Enhancing Mindfulness with the Memory Palace Technique: A Novel Approach to Cognitive Fitness
Mindfulness is like a Swiss Army knife for mental health and personal performance. People who practice focusing on the present moment enjoy reduced stress, heightened self-control and improved concentration. But did you know that there’s an ancient memory technique that can help you get even more bang for the time you spend on mindfulness practice? It’s called the Memory Palace, and broadly speaking, people have used it for mindfulness outcomes for thousands of years.
Before showing you how it works, let’s make sure we have a working definition of mindfulness.
As the esteemed mindfulness practitioner Jon Kabat-Zinn puts it, we’re talking about developing “awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, nonjudgmentally.”
It sounds simple enough. But many people find developing firm awareness of the present moment difficult. In fact, one study has shown that some people prefer receiving electric shocks to the perceived “tedium” of sitting in a room with nothing to do but pay attention to the present.
This is where the Memory Palace technique can help. Although ancient and never completely absent from cultures around the world, the technique started trending first in 2010 when Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock series started. This bump took off into orbit in 2011 when Joshue Foer’s memory training confessional Moonwalking with Einstein started selling millions of copies.
What’s a Memory Palace?
It’s the name we give to a mnemonic device that has been circulated through thousands of books. Here’s how it works:
1. You choose a familiar location. It could be your home, workplace, or any place you know well enough to call to mind.
2. Imagine yourself walking throughout the location. You can move through the rooms, up or down stairs, or wander around a backyard, etc.
3. You then imagine placing items that remind you of information you want to remember. A simple example is your shopping list. If you need to remember to buy bananas, milk and salmon, you would imagine a giant bunch of bananas on your pillow, an exploding milk jug in the hallway and a purple salmon leaping from the staircase.
There are strategic ways to build your Memory Palaces for more ambitious memory goals. But these steps cover the basics.
We don’t know exactly when the technique was first written down. But you can find it in Aristotle’s De Memoria. He himself refers to an older text that is all but lost save for a fragment.
And according to Tyson Yunkaporta, author of Sand Talk, Aboriginal people have used a variation of this technique for thousands of years. He teaches a version where you can use each finger on your hands to create a journey that helps you remember how to conduct yourself during a meeting.
Remembering how to connect with, respect and address your elders is pretty much Kabat-Zinn’s definition of mindfulness brought down to how we can be more aware in meetings in our time.
Evidence for Integrating Memory Palaces with Mindfulness Practice
I first became aware of the mindful benefits of using the Memory Palace technique during university. As a stressed out graduate student facing field exams and a dissertation defense, I could barely concentrate on my studies.
When I learned about the technique, I thought it would be impossible to learn. But I tried anyway and quickly realized that I was benefitting from more than remembering my study materials. I also felt better.
Over a decade later, I discovered the research of Dr. Tim Dalgleish and his team. Using a variation of the Memory Palace technique called “method of loci,” they helped people place positive memories along mental routes. In effect, participants became more mindful about their mental content.
There’s another way to think about mindfulness. As this study demonstrates, the brains of London taxi drivers undergo structural changes when studying for “The Knowledge.” They literally learn to turn the city into a kind of Memory Palace, repeating routes verbatim in order to earn their stripes as cabbies.
Neuroscientists have found similar reshaping in the brains of people who use memory techniques, leading to superior memory outcomes. Albeit anecdotal, I’ve interviewed Boris Konrad, who worked on this research. He’s a neuroscientist and memory competitor. Like many memory athletes I’ve spoken with, he strikes me as an extraordinarily mindful person.
Practical Steps For Getting Started with Memory Palaces for Mindfulness Outcomes
The first step is to create your first Memory Palace. Keep it simple and don’t worry about getting it “right.” It’s best to treat the learning process as an experiment.
To help yourself remain “mindful” of the experimental nature of using this technique, you can consider adopting my F.R.E.E. model.
Frequent practice in a state of…
Relaxation and a…
Spirit of experimentation will keep you…
Engaged and entertained.
The second step is to choose content you can place in your Memory Palace for your mindfulness practice.
For my own experimentation, I reproduced the Dalgleish research protocol by turning one of my favorite study places at the University of Toronto into a Memory Palace. Along the corners and walls of this room, I placed four happy memories from my life.
Then, while seated for a simple meditation, I revisited each of these memories.
In a more elaborate experiment discussed in my popular TEDx Talk, I memorized 32 Sanskrit mantras in a Memory Palace based on an entire neighborhood in Brisbane, Australia.
In this case, the content came from a curated text devoted to prompting greater mindfulness. Dr. Gary Weber arranged them from the Ribhu Gita in his book, Evolving Beyond Thought.
To give you a flavor of how this kind of content prompts greater mindfulness in Kabat-Zinn’s sense, here’s a translation of what one of the Sanskrit mantras means:
“Self-inquiry is the highest science.”
In other words, to explore what it is about your experience of the human mind by questioning its nature will help you become more mindful.
The culture that produced this ancient text also used memory techniques, often creating journeys on the body in the sense Yunkaporta highlights was used in Aboriginal cultures.
