REWARD
Is your brain up to the challenge of payroll? Part 2 Brain training and memory techniques
Lindsey Byrne, The Cognitive Health Coach , explains how to encode complex regulations to your long-term memory and recall them with ease O ne of the first things you can do to improve your brain health, build cognitive reserve (to
important that any brain training challenges your brain in different ways every day. If you’re good at crossword puzzles, try sudoku. If you are great at languages, try a dance class. If you’re a master at spreadsheets, try learning to quote poetry. How many different things can you think of to challenge your brain? Put it into payroll practice! Considering the many regulations and technical details the typical payroll professional must keep in mind, there are many memory techniques to help encode information to the long-term memory and make it easy to recall. We’re going to practice just one here. First, we need to understand how the brain works: l the brain is a visual organ; it will remember images much better than words or lists
l anything which stands out as unusual or novel will stick in the memory much better than the mundane l the brain doesn’t store information in lists, it stores memories all over the brain, with connections between them, a bit like a mind map. According to Tony Busan (first to coin the phrase ‘mind map’), mind maps are far more memorable than words. When a mind map just won’t work for the situation, we can still use spatial tools, grouping objects and using colours. We’re going to use these three ideas as the basis for learning and recalling the key areas you can work on to improve your brain health, from last month’s article. We’ve started a mind map (to the left) with lots of images on half of it. The next step is to make these images really memorable by creating actions between each image. The more ridiculous you can make each image and action, the better. Think of Ron Weasley’s Boggart: a spider in Grandma’s clothes on roller skates from ‘ Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban’ . Starting in the middle: picture a brain, running around on legs getting really tired then going to sleep with huge zzz’s coming off it. The zzz’s escape and buzz around, bouncing off an alarm clock until the zzz’s make that alarm clock go off, it rocks and explodes and lots of Quality Street sweets spill out of it that run around attacking the healthy carrot because they’re jealous of the healthiness, etc. The keys here are bold, vivid images. Each image takes an action on the next. Move on from each image and only use
protect your brain long-term) and have fun while you’re doing it, is to engage in the growing area of brain training. There are plenty of courses, games and apps to help with brain training and stimulation, just ensure you check if they’ve been evaluated for effectiveness through large- scale randomised trials. Or at the very least, check they’re targeting different areas of the brain and memory every day and ideally, growing with you as you improve. One to check out is the free BrainHQ app. You might be proud of your prowess as a Times crossword master (for example), but if that’s all you do, it won’t build cognitive reserve to protect your brain long-term. Your brain has only learned that one thing and it’s used to that process. It’s
| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward | December 2023 - January 2024 | Issue 96 44
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