On the 3rd Day of Xmas My True Love Said to Me, “We’re Lost!” Part 2: Memory Exercises to Improve Your Sense of Direction!

Brain Exercises to Improve Your Sense of Direction!

Let’s continue with part two on how to improve your sense of direction–the category of cognitive functioning is “Locality.”  William Atkinson, author of “Memory” (podcast) says first you have to have a strong desire to learn Locality. It’s about paying attention such as noting the roads you travel on, the landmarks, the twists and turns, scenery, etc. I agree with his line “Desire awakens interest; Interest employs attention; Attention brings use, development and memory.” 

EXERCISE #1:

1. Turn on your attention when you get in your car. Start with North in mind.
2. Look at 3-7 items <should be a 7-10 minute(s) or more drive>: look at: landmarks, large intersection street names or a significant change in scenery such as turning around a bend and noticing many more trees, etc.
3. When thinking about the landmarks, identify which side of the street are they on: west side or the east side, north or south?
4. What’s directly opposite?
5. Once the drive is over it’s time for reflection. (Using “Interval Remembering” helps to imprint the data stronger. The formula will be in the next post.) Think about the things you saw in relationship to the main cardinal (navigational) points: North, South, East, West.
6. Think about the items you saw in relationship to chronology: which came first, second, and last.
7. At bedtime see if you can visually walk (or drive as the case may be) through your journey. It’s guaranteed next time you drive that route, you will remember it with more ease and ultimately without GPS. Same idea can be done with a hiking excursion or a city walk.

EXERCISE #2:

1. Take a small piece of geography and study it. Start with your city and then advance to other metropolitan cities. These are great “sleeper exercises” when you can’t sleep. I always study the city I am traveling to before a trip so I am intimately acquainted with it. Same idea can be done with a hiking excursion.
2. Once you’ve picked your target, become your own personal cartographer. Study the map. Hallelujah google maps. Look at them for a few days and identify major things like a tourist readying for an excursion. I will look up the city on http://www.culturetrip.com for the most popular neighborhoods in a major city and study them with relation to the places I want to go like museums, cultural events and restaurants or even Air BnB. I will study how far they are away from each other to get a sense of distance. See the map below for Madrid. I found out Salamanca and Malasana were two of the best neighborhoods to stay in. They were my “cardinal” points to navigating all the other attractions I wanted to see: museums, food, historical buildings, etc. I look at the distance to walk, to take the metro, Uber, etc. I feel like I know the city now. I did this same process before going to Mexico City last spring and never felt at a loss for not knowing where I was. It was a great feeling of comfort in a foreign land.

MADRID CENTRAL MAP