Do our brains get full?

Our brains can store an amazing amount of information. It can store more information than we will ever learn in a lifetime. So, when you’re having trouble learning something, it’s not because your brain is full!

To understand why it might seem like your brain is full, think of the information you’re trying to learn like laundry. Think about it like this: You have all your clothes, and you try to stuff them all into a drawer in a jumble. Now, imagine you carefully fold all your clothes, neatly arranging them into your drawer. You’ll be able to fit a lot more clothes into your drawer when they’re folded, arranged, and organized. You’ll also be better at finding the clothes you want later!

You can think about information in the brain the same way. If you’re trying to store a bunch of disorganized information, it will be harder for you than if you are able to organize it. That’s one of the reasons why it works so well to put information you’re trying to remember into a song (like the ABCs), or into a sentence (like remembering the planets with the sentence “My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Us Nachos”). The songs and sentences organize information that would otherwise just be a jumble in your mind!

It turns out that the more you learn in a subject, the easier it can become to learn more information in that subject. That’s because you also learn how to organize the information!