Memory: How to Boost It

Lots of us feel like our memories are garbage — like we’d forget our pants if they weren’t on our legs. But what if the science told us that forgetting stuff is totally normal? We dig into the weird science of why our memories work the way they do. And if we DO want better retention in our brain box, are there science-approved ways to boost our memories? We talk to cognitive neuroscientist Prof. Charan Ranganath, neuroscientist Prof. Loren Frank, and psychologist Prof. Jan Born. Find our transcript here: https://bit.ly/ScienceVsMemory Check out Charan Ranganath’s book, Why We Remember: Unlocking Memory’s Power to Hold On To What Matters: https://charanranganath.com/book/ In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Our crappy memories (03:50) Forgetting is the default (08:49) Event boundaries and how to get around them (13:30) To remember more, up the stakes (18:33) Can supplements or crosswords boost our memory? (24:00) How sleep can enhance our memory (28:48) “Downtime” as a memory hack This episode was produced by Meryl Horn, with help from Wendy Zukerman, Rose Rimler, Michelle Dang, and Ekedi Fausther-Keeys. We’re edited by Blythe Terrell. Mix and sound design by Bumi Hidaka. Fact checking by Sam Lemonick. Music written by Bumi Hidaka, Bobby Lord, and Emma Munger. Thanks to all the researchers we spoke to for this episode, including Professor Bruce Miller, Dr. Christopher Madan, Professor Joel Kramer, Professor Marc Roig, Professor Sarah Raskin, and Professor Steven DeKosky. Science Vs is a Spotify Studios Original. Listen for free on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Follow us and tap the bell for episode notifications. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Hi, I'm Wendy Zukerman and you're listening to Science Versus. So we're back with a bunch of brand new episodes. Did you miss us? We missed you. Thanks so much for joining us again. And if you like what we're doing here at Science Versus, please tell your friends about us. Share the love. All right, let's get into it.

• 0:21Speaker 00

  This is the show that pits facts against...

• 0:25Speaker 00

  Duh. Facts. Facts against memory.

• 0:36Speaker 00

  That's right, today we are pitting facts against memory.

• 0:41Speaker 00

  Because a lot of us think that our memory has gone down the toilet. Senior producer Merrill Horn got to chatting with some of our colleagues at Spotify about this.

• 0:50Speaker 01

  Do you worry about your memory?

• 0:51Speaker 02

  Oh, yes, I certainly do, yeah.

• 0:54Speaker 03

  I definitely would give it a D.

• 0:56Speaker 04

  Yes, I worry about my memory and I have for a very long time.

• 1:00Speaker 03

  It's kind of like a blurry fog, like a gauze over everything.

• 1:04Speaker 00

  And people were really noticing this in their day to day, at home.

• 1:08Speaker 02

  I certainly lose things around my house a lot more often.

• 1:11Speaker 01

  Like what?

• 1:13Speaker 02

  Just like keys, phone, glasses. And sometimes it's in the matter of like five, like five minutes. Like I put it down five minutes earlier and I'm like, where is that?

• 1:23Speaker 04

  I often forget if I've closed the garage door and I have to go back. And I have forgotten once and someone else has texted me. And so now I'm very conscious about that.

• 1:33Speaker 05

  I mean, it's definitely frustrating. It's a little embarrassing. It's a little scary because I'm like, the catastrophizing part of me is like, oh, it's all downhill from here.

• 1:46Speaker 00

  And it is so scary, this idea of losing our memory. Some of our colleagues had seen it happen to people they love, like their grandparents. And it was really hard to watch. Another person we talked to, Connor, he's the guy that keeps losing his keys. He was worried that he wouldn't be able to hold on to important memories in his life.

• 2:05Speaker 02

  It causes me concern about how that will affect the rest of my life, especially like when Luke and I, Luke, my husband, and I decide to start a family. I want to be able to, you know, like my brain to be able to capture those moments more, just better, be able to do it better.

• 2:28Speaker 00

  And so with the stakes being so high here, it's not surprising that online you'll hear people claiming to have the solution, telling you that you've got to train your brain with puzzles or giving you some secret pill or hack to save your memory.

• 2:45Speaker 06

  Struggling to remember things? Here's a brain hack that could boost your memory by 80%. Morning ritual to improve your focus and memory. If you do daily crossword puzzles, you could have a sharper brain later in life.

• 2:56Speaker 07

  There's certain nootropics and you can take those and they can enhance memory. It's not horse or snake oil or placebos, it's real.

