Braden Adams is the reigning Canadian Memory Champion.
“I’m still a normal dude,” he told CTV’s Your Morning from Chilliwack, British Columbia. “I’m really, really good at memorizing things.”
The three times National Memory Championship The winner set two new Canadian records when he won in 2022, when he memorized a full deck of cards in 30.4 seconds and 474 digits in 10 minutes.
To accomplish such mental feats, Adams uses the “memory palace” visualization technique, which dates back to ancient Greece and Rome.
“It’s pretty simple,” Adams explained. “You choose a place you know well, kind of picture it in your mind, and then walk a set path through that area.”
He gives the example of a grocery list: imagine putting carrots on the doorstep of your house, then broccoli with your keys. As you go through the house, you then mentally place different objects throughout the house in the order you need to recall them.
“Set maybe five or 10 locations if you want,” he continued. “And then when you’re ready to remember that information, you just follow that set path, remembering all those images that you put around your house, and that’s basically how you can remember everything. kind of information.”
Before they were both eliminated, Adams was one of two Canadians to compete in the Memory League World Championship 2023which runs online from January 8-29 and sees contestants memorize everything from cards to words to numbers within set time periods.
In August 2021, Adams memorized nearly 70 decks of shuffled cards to raise money for the Alzheimer Society of British Columbia, recalling all but four of 3,640. He also teaches memory training strategies online, advertise as “your mind’s personal trainer”.
“I wish I had known about these memory techniques earlier,” he says on his website. “I would have had it much easier with work and college. These tools are a serious game-changer, and now I’m determined to help others strengthen their minds so they can enjoy the freedom of a memory. powerful.”
“Gamer. Introvert. Problem solver. Creator. Thinker. Lifelong food evangelist. Alcohol advocate.”