWord' technique. He has produced language books (an example is German by Association) in many language pairs to help students acquire the basic vocabulary needed to get by in the language (usually about 1000 words). It is claimed that using this technique this basic vocabulary can be learned in just 10 hours.

2. The Town Language Mnemonic

This is a very elegant, effective mnemonic that fuses a sophisticated variant of the Roman Room system with the system described above.

This depends on the fact that the basic vocabulary of a language relates to everyday things: things that you can usually find in a city, town or village. To use the technique, choose a town that you are very familiar with. Use objects within that place as the cues to recall the images that link to foreign words.

Nouns in the town:
Nouns should be associated to the most relevant locations: for example, the image coding the foreign word for book could be associated with a book on a shelf in the library. You could associate the word for bread with an image of a loaf in a baker's shop. Words for vegetables could be associated with parts of a display outside a greengrocer's. Perhaps there is a farm just outside the town that allows all the animal name associations to be made.

Adjectives in the park:
Adjectives can be associated with a garden or park within the town: words such as green, smelly, bright, small, cold, etc. can be easily related to objects in a park. Perhaps there is a pond there, or a small wood, or perhaps people with different characteristics are walking around.

Verbs in the sports center:
Verbs can most easily be associated with a sports center or playing field. This allows us all the associations of lifting, running, walking, hitting, eating, swimming, driving, etc.

Remembering Genders
In a language where gender is important, a very good method of remembering this is to divide your town into two main zones. In one zone you code information on masculine gender nouns, while in the other zone you code information on feminine nouns. Where the language has a neutral gender, then use three zones. You can separate these areas with busy roads, rivers, etc. To fix the gender of a noun, simply associate its image with a place in the correct part of town. This makes remembering genders easy!

Many Languages, many towns
Another elegant spin-off of the technique comes when learning several languages: normally this can cause confusion. With the town mnemonic, all you need do is choose a different city, town or village for each language to be learned. Ideally this might be in the relevant country. Practically, however, you might just decide to use a local town with the appropriate foreign flavor.

3. The 100 Most Common Words

Tony Buzan, in his book 'Using your Memory', points out that just 100 words comprise 50% of all words used in conversation in a language. Learning this core 100 words gets you a long way towards being able to speak in that language, albeit at a basic level.

Summary

The four approaches to learning foreign languages shown here can be very effective. They help to:

• Point out the most important words to learn
• Show how to link words in your own language to words in a foreign language, and
• Show how to structure recall of the language through use of the town mnemonic.
• Try to develop friendship with someone who already knows the language you wish to learn. You can learn the language more easily by frequent interaction with your friend after you get knowledge of the basics of the foreign language.
  

Try and Try Again. You can learn foreign language easily by strong determination and improvement in your memory skills.

Be Happy – Improve Your Memory (Part 9)

Some time we are laughed at because we forget something very soon. Somebody asked me, “When you were passing through that lane yesterday, you picked up that stuff.” I could not recollect which stuff was being referred to. When that stuff was brought before me, I could remember that I had bought yesterday only. Memory is an important asset. If a Doctor forgets the names of medicines, what would he prescribe after diagnosing some disease? If a lawyer forgets the relevant facts, what would he argue for? Many things may mishappen if we do not remember what is to be done at what time and how? There is required regular practice to sharpen your memory. There are a number of tools in this regard. Many tools have been mentioned in the previous posts. Using Concept maps for memorizing something is such one more tool to be looked into seriously.

Using Concept Maps to Remember Structured Information

How to Use the Tool:

Mind Maps are not formally mnemonics. They do, however, help you to lay out the structure of a topic as a clear 'shape' that you can remember easily. By seeing this shape in your mind, you can prompt yourself to remember the information coded within it.

This becomes even easier if you have coded this information using striking images.

Memory Games

Have fun, while you improve your memory!

Have you ever looked up a phone number and repeated it over and over to yourself until you dialed it correctly? This draws on your working memory; however, just moments after dialing the telephone number, chances are you have forgotten it.

This is because the telephone number was not “committed” to your long-term memory. And, while working memory is reliable for quick recall of bits of information (like phone numbers), it can hold only a few pieces of information and only for a very short time.

To remember things for a longer amount of time, you must connect the new information with information you already have, “committing” it to your long-term memory, which stores more information and, for a longer period of time.

There are, of course, many ‘serious’ techniques for improving your memory. (And you can find many in Mind Tools memory techniques section.) But you can also have a bit of fun “working out” with memory games. This article introduces several games to workout your memory, individually or in a team.