• 3:04Speaker 00

  And the folks that we were talking to just wanted to know, is this stuff for real or not? I mean, bottom line, they had one big question for us. Can you tell me what I should do to have a better memory? So today on the show, what actually works, if anything, to improve your memory? Is there anything you can do to keep it sharp as we all get older? Because when it comes to our keys or wallets, a lot of us have been wondering, where is that? Then there's science.

• 3:38Speaker 00

  Science vs. Memory will be back just after the break.

• 3:48Speaker 00

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• 5:28Speaker 00

  Welcome back. Today, we're looking at memory. And with me is senior producer Meryl Horn. Hey, Meryl.

• 5:34Speaker 01

  Hey, Wendy.

• 5:35Speaker 00

  Do you worry about your memory? How is it?

• 5:37Speaker 01

  Mine's really bad, I think.

• 5:40Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 5:40Speaker 01

  I was thinking about this a lot for this episode. And I remembered this time when I was in college that I just forgot my PIN number for several days to this debit card. That was my main debit card that I used for years.

• 5:54Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 5:55Speaker 01

  And it was just gone one day. And then eventually it just came back to me randomly when I was in an elevator. But what was that? That feels worse than normal.

• 6:05Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah, no, that stuff has definitely happened to me as well. I'll go to do something and go, oh. Ah.

• 6:14Speaker 00

  So how worried should we be about our memories, Meryl?

• 6:19Speaker 01

  I called up Charan Ranganath, professor at the University of California, Davis, to talk about this.

• 6:24Speaker 09

  When I ask people about their memory, 90% of them say that they're terrible at memory or they have memory problems.

• 6:31Speaker 01

  What would you say to that, 90%?

• 6:33Speaker 09

  Well, what I would say is this. First of all, forgetting is the default.

• 6:39Speaker 01

  Our brain wants to forget most stuff. That's actually by design.

• 6:44Speaker 09

  What I mean by that is you experience all this stuff. At this moment, you're getting a barrage of information. A massive amount of that information is lost within just an hour of learning.

• 6:58Speaker 01

  That sounds yes.

• 7:01Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 7:02Speaker 01

  That sounds about right.

• 7:03Speaker 00

  Yeah. Forgot the end of my sentence just there. "That's normal," he's saying.

• 7:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, but that's normal. Like, OK, so like, the point of memory isn't to log everything that's happening to us, that barrage. Like, right now, there are probably things happening to you that aren't even kind of making it to your conscious awareness, right? Like, the feeling of the chair on your butt. Probably weren't even thinking about that, right?

• 7:28Speaker 00

  Right, right.

• 7:29Speaker 01

  And then there's the stuff that like makes it over that first hurdle, so you're aware of it, but the brain decides like, eh, it's not really important to store that.

• 7:37Speaker 09

  And so, memory, if you want to, you want to take a cheesy analogy, memory's basically packing for the journey of life.

• 7:46Speaker 01

  Huh.

• 7:47Speaker 09

  The brain is saying, "OK, I gotta pack some stuff. What am I gonna pack with me based on what I think I'll need in the future?" Right?

• 7:55Speaker 01

  A lot of the things I feel like I tend to forget are just really boring or like meaningless to me. Like, what was the name of the person I just met? Did I water my plants? Like, it kind of makes sense that I'd be forgetting to do these things that like I don't really give a crap about.

• 8:08Speaker 09

  Exactly. Like, imagine if you remembered every temporary password you had, right? Like, if your brain was just hoarding memories nonstop.

• 8:17Speaker 01

  And the reason the brain isn't hoarding memories nonstop is because it doesn't have infinite resources to store everything.

• 8:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:24Speaker 01

  Fun fact, Sharon told me that the power our brain operates on is roughly the same as a light bulb.

• 8:31Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 8:32Speaker 01

  But then issues pop up when our brain economizes so much that we forget stuff that we actually want to remember.

• 8:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:40Speaker 01

  And Sharon says that he forgets stuff all the time, too, just like the rest of us, like...

• 8:45Speaker 09

  Where I put my keys, where I put my phone. I lose track of conversations. Um, you know, I actually got contact lenses because I kept misplacing my glasses.

• 8:56Speaker 00

  And he's not worried about any of that.

