Getting a grip—literally— can boost
your memory, according to a new study. Here’s how: Clench your right fist
before taking in new information that you want to remember. Then clench your
left fist when you want to remember it later.
This strange trick may work because
clenching your hands activates the side of the brain that handles memory. For
example, in right handed people, the left side of the brain is primarily
responsible for storing information while the right side of the brain is
responsible for recalling memory. (If you are left-handed, the opposite
applies).
Putting It to the Test
To test this idea, researchers led by
Ruth Propper of Montclair State University in New Jersey studied 50
right-handed college students. Most of them were women. They were given a list
of 36 words to remember. They were also given a small pink ball to clench.
One group clenched the ball twice for
45 seconds each with their right hands before memorizing the words. Then they
did the same with their left hands before writing down as many words as they
could remember. Another group performed the same task but reversed the order of
the fists they made. Two other groups used the same hand each time, one group
using the left and the other, the right. A final group didn’t clench the
ball at all but held it gently in both hands each time.
The group that started with the right
hand performed the best on the memory test. In doing so, they activated the
left side of their brains, which helps store memory, and then clenched their
left hand, activating the right side of the brain as they recalled the
information.
“The findings suggest that some simple
body movements— by temporarily changing the way the brain functions— can
improve memory,” Propper said in a statement describing the results, which were
published in the online science journal PLoS One.
Participants recalled an average of ten
words if they clenched their right hand for storing information and their left
hand for recalling information. People in the group that used the opposite
clenching pattern recalled an average of six words.
If you’re preparing to make fists while
studying for a test or practicing a speech, the researchers say more work is
needed to figure out whether this technique would actually be useful. In the
meantime, however, it probably couldn’t hurt. But you would have
to remember which hand to use for which step in the process.
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