Sibling Revelry with Kate Hudson and Oliver Hudson - The Science of Memory and Why We Forget with Lisa Genova

Episode Date: May 27, 2021

Kate and Oliver are joined by Harvard-trained neuroscientist Lisa Genova for a fascinating conversation about memory that you'll hopefully remember. They discuss what you need to create memories, why you remember only certain things, why siblings can recall their childhoods differently, why we forget, and more. Executive Producers: Kate Hudson and Oliver HudsonProduced by Allison BresnickEdited by Josh WindischMusic by Mark HudsonThis show is powered by Simplecast.This episode is sponsored by Hairstory (www.hairstory.com PROMO CODE: SIBLING), The Great Courses Plus (TheGreatCoursesPlus.com/SIBLING), Each & Every (www.eachandevery.com/sibling PROMO CODE: SIBLING30), and Curology (www.curology.com/sibling).See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. I'm Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman, host of the psychology podcast. Here's a clip from an upcoming conversation about how to be a better you. When you think about emotion regulation, you're not going to choose an adaptive strategy which is more effortful to use unless you think there's a good outcome. Avoidance is easier. Ignoring is easier. Denials easier.

Complex problem solving takes effort. Listen to the psychology podcast on the. iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In early 1988, federal agents raced to track down the gang they suspect of importing millions of dollars worth of heroin into New York from Asia. Had 30 agents ready to go with shotguns and rifles and you name it. Five, six white people pushed me in the car. Basically, your stay-at-home moms were picking up these large amounts of heroin.

All you got to do is receive the package. Don't have to open it, just accept it. She was very upset, crying. Once I saw the gun, I tried to take his hand, and I saw the flash of light. Listen to the Chinatown Stang on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Jenna Lopez, and in the new season of the Overcomfit Podcast, I'm even more honest, more vulnerable, and more real than ever. Am I ready to enter this new part of my life? Like, am I ready to be in a relationship?

Am I ready to have kids and to really just devote myself and my time? Join me for conversations about healing and growth, all from one of my favorite spaces, The Kitchen. Listen to the new season of the Overcomber podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Hi, I'm Kate Hudson. And my name is Oliver Hudson. We wanted to do something that highlighted our relationship.

and what it's like to be siblings. We are a sibling rivalry. No, no. Sibling rivalry. Don't do that with your mouth. Sibling revelry. That's good. like this where we bring on an expert or someone who's written a book about something that we

find really interesting. I just, like, we need to do this all the time. It was so fun. We spoke to Lisa Genova. She wrote a book about memory. Yeah, I know. I know. I don't, I don't remember. I'm doing this. I wasn't expecting that joke. That was such a stupid, great joke. I like, love her so much. oh my god oh i've been i've been talking about this interview to everybody by the way yes it was fascinating for me i know this idea that we're all we're just living a lie pretty much yeah we're all in we're all living in our own weird perception that no one else is living in right right totally we all have our own versions of reality yeah i will remember this podcast way differently

than you will. And if we didn't actually have it to go back and remind ourselves, we'd both be wrong. Right, but we have it. We can go back to the tape because this actually exists. I think we can keep this short and sweet

because we get into so much good stuff. This is an awesome episode. We talk a lot about the way that our brains work. She gives us so much information. It was like a great course in understanding. as Oliver said, like how we're just living in our own weird reality that doesn't really exist anyway. Oh, yeah. It just, it's almost scary, honestly, because you just sort of think, oh, my God. I mean, I'm crazy. I'm living my own reality. And she's so exuberant and she was so passionate about

the subject and a really, really fun giving interviewer. Interviewee. Her book, is called Remember, the Science of Memory and the Art of Forgetting. So enjoy this episode about your memory. What? I'm so excited to talk to you. I know. Me too.

Because I can't remember shit. Thank you, thank you. Thank you for having me as a guest, even though my dumb little brother wouldn't agree to do it with me so thank you it's fun for us

like sometimes we do siblings obviously and then sometimes especially with this you know to talk about memory because this is one of the things that this is what your book is focused on and all I could think about when I was like

okay we're gonna we're gonna interview Lisa today is how everyone has a different memory of an argument like that like you know and it's like that's not what I said. And it's like, no, that is what you said. And there's always this moment or a memory of your childhood. It's like we're not meant to remember everything, you know. But you being the smarty pants that you are, Miss Harvard graduate of neuroscience, you know, you actually study these

things and we can get some real answers. Oh, God, I don't even know where to start. I don't even know where to start. Well, I want to say something first. First of all, you've written books that people love. So, you know, still Alice is a book that was made into a movie with Julianne Moore. You wrote that and the movie was great too. And then the new book, the new book, the nonfiction. Right.

The science of memory and the art of forgetting. Yeah. Yes. Because I forget everything. How do I remember my lines? Because I'm horrible at it. I'm horrible at it. We don't have to go through this now, but I need tips.

I just need to, I'm going through a scene right now that I've got 13 pages, I've got to put myself on tape, I've had it for four days, and I can't remember a goddamn thing. Well, I think that means you probably shouldn't get the part. Oh no. Yeah, you have an issue remembering your lines. I do. I don't know if it's nerves or what it is, but we can get all, we can get into that later. There's so much. There's so much exciting. Yeah, there are techniques for learning information. Like, how do we, how do we get that information in your brain in a really strong way so that it's very easy to get it back out?