Story Telling

One way to remember the information you need to commit to long-term memory is to make up a story that “connects” the items or facts you need to remember, thus making them easier to recall. The idea here is that it’s easier to remember more information when one fact or item connects to another.

While making up the story, create a strong mental image of what’s happening. This helps to “connect” the data to an image and better cement it in your long-term memory.

It’s fun to practice using this technique in a group. Practice by laying out 20 or more objects on the table and trying to remember them. Each member of the group takes his or her turn to add to the story by including another object. If the first three objects are an apple, a key and a mobile phone, here’s how the story might start:

Person 1: In the orchard, ripe apples were falling from the trees. Person 2: But the gate to the orchard was locked and John had brought the wrong key. Person 3: So he called Sue from his mobile phone to see if she could help.
….
Once all the objects have been included in the story, remove them all from the room. See who can remember the most items. Now tell the story again as a group, taking it in turns. The group will probably be able to remember the whole story and so recall all the items.

Pexeso: Matching Pairs

Pexeso involves matching pairs of like cards or tiles from a large group, when one of each group is hidden. You play Pexeso with a set of cards or tiles that includes pairs of picture or numbers. You can play using half a pack of standard playing cards – just remove 2 of the 4 suits, so you have just 2 aces, 2 kings, 2 queens and so on.

Start by laying out 24 of the cards, making sure the 24 cards consists of 12 matched pairs. Once face down, move the cards around so that you do not know where any single card is located. Turn one card over at a time, take a look at the number or object, and then turn it face down again. Repeat this process until you turn over a card that matches a card you turned over earlier. Now find the card’s ‘mate’ by remembering from earlier where it is located. As you find a matched pair, remove them from the group. The number of cards dwindles until all the pairs are matched.

Time yourself and see how you improve (get faster) each time you play. As you get better, increase the number of cards you start with, moving from the original 24 to 30, then to 36, 42 and so on.

‘Blind’ Jigsaw Puzzles

Another fun and inexpensive way to give your concentration and memory a boost is the good old-fashioned jigsaw puzzle. Playing it ‘blind’ means without referring back to the picture on the box! First, look at a picture of the completed puzzle. Give yourself a few minutes to commit it to memory. Next, mix up the pieces to the jigsaw puzzle. Now, work to put it back together without looking at the picture of the completed puzzle again (until you are done).

Trivia Quizzes

A great way to improve how well you recall information is to play trivia quizzes. The trivia can be about anything – movies, history, even about your specific business. Whilst you can easily purchase trivia quiz board games and books, you can also make up your own questions when you are playing in a group. Each person submits a list of questions (and answers!) and then to ‘quiz master’ takes questions from each person’s list in turn.

When you play with a new set of trivia questions, you rely on your recall of prior knowledge and experience to find the answers. If you play with the same questions in a few days or weeks later, you will also rely on memory of playing the game last time. Both new questions and re-runs are good for building you memory skills.

Be Happy - Make Continued Efforts to Improve Your Memory.

Be Happy – Improve Your Memory (Part 8)

Some time, we need to remember some long numbers as we do not have any piece of paper or something to write upon. Such long numbers are very difficult due to absence of some sequence or due to some other reasons. At that time, the Major System works a lot for remembering very long numbers. Let’s discuss over it.

The Major Memory System

The Major Memory System is one of the most powerful memory systems available. It takes a lot of time to master, but once learned, it is very powerful. The technique often forms the basis of some of the extraordinary, almost magical, memory feats performed by stage magicians and memory performers.

The system works by converting number sequences into nouns, nouns into images, and linking images into sequences. These sequences can be very complex and detailed.

How to Use the Tool:

The building blocks of the system are the association of the numbers below with the following consonant sounds:
0 - s, z, soft-c - remember as 'z is first letter of zero'
1 - d, t, th - remember as letters with 1 downstroke
2 - n - remember as having 2 downstrokes
3 - m - has three downstrokes
4 - r - imagine a 4 and an R glued together back-to-back
5 - L - imagine the 5 propped up against a book end (L)
6 - j, sh, soft-ch, dg, soft-g - g is 6 rotated 180 degrees.
7 - k, hard-ch, hard-c, hard-g, ng - imagine K as two 7s
rotated and glued together
8 - f, v - imagine the bottom loop of the 8 as an eFfluent
pipe discharging waste (letter image of F in
alphabet system)
9 - p, b - b as 9 rotated 180 degrees.
These associations need to be learned thoroughly before going further with the technique.

