Master of Memory: Accelerated learning, education, memorization - MMem 0314: Reprise: To learn human anatomy, how should I organize the topics?

Episode Date: May 21, 2015

Today Timothy revisits the question on learning human anatomy and how to organize the topics, with some extra comments on how he would change his answer today. What do you want to learn? Leave your question at http://MasterOfMemory.com/. Music credit: Maurice Ravel’s String Quartet, 2nd movement, performed by the US Army Band.

Today we're doing a reprise episode of episode 48 about learning anatomy. So something I liked about this episode is it uses a memory palace that's organized by the anatomical systems. This is a good way to separate the systems from each other because otherwise anatomy can be confusing because there are all sorts of different things to learn in one particular area of the body. So this actually separates them out based on space, and space is how we tend to learn. Now one thing I would change about this episode is the decisions about where to put the things throughout each of those rooms should be fairly systematic, I think. They don't necessarily have to be based on which body part it is, like a head on one end and the feet on the other end,

but it should be something systematic rather than just being scattered throughout the rooms, because that way the location of the items informs something about those items themselves. I would also start with a single subject, like the skeletal system, and really get to know that really well, and then move on to other systems from there based on how that goes. Welcome to Master of Memory. I'm Timothy, and I'm here to answer your accelerated learning questions every day and to inspire and empower you to learn anything you want to learn faster than ever.

Kristen asked in an email about learning human anatomy. Anatomy is not as simple as studying one part of the body at a time because there are about 10 to 20 different systems to study throughout the whole body, such as the nervous system, the circulatory system, the musculoskeletal system, and so on. If you're going to use a memory palace to memorize terms and topics, how do you organize it all when there are so many different systems to memorize? Well, Kristen, what I would do is I would start by creating a memory

palace, but what I would do is I would have a different room or a different building for each individual subject. So you might have one room for the circulatory system, one room for the lymphatic system, one room for the skeleton, etc. So you'd have a different room for each of these systems instead of a different room for each part of the body. But then, second, as you memorize terms and topics within those subjects, you go into those individual rooms or buildings and you picture a human interacting with the furniture and other items in those rooms to create your mnemonics. So one example would be, let's say that your skeletal system is all in a kitchen. So you put all your mnemonics for the skeletal system in your kitchen.

For the lumbar vertebrae, you might imagine that a skeleton is lying on a counter with a bunch of fish in the pantry to help you remember that the carpals, because carp is a kind of fish, are in the wrist. And then for the cranium, you might imagine that the skeleton has a crane sticking out of the top of his head to help him get something off the top of the refrigerator. These are some simple examples, but this is kind of how you could apply this to all the different systems. You just create a mnemonic based on the stressed syllable of the term, and then you use that part of the body and have that interacting with something in the room. So all you have to do is think of that room and think of what that part of the body is doing,

and you'll remember the term. Now, when you're actually quizzing yourself of course you're going to be working from actual images such as those found in an anatomy textbook to test yourself and that way it isn't completely abstract because you do keep returning to actual anatomical images. But if you ever want to think of one aspect of a particular system just think of the appropriate room for the system, and then think of the correct mnemonic within that. Remember that the purpose of the memory palace is to remember topics easily, and you can access them as if they're filed in storage somewhere. Even though the geography of the palace isn't directly going to translate into the location of things in the human body. If we wanted that, then we would

have to use a memory palace that's actually shaped like a human body, and we'd have to place a whole bunch of different things in there, because again, there are way too many systems to learn in that way. So again, I recommend just starting by having a bunch of different rooms for the different systems, and then putting your mnemonics for each system within those rooms. All right, I hope you've enjoyed this reprise episode. For anyone who has any questions about learning or memorizing anything faster than ever, feel free still to leave a message at masterofmemory.com slash question, and I'll be able to respond quickly to your message from wherever I am.

I just won't be able to record an episode on that topic until I'm back in the States in May. Meanwhile, if you want to support the show, please check out our Spanish course at masterofmemory.com slash Spanish. Or if you want to follow my adventures in Argentina, or wherever else I might happen to be, you can do that at timothymoser.com. © transcript Emily Beynon