THE POWER OF GAME-KNOWLEDGE
To climb the ranks and become a high skill player, you need to develop your game-knowledge.
Top tier players have mental libraries of information and experience that they can tap into during each game.
If you want to play at a top-tier rank, you need to develop your own mental library of game-knowledge. So how can you do that most effectively?
Game-knowledge is reliant on 2 aspects; your memory encoding and memory retrieval. You need to be able to store large amounts of information, then during the game, you need to tap into your memory vault and recall the information when you need it the most.
If your game-knowledge is lacking, or you struggle to recall important information during the game, you’ll make dumb decisions and careless mistakes. And these are the kind of errors that hold you back from reaching the next level of skill.
So how can you enhance your memory storage and retrieval so that you can develop top tier game-knowledge and stop making bad choices during the game?
Well, while there are many ways to improve learning and recall, there is one particular aspect of your brain’s anatomy that already allows you to conjure vivid memories and emotions with a single trigger. And if you take advantage of this aspect of your brain’s wiring, you might just be able to enhance your memory, game-knowledge, and ultimately how good of a player you are.
NEURAL ANATOMY & TRIGGERING MEMORY
Consider an experience where you smelled something that reminded you of a specific childhood memory. Perhaps its the smell of a freshly made dish that your grandma used to make. Or maybe its the strong smell of the sea that reminds you of fishing with your dad. Suddenly you’re going through a movie reel of memories that you haven’t thought about in ages. Complete experiences come to life on the stage of your mind, with emotions and images suddenly so vivid.
How is this possible? How is it that certain smells can tap into our memories so well? How do they have so much power?
Well, this might be due to the way our brains are wired. Incoming smells are processed by the olfactory bulb, which begins in the nose and runs along the bottom of the brain. Here it directly connects to the amygdala and hippocampus, which are each critical for memory and emotion.
What’s interesting is that other sensory information like visual, auditory, and tactile input does not directly pass through these brain regions. This may be why smell is such a powerful sense when it comes to our memory.
But its also a massively underutilized memory tool that most people never really think about.
But if utilized in the right way, it can become the source of a powerful new method for accelerating your learning and recall. So how exactly can you use this to learn and remember more game-knowledge?
Well, one tactic is to actively attach new learning to specific smells. For example, if you are studying for an exam while eating an orange, the citrus scent will attach itself to the information. Then when you take that exam cutting open an orange or smelling an orange-scented perfume might trigger the information to come flooding back into your mind. This comes back to the commonly repeated phrase in neuroscience, what gets fired together gets wired together. Meaning that when certain regions of the brain are fired at the same time, they become connected. Then, when one part is stimulated, it stimulates the other area as well.
HOW DIFFERENT SCENTS AFFECT THE BRAIN
So learning, training, and performing all with a distinct smell in the room can be beneficial. But not all scents have the same effect; in fact, some research shows how certain aromas like Lavender can have a calming effect that actually reduces alertness and memory performance.
So what then is the ideal smell to enhance your brain?
All we need to do is take notes from the ancient greeks. In early Greece, students placed rosemary sprigs in their hair when studying for exams. Greek scholars frequently wore garlands of rosemary on their heads to help their memory during examinations.
At that time, there was no research to show them that this was actually helping, but they genuinely believed that their memory was enhanced with a rosemary aroma.
Modern research tested this long-standing theory by examining healthy participants in 6 factors representing different aspects of cognitive functioning. Rosemary produced a significant enhancement of overall quality of memory and secondary memory, as well as alertness. And their test scores were 15% higher than those who had been in the room with no aroma!
- https://www.researchgate.net/publication/10808709_Aromas_of_rosemary_and_lavender_essential_oils_differentially_affect_cognition_and_mood_in_healthy_adults
But is rosemary the only smell with this ability?
Well, research also shows promising results for the scent of peppermint. A study in 1990 showed that smelling peppermint essential oil enhanced alertness, focus, and concentration. And another study published 18 years later confirmed these results.
– http://67-20-110-78.unifiedlayer.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Effects-of-Olfactory-Stimulation-on-Performance-and-Stress.pdf
– http://www.dr-hatfield.com/educ538/docs/moss+2008.pdf
So these scents, in particular, might just be the key to better memory, whether studying for an exam or trying to master critical new game-knowledge.
And consider how these smells can impact your own learning and memory while actively studying new strategies and guides. Consider how amazing it would be to suddenly have more knowledge during matches, just because of a particular aroma in the air…
HOW THIS TACTIC GIVES YOU AN ADVANTAGE
To become a master at your game, you need to develop your game knowledge, like a database of information that you can pull from during the game. If your mental database is lacking, or you can’t seem to find information when you need it most, you’ll underperform and get stuck at lower levels.
But by taking advantage of a powerful human sense, you can begin to build that mental database more effectively.
Simply study specific aspects of game-knowledge with certain essential oils diffused in the air or with a scented candle burning. Specifically, the smell of peppermint or rosemary might help to activate specific areas of your brain associated with memory. And ultimately, this can help you to learn and improve faster and recall more information during games.
Now, this isn’t the key to success, but it is a statistically significant upgrade, that might give you even a 5% boost in the domain of game-knowledge.
And what’s most attractive about this is that most competitive gamers wouldn’t even consider looking into this research. So by applying this for yourself, it can give you an advantage that most will never know about, helping you get one step closer to top tier esports performance!