Yeah. Let's start with what got you fascinated with the brain. What drew your attention to? I want to know and understand more about our brains. So I was always that geeky science kid. Like, I liked math. and science. And I actually all I liked acting and storytelling to, but as the scientist was so strong in me, I really didn't feel like I had permission to go do those other things. So I was all about the math and science. And my second year in college, I took a course in what is now called neuroscience. I'm old enough that it was called physiological psychology back in the day. And so it was the study of the brain. How does the brain affect? our behavior, thinking, memory, moods, desires. And at the same time, I read a book by Oliver

Sacks called The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. And that was a collection of neurological patients he had over the years who presented really interesting, weird neurological conditions. And there's like short stories. And between those two things, I was so in. I just, my mind was blown. I was so excited and passionate about this part of our body, right? So the heart is a pump, the kidneys a filter, but your brain, it's in charge of all of these magical things. It seems impossible that your biology can, you know, be what is behind your personality, your mood, your ability to remember. So, yeah, I was fascinated and all in. A magical is a great word because there's so much that we know and there's still so much that we don't know about the brain.

This idea that our brains are a muscle is something that people don't think about very often, how we can actually, we can work our brains to build a stronger mechanism, right? Yeah, and I think you're so right, Kate. I think that we've all been sort of socialized to believe that we have some influence over our health from the neck down. So, right, we wear the fit bits and we count our number of steps and we know that exercise is good for our heart, health. Ladies, we're used to getting our lady parts checked. We're used to like health from the neck down. But I think that we haven't yet gone to the next frontier, which is, hello, your brain is connected to your body. And we do have a massive amount of influence over our health

and optimal functioning of this thing in your head called your brain. Your grandma had Alzheimer's. I mean, that must have been a very kind of prominent, you know, there's the scientist in you, and then there's the person that understands the brain, but sort of propelling you to really kind of understand more about Alzheimer's as well. Yes. So my experience with my grandmother is why I became a novelist. I was the neuroscientist in my very big Italian family. My dad is one of nine. I'm one of the youngest of 30-something grandchildren. My grandmother had Alzheimer's. I, it's my responsibility. to understand this disease and pass that education along to my family. And so I read everything

I could find about Alzheimer's. And so I learned about the molecular biology. I learned about the disease presentation and management, the anatomy, the physiology, all of that. I read books written by neuroscientists, clinicians, caregivers, social workers, but they were all lacking the perspective of the person with it. And so my grandmother's Alzheimer's was so upset. to me. I was 28 at the time. I loved her so much. I miss her. I felt so bad for her. I mean, she forgot who we all were. She had no connection to this beautiful life that she had lived. And I felt heartbroken and sad and bad for her and for us. It was sympathy. I didn't know how to get to empathy. I didn't know how to be comfortable being uncomfortable. I didn't know how to sit

with my grandmother's Alzheimer's, Alzheimer's. And I remember thinking, well, this perspective of the person who has it is missing. Like, that's how we get to empathy, right? That's how when you read fiction, when you read a story, when you see a movie, that's what we're doing. We're experiencing what it's like to be you, right? So that was that intuitive aha moment for me, was like, oh, I need to write a story about a woman with Alzheimer's and tell it from her perspective.

And that's how I'll get to understand what it feels like to live and breathe with Alzheimer's. But did you have to sort of create ideas in your mind of what that experience might be, given the fact that you didn't actually experience it? So it's almost your perception of what it might be. It was some of that. But before that was a lot of research. And so what I didn't have at my fingertips when my nan had Alzheimer's, but what I sought out as a novelist was I went and did my homework.

and I came to know 27 people living with early onset or early stage Alzheimer's who could still communicate what it feels like to have it. And I was in touch with these folks every day for the year and a half that I was writing the story. So the book isn't about any one of them. I didn't borrow their personal stories and all of that vulnerability that they shared with me. But it did inform the truth under the imagined circumstances. I mean, it's amazing.

It feels like a very basic. question, but important. What is memory? I love, no, this is a great question because I think a lot of people don't know, right? So we have this misconception that memory is a video camera, recording a constant stream of every sight and sound and, you know, smell and emotion and information, and it's not. We have this idea that there's a memory bank located somewhere in your brain and that's what gets activated and stores everything, like it's in a file cabinet. That's not memory. Memory is the constellation of connected, linked neurons that can be located all over your brain that represent the sights, the sounds, the smells, the feelings, the information, the language

of what you paid attention to, cared about, and remembered in the first place. So it's the reactivation of the connected neural circuit that represents the information contained in that memory. If I'm thinking of a brain like that, of all these little memories, memories floating around. Like, how do you reach for a memory? Yeah, so it's not, they're not floating around. So there's, you know, you see in the back of your head that's called your occipital cortex, your visual cortex, you hear in your auditory cortex, you feel in your limbic system, you think things and languages in your frontal cortex. So, okay, so if I'm remembering the first night of summer a couple years ago now, and my memory of that night,

is I remember the new Lady Gaga song playing on the portable speaker at the kids playing soccer on the beach. We had wine, bonfire, s'mores, oysters. One of the kids got stung by a jellyfish. So this is my memory of that night. And so what is it? I began with the first memory was the new Lady Gaga song, first night of summer. So Lady Gaga song in my brain is connected to a jellyfish sting, which is connected to the smell of the bonfire and the taste of the wine. So all of these things are connected and associated with each other such that if I think of the Lady Gaga song, it will trigger the activation of this linked circuit. So in your brain, Lady Gaga has nothing to do with a jellyfish sting.

Our memories can be unique because they are the connected neural circuits based on what we experience. right but but then you have these sort of flashbulb memories that are seared into your brain lack of a better word and what is that from a sort of neurological standpoint that allows these memories to stand out so specifically and vividly how does that what's happening in that moment love this question okay so let's go over a few things so what do we remember Like, what is your brain designed to remember? Your brain remembers what is surprising or new, what is emotional, what is meaningful, and what you repeat.