Starting to use the Major System

The system operates on a number of levels, depending on the amount of time you are prepared to devote to learning the system.

The first level, which involves coding single digit numbers into small words, functions almost as a poor relation of the number/rhyme system. It is at higher levels that you can unleash the real power of the system. You should, however, learn to use this first level before moving on.

The trick with converting numbers into words is to use only the consonants that code information within the word, while using vowels to pad the consonants out with meaning. If you do have to use other consonants to make up a word, use only those that do not code for numbers - i.e. h, q, w, x, and y.

At the first level we code each number into a short noun. This is made up of the consonant coding for the number, and vowels that turn the consonant into a word. On a sheet of paper, write the numbers 0 to 9, and apply these rules to create your own memory words. Some examples are shown below:

0 - saw
1 - toe
2 - neigh
3 - ma
4 - ray
5 - law
6 - jaw
7 - key
8 - fee
9 - pie

You can use these words in association much like the other peg technique memory words.

Moving to the second level

Similar rules apply to creating a standard word from two numbers. It is best not to try to use a single number word as a root, as this can confuse the image.

Write down the numbers 01 to 99, and apply the rules to create memory words for yourself.
A few examples are shown below:

09 - z, p - zap
17 - t, ch - tech
23 - n, m - name
36 - m, sh - mesh
41 - r,s - rose
52 - l, n - line
64 - ch, r - chair
75 - k, l - keel
89 - f, p - fop
98 - b, f - beef

Taking the Major System Further

Just using double number words may be enough to make this a sufficiently powerful mnemonic for you. Alternatively you may decide to use triple number words, using the same construction rules as double number words.

Examples are:

182 - d, v, n - Devon
304 - m, s, r - miser
400 - r, c, s - races
651 - j, l, d - jellied
801 - f, z, d - fazed

Even though you can construct words from first principles each time, at this level of complexity it may be worth writing them down to make them easier to remember. You can then run through them many times to strengthen the link in your mind between the numbers and the associated words. This will help you to remember the appropriate word faster.

Using Words to Remember Long Numbers

Once you have come up with words and images to link to your numbers, you can start to apply the technique to remember, for example, long numbers. A good way of doing this is to associate Major System words with stops on a journey.

Example:

The number Pi is 3.14159265359 (to 11 decimal places). Using the major system and the journey system (see example) together, I can remember this as:

• Passing my Ma (3) by the front door of my house
• Seeing that someone has dared (1,4,1) to sleep under the rose bush in the garden
• Someone has tied a loop (5,9) of yellow ribbon onto the steering wheel of my car
• I see a poster with a photo of a steaming pile of sausages and mashed potato, with the title 'glorious NOSH' (2,6) at the end of the road
• A lama (5,3) is grazing on grass outside the garage forecourt
• Another loop (5,9) of yellow ribbon has been tied around the railway bridge. This is getting strange!

Key points:

The major memory system works by linking numbers to consonants, and then by linking these into words. By using the images these words create, and linking them together with the journey system, large amounts of information can be accurately memorized.

Be Happy – Improve Your Memory.

Be Happy – Improve Your Memory (Part 7)

The Roman Room System is another tool for improvement of our memory. This tool enables us to remember grouped information. We can associate some thing with some object lying in our room. That object may remind us about the incident or the matter as had been associated with.

Remembering Grouped Information

The Roman Room technique, also known as the Method of Loci, is an ancient and effective way of remembering information where its structure is not important. As an example, it serves as the basis of one of the powerful mnemonic systems used to learn languages.

How to Use the Tool:

To use the technique, imagine a room that you know, such as your sitting room, bedroom, office or classroom. Within the room there are some objects. Associate images representing the information you want to remember with the objects in the room. To recall information, simply take a tour around the room in your mind, visualizing the known objects and their associated images.

The technique can be expanded by going into more detail, and keying information to be remembered to smaller objects. Alternatively you can open doors from your room into other rooms and use the objects in them as well. As you need them, you can build extensions to your rooms in your imagination, and fill them with objects that would logically be there.

You can use other rooms to store other categories of information.

There is no need to restrict this information to rooms: you could use a landscape or a town you know well, and populate it with memory images.

The Roman Room technique is just one way of representing your cognitive map of the information in an easily accessible way.