• 8:58Speaker 01

  I mean, in the moment, he'll still get frustrated, but then he'll tell himself, "Oh, no, wait, this is normal." And he actually has scientific explanations for why we tend to forget a lot of stuff like this. So like, let's, let's start with that key thing.

• 9:13Speaker 00

  Why, there's a scientific explanation as to why we keep losing our keys?

• 9:18Speaker 01

  There is, yes. It's called interference. Basically, like, putting our keys down, it's something we do like thousands of times, countless times.

• 9:27Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 9:28Speaker 01

  And so we have a ton of memories for putting down our keys.

• 9:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:33Speaker 01

  That kind of get in the way when we're trying to remember that specific place we just put them last.

• 9:39Speaker 00

  That's right, that's right. You put them on the table, you put them on the bench, you put them in your coat pocket, winter coat pocket, jeans pocket, yes. And then when you've got to go through that boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, your memory is just like throwing out all of these ideas.

• 9:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like a needle in a haystack.

• 9:57Speaker 00

  Yes, got it, uh huh.

• 9:59Speaker 01

  And Charan says that like, rather than trying to do that at all, maybe just like buy a hook for your keys.

• 10:05Speaker 09

  Putting your keys in the same place for one thing all the time makes it a lot easier. So building that habit in.

• 10:12Speaker 00

  Everyone should have a case box. Come on, come on, we don't need a PhD for this one.

• 10:17Speaker 01

  The bigger point is, like, yeah, don't worry if you keep losing your keys. But he also talked about like this other thing that happens all the time.

• 10:26Speaker 00

  Uh huh.

• 10:26Speaker 01

  So imagine you're in your bedroom and you realize, oh, I need to get my glasses, which are in the kitchen. But then when you get to the kitchen, your mind goes blank. So this happens to Charan all the time.

• 10:41Speaker 09

  I'm thinking to myself, why am I in this kitchen?

• 10:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:44Speaker 09

  And so I'll see some chocolate, I'll eat it, or you know, I might grab, grab a bag of chips or something like that. And then I come back to the room and boom, it comes back to me, right? Now, the fact that it comes back to me says that I did have that memory, I didn't lose it, but I couldn't find it in the moment, right?

• 11:03Speaker 00

  This is so, I love this. It's so relatable, particularly the chocolate. That's exactly right. So this is also normal.

• 11:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is. And the reason that it happens is super interesting. And it's all about how our memories are tied to the specific place where they're being created. So like, right now, we're talking. You're in your office, it looks like.

• 11:29Speaker 00

  Yes, yes.

• 11:30Speaker 01

  So like, you know, there's all this stuff happening. We're having this conversation. Maybe there's like birds chirping outside or, you know, emails dinging. And your, your brain is kind of processing all this as it's happening. And then at some point, you'll leave your office. And at that moment, your brain will be like, and scene. There's like a little reset that happens. And when you go into the next room, a new scene begins. And so in between each of the rooms is this boundary, right? We call it an event boundary. Cause there's like a boundary between two different events. And scientists think there is a flurry of activity in the brain at these transitions, at these event boundaries.

• 12:13Speaker 00

  When you leave a room or leave your house, or when you leave a scene, you can almost see the camera in your mind clicking to take a photo, to, to create a memory.

• 12:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:28Speaker 00

  And so to tie this back into why, when you leave one room and go into the kitchen, you totally forget what you were doing. That's because you, like a memory ended and now you're in the middle of a new memory and it's hard to get back?

• 12:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. Here's how Charon described it.

• 12:49Speaker 09

  I have to mentally time travel back and I have to leap across these different rooms, basically in my mind, to get back to this moment in time and remember what happened.

• 13:01Speaker 01

  And I, then I realized, oh, actually, event boundaries. This can explain a lot of my day to day forgetting. So this is why every time I go into my bathroom, I'm like, oh, I really need to order more lotion. Like this bottle has been empty for like weeks. I'd leave the bathroom and forget about it immediately. And then the next time I'm in the bathroom, I'm like, oh, right, the lotion. I should probably just order the lotion in the bathroom, is what I'm learning by saying this out loud.

• 13:26Speaker 09

  Yes, exactly. Isn't that great? You've already learned something today that you need to get lotion.

• 13:32Speaker 09

  So yeah, that's and this is one of the hardest things that the brain has to do is remembering to do something in the future. Because once the future comes, that context is different. And so how do you remember it later on? It's a miracle that we ever do this properly, right?