Okay? It does not remember same old, same old ho-hum, unemotional, boring stuff. So tell me everybody you texted and who texted you four days ago. Tell me about your morning shower eight days ago, right? We don't remember these routine, date, day, ho-hum things. But give me something emotional, pulse zapping, give me something surprising. Oh, my God, that's never happened before. Memory, our human brains are really, really phenomenal at remembering those moments and that information. And so flashball memories, you're talking about

for folks who don't know, these are these moments, they can be personal, but they can also be these shared public events for things that were highly surprising, emotional, meaningful, So for some people, this is, they remember exactly where they were, who they were with, time of day, how they felt about it, when JFK was killed, when the space shuttle challenger blew up, when the Twin Towers collapsed on 9-11, these moments shocked us and it was very emotional. And so you have these memories called flashbulb memories, which feel very vividly and confidently remembered, even decades later, right? So I don't remember anything. Right. And I don't remember anything about September 12th, 2001. Yeah.

Or September 9th, but I remember tons about September 11th. The weird thing is, though, folks, just because you remember it vividly and confidently doesn't mean it's accurate. Right. Yeah. I know. And we think it is we're so sure because they feel so vividly remembered, but they're not. Now, but do you think just from a.

an evolutionary standpoint, a mankind standpoint, that there is a primal reason for this, for these flashbulb memories, for us to actually have these vivid memories, whether realized correctly or not, to stay with us. Yeah, it makes tons of sense to me. It's not just flashbulbs, right? It's memories, the stuff that we remember, the narrative of our life, like the, we remember lots of firsts, right? because they're, again, new and surprising and usually meaningful and emotional.

So you remember your first kiss, but not your 10th, right? So, and with respect to, you remember where you were. Like, that's interesting. Why is that an important thing? I remember where I was when I learned about 9-11. I remember where I was when that space shuttle Challenger blew up. Why is that? Well, you can imagine that evolutionarily, it was super important for us to remember where the food is,

where the predator live, where home is, right? Our brains are very much designed to remember visually where things are in space. So we can take, like, that happens naturally and you can take advantage of that if you're trying to memorize something. Can you attach a visual image to that and place it somewhere familiar to you in your mind's eye that will help build, like remember the Lady Gaga story. You want to build neural connections that become linked. And the more encoding, the more associated neurons that you can collect into that memory, the better chance you're going to have of retrieving it because you have more, more data points, more points of entry into that memory

to then trigger the full recollection. I would also think, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, because this is just, you know, coming up. This is up from my, my heiny. But I would also think that there is just based on our evolution and our, as homo sapiens being the surviving human species or species that we would, that our storytelling ability, our ability to remember stories to attach to them, to carry them on, and to connect is a huge part of how we survive. Yes. I love that you put that together. Yes. So the ability. to tell the story. So this is memory for what happens, right? So we've got your memory for stuff, information, the facts. This is like what you learned in school, right? So who was the first president

of the United States? What's your birthday? What are the colors of the rainbow? What's six times six? That's stuff you know. Then there's the memory. Nice job. Then there's the stuff that happened. So, you know, I was born in Waltham, Massachusetts. I, you know, I went to Bates College, I went to Harvard, like all the things that happened. And that's where your storytelling comes in. So I'll get back to that. Then there's the memory for how to do things. It's called muscle memory, but it doesn't live in your muscles.

It lives in your brain. The memory of the choreography, the procedure for how to do things is in your brain. And your brain tells your muscles what to do. So this is how to brush your teeth, how to write a bike, how to type an email, how to play guitar, how to swing a golf club. So your memories for stuff that happened are the story, it creates your, you're the story of your life, right? This is the who you are. And it's interesting, right? So most of us don't remember anything that happened before the age of three.

So three and younger, you don't really remember that much. Six and younger is pretty fuzzy. It's kind of like sort of random moments. If you do remember something, it's probably because it was so shocking and emotional. right? So the death of a family member or you moved or your family told you the stories over and over again. But the reason that we think that you don't remember anything from when you're really young is because you don't have you don't have you've not developed the language yet to tell the story of it in your brain. Once you've developed the ability to tell the story of what

happened, that's when we start to have these memories. My first memories are actually quite young. Are they just individual moments, or is it the story of the life star in Kate Hudson, right? Right. Right. It's more the story of like Abisa. No, I mean, I have those memories too. Abisa's like a big time. But for me, it was traumatic.

But I wonder why. I feel like maybe something traumatic happened right before that that we don't remember, but we remember the trip. we'll get on the next episode of Sibling Reefelry What happened before Abisa But it's so interesting There's so much to talk about it

It's like almost my brain is swirling But we are nothing Without memory We don't exist Or you're just You're just living literally in the moment Like most other animals So I think memory would be

But animals have memory, don't they? Well, some do. I think some do. But I think that a lot don't. You know, they don't have, right? Well, I mean, think about the squirrel who's buried all the nuts for a winter and then has to go remember where they are to dig them up. And actually, I listen to Sarah Silverman do stand up on this once. And the squirrels are like terrible at this.

And it actually helps us like plant trees. So thank you, squirrels because they have such terrible memories. But so we, I love, I love, I love. what you bring up Oliver because I actually talk about this at the end of the book. And this is my take on it that it's kind of a paradox. I think that memory is everything. And it's also nothing. So stay with me. So you're right. It's like we need memory for pretty much everything we do from the moment we wake up. Like how do I get dressed? How do I brush my teeth? Memories. How do I have a conversation? Memories. Like do I, you know, what did I do yesterday that I can continue through today? Memory. It's all memory.