See the introduction to this chapter for information on how to enhance the images used for this technique.

Example:

For example, I can use my sitting room as a basis for the technique. In this room I have the following objects:

Table, lamp, sofa, large bookcase, small bookcase, CD rack, telephone, television, DVD player, chair, mirror, black and white photographs, etc.

I may want to remember a list of World War I war poets:

Rupert Brooke, G.K. Chesterton, Walter de la Mare, Robert Graves, Rudyard Kipling, Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, W.B. Yates

I could visualize walking through my front door. Within this image, someone has painted a picture on it showing a scene from the Battle of the Somme. In the center of the picture is a man sitting in a trench writing in a dirty exercise book.

I walk into the sitting room, and look at the table. On the top is RUPERT the Bear sitting in a small BROOK (we do not need to worry about where the water goes in our imagination!) This codes for Rupert Brooke.

Someone seems to have done some moving: a CHEST has been left on the sofa. Some jeans (Alphabet System: G=Jeans) are hanging out of one drawer, and some cake has been left on the top (K=Cake). This codes for G K Chesterton.

The lamp has a small statuette of a brick WALL over which a female horse (MARE) is jumping. This codes for Walter de la Mare.

Key points:

The Roman Room technique is similar to the Journey method. It works by pegging images coding for information to known things, in this case to objects in a room.

The Roman Room technique is most effective for storing lists of unlinked information, while the journey method is better for storing lists of ordered items.

Be Happy – We may improve our memory by applying one or more tools as and when found feasible.

Be Happy – Improve Your Memory (Part 6)

In continuation to my earlier posts discussing about the tools for improvement of memory, I may mention that as we are aware, memory is the most important asset in our active life. Many tools have been invented but their efficacy depends upon us how sincerely we apply them to achieve our target of better memory. Life is a running cycle of incidents – our mind notes every thing and those matters which are not relevant immediately, go in record in our sub-conscious part of our mind and come up whenever there is an opportunity of flash-back. Some time we have to put pressure upon our brain by searching out different clues how to recollect a particular incident and finally, get success. I feel if we aptly apply some methods to keep remembrance of certain matters, we can refurbish ourselves very smoothly. The Journey System is one of those methods which can help us in improving our memory.

The Journey System
Remembering Long Lists

The journey method is a powerful, flexible and effective mnemonic based around the idea of remembering landmarks on a well-known journey. It combines the narrative flow of the Link Method and the structure and order of the Peg Systems into one very powerful system.

How to Use the Tool:

You use the Journey Method by associating information with landmarks on a journey that you know well. This could, for example, be your journey to work in the morning; the route you use to get to the front door when you get up; the route to visit your parents; or a tour around a holiday destination. Once you are familiar with the technique you may be able to create imaginary journeys that fix in your mind, and apply these.

To use this technique most effectively, it is often best to prepare the journey beforehand. In this way the landmarks are clear in your mind before you try to commit information to them. One of the ways of doing this is to write down all the landmarks that you can recall in order on a piece of paper. This allows you to fix these landmarks as the significant ones to be used in your mnemonic, separating them from others that you may notice as you get to know the route even better.

To remember a list of items, whether these are people, experiments, events or objects, all you need do is associate these things with the landmarks or stops on your journey.

This is an extremely effective method of remembering long lists of information. With a sufficiently long journey you could, for example, remember elements on the periodic table, lists of Kings and Presidents, geographical information, or the order of cards in a shuffled pack.

The system is extremely flexible: all you need do to remember many items is to remember a longer journey with more landmarks. To remember a short list, only use part of the route!

One advantage of this technique is that you can use it to work both backwards and forwards, and start anywhere within the route to retrieve information.

You can use the technique well with other mnemonics. This can be done either by building complex coding images at the stops on a journey, or by linking to other mnemonics at each stop. You could start other journeys at each landmark. Alternatively, you may use a peg system to organize lists of journeys, etc.

Example:

You may, as a simple example, want to remember something mundane like this shopping list:

Coffee, salad, vegetables, bread, kitchen paper, fish, chicken breasts, pork chops, soup, fruit, bath tub cleaner.