• 13:49Speaker 01

  And knowing what he knows now about memory, Charan gave me some advice. He was like, try doing a little prep work before you leave the room to set your brain up for success.

• 14:01Speaker 09

  So if I want to remember what I need to do in the kitchen, what I really should do is imagine myself in the kitchen.

• 14:10Speaker 01

  Oh, while you're still in your office.

• 14:12Speaker 09

  While I'm still in my office, imagine myself in the kitchen. And imagine myself basically finding my glasses and being happy that I found my glasses, right?

• 14:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:23Speaker 09

  So what's really fascinating about that is I planted a memory. I've sort of done an inception thing where I've sort of implanted a memory in myself. So that later on, when I walk into the kitchen, that memory just pops up again, right? And that's basically the smart way of doing it, which I never do.

• 14:40Speaker 01

  Because you forget to do that.

• 14:42Speaker 09

  I forget to do that, exactly.

• 14:45Speaker 01

  I have actually remembered to try this and it worked.

• 14:48Speaker 00

  What did you do?

• 14:49Speaker 01

  I just was in the kitchen and was thinking I need to send an email when I get back to my office. And so I just imagined sending the email. And then I remembered to send the email when I got back to my office.

• 14:59Speaker 00

  Whoa.

• 15:02Speaker 01

  And there are other tips too for trying to remember things that are science backed. So actually Wendy, I'm curious, like, do you have specific things that you're trying to get better at remembering?

• 15:14Speaker 00

  I guess something that really annoys me about my memory is that I can't learn Spanish faster. And words that I knew in Spanish then are lost to me and I wish I could hold on to them.

• 15:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, I relate to that. Um, okay, so I have a trick for you.

• 15:31Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 15:33Speaker 01

  What's a word that you want to learn in Spanish?

• 15:36Speaker 00

  Oh, um, 99.9% of the Spanish language.

• 15:45Speaker 00

  What about a phrase, a phrase I would like?

• 15:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's good.

• 15:50Speaker 00

  Okay, what about, um, "that's so funny"?

• 15:55Speaker 01

  Okay, okay, so what's your guess for how to say that?

• 16:00Speaker 00

  Oh, "este muy divertido" or something? Oh, sorry to anyone who speaks any language. What is it?

• 16:12Speaker 01

  Okay, so the answer is, and this is, I need to check this because this is just Google.

• 16:18Speaker 00

  Do you want me to call my mom?

• 16:19Speaker 01

  Sure, yeah, yeah, let's get the real answer. I didn't know your mom spoke Spanish.

• 16:23Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, she's Peruvian.

• 16:24Speaker 01

  And you still don't?

• 16:25Speaker 00

  I know, can talk to my mom about it.

• 16:30Speaker 00

  Hey, hey, Wowie. Hi, we're recording a Science vs. Episode. How do you say "that's so funny" in Spanish?

• 16:39Speaker 10

  Esto.

• 16:39Speaker 00

  Esto?

• 16:41Speaker 10

  Es.

• 16:41Speaker 00

  Es.

• 16:43Speaker 10

  Muy.

• 16:43Speaker 00

  Muy.

• 16:45Speaker 10

  Chistoso.

• 16:46Speaker 00

  Esto es muy chistoso. All right, love you, love you, gracias.

• 16:53Speaker 10

  De nada.

• 16:54Speaker 00

  Love you, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye.

• 16:58Speaker 01

  All right.

• 16:59Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 17:00Speaker 01

  Esto es muy chistoso.

• 17:03Speaker 00

  Esto es muy chistoso, okay, okay.

• 17:06Speaker 01

  Okay, so what we just did will make for a stronger memory than if I had just told you, "Oh, it's esto es muy chistoso", like, without making you guess first.

• 17:17Speaker 00

  Okay, just making me guess it, okay, okay.

• 17:20Speaker 01

  So remember what you tried to guess, like, oh, is it?

• 17:22Speaker 00

  Divertido or something like that, yes, yes, yes.

• 17:24Speaker 01

  That was wrong.

• 17:25Speaker 00

  Right.

• 17:25Speaker 01

  But it doesn't really matter that it was wrong. It's like just the fact that you made a guess at all before finding out the right answer really helps make a better memory for it.

• 17:35Speaker 00

  Interesting, why is that?

