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Good morning and welcome to Episode 012 of the Train Your Brain Podcast with Dr. Michael Trayford. Every Monday we produce a 30-minute episode. Tuesday through Sunday we produce episodes with five-minute tips. Every episode of the Train Your Brain Podcast features a tip, so you can receive pointers 365 days a year that will help enhance the performance of your brain!

In Episode 012, Dr. Trayford gives us a very helpful tip for remembering names: If you really want to lock a name in your brain, Dr. Trayford recommends saying it aloud three times in conversation. That’s the trick! Try it the next time you meet someone new, and you won’t have to worry about the embarrassment that comes with forgetting someone’s name!

If you have any concerns regarding the information and applications discussed in this podcast, please consult your physician and a doctor who is experienced in functional neurology. Michael Trayford DC, DACNB is available for consultation by calling (828) 708-5274. Thanks for listening.

I’ve already said your name twice. And the tip for today is about repeating names. This is essentially a brain game. When people think of brain training and the name of this podcast is the train your brain podcast.

We want to give people tips on how their brain works better. Now the obvious there is training your brain. Doing some type of game or doing some type of activity that will make your brain work better we’re also talking about exercise and sleep tips that will support the training for your brain.

Today we want to talk about repeating names. You know people talk all the time about and I am one of those people who. I am very, very bad with names. I just don’t remember names very well. Faces, places things like that, I will never forget. But when it comes to names, that’s always been a challenge for me. And I’ve tried every tip in the book, repeating the names to myself silently, which never worked. And if anything just confuses things and I wind up feeling confident that I know the person’s name and then wind up saying the wrong name. Right Jeff?

Jason: I’ve run into that so much and I think it’s extremely hard. I don’t know why some people just have a gift for that. But I’m not one of those people either.

Saying someone’s name three times is one of the brain games you can do when you meet people. You want to do it somewhat subtly. But when you meet somebody, immediately at that moment you want to repeat their name. So if Jason and I were to meet for the first time I would say “Hello Jason, how are you doing?”

Then I say something like “So tell me Jason where do you live?” So at this point I’ve already said his name twice. My brain is getting used to that and it’s associating that with his face, his demeanor and everything in that environment at that particular time.

So then you find within the next minute or so another opportunity to squeeze that name in there in the way of something like “So Jason, how many kids do you have?” That kind of thing.

There’s a lot of different ways. Family, kids, where do you live, location, geography, career. There’s a lot different ways to get to know people in a relatively short period of time. If anybody has done any kind of networking or power networking in particular where within two minute you can learn an awful lot about somebody.

The key is to drop their name into the conversation. As you say the name, really try to emphasize your focus on their face or their demeanor or trying to relate it to somebody you know. If you know another Jason you associate it with that. Jason, I only know a small handful of Jason’s, so it’s not a hard name for me to remember.

If I come across a Michael, or a John, those are much more common names and often a little bit harder to put with it. Michael’s are easy for me because that’s my name and we always have that little common bond. So that’s easy enough.

Jason: I remember one time Dr. Trayford there was a young lady and I needed to remember her name it was Begonia! And I’m like Wow! I’m never going to remember her name. And I was really worried about it, but I noticed that she loved to wear her clothes really, several sizes to large for her. They were really big on her and I always thought those clothes look Big-on-ya. You know… Begonia.

Wow… talk about association. That’s brilliant! That’s exactly what we need to do. And that’s another form of it: you repeating the name out loud to the individual. Making the association. What we’re talking about is associations you talk about are absolutely critical. And whatever way you can do it that’s what you want to utilize as a strategy. But simply repeating them to yourself, you know in your head. Is a tip that I found does not work for most people.

We’ll use that tip in a future episode.

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