We can all still do this in the modern world, despite how busy it seems to have become. It really just requires setting the time aside for a bit of learning and application of the F.R.E.E. model as you explore. To that end, here are some ways to overcome possible obstacles you might face in a mindful way.
Challenges and Solutions I’ve Discovered Along the Memory-Based Mindfulness Journey
Although you might not face any of the following challenges, they’re worth knowing about. You could help others overcome them once they’ve entered your awareness.
Visualization
One of the main challenges I’ve heard from people involves difficulty with spatial visualization. They struggle to bring memories of locations to mind, or they feel that they lack enough familiarity with them.
The simple solution is to use the corners and walls of rooms. Even the most sophisticated memory athletes break things down to the most basic levels of simplicity. The Sherlock Holmes inspiration is problematic in this regard, because the TV show makes it seem ornate, but those of us who practice these techniques know that we actually need to chunk our Memory Palaces down.
You also don’t have to visualize Memory Palaces or mnemonic associations at all. During the medieval and Renaissance periods, teachers of memory techniques like Ramon Llull, Robert Fludd and Giordano Bruno taught approaches based almost entirely on what we might now call “computational thinking.”
You can base your Memory Palaces purely on thinking logically about the journeys and using alphabetical references. Or, you can explore the Memory Wheel technique, which is a variation on Memory Palace. I’ve created a tutorial on using it for loving-kindness meditation (a.k.a. Metta) on my YouTube channel to help make the practice as clear as possible.
Overwhelm
The next issue some people face is overwhelm. There are so many people who talk about the Memory Palace technique in so many ways, it can feel truly daunting.
Even I was daunted when I first encountered the technique. But I knew from all my years in university that the best solution is to pick just one teaching and explore it thoroughly before adding on the next. I continue in this manner today, which is effectively another form of chunking things down to avoid taking on too much.
Finding Time
The perception that merely learning this technique will take a lot of time can discourage some people.
There’s no one-size-fits-all solution to resolving this impression, except perhaps to paint a vision of the future.
Many of my students tell me the setup takes them anywhere from a few minutes to a maximum of five hours if they develop one Memory Palace per letter of the alphabet for use with the Memory Wheel technique.
Once that small investment of time has been made, you can literally use the technique all day long. I’ve used it while walking, washing the dishes and even during conversations.
As Marshal McLuhan points out in his study of memory-related learning structures during the Renaissance, many people used to think the world was a book. They used memory techniques in a way that helped them read and remember astonishing amounts of information. All they needed was familiarity with the techniques and a bit of practice.
After that, your mindfulness switches on and the entire world becomes a library in which you can practice with fewer limitations than you might think.
Distractions
Keeping focused is one reason we come to mindfulness practice in the first place.
Although it might seem like adding a secondary technique is the ultimate distraction, in reality, using Memory Palaces creates a powerful point of focus. It’s not quite the same as focusing on the breath or staring at a candle. But it shares similarities in terms of giving your mind something to do while you pay attention to the process as it unfolds in the present.
6x USA Memory Champion Nelson Dellis shares his excitement about this point near the end of his video titled 5 Awesome Memory Books You’ve Probably Never Heard Of. Yes, I’m biased because he’s drawing the point from my guide, The Victorious Mind. But I’m just forwarding a point that has been around for thousands of years.
The point is that combining Memory Palaces with mindfulness practice gives you an alternative point of focus that either amplifies the results you’re already getting from focusing on the breath. Or, if the standard points of focus haven’t helped you before, you might now find one that works by exploring this ancient technique.
Relevant Materials
It’s understandable if working with foreign language mantras feels alienating. At first glance, it seems like yet another learning task before you can get started.
Let’s remember the chunking down principle. When I first started, I followed Dr. Weber’s video on kirtan kriya, which links four syllables to the fingers.
You don’t have to use the Sanskrit sounds to make this work. You can switch in letters from the alphabet, numbers or other words that feel interesting and fulfilling to you.
And as you’ve learned, you can use your own memories for points of reflection as you practice combining mindful meditation and the Memory Palace technique.
As the F.R.E.E. model suggests, relax and experiment. By exploring with a variety of points of focus that resonate with you personally, the exercise will feel natural. Above all things, avoid forcing it.
And if you do find yourself trying to apply force, work to become mindful that you’re doing so. Gently label the approach and return your practice to finding and aligning yourself with Memory Palaces and mindful content that creates a pleasant effect. You could add a serene lake to your Memory Palace journey, pleasant smells or snippets of music you love.
The key is regular repetition to strengthen the neural pathways we know from multiple scientific studies can be rewired fro beneficial effect.
This is your journey. Make it your own and the rewards are sure to follow.
Author of the article: Anthony Metivier
Bio:
Anthony Metivier is the founder of the Magnetic Memory Method, a systematic, 21st Century approach to memorizing foreign language vocabulary, names, music, poetry and much more in ways that are easy, elegant, effective and fun.
He holds a Ph.D. in Humanities from York University and has been featured in Forbes, Viva Magazine, Fluent in 3 Months, Daily Stoic, Learning How to Learn, StoryLearning and has delivered one of the most popular TEDx Talks on memory improvement.
His most widely read books include The Victorious Mind and the How to Learn & Memorize Series.