• 17:36Speaker 01

  Well, one scientist I talked to said that he thinks it's like upping the stakes emotionally because like if I had just told you, "Here's the answer", you'd be like, "Oh, okay", but if I ask you first and then you kind of struggle with it and then I'm like, "You're wrong, it's this instead", then you like give more of a crap about what the real answer is. So your brain is more likely to like log that memory as importance because, you know, generally, we're more likely to remember stuff. That's happened if it's made like an emotional impact on us.

• 18:09Speaker 00

  Esto es muy interesante.

• 18:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, see.

• 18:15Speaker 01

  And it also helps if you want, you could write it down after you learn it. Like handwriting is actually, we think, better than typing.

• 18:23Speaker 00

  Right, okay.

• 18:23Speaker 01

  And by the way, I asked Charan about those people who seem to have like amazing memories, who are like winning memory competitions.

• 18:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 18:33Speaker 01

  So how do they do it? Are their brains just magical?

• 18:36Speaker 09

  No, most of the research suggests that their brains aren't magical. But a big part of it is really learning skills.

• 18:44Speaker 01

  So like one skill they'll often learn is how to put information they need to memorize into a memory palace, which is kind of like imagining a place that you're really familiar with, and then like putting different information into like different rooms. And this kind of thing works. It's sort of helping your brain create a story around information to make it more meaningful.

• 19:06Speaker 00

  Right, yes, because we know from many years at Science Versus is people don't remember random information as well as they remember anecdotes and stories.

• 19:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:17Speaker 00

  You're just harnessing this fact.

• 19:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. And the other hack you might have heard of is turning something into a song. That's been used for centuries, and there is research that says, yeah, this, this works.

• 19:30Speaker 00

  That's great. Okay, well, this has been a very optimistic first half. I do feel better about my memory. I guess it would still be great to just have a better memory in general.

• 19:43Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 19:44Speaker 00

  So are there bigger things we can be doing here?

• 19:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, like is there anything that can boost our memory in general for everything?

• 19:51Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 19:52Speaker 01

  Rather than having to use all these like piecemeal hacks?

• 19:54Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 19:55Speaker 01

  I did actually find something that can do that, which I'll tell you about after the break.

• 20:08Speaker 11

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• 20:50Speaker 11

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• 21:30Speaker 11

  Call 1-800-545-5979, or visit zepbound.lily.com.

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• 24:11Speaker 00

  Welcome back today on the show. How we can boost our memory. Meryl, where do we go next?

• 24:17Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, there's tons of things that people say can boost our memories. Let's start with supplements because there's this like parade of supplements going around the podcast circuit and, you know, there's big influencers who are into them, sometimes selling them.

• 24:35Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 24:35Speaker 01

  And so I wanted to look at the science and I actually found this really big review that came out recently that's sort of perfect for answering this.

• 24:43Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 24:44Speaker 01

  So what they did is they looked at a ton of different supplements that are supposedly good for memory, over 100 of them. And then they looked at the most common ingredients, like the stuff that just popped up again and again and again.

• 24:56Speaker 00

  Great.

• 24:56Speaker 01

  To find out whether anything really works. And there were some things that had a little bit of evidence behind them. So there's this chemical called curcumin. It's the thing that's in turmeric.

• 25:09Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 25:09Speaker 01

  And that's actually been found to help a little bit with something called working memory, which is kind of your ability to like keep things in your head at the moment, like remembering what I just said a few seconds ago. But it doesn't seem like it really helped for other types of memory.

• 25:27Speaker 00

  Uh huh. Interesting that it works at all because turmeric has been on the superfood list for years now and I have always wondered if it was all garbage, but there is a little bit of evidence behind it.

• 25:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was surprised too. I was like, maybe there's something there.

• 25:43Speaker 00

  Uh huh.

• 25:45Speaker 01

  And then I wanted to mention one other one called phosphatidylserine. Trying to mention this other one. Phosphatidylserine.

• 25:55Speaker 00

  Phosphatidylserine.

• 25:57Speaker 01

  Phosphatidylserine.

• 25:58Speaker 00

  Uh huh.

• 25:59Speaker 01

  You'll find it in some of these supplements also. And there are a couple of trials suggesting that it can help with memory, like for some people.

• 26:08Speaker 00

  What does it do? What is it doing?

• 26:10Speaker 01

  It's actually part of the membrane that's in our neurons. So like the outer envelope of our neurons have phosphatidylserine in it. So it kind of makes sense that like, maybe it could work.

• 26:23Speaker 00

  Uh huh.

• 26:24Speaker 01

  So like, those two were like the cream of the crop that this review found.

