Reddit reviews Your Miracle Brain: Maximize Your Brainpower, Boost Your Memory, Lift Your Mood, Improve Your IQ and Creativity, Prevent and Reverse Mental Aging

Maybe your problem isnt all the presented techniques for improving memory but something even more simple. Memory is just a part of your body just like memory is apart of the computers you are learning about. If you have a bad computer with tons of memory it will do you no good. What I am getting at here is that one of the easiest ways to improve memory is diet and exercise. Improve your body and brain physically instead of just doing it mentally. I bet that eating better (balanced diet/vitamins/supplements) with exercise will get you better results early on than learning mental processes. I'd recommend a book called Your Miracle Brain by Jean Carper to get you started on healthy brain development.

I bet they were either up doing flash cards or reading this book over and over and over again.