And yet, it's also your memory is, while it's genius, it's also kind of stupid because it's going to forget most of what you experience today, because most of what you experience today is routine, ho-hum, Ben, there, done that. Like, I will remember this podcast. So thank you because this is, I don't get to talk to you all every day. So this is new for me. So I'll remember this. But most of what we do every day, like of the 16 hours that you're awake, you're doing a lot

of routine. Same old, same old. stuff and your brain won't, you won't pay attention to it. And what you don't pay attention to you cannot, you cannot remember. The first necessary ingredient in forming a memory is attention. So we don't pay attention to most of our day, really. And so we don't remember it. So in that sense, memory can't be that big of a deal because we don't remember most of it. And it's wrong a lot of the time. It's highly fallible. And then there's this. If you've known someone with Alzheimer's, like my nana, it's devastating.

It is, you know, it is, in that sense, memory is everything. But it's also not because it doesn't rob you of your ability to feel emotions. So she still loved us. She knew who we were. But we loved her and she felt it and she loved us back. So Alzheimer's, which robs you eventually of all of your memories, you will forget how to brush your teeth. You will forget everyone you love.

You will forget all of your history. but you will still know how to feel joy, lonely, anger, love, connection, right? That's human. Do you think there's a, with your Nana and other people who are experiencing Alzheimer's, do you think there's a moment where that person has to ultimately just let go? Because in order to love, you have to have some sort of, I would think, you would have to have some sort of connection, some sort of memory of why you love, of who that person is, unless you just say,

let go and just experience love in the most purest form. I don't know if it's a conscious letting go. I don't know that there's necessarily control over. There could be some and for others. It's just here I am now. I don't know where I am. I don't recognize this as my home. I don't know who these people are.

But I am, like Kate said, I'm in the moment and I'm experiencing the energy that's in front of me as love. And we respond to that, right? Our babies don't know who the hell we are. and they respond to love. So I think as humans, it is our birthright to be more than what we can remember. Do we have a cap on how much we can store?

I know that, no. No, and a lot of people think that too. Like, it's like, oh, I only use 10% of my brain or, oh, I'm going to run out of room. So it's good that I forget things so that I have room for more. No, you have trillions of connections. And, I mean, you just literally do not run out of space.

You always have the ability at any age to learn a new instrument or language. To the example I used in the book is Hikira, Akira Haraguchi at the age of 69, a retired engineer with a normal healthy brain, not a genius, not a mathematical savant. He decided he wanted to memorize pie out to as many digits as he could. and he memorized 111,000 digits of a non-repeating patternless number. Like, amazing. So you can, you're limitless and what you can remember if you decide you want to, including that script, Oliver. That's exciting.

I know. That makes me excited. We'll get into that in a minute. But, but so just going, just going back just for a second about sort of mind-body, because it's very interesting to me and, and not to get into my whole story, but I'm, It's just from a neuroscience standpoint, I went off of my Lexa Pro and I'm going through these withdrawals and I'm experiencing anxiety that doesn't really, it's not even circumstantial. It's just there when I wake up. And something is up with the chemistry. Okay. Getting into the mind-body connection, how powerful is that? How powerful is our mind in order to actually heal our body? It's so powerful. I mean, your mind and body are not separate. They're very, much connected. And so with stress and anxiety, for example, massive influence on each other.

So let me give you a little quick example here. So stress, an acute stress or a stress that happens once we experience and then it's gone, not bad for us. And our brain responds, our body responds in a way that's healthy. So if I perceive some kind of threat or danger or emergency, my brain perceives this, I release adrenaline and cortisol into my bloodstream, mobilizes my body for action, and then the cortisol actually acts on receptors in your brain to shut that whole thing off. It's a negative feedback loop. And so this is good. So I can, you know, I can hit the brakes if the car in front of me stopped short. I can pry myself out of bed in the morning to face the day. I can get ready for the Zoom conversation, right? So I can, I can, it's not just fight or, or

or running away. It's also like, am I, is my brain and body aroused and ready to meet the challenge of what I'm being presented with? That's normal. And it's, that's really good for memory. Like, you need a certain amount of stress and activation to like learn something. We were just talking about like the good stresses and then the, you know, yeah. But so chronic stress, which can be anxiety, right? And so a lot of us tick all these boxes. So it's not like, you know, it's not like back in the day where, you know, lion is chasing us trying to eat us on the savannah, it's more like our thoughts are our predators now, right? And so like the top three psychological stressors are uncertainty, a perceived lack of control, and social isolation. Oh, hello, the past year, right? It's like tick, tick. So when that happens, when you're under chronic, unrelenting stress and anxiety, the receptors in your brain that that cortisol axon that normally shut the whole thing off become desensitized and downregulated. And so the shutoff valve breaks. And so cortisol just keeps dumping into your brain and body.

And this messes you up in lots of ways. So it's, you'll have trouble thinking clearly because your frontal lobe will kind of be offline because when you're in fight or flight, you don't want to be like, well, I wonder what I should do. Let me, let me weigh the pros and cons of acting right now. It's like, no, don't think, run. But if you're not running from anything and you can't think, not good. You'll have trouble creating new memories in the state.

You'll have a really hard time retrieving memories of stuff you've already learned. And you're actually going to shrink your hippocampus, the part of your brain that's required for the formation of new memories. You'll inhibit neurogenesis there. So you'll stop the birth of new neurons and you'll have a smaller hippocampus. This is if you don't manage the stress and anxiety. So the good news is we know that practices like yoga, mindfulness, meditation, and exercise can all restore the shutoff valve, restore the cortisol levels and restore the size of

your hippocampus. So not all is lost. And I want to give this example because I think it's super helpful for folks and it's like all of us. So some people are really intimidated by meditation. I don't have time. I don't know how to do it. I'd have to go to a retreat or something to learn. And so they just don't do it. So here's what I want folks to do. If you're finding yourself feeling really overwhelmed and stressed, this is nine seconds. Ready? Close your eyes if you can. If you're not in front of a bunch of people and it wouldn't be too weird. Close your eyes. Breathe in through your nose to the count of four. Hold it for one second and then breathe out through your nose to the count of four. And notice how you're feeling because here's the deal. If something really threatening is happening and it's activating the stress and anxiety response

in my body, if I have to run for my life, I am running like this. I am never breathing slowly in and out through my nose. So while the circumstances of the world can impact my brain and body, I can also reverse that. So by breathing in and out slowly through your nose, you are informing your brain and body. You're informing your physiology that you're safe. And so you can like kind of trick your body into believing that it should should shut down the cortisol levels. Like everything's okay. The stress response will quiet.