• 26:29Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 26:30Speaker 01

  For a lot of the other stuff in this pills, there's either like mixed evidence for it, or you know, nothing at all, or like really tiny crappy studies.

• 26:39Speaker 00

  Okay, so you know, you want to put a little turmeric on your dinner, go for it. But what else do we have here? Does stuff like crossword puzzles work? I mean, a lot of people think crosswords help with memory, right?

• 26:56Speaker 01

  Yes, I feel like we all hear this, so I looked into that. And there are actually a couple of studies on this.

• 27:02Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 27:03Speaker 01

  So they'll typically gather a bunch of people in their 70s and 80s and ask them, "Okay, who does crossword puzzles?"

• 27:12Speaker 00

  Right.

• 27:12Speaker 01

  And then they'll track them for years and see who gets dementia. And

• 27:18Speaker 00

  Right, great.

• 27:19Speaker 01

  They find that actually like there might be a benefit here. The people who say that they do crosswords are less likely to get dementia. Or maybe they'll get it a few years later than the people who weren't doing the crossword puzzles.

• 27:31Speaker 00

  Uh huh.

• 27:32Speaker 01

  Like they'll have more years of good memory.

• 27:36Speaker 00

  Okay, okay.

• 27:38Speaker 01

  But there are a couple of big caveats here. One is that these studies also find a benefit for other stuff too. It's not just crossword puzzles, like reading the newspaper, knitting, cooking, like a bunch of stuff that sort of just uses the brain, has also been linked to a lower chance for dementia.

• 27:59Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 28:00Speaker 01

  And then the other caveat is that it could just be that the people who have a better memory in the first place are doing more crosswords.

• 28:09Speaker 00

  Mm hmm. Their memory was already better, and so they kept doing it. Versus someone like me, who I get very frustrated because I'm terrible at crossword puzzles. It's like, don't do them. My memory already kind of sucks.

• 28:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:23Speaker 00

  We don't know if the if the crossword was causing the improvement or just.

• 28:28Speaker 01

  Exactly, or if it was just the people who already had a better memory were doing crossword puzzles. Like, there are some clinical trials on crosswords and brain training games in general, but those are all kind of a mess. Like, it's hard to tell from those if there is a real benefit to this kind of puzzle.

• 28:46Speaker 00

  So, bottom line, Meryl, are you going to be doing more crossword puzzles?

• 28:50Speaker 01

  No, I'm also terrible at them.

• 28:53Speaker 00

  OK.

• 28:54Speaker 01

  So, but let's talk about something that's maybe not as sexy as a crossword puzzle. Sleep.

• 29:02Speaker 00

  Oh, no. It's even like, it's even less sexy than a crossword puzzle.

• 29:08Speaker 01

  Sleep is cool, I guess, in its own way.

• 29:11Speaker 00

  We're talking about sleep. I just like, I just like, couldn't imagine anything less sexy than a crossword puzzle. And then you're like, let's talk about something a little less sexy than crossword puzzles. I was like, what? A long division? Like, I want to.

• 29:26Speaker 01

  Is sleep sexier than a crossword puzzle? Am I wrong about this?

• 29:30Speaker 00

  I think sleep is sexier than a crossword puzzle.

• 29:32Speaker 01

  Oh, great, then let's go to something much sexier than a crossword puzzle. Sleep.

• 29:39Speaker 00

  So, sleep, the hack?

• 29:41Speaker 01

  OK.

• 29:41Speaker 00

  The hack for our memories?

• 29:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, so there are tons of studies on sleep and memory. I wanted to tell you about this particular one that I found, just because it was so weird.

• 29:51Speaker 00

  Uh huh.

• 29:52Speaker 01

  It was done by Jan Born at the University of Tubingen in Germany. So, here's what they did.

• 29:57Speaker 00

  OK.

• 29:58Speaker 01

  They got around 30 people into a lab at night and had them read something. Kind of a bedtime story?

• 30:07Speaker 14

  Stories, short texts, kind of describing, for example, a murderer of a child. Yeah, very cruel.

• 30:17Speaker 00

  Oh, Jesus.

• 30:18Speaker 01

  It sounds like it would be pretty intense.

• 30:20Speaker 14

  Yes, it is intense, definitely.

• 30:23Speaker 01

  And, you know, part of the reason they chose with this was because they wanted people to really be paying attention to the thing they were reading. And they figured, like, all this to do that.

• 30:32Speaker 00

  OK.