You could associate this list with a journey to a supermarket. Mnemonic images could be:
1. Front door: spilt coffee grains on the doormat
2. Rose bush in front garden: growing lettuce leaves and tomatoes around the roses
3. Car: with potatoes, onions and cauliflower on the driver's seat
4. End of the road: an arch of French bread over the road
5. Past garage: with its sign wrapped in kitchen roll
6. Under railway bridge: from which haddock and cod are dangling by their tails
7. Traffic lights: chickens squawking and flapping on top of lights
8. Past church: in front of which a pig is doing karate, breaking boards
9. Under office block: with a soup slick underneath: my car tires send up jets of tomato soup as I drive through it
10. Past car park: with apples and oranges tumbling from the top level
11. Supermarket car park: a filthy bath tub is parked in the space next to my car!

Key points:

The journey method is a powerful, effective method of remembering lists of information, by imagining images and events at stops on a journey.

As the journeys used are distinct in location and form, one list remembered using this technique is easy to distinguish from other lists.

To use this technique you need to invest some time in preparing journeys clearly in your mind. This investment pays off many times over by the application of the technique.

I hope that you enjoy this system too.

Be Happy – Improve Your Memory.

Be Happy – Improve Your Memory (Part 5)

In the earlier four parts, I made mention about some tools how to improve the memory. Continuing the sequence, we may have look upon the Alphabet Technique for remembering Simple Ordered Lists which is a popular peg word system.

The Alphabet system is a peg memory technique similar to, but more sophisticated than, the Number/Rhyme system. It is a good method for remembering longer lists of items in a specific order, in such a way that you can tell if items are missing.

It works by associating images representing letters of the alphabet with images you create for the things to be remembered.

How to Use the Tool:

When you are creating images for the letters of the alphabet, create images phonetically, so that the sound of the first syllable of the word is the name of the letter. For example, you might represent the letter 'k' with the word 'cake'.

Tony Buzan, in his book “Use Your Perfect Memory”, suggests using a system for creating vivid images that you can reconstruct if you forget them. He suggests taking the phonetic letter sound as the first consonant, and then, for the rest of the consonants in the word, using the first letters in alphabetical order that make a memorable word. For example for the letter 'S' (root 'Es') we would first see if any strong images presented themselves when we tried to create a word starting with 'EsA', 'EsB', 'EsC', 'EsD', 'EsE', etc.).

This approach has the advantage of producing an image that you can reconstruct if you forget it. You might, however, judge that this is an unnecessary complication of a relatively simple system. In any case it is best to select the strongest image that comes to mind and stick with it.

We can stipulate the image scheme like:

A - Ace of spades, or apple
B – Bee, or bear
C – Sea, or cat
D - Diesel engine, or deer
E – Eel, or elephant
F – Effluent, or Flag
G – Jeans, or girl
H - H-Bomb, itch, or House
I – Eye, or Ink pot
J – Jade, or jug
K – Cake, or kite
L – Elephant, or leg
M – Empty, or monkey
N – Entrance, or nest
O – Oboe, or owl
P – Pea, or parrot
Q – Queue, or queen
R – Ark, or rat
S – Eskimo, or son
T – Teapot, or tank
U – Unicycle, or umbrella
V – Vehicle, or vase
W – WC, or window
X - X-Ray or x-mas day
Y – Wire, or yolk
Z – Zulu, or zebra

If you find that these images do not attract you or stick in your mind, then change them for something more meaningful to you. Once you have firmly visualized these images and have linked them to their root letters, you can associate them with information to be remembered, and after you have mastered this technique you can multiply it using the images.

Example:

Continuing the mnemonic example of the names of philosophers, we will use the example of remembering a list of modern thinkers:

A - Ace - Freud - a crisp ACE being pulled out of a FRying pan (FRiED)
B - Bee - Chomsky - a BEE stinging a CHiMp and flying off into the SKY
C - Sea - Genette - a GENerator being lifted in a NET out of the SEA
D - Diesel - Derrida - a DaRing RIDer surfing on top of a DIESEL train
E - Eagle - Foucault - Bruce Lee fighting off an attacking EAGLE with kung FU
F - Effluent- Joyce - environmentalists JOYfully finding a plant by an EFFLUENT pipe
G - Jeans - Nietzche - a holey pair of JEANS with a kNEe showing through
H - H-Bomb - Kafka - a grey civil service CAFe being blown up by an H-Bomb etc.

Key Points:

The Alphabet Technique links the items to be remembered with images of the letters A-Z. This allows you to remember a medium length list in the correct order. By pegging the items to be remembered to letters of the alphabet you know if you have forgotten items, and know the cues to use to trigger their recall

Try the above tool too. It may help you improve your memory.
Be Happy - Improve Your Memory.