Derren Brown, Memory and Swimming
To make up for a largely sedentary lifestyle during the week, I like to get a reasonable amount of exercise over the weekend and usually go swimming on Saturday and Sunday afternoons.
Recently a friend of mine told me that he always swam 2 km (crawl or freestyle depending on your vocabulary) and then stated the length of time that it took him to do this. I was intrigued. How long would it take ME to swim 2 km?
Interestingly, the “biggest” problem with answering this question is ensuring that you swim the correct number of lengths – it is actually surprisingly difficult to keep track of how many you have already done. To solve this, I thought that I would try a method for remembering lists of objects in a specific order that I read about in a book by Derren Brown.
In this method, you basically associate each number from 0 to 9 with a letter of the alphabet; and then for each integer from 0 to x you could make up a word that corresponds to that integer. A list of objects then becomes a list of two word combinations that you create really vivid pictures for.
My list goes something like this:
zero s | |one| l |loo| |two| n |hen| |three| m |moo| |four| r |arrow| |five| f/v |hive| |six| b/p |bee| |seven| t |tea| |eight| sh/ch |shoe| |nine| g |goo|Twenty might be nose, 58 fish and 75 toffee.
Anyway: I thought of each corresponding word while swimming each length and it was an effective way of keeping track of the number of lengths and had the added benefit of keeping my mind off the fact that I was getting really tired. It takes me 55 minutes which is significantly longer than it takes my friend!
I have to get a life! I don’t do anything on weekends… and totally sedentary during the week… eeek… I don’t even have a coffee shop!
I’m worn out just reading this! I think I’ll read a book instead, that is what I do at weekends when I am not doing all the domestic jobs and homework that have piled up during the week. I’ve just helped on an ancient greek artefact and the first act of A Woman of No Importance, so I think I’ve now qualified for a rest and a read (rather than a swim – too exhausting).
Am smiling, because both of you live very full lives with teenagers added to keep you on your toes!
And I am worn out!!
hehe,
Interesting.
Recently i spend my weekends to read “My life-Bill Clinton”.