• 30:33Speaker 01

  But so then they moved on to the sleep part of the study. So after reading this story, they either had people sleep for a few hours or they had them stay awake. Okay. And then they tested them to see how good their memories were for the thing that they just read. And the sleep made a difference.

• 30:52Speaker 14

  And you find an immediate enhancing effect of sleep on the memory for these stories?

• 30:57Speaker 01

  But what really caught my eye about this study was what happened next. So the researchers then waited four years and then called up some of the same people to ask them what they could remember. And you just called them up out of the blue?

• 31:12Speaker 14

  They were out of the blue, yes. Yes, they were not prepared.

• 31:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, what did they find? Did the people who had slept remember more four years later? Yeah, the people who had read that type of story still remembered it better than the people who didn't sleep during that original study four years ago. That is crazy. And since then, we've had other studies finding that like, yes, sleep does enhance all different types of memory, not just reading this kind of emotionally traumatic stuff, but it can even help with motor memories. So like learning how to do a new skill with your body. And it's not a small effect either. Like, you'd probably notice it. Hmm. Roughly how many studies have now found that if you sleep right after learning something, your memory for it is better? Are there like a dozen, more than a dozen?

• 31:59Speaker 14

  Oh, no, thousands of studies.

• 32:01Speaker 01

  Whoa.

• 32:01Speaker 14

  It's incredible, the amount of research. Yeah, provides you with a safe feeling. Yeah, this is true. Sleep consolidates memory.

• 32:09Speaker 01

  We really know this by now.

• 32:11Speaker 14

  Yes, I think this is for sure, yeah.

• 32:14Speaker 01

  And on the flip side, we do think that getting crappy sleep is a risk factor for dementia and Alzheimer's disease. And do we know why sleep is so important for memory? Well, one reason has to do with like how our brains make memories in the first place. Uh huh. So like, let me just nerd out to you a little bit of that for a second. Please. It's really cool. So after we have an experience, we think that our brains will replay little bits of it after it happens.

• 32:44Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 32:44Speaker 01

  I talked about this with Professor Lauren Frank. He studies memory at the University of California, San Francisco. So like after we have this conversation, we'll both have little da-da-da, like sections of it kind of flying through our brains unconsciously for the rest of the day?

• 32:59Speaker 15

  We think so, yes, right? And then some of those might become conscious, many of them are probably unconscious. But if the conversation makes a big impact on you, yes, it comes back.

• 33:09Speaker 00

  That's cool. That is so cool.

• 33:11Speaker 01

  Right? Like, we can see these things happening in the brain.

• 33:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:15Speaker 01

  And we think these events, these replay events, are important for consolidating memories into kind of long-term memories.

• 33:23Speaker 00

  Aha.

• 33:26Speaker 01

  But to take this all back to that sexy place we started, sleep, this really matters because we know a lot of these replay events are happening then, during sleep. Like, we can actually see these replay events happening in rat brains while they're sleeping.

• 33:43Speaker 00

  We can see in the rats the doo-doo-doo-doo, doo-doo-doo-doo, doo-doo-doo.

• 33:47Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. So yeah, all this started kind of getting to me because I actually have not been sleeping great, so I talked to Lauren about that.

• 33:54Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 33:55Speaker 01

  As I've been learning about this, it just makes me feel kind of crappy because I have a two-year-old who just wakes up multiple times a night still.

• 34:02Speaker 15

  Yes.

• 34:03Speaker 01

  And so I just kind of feel like, oh, it's not just me, my memory is completely screwed? Like, how bad is this?

• 34:08Speaker 15

  No, I mean, we're, that's it. We're amazingly flexible beasts, right? So that we can adapt. You are clearly a highly functioning individual, despite the fact that you have a two-year-old who wakes you up all the time. But you will probably be a more functional individual in a couple of years.

• 34:23Speaker 00

  Something to look forward to.

• 34:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, I can't wait.

• 34:26Speaker 00

  So, okay, so before the break, you promised us a thing to boost all of our memories, and that is sleep. We have to sleep?

• 34:35Speaker 01

  We know that really helps, yes, for sure. But that's not the only thing, because it is annoying when you get that advice and you can't actually control your sleep, right? So I asked Lauren, like, what else we got? And he said that actually, there is other stuff we can do because sleep isn't the only time we see those replay events.

• 34:56Speaker 00

  Uh huh.

• 34:57Speaker 01

  We also think that our brains can strengthen memories when we're just kind of like hanging out, not doing much.

