Science Vs - Memory: How to Boost It

Episode Date: September 4, 2025

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 psychologist 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 Madden, 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

Hi, I'm Wendy Zuckerman and you're listening to Science Verses, 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 Verses, please tell your friends about us, share the love. All right, let's get into it. This is the show that pits facts against... Facts... Facts against... memory. That's right.

Today, we are pitting facts against memory. 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. Do you worry about your memory? Oh, yes. I certainly do, yeah. I definitely would give it a D. Yes, I worry about my memory.

and I have for a very long time. It's kind of like a blurry fog, like a gauze over everything. And people were really noticing this in their day-to-day at home. I certainly lose things around that house a lot more often. Like what?

Just like keys, phone, glasses. And sometimes it's in the matter of like five minutes. Like I put it down five minutes earlier and I'm like, where is that? 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. 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 it's like, oh, it's all downhill from here. 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. 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. 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. 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. There's certain neutropics, and you can take those and they can enhance memory. It's not horseshs or snake oil or placebos. It's real. 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 wallet, a lot of us have been wondering, Where is that? Then there's science. Science versus memory, we'll be back just after the break. You get access to exclusive dining experiences and an annual travel credit So the best hapice in town Might be in a new town altogether

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Eligibility restrictions apply. See Golden Nuggett Casino.com for details. Please play responsibly. Welcome back. Today, we're looking at memory. And with me is senior producer Beryl Horne. Hey, Beryl. Hey, Wendy. Do you worry about your memory? How is it? Mine's really bad, I think. Oh. I was thinking about this a lot for this episode. And I remembered this time when I was in college that I just like forgot my pin number for like several days to this debit card. That was like my main debit card that used for years. Oh, yeah. And it was just like gone. one day, and then eventually just came back to me randomly when I was, like, in an elevator.

But, like, what was that? Like, that feels worse than normal. Yeah. Yeah, no, that stuff has definitely happened to me as well. I'll go to do something and go, oh. Oh. So how worried should we be about our memories, Meryl? I called up Charon Ranganoff, professor at the University of California, Davis, to talk about this.

When I ask people about their memory, 90% of them say that they're terrible at memory or they have memory problems. What would you say to that 90%? Well, what I would say is this. First of all, forgetting is the default. Our brain wants to forget most stuff. That's actually by design. 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. That sounds, yes. That's right. That sounds about right. Yeah. So I got the end of my sentence just there. That's normal, he's saying.

Yeah, but that's normal. Like, okay, 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? Right, right. 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. And so memory, if you want to, you want to take a cheesy analogy, memory is basically packing for the journey of life. Huh. The brain is saying, okay, I got to pack some stuff. What am I going to pack with me based on what I think? I'll need in the future, right? 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, kind of makes sense that I'd be forgetting to do these things that, like, I don't really give a crap about. Exactly. Like, imagine if you remembered every temporary password you have, right? Like, if your brain was just hoarding memories nonstop.

And the reason the brain isn't hoarding memories nonstop is because it doesn't have infinite resources to store everything. Yeah. Fun facts, Charin told me that the power our brain operates on is roughly the same as a light bulb. Oh. But then issues pop up when our brain economizes so much that we forget stuff that we actually want to remember. Yeah. And Charin says that he forgets stuff all the time too, just like the rest of us. Like where I put my keys, where I put my phone. I lose track of conversations. You know, I actually got contact lenses because I kept misplacing my glasses. And he's not worried about any of that. 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 start with that key thing. There's a scientific explanation as to why we keep losing our keys. There is. Yes. It's called interference. Basically, like putting our keys down, it's something we do like thousands of times, countless times. Yes. And so we have a ton of memories for putting down our keys. Yeah. That kind of get in the way when we're trying to remember that specific place, we just put them last. 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. Your memory is just, like, throwing out all of these ideas. Yeah, it's like a needle and a haystack. Yes, got it. Uh-huh.

And Charon says that, like, rather than trying to do that at all, maybe just, like, buy a hook for your keys. Putting your keys in the same place for one thing all the time makes it a lot easier. So building that habit in... Everyone should have a key spot. Come on, come on. We don't need a PhD for this one. 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. Uh-huh. 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 charon all the time. I'm thinking of myself, why am I in this kitchen? Yeah. And so I'll see some chocolate.

I'll eat it or, you know, I might 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? This is so, I love this. It's so relatable, particularly the chocolate. That's exactly right. So this is also normal.

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, looks like. Yes, yes. 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 brain is kind of processing. All this is 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, because there's like a boundary between two different events. And scientists think there's a flurry of activity in the brain at these transitions, at these event boundaries. 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 create a memory. Yeah. 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? Yeah, here's how Charon described it. 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. And 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. Yes, exactly. Isn't that great? You've already learned something today that you need to get lotion.