And so this is nine seconds. We have time for nine seconds. That'll help. Yeah. It's so interesting because, you know, my mom's been doing this. curriculum called Mind Up for 20 years now and a huge part of it is breathwork for kids and in the beginning of it a hundred years ago people sort of rolled their eyes at it before you know my mom was always very keyed in to a lot of neuroscientists and people like child psychologists who are the

you know really researching all these things for many many many years and now it's so nice that people are able to kind of have the science and the research to back that up because the the younger we understand that about our brain's responses to stress or anxiety, that we, a simple breath can actually trick our brains to let us know that we are safe. Like, the more we have that as a foundation in our kids, I think the better, the better their, you know, upbringing will be. Yeah. Absolutely.

Yeah. The younger you are, this becomes sort of a way of life, right? So this is part of what we're up against with older folks who are afraid of Alzheimer's, who are, if you're over 40 and you start to worry about your memory, you may already have a lot of life habits that are kind of getting in your way of optimal brain health. But if you're, if you can start when you're young, this just becomes a way of life. Okay. So I'm really excited about this ad because I am actually basically related to the founder's daughter. It's all in the family, baby. It's all in the family. So my,

My sister-in-law, Sian Fugiaw's dad, he was one of the founders of Bumble of Bumble. These are the founders. They have created a product that is amazing. It's called Hair Story. They have been in the industry for 50 years. They have got 50 years of experience, and they decided to create a line of hair products that leave your hair clean, shiny, and healthier, forcing you to leave your shampoo behind. Now, here's how they do this.

So Hair Story's new wash is a sulfate detergent and shampoo-free hair cleanser. Well, here's the thing. Traditional shampoo, okay? There's detergent, there's paraben, there's chemicals, and it strips your hair and your scalp of its natural oils. This is why I honestly don't wash my hair. I wash my hair once a week. Yeah.

But so they made a natural hair cleanser that is filled with these essential oils, and it provides It's moisture and hydration, and it creates this healthy hair. You don't need conditioner again, basically. It removes the access oil and dirt, but not the good stuff so that it keeps your hair hydrated. So they have over 6,000 five-star reviews. It's a new wash. Yeah, it's a new kind of wash, baby. And Lexus, I'm going to explain how this works for a second, okay, because there's a quiz.

You take the quiz, and that's how you create your custom starter kit. So based on your hair type and routine, it'll create the perfect combination of products that will transform your hair. You can have curly hair, you can have straight hair, thick, thin, whatever. You know, your hair can be colored or gray. New wash, it will give you your healthiest, most touchable hair since childhood. The way that they formulated it balances your oil production so you can go longer between washes. They also do, they also have styling stuff so you can. You know, they have hair balm, their air drying cream.

So this kind of gives you the ability to have a more polished finish. And we love it. This is a must try. Okay, so check out HairStory at HairStory.com and use our promo code Sibling to get 15% off your first purchase. That's H-A-I-R-S-T-O-R-Y.com and use our code sibling to get 15% off. HairStory.com. Each and every, I literally just put on a new scent today, Oliver.

Well, summer is coming. You know what that means, Kate? Heat. You know what happens when it gets hot? Your armpits sweat. Oh, does mine really do. And this is what's going on. So pick up your each and every right now.

Each and every needs to be on your shelf, in your bathroom. In your car. My each and every is in my glove compartment, actually. I love the citrus in Vettiver because it's a personal thing. I used to wear a cologne called Vettiverr when I was a kid. And it's got this vettiverer sense. So essentially my deodorant becomes nostalgic. So boom.

I love it. I love it. But let's talk about what this is. This is natural deodorant. It's just six simple, safe ingredients, dead sea salt. coconut oil, et cetera, et cetera. It goes on smooth. It won't irritate your skin.

I really do love this deodorant. And as someone who has been a natural deodorant person for a long time, they've gotten so good at it. Each and Every is one of my faves. And Oliver, do you want to tell them how to get it? Make the switch to each and every. It'll be one of the best decisions you'll make this summer, maybe your life, all right? And we have an amazing deal to get you started.

30% off your first purchase. That's right. 30% off. Just go to our special URL. Each and every.com slash sibling and use promo code sibling 30. Trust us. You don't want to miss out on 30% off. Use promo code sibling 30 at each and every.com slash sibling. Well, let's talk about optimum brain health. Like what's the number one thing that you would tell people to do, to ensure that they're at least doing one thing good for their brain. Okay. It's kind of a toss up between exercise and sleep. And so these are not super sexy.