• 35:04Speaker 15

  You could just take a walk, anything that's kind of less of this constant stimulation that you're trying to pay attention to, less of, you know, people talk about the constant dopamine hits of, oh, look, here's something new exciting on the phone, right? So something where you can just be for a little while and let your brain process.

• 35:22Speaker 01

  We know that if you try to learn something new and then you just relax for a bit, it can also help cement your memory. So a big review of these studies found that wakeful rest after learning something new can improve memory.

• 35:37Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 35:39Speaker 01

  And so like now it's kind of making me change the way I think about just like, oh, if I'm taking a little walk, maybe my brain is kind of working behind the scenes to do all this stuff that's helping my memory get better. And so I'm kind of trying to let that happen more rather than constantly be like shoving my phone in my face.

• 35:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, and shoving more things in your brain, but actually letting it have that downtime.

• 36:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. And another thing that you hear a lot is about the power of exercise, that that can really help your memory too.

• 36:09Speaker 00

  Uh huh.

• 36:09Speaker 01

  The truth is, exercise is definitely good for the brain, but rather than it being like a silver bullet for memory specifically, it's more like if you generally want to feel like mentally sharper, you should definitely exercise. Like doing exercise in your 40s and 50s can kind of create a like buffer against cognitive decline when we age.

• 36:33Speaker 00

  Hmm. Also, exercise helps you sleep, so all comes back around.

• 36:37Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 36:37Speaker 00

  Right. Okay, so here is what I have learned. If I can remember it. Um, a bunch of the things that we do day to day and maybe think it's a sign that we're losing our mind and our memories are actually totally normal. Things like leaving a room, walking into another one and forgetting why you were there, forgetting where you put your keys. This is just part of how memory works.

• 37:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:08Speaker 00

  But if you are still worried about your memory and you'd like to improve it, one of the best things you could do is to get more sleep.

• 37:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:17Speaker 00

  And barring that, give your brain a bit of downtime.

• 37:21Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 37:23Speaker 01

  And one more final piece of advice from Charan that I really loved, which is basically that like, if you wanna make your brain think something is important enough to remember, then you gotta like pay attention to it in the first place. Here's what I asked him. I just had this really nice picnic last weekend with my family and I was thinking it would be like really nice to be able to like hold on to that memory in as much detail for the rest of my life, ideally. Is there a way I could use one of these hacks to like cement this memory into my brain?

• 37:56Speaker 09

  What you really need to do in that moment is pay attention to the details. Really immerse yourself as almost as a mindful observer into the sights and the sounds and the feelings of what's happening in that moment.

• 38:13Speaker 01

  Like while I'm living it, that's the first step.

• 38:14Speaker 09

  While you're living it, while you're living it. And lock on to anything that makes this moment unique.

• 38:21Speaker 00

  Well, that's just lovely advice in general, right? When you're having a beautiful moment, just focus on it, live it. Um, so thanks, Meryl.

• 38:31Speaker 01

  Thanks, Wendy.

• 38:32Speaker 00

  So how many citations are in this week's episode?

• 38:34Speaker 01

  We have forty five citations.

• 38:37Speaker 00

  Excellent. And if people wanna find them and read more about memory, science of memory, where should they go?

• 38:43Speaker 01

  They can go to our transcripts. Uh, you can find links for it in the show notes. And then also definitely check out Charan's book. Why We Remember is really, really good. Highly recommend that.

• 38:54Speaker 00

  Great. And if people wanna let us know what they thought of the episode, you can find us on science underscore V S. I am on TikTok at Wendy Zook. See you, Meryl.

• 39:11Speaker 01

  This episode was produced by me, Meryl Horn, with help from Wendy Zukerman, Rose Rimler, Michelle Dang, and Aketi Foster-Keez. We're edited by Blythe Terrell. Mix and sound design by Boomi Hidaka. Fact checking by Sam Lemonick. Music written by Boomi Hidaka, Bobby Lord, and Emma Munger. Thanks to all the researchers we spoke to for this episode, including Professor Bruce Miller, Dr. Christopher Madden, Professor Joel Kramer, Professor Mark Roy, Professor Sarah Raskin, and Professor Stephen Dekoski. Science Versus is a Spotify Studios original. Listen for free on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you are listening on Spotify, follow us and tap the bell for episode notifications.

• 40:02Speaker 16

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• 40:30Speaker 17

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