how does story listening and telling improve

 

Memory?

 

Telling stories – and listening to stories can change ways of thinking.   When a picture is re-created in the mind’s eye, it means that we are paying attention and concentrating, and visualisation is one of the powerful aids to setting down memory.

 

WE FORGET for many reasons.

ó           Our filing systems get overloaded.   We have many things to remember, and sometimes we don’t file memories away with adequately tagged folders.

ó           We don’t always concentrate on the filing systems.

ó           Our lives get a bit disorganised, and the time factor may influence concentration.

ó           Of course, some things we do not want to remember.

ó           Either the sender or the receiver of the message has problems.

 

SENDER.  

ó           May not communicate the message well—unclear language, diction, sentence structure.  Perhaps body language is incongruent.

RECEIVER. 

ó           May not understand the message because of medication, nutritional problems—(high blood sugar, protein and vitamin deficiencies)

ó           May have concentration problems because of medication, depression, stress, loneliness, anxiety, or a physical disease process.

ó           May have sensory impairments—vision, hearing.

 

So, while story listening cannot solve all those ‘forgetting’ problems, listening to story can help a few.  

ó           Reviving the past.

ó           Freeing emotions

ó           Relieving stress

ó           Increasing problem solving strategies.

ó           Focuses concentration

 

REVIVING THE PAST.

This strategy is probably self-evident.  Words trigger mind pictures. Once forgotten names, events, costume, culture and people emerge.  Also stories retold bring back an earlier life.

 

 

FREEING EMOTIONS.

There are many things that have been submerged, not too deeply buried, within the emotions, and that maybe could be revisited in the daylight.  Hearing story of similar happenings, trauma, people that have been in the past, allows these emotions space to come out—or stay submerged.  I am not talking about some kind of therapy—–just a realisation that some things we wanted to forget, once, have no real relevance in today.

 

STRESS.

Why do we forget when we are under pressure?          With continued, unrelieved stress, high levels of the hormone cortisone are found in the body.  This hormone releases large amounts of glucose into the blood stream – which is fine, if it is needed to run or fight.  However, long term high blood glucose can affect the brain and other physiological mechanisms, which, in turn affects not only memory, but the ability to process new information. Although there are many ways to deal with stress and anxiety, active listening to story allows the brain waves to revert from high energy patterns to the more soporific patterns of alpha and theta.

 

CREATIVE THINKING AND PROBLEM-SOLVING

Insights abound when the brain settles.  Many new discoveries and ideas have happened in this state—either in a meditative state or a state bordering on sleep. Active listening to story allows the mind to create its own landscapes and characters, drawing on the imagination—making of images—to fix the words, idea of the story in memory, and also to allow other insights to colour the picture.

 

FOCUSSING CONCENTRATION

Active listening can be encouraged by the use of posters, 3-D focus (props—costume) ‘active concert’ and sound enhancement.  If the stories are short, succinct, and appropriate concentration is less apt to wander.

 

Of course, in common with other activities, 

story listening creates a sense of community from shared experience, stimulates conversation, provides information, and is certainly  enjoyable, relaxing and

 FUN!