It's like, I'm not like, people want the supplement, right? They want the magic pill. They want me to be like, here, take this and you're done. So, no. But let me tell you why, because I think the why can help rather than just you need to sleep and exercise. It's, okay, so sleep. So the sleep science is very clear. Our human brains need seven to nine hours asleep a night for optimal health, body, brain memory. With respect to memory, let me give you three

things that are happening while you're asleep. So I used to think before I knew anything that you're not doing anything while you sleep. It's a big waste of time, right? I'll sleep when I'm dead. But you're very biologically busy while you sleep. And so, okay, what's going on in your brain with respect to memory? So while you sleep, the information, the sights, the sounds, the experiences, the knowledge that you paid attention to that was new and meaningful to you during the day gets consolidated into a stable, lasting alteration, neural connections. It gets consolidated into a memory by your hippocampus while you're asleep. So if you don't get a full night sleep, when you wake up the next day, your hippocampus might not have had enough time to do its

job fully. And so you might not, your memories from yesterday might not be fully formed or strongly formed or some might be missing. They might not have been formed at all. So that's one reason. The second reason is if you don't get, if you've had a terrible night sleep, your frontal cortex is going to be dragging itself to its day job tomorrow and it is like this is the part of your brain that is in charge of paying attention and if I can't pay attention today then what am I not going to be able to make today new memories the first necessary ingredient in in creating a new memory that can be consciously retrieved later is attention so you need it for that and then the last the third thing I want to talk about that is super important that's going on

while you sleep with respect to memory has to do with Alzheimer's. So while you sleep, when you're in slow wave deep sleep, there are cells in your brain called glial cells. These are the janitors, the sewage and sanitation department of your brain. They get busy clearing away all the metabolic debris that accumulated in your brain while you're in the business of being awake. And one of the things that clears away is a protein called amyloid. Now amyloid is sticky. And if it doesn't get cleared away, it binds to itself and forms plaques. And if enough of these plaques accumulate over time, you will get Alzheimer's. The good news is it takes 15 to 20 years of that accumulation before you reach a tipping point and get to Alzheimer's. So we've got time. If you had

a bad night's sleep last night, does not mean you're getting Alzheimer's tomorrow. But so for me, this has met that I've made sleep a priority. Like, I try to stop scrolling mindlessly on Instagram at the end of the night and like, go to bad, Lisa, like, stop it. Caffeine, caffeine's awesome for your memory. It helps you pay attention, which helps you form new memories. But it also can keep you awake. So it competes with a molecule called adenison, which adenisin is a molecule that helps you get drowsy and fall asleep.

And caffeine counters that. So the half-life of caffeine is five hours. So if I have a cup of cappuccino after dinner at 7 p.m., I'll still have 32 milligrams of caffeine buzzing around my brain at midnight, it might keep me from falling asleep. So if you're having trouble, like maybe back up your caffeine consumption to earlier in the day, if you make it a priority, there are lots of tools and tips for improving your sleep. Yeah. What constitutes a good night of sleep, though? I know that sounds like a simple question, but I can get in bed at 10 o'clock and maybe I fall asleep well, and then I'm just tossing and

turning and you know it's not a good night's sleep are we talking about deep r em sleep i mean what all right so all of it so different things happen in different phases and they all are they're they're not useless they're they have specific functions and so this is again where you can get involved in your health right so they have they have wearable apps now that keep track of like how many times are you waking up in the night um if you drink alcohol right before bed. It will interfere with REM sleep and you'll be restless when you would normally be in REM. You also might have to get up to pee a few times. So there are things that we might be doing that are like getting in the way of the best night's sleep and knowing that information. If you feel exhausted when

you wake up in the morning, like maybe you have some sleep apnea. We don't know. But we can now look into that and say, okay, how do I address it? I mean, basically, there is sort of like a rule, rules of thumb for good sleep and it's you don't eat like two hours before you go to bed even more I think probably three hours you don't drink two or three hours before you just sleep anything but water like a tea an herbal tea your room should be cold you should have it should be like anywhere from 69 to 71 degrees you should have your blackout curtains and and then there's And no kids. And no kids.

And then you could have your things that can help age you. Like you can have any sort of like sleep, calm magnesium or things that can help with supporting the drowsiness. The drowsiness, right? The blackout shades are perfect like you want. If you're staring at your screen until the moment you go to bed, your brain doesn't know. Right. Put the screens away. Melatonin levels are like, I don't know what to do. I've been up for a lot of hours.

but the bright light is telling me. The sun's still out. What about weed? You know, I mean, everyone is smoking weed, eating weed to go to sleep these days. It's, you know, this is what's happening. I know the science isn't quite there on cannabis. I know it is on alcohol and sleep. I've read a couple things.

So what do you know about that? I don't know enough to speak intelligently about that. I do know that, you know, it helps with anxiety and anxiety can keep people awake. I don't know if it interferes with any of the sleep cycles. It might not. it might be okay. I do know that the, you know, the sleep aids, the sleeping pills that are on the market right now are not good. You're getting the quality of your sleep is, it's got to knock you unconscious, but the quality of your sleep, you're not going to get the restorative and

all of the biological goodness. What about like melatonin? Melatonin's good. You want to know how much and the timing of it. And so, you know, I would, ask my primary care doctor, like, hey, I want to supplement with melatonin or, you know, find someone who understands when and how much to take. It's not going to hurt you if you do it wrong, but you might not be getting the optimal results if you're taking it the wrong time in the evening. I mean, I love hearing this because it just sort of, it's one of those things where everybody, like you said, wants the easy way out. I get asked all the time about these things. And I'm like, you know, how do you lose weight? How do you lose weight? How do you?

you balance your life? How do you stay happy? How do you stay less anxious? How do you stay balanced? And you're like, guys, none of this, there's no like little pill that's going to help you do. You're like, I don't. I don't. I don't know how the hell I'm doing it. No, but the thing, it's like at the end of the day, like you actually have to make it happen. You have to work out. Let's talk about activity too. I want that's really important. Yes. So let's hit exercise because again, I have some specifics around this like like the nine second breathing thing, like, you know, what you can do to get better sleep and making it a priority. I think there's some things here that we can unpack that can be helpful because, again, I think everybody knows they're supposed to be exercising.

