Your brain cells need friends.

It’s been a week since July 4th!

Today is an important day to remember that last week we took a day to remember that freedom is not free. This post, however, will not discuss the politics of July 4th. It will be a short and simple post dedicated to understanding the associations with July 4th, as an example of why your brain cells need friends!

So… why pick July 4th to do this exercise?

Take a look at the picture above. What do you associate with it?

I associate BBQ’s, Fireworks, Family, and Freedom (among many other things). This picture is a good symbolic representation of the day, as it contains the standard color scheme you’ll see today, as well as the explosives to take place tonight. How do we tie this all together?

Conditioning:Every year, on July 4th, in America, we know what the day is. This is because it is ingrained within the public, and is used as a tool in advertising (which isn’t inherently a bad thing). So on top of everyone already knowing what it is starting from the first year they experience this day, it’s constantly being reinforced through alternative associations. This, in a way, is conditioning. The day itself conditions you to expect fireworks, BBQ’s, and family outings.

So what happens that makes us remember this day, but not remember calculus formulas?

Relationships!

The reason we remember certain things so strongly, and other things not as much, is relationships. Prominent memorization strategies always hearken to this. The relationships they’re talking about aren’t between multi-cellular organisms, no, but between your lovely neurons. As we learn things, pathways are created between neurons, and the more pathways we create between neurons, the more solid the information sticks in our mind. So how do we create lasting relationships between our brain cells?

This is a short post, but I hope it has been informative. As always, be sure to check out my other posts, and if you enjoy the content. Drop a like and share on Facebook!