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? And knowing what he knows now about memory, Charon 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. 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. while you're still in your office. 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? Yeah.

So what's really fascinating about that is I've 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.

Because you forget to do that. As I forget to do that, exactly. I have actually remembered to try this, and it worked. What did you do? 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. Whoa.

And there are other tips, too, for trying to remember things that are science-backed. Okay. Actually, Wendy, I'm curious, like, do you have specific things that you're trying to get better at remembering? 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 than are lost to me. And I wish I could hold on to them. Yeah, I relate to that. Okay, so I have a trick for you.

Okay. What's a word that you want to learn in Spanish? Oh. Um, 99.9% of the Spanish language. Um, what about a phrase? A phrase I would like. Yeah, that's good. Okay. What about, um, that's so funny. Okay. Okay, so what's your guess for how to say that?

Oh, this is very, um, divertido or something? Oh, sorry. to anyone who speaks any language. What is it? Okay, so the answer is, and this is, I need to check this because this is just Google. Do you want me to call my mom? Sure, yeah, yeah.

Let's get the real answer. I don't know your mom spoke Spanish. Oh, yeah, she's Peruvian. And you still don't. I know. I can talk to my mom about it. Hey, whoaie. Hi, we're recording a science vests episode.

How do you say that's so funny in Spanish? This is very chistoso. This is very chistoso. All right. Love you. Love it. Thank you. De lairro.

Let me, love you. Bye, blah, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye. All right. Okay. This is very chistoso. This is very chistoso. Okay, okay. Okay, so what we just did will make for a stronger memory than if I had just told you,

oh, it's estuess me chisoso, like, without making you guess first. Okay, just making me guess it. Okay, okay. So remember, you tried to guess like, oh, is it? I said divotido or something like that. Yes, it says. That was wrong. Right.

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. Interesting. Why is that? Well, one scientist I talked to said that he thinks it's like uping the stakes emotionally. Because like if I had just told you, here's the answer, you'd be like, 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. This is very interesting. Yeah, see. 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. Right. Okay. And by the way, I asked Charon about those people who seem to have like amazing memories who are like winning memory competitions. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So how do they do it? Are their brains just magical?

No, most of the research suggests that their brains aren't magical, but a big part of it is really learning skills. 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. Right, yes, because we know from many years at Science Versus, people don't remember random information as well as they remember anecdotes and stories. Yeah. You're just harnessing this fact. Yeah. And the other hack you might have heard of

is turning something into a song. That's been used for centuries. And there's research that says, yeah, this works. That's great. Okay, well, this has been a very optimistic. Mystic first half. I do feel better about my memory. I guess it would still be great to just have a better memory in general. So are there bigger things we can be doing here? Yeah. Like is there anything that can boost our memory in general for everything rather than having to use all these like piecemeal

hacks? Yes. I did actually find something that can do that. Which I'll tell you about after the break. You can get protein at home, or a protein latte at Tim's. No powders, no blenders, no shakers. Starting at 17 grams per medium latte, Tim's new protein lattes, protein without all the work, at participating restaurants in Canada. At Grey Goose, we believe that pleasure is a necessity. That's why we craft the world's number one premium vodka in France, using only three of the finest natural ingredients.

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with Stellist Lenses for Myopia Control. Learn more at SLR.com and ask your family eye care professional for SLR Stellist Lenses at your child's next visit. Oh, hi, buddy. Who's the best you are? I wish I could spend all day with you instead.

Uh, Dave, you're off mute. Hey, happens to the best of us. Enjoy some goldfish cheddar crackers. Goldfish have short memories. Be like goldfish. Welcome back today on the show. How we can boost our memory. Merrill, where do we go next?

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

Okay. So what they did is they looked at a ton of different supplements that are supposedly good for memory over a hundred of them. And then they looked at the most common ingredients, like the stuff that just popped up again and again and again. Great. To find out whether anything really works. And there were some things that had a little bit of evidence behind them. Uh-huh. So there's this chemical called curcumin.

It's the thing that's in turmeric. Yes. 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. 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. Yeah, I was surprised too. It was like maybe there's something there. Uh-huh. And then I wanted to mention one other one called phosphatidyl serene. Try to mention this other one. Phosphatil serene. Phosphatidyl serene. Phosphatidyl serene. You'll find it in some of these supplements also. And there are a couple of trials suggesting that it can help with the memory, like for some people. What does it do?

What is it doing? It's actually part of the membrane that's in our neurons. So like the outer envelope of our neurons have phosphatidyl serine in it. So it kind of makes sense that like maybe it could work. Uh-huh. So like those two were like the cream of the crop that this review. found. Okay. 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. 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? Yes, I feel like we all hear this. So I looked into that. And there are actually a couple studies on this. Yes. So they'll typically gather a bunch of people in their 70s and 80s and ask them, okay, who does crossword puzzles? Right. And then they'll track them for years and see who gets dementia. And 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. Uh-huh. Like, they'll have more years of good memory. Okay. Okay. 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. 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. 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 and so I don't do them. My memory already kind of sucks. Yeah. We don't know if the... if the crossword was causing the improvement, or just... 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. So, bottom line, merrily, you're going to be doing more crossword puzzles? No, I'm also terrible at them. Okay. So, but let's talk about something that's maybe not as sexy as a crossword puzzle. Sleep.

Oh, no. It's even less sexy than a crossword puzzle. Sleep is cool, I guess, in its own way. We're talking about sleep. 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, um... Is sleep sexier than a crossword puzzle? Am I wrong about this? I think sleep is sexier than a crossword puzzle. Oh, great. Then let's go to something much as it's sexier than a crossword puzzle. Sleep! So sleep.

The hack for our memories? 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. Uh-huh. It was done by, you know, young born at the University of Tübingham in Germany. So here's what they did.

Okay. They got around 30 people into a lab at night and had them read something. Kind of a bedtime story? Stories, short texts, kind of describing, for example, a murderer of a child. Yeah, they would be very cruel. Oh, Jesus. It sounds like it would be pretty intense. Yes, it is intense.

definitely. 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. Okay. 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. And you find an immediate enhancing effect of sleep on the memory for these stories. 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? They were out of the blue, yes.

Yes, they were not prepared. Yeah, what did they find? Did the people who had slept remember more four years later? Yeah, the people who had, like, read that type of story still remembered it better than the people who didn't sleep during that original study four years ago. Whoa, 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, like, kind of emotionally traumatic stuff, but it can even help with, like, 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. 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? Oh, no, thousands of studies. It's incredible. The amount of research, yeah, provides you with a safe feeling, yeah, this is true. Sleep consolidates memory, yeah. We really know this by now. Yes, I think this is for sure, yeah. 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 like nerd out to you a little bit about that for a second. Please. Please. So after we have an experience, we think that our brains will like replay little bits of it after it happens.

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

That's cool. That is so cool. Right? Like, we can see these things happening in the brain. Yeah. And we think these events, these replay events, are important for, like, consolidating memories into kind of long-term memories. Uh-huh. 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 rap brains while they're sleeping. We can see in the rats the do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do. So, yeah, all of this started kind of getting to me because I actually have not been sleeping great. So I talked to Lauren about that. As I've been learning about this, it just makes me feel kind of crappy because I have a two-year-olds who just like wakes up

multiple times a night still. And so I just kind of feel like, oh, it's not just me of my memory is completely screwed. Like how bad is this? No, I mean, that's it. We're amazingly flexible beasts, right? so that we can adapt. You are clearly a highly functional 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. Something to look forward to. Yeah, I can't wait. Okay, so before the break, you promised us a thing to boost all of our memories,

and that is sleep. We have to sleep. 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. Like, we also think that our brains can strengthen memories when we're just kind of like hanging out, not doing much. You can 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. 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. Mm-hmm. 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. Yeah, and shoving more things in your brain, but actually letting it have that downtime. Yeah. And another thing that you hear a lot is about the power of exercise, that that that. I can really help your memory too.

Uh-huh. 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. Also, exercise helps you sleep. So all comes back around.

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. Yeah. 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. Yeah. And barring that, give your brain a bit of downtime. Yes. And one more final piece of advice from Charin that I really loved, which is basically that, like, if you want to make your brain think something is important enough to remember, then you got to 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 and 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? What you really need to do in that moment is pay attention to the details.

Really immerse yourself as an almost as a mindful observer. into the sights and the sounds and the feelings of what's happening in that moment. Like, while I'm living it, that's the first step. While you're living it, while you're living it. And lock on to anything that makes this moment unique. Well, that's just lovely advice in general, right? When you're having a beautiful moment, just focus on it. Live it.

So thanks, Merrill. Thanks, Wendy. So how many citations are in this week's episode? We have 45 citations. Excellent. And if people want to find them and read more about memory, science of memory, where should they go? They can go to our transcripts. You can find links for it in the show notes. And then also definitely check out Charon's book. Why We Remember is really, really good. Highly recommend that. Great. And if people want to let us know what they thought of the episode, you can find us on Science underscore VS. I am on TikTok at Wendy Zook. See you, Merrill. This episode was produced by me, Merrill Horn, with help from Wendy Zuckerman, Rose Rimler, Michelle Dang, and Akeddy Foster Keys.

We're edited by Blythe Terrell, mix and sound design by Bumi Hedaca. Fact-checking by Sam Lemonick. Music written by Bumi Hedaca, 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 Dukoski. Science Versus is a Spotify studio's 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.