But they fight it. They fight it. So we know that people who exercise regularly are decreasing their risk of Alzheimer's by anywhere from a third to a half. Now, if I told you I had a pill that will reduce your risk of Alzheimer's by a half, would you take it? Heck yeah. So here's the deal. So what do I mean by exercise? And there's lots of kinds of exercise that will work. But at a minimum, a brisk daily walk for four to five days a week will be enough to reduce this risk of Alzheimer's. Love this. It is walking like you're in a

hurry, like you're late for a meeting. Here's another interesting thing. We know that being socially isolated is stressful and bad for your memory and risk of Alzheimer's. We know. We know. know that that increases your risk. So if you can add to your daily walk, walking with a friend, you'll be in conversation, a conversation that has never happened before. So it's new and interesting, possibly emotional and meaningful. So, oh, I'm giving my brain a chance to remember something today. So I'm combating social isolation. I'm exercising. I'm giving my brain something to do. And you could combine it with walking somewhere new. Because if you're in your neighborhood, you've already seen it all. You've already been there, done that. You're not going to pay attention.

really to anything in your route. But if you go, oh, let's go downtown today and walk. Let's go to the beach and walk. Let's go to a different neighborhood and look at the houses. Something different. You're giving your brain lots of really interesting, complex, nuanced information and activating lots and lots of connections. Fun.

And how long is a good amount of time for that brisk walk? 30 minutes is kind of what we're saying is minimum. But then there's other opportunities too. Like, you know, so I grew up playing sports. I like to play stuff. So like right now I'm playing pickleball with friends and I love to dance and I like to be active. But for people who don't have that as a way of life, like how can you even introduce like small amounts of new movement in your day, right?

So like can you dance while you're folding the laundry? Like put on your favorite songs and move. See if there's something fun that you can play in your community. Pickleball, I used to call it elderly tennis before I ever played it. And I just started playing this year. And it is so fun. I know. Oh, it's huge right now.

I mean, pickleball is blowing up. Everyone is playing pickleball. If I could real quick just go back to sort of memory and how it exists and then why sometimes it goes away when talking or experiencing, talking about or experiencing trauma, you know, how that something happens, some abuse or whatever it is, and boom, that memory is now gone, at least not gone, but you do not remember. it. Why and what happens? So we don't entirely know all of the reasons for this, but we have very good hypotheses. And so it can actually go either way. So on the one hand, it can be repressed and it's a memory that you don't have easy access to anymore and might actually be pruned away to some extent. Or the converse can happen, which is you can't stop remembering it, right? This is what PTSD tends to be.

I can't stop perseverating on that memory. I can't stop reliving the emotional content of that memory. So for the folks who can't remember what happened, it's because so we remember what we repeat. Okay. So if I, you know, if I got divorced and the situation's horrible and he cheated on me and he's a terrible person and I just keep talking about it to all my girlfriends

and my mother and everybody, I'm just reinforcing and strengthening every sort of detail of this memory, right? If I have the willpower to leave it alone, I'll remember that I got divorced, but I will actually forget a lot of the details of it because I haven't revisited those neural connections. And so they're kind of weak and wimpy now. If it's really, really traumatic, then there is probably a lot of shame attached to it. it's i may never have spoken of it if i never speak it it has never had a chance to be repeated

so it it might be kind of very very um isolated as a memory there's no associations beyond that thing that happened and i've never revisited it super hard for me to get get to recall that memory again is there some sort of protective mechanism there some sort of press like you know to like you're preserving self in some way. It can also have to do with if you don't tell the story of what happened either to yourself or allowed to others, then you're not, it doesn't really form as a full memory in some ways. Like if you don't have the language to describe what happened, if you don't attach things to it,

it becomes something that's very difficult to access again. And so we've all had these moments, I mean, for those who haven't had trauma who might be wondering how this could happen, it's like if you don't find the right, like in therapy, you find the right cues, you find the right context, the information that can trigger the recall of that memory might seem somewhat magical and specific to trauma. But for everyone else, it's like, okay, say you grew up somewhere different than you live now. Say just to, be vivid about it. Say you grew up in rural Vermont, but you spent your entire adult life living in New York City. And someone asked you to, you know, what was your childhood like? And you know, it's weird. I don't really remember much of my childhood at all. I don't remember my childhood. I couldn't really tell you much of anything. I don't know. Your life today is surrounded by skyscrapers and taxi cabs and lots of suits and tons of crowds. If you were to go back to your childhood neighborhood, the memories would just, they would start coming.

It's like, oh, there's the, there's the weeping willow tree, or I had my first kiss under that tree, or there is where Joey broke his leg, and that's my neighbor, Mrs. Daly. And so without those cues, without the, like, if your therapist is asking you the right question, if the right associated neuron gets activated, it might then. Now, but this is an important question because what's happening as I'm hearing all of this, I'm having all of these very interesting, kind of a little concerning thoughts. Because if memory can deceive us, if we have a memory but it's not the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God, you know, there's so much and so many things that can happen that are perceived differently from both sides, you know, so when we're talking about a time when we're in the middle of all of the Me Too movement and women are coming out after 20 years saying this was my experience. And then you have a man saying, I would never,

I don't know. How do we know that someone's experience really is exactly what happened? So this is a big question. And I think I have a really good answer for you. And it is concerning. Yeah. It is troubling. So here's the deal. Right. So our memory, we all think that memory is this perfect thing, or we're striving to have perfect memory, but nobody has perfect memory. And in fact, the memory for what happened is particularly vulnerable to editing. So your memory for stuff you know is solid, stable over the years. So if you memorize six times six is 36 when you were in third grade, when you're 80, it's not at risk for becoming six times six is 75.

