A guest blog from Dr Jenny Shipway, who studied biochemistry at university and now works in science communication and education training.

The Art of Forgetting

Your brain is amazing

It’s frustrating when we forget things we want to remember, but this isn’t a failure of our brains - it’s an important feature. Remembering everything would cause all sorts of problems, so our brain spends a lot of time forgetting things. What colour coat was the first person to pass you on the street today wearing? How many bites did you take during lunch? What did your Year 5 teacher say on the third day of class?

Unfortunately perhaps, we can’t consciously tell our brains what to remember. So sometimes it forgets things we want to recall - like the internal structure of the kidney, or how oxygen dissociation curves work. We can’t tell it to remember anything, but we can encourage it to remember by giving it sigals that this stuff is important.

So how does the brain choose what to remember? There are a variety of signals that can flag things up as worth remembering, including:

1. Information that links nicely to prior knowledge
2. Information that connects to things the brain has already decided are important

Pay attention to the links between a new topic and things you’ve learned before. And make sure they agree - if there is a conflict your brain is more likely to forget (also it means there is something you don’t understand which needs re-studying!). If you previously learned that every human cell has a nucleus, but then read that red blood cells do not have a nucleus, take the time to work out how that can be, or you’re likely to forget the new information.

Information that connects to yourself - like a topic you had to present to the class, a question you answered during a lesson, or something that you can relate to your own body - is particularly likely to be remembered.

3. Information that has proven itself to be useful

Test your recall - if you remember the information successfully and this feels like an achievement, your brain will take note. Brains love feelings of success and are always eager for more. Even better, use the information to successfully solve a problem. Brains LOVE that.

In biology you have the added benefit of having stories about health. The brain is always keen to remember information from stories that could help you avoid future harm. Emotional/personal stories of people with medical problems that were (or could have been) overcome with a little biological knowledge are high priority for the brain.

Putting on your auntie’s hat and trying to ride your next door neighbour’s unicycle is a valid study strategy

4. Information gained during/after novel experiences

In a study, children remembered a lesson better if they had an unexpected music lesson just beforehand. (If the music lesson was expected, they did not remember so much.) How much novelty is required to get this memory boost is sadly unknown, but you could try studying in different places, or wearing something unusual, or trying a new activity beforehand? At least it gives you the excuse to take a break from your desk.

5. Information that satisfies your curiosity

In a study using Trivial Pursuit questions, people better remembered the facts they’d been more curious to know the answers to. Ask yourself questions as you go through a topic, get a step ahead of your learning and try to develop a curiosity for what comes next. If you don’t care, it’s going to be harder to remember. (If you lose all interest, take a break and try to ride a unicycle.)

6. Information that it receives on multiple occasions over a period of time

This one is really important. We generally forget things - even important things - bit by bit unless we think about them again. My memory of childhood holidays is largely centred around photographs, as they have reminded me of specific events over the years.

It’s totally normal to forget things the first time you learn them. And the second time. It can be frustrating to relearn things that you thought you knew, but this is just how learning works. You might feel you have made no progress after re-learning something for the third time, but that’s not true - every time you re-learn it, you will slow the rate of forgetting. Until, with enough recapping, you will fix the information in your long-term memory.

So, when you learn something, try to come back and recap it after about a week. And then again after maybe another couple of weeks. Then again after another month or so. This is called ‘spaced learning’ and it’s one of the most powerful and efficient techniques for getting stuff into your long-term memory.

Luckily for biology students, the topics are really interconnected. This means you will naturally get the chance to recall past topics when new ones relate to them, while you are thinking about all the connections.

Her brain’s still doing good stuff, so I reckon this counts as studying

Be kind to your brain

All of this learning is pretty hard work, and your brain will need some downtime to process everything behind the scenes.

Having a nap can be great for learning, but at the very least make sure you get a decent night’s sleep.

This is why last minute studying, staying up all night studying before an exam, is not recommended. Spreading your learning out over a longer period is much more efficient.

In a nutshell:

Don’t despair when you forget something you did previously, you’ve still made progress. Trust the process!
Every time you re-learn something, celebrate that you have moved the information one step closer to long term memory
Taking a break to do fun, novel activities - or to have a nap - can be good for your studying

Dr Jenny Shipway
www.jennyshipway.com