Improve your memory in five minutes
MEMORY MASTERMIND ED COOKE TELLS HANNAH BRITT HIS TOP TIPS
DO you struggle to recall your shopping list? Would you be lost without the numbers on your phone? Well memory expert Ed Cooke is here to help.
At 23, he became a Grand Master of Memory after taking on the world’s top minds in competitions. And now Ed is on a mission to boost yours too – in just five minutes a day.
Currently starring in Channel 4’s Can I Improve My Memory?, Ed says training your brain is easy.
“I have remembered 16 decks of shuffled cards in an hour, 2,300 ones and zeros in sequence in half an hour and thousands of lines of John Milton’s poetry,” he says.
“And I could train you to do almost that many too. Because it’s all a question of technique, attitude and imagination, not the hardware inside your brain.”
Londoner Ed, now 39, says we are born with a great memory.
“Everyone is good at remembering something. And it’s almost always something you’re interested in – football teams and results, for example. So memory techniques often focus on translating the things you know or are naturally interested in, into things that you want to learn.”
Practice makes perfect, says Ed.
“As with all skills, practice is what counts with memory. And it is a case of little and often. The people who make the most progress are the ones who come back for five minutes every day. Over long periods of time this really adds up.”
And the good news? It’s never too late to start.
“Many of my pupils including Strictly’s Len Goodman, who I worked with on the show, are in their 70s.” So wherever and whenever you find yourself with time
to spare, take five minutes to make some memory magic of your own.
How does it work?
“Every memory is a connection to other memories. If I meet you and see your face, the next time we meet it’s the connection between your face and your name that allows me to remember who you are. The way we create these associations is by the two pieces of information being in our minds at the same time and there being a meaningful join.
“So when we’re learning to remember things, all we’re really doing is connecting memories together in our minds.
“Does memory get worse with age? Not as much as you think. If you look at the speed at which children and adults acquire vocabulary given the same amount of time studying, it’s almost the same.
“The reason memory seems to worsen is because as we age we have more going on in our lives. Stress and feeling distracted can make us think we can’t remember things.”
As with all skills, practice is what counts with memory Ed Cooke, pictured
Can I Improve My Memory? is on Channel 4, Thursday at 8pm