Like it's still going to be the same. muscle memory, super stable over time. So if I learned, this is where the expression, just like riding a bike, right? So if I learned how to ride a bike, I could go 20 years without riding a bike and I'll get on that bike and I'll still know how to do it, right? So I'll know how to type my whole life once I've learned. Your memories for what happened are strange. So it turns out that every time I recall a memory for something that happened, it has the ability

to add information, leave out information. If I'm 20 years older and I have different perspective and opinion now than I did then, if my brothers are available and he says, oh, no, no, this also happened. Oh, yeah, that's right. I believe him. I add that. It has the ability to be morphed in some way. And then when I go to restore that memory, it writes over the original, the previous version. So now you've, You've got version 2.0 and version 1 is gone. So you, memories for what happened can drift further and further away from the slice of reality that you originally paid attention to and remembered. So this is why eyewitness testimony alone is not ideal. I mean, the studies have been

shown. It's like, it's, our memories for what happened are very much influenced by language of the people questioning us. There's a gray area that you're sort of like, you know, how are you able to really kind of determine someone's memory as being 100%, you know? It's not, it's not 100%. And so we can be helped by, you know, did someone else witness the same event? Do you keep a diary? Because, again, if I'm writing down at least what I'm. think I remember what I experienced from, you know, a few hours ago, that can be relied upon

more than what I remember 30 years from now. But yeah, even in the moment, there's so many studies on this. There's a psychologist named Elizabeth Loftus who studies this in great detail. And so if I were to show you a video of a car accident and five minutes later ask you, if I asked you, Kate, how fast were the cars going when they contacted each other? And then Oliver, asked you, how fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other? Kate, you would say they were going 20 miles an hour and Oliver, you'd say they were going 40. My substitution of that single verb can influence your recollection of what you saw, your memory of what happened. So it's super easy to manipulate memory for what happened. Did memory experts like yourself

ever get called to testify in trials and stuff? I mean, a lot of them do, yes. Yeah. And it makes sense. It's like there's so many studies that show that we get confused. And if we listen to someone else's version of what happened, we might incorporate some of that into our own memory. So our flashfold memories, right? So there was a study I included in the book of the spatial challenger explosion. And at Emory College, the psych professors gathered the psych 101 students. So these are 19 and 20 year old brain. not elderly brains. These are young people. They asked, okay, where were you? Who were you with? You know, what time of day was it? And how did you feel?

And they asked them this 24 hours after the explosion. They had these same kids back two and a half years later, gave them the same questionnaire. 75% of them didn't even remember taking this quiz. None of them. None of them gave answers to this questionnaire that 100% matched their original answers. Wow.

And then when she, the wower part of this is then when shown their original answers in their own handwriting, they couldn't, it completely stumped them. It was like, how can that be? But that's not what I remember happening. And they believed the version that lives in their brain now because that's your memory. So this other thing must be a mistake or something. This is great news because when Oliver tries to tell me again that like that's not what happened, I'm going to be like, sorry, I just, you know what?

You don't know what the fuck you're talking about. It goes both, it goes both ways. You don't know what you're right. Basically, we're all living a fucking lie. I mean, that's basically what this comes down to. We're all living a lie. I guess the question is like, I don't remember what really happened. Well, you know, right.

So there's this sort of like disturbing, alarming aspect of this especially if you get into sort of legal issues. But if you just, if you're thinking about your day-to-day relationships, right, with your sibling, with your spouse, If you guys are locked torons over a memory of something that happened, I like knowing this because I let go of my death grip on it and go, eh, we're probably both wrong. Who cares? Right. Well, I mean, honestly, it's great therapy for relationships because fights are always like,

I did not say that. And then they're like, yes, you did. And no, I didn't do that. Well, that's why they say stay out of content and stick with your feelings. Right. Yeah. Because you're all wrong. You're all wrong.

None of you are right. Great Courses Plus is one of my go-toes in the car and then even before bed, when I'm in bed, throw my headphones on and listen to this. It's really an amazing experience, and they've got an app for this as well. I feel like I'm going back to college without all the bullshit curriculum, honestly. So the great courses plus, what it does is it basically provides you thousands of hours of content across hundreds and hundreds of topics, you know, travel, photography, cooking, whatever it is. So I'm going to explain what I'm listening to right now, Kate, and this is real.

It's a course called Understanding the Mysteries of Human Behavior. And this actually pertains to even our podcast. They answer questions like why siblings are so different. Is it nature or nurture? What makes people happy? How much do men and women really differ? It's fascinating. It is.

And there's also as simple as like I was driving. You know, I love to go out to the desert. And it's about a two hour plus drive. And I was listening just to American history. You know, there's some great professors around the country that are on there and they give these lectures. And I was just like, this is awesome. And they're fun bites, you know what I mean? It's these, it's like 30 minutes.

And, you know, you can try it out. And they're like, oh, I will listen to two or three of these. Not into it. Let's move on to the next. It's really fluid. It's a great interface. It's the feeling of learning something new and it's making it easy. I really, I really love this. It's a streaming service, and we've got this incredible deal for our listeners. You get a free trial, plus you get 20% off when you sign up for the annual membership, but you got to go to our special URL, and that's the greatcoursesplus.com slash sibling, okay? That's a world of knowledge for less than what most of us pay on coffee each month. Think about that for a second.

So again, that's the greatcoursesplus.com slash sibling. Let me say one more thing. So you have access to video, audio, and guidebooks. You can switch from video to audio if you want to listen to it if you're in your car. There's new content that's added every month. You can listen, watch anywhere with the Great Courses Plus app. Go get it. Go get it.

Now you'll love this. I promise. So Ryder actually, so he's been using it. Hold on, Kate, Kate, tell the audience what he's been using, so. Oh, oh, oh, curology. It's basically a custom skin care formula made for your teen. And Ryder is, is pretty lucky. Like he has a pretty good skin, but, you know, like most teens, he's got a combination of sometimes he's got a lot more pimples than he'd like.

he's going to kill me for talking about this but I'm going to do it anyway the licensed dermatology provider evaluates the skin profile skin type medical history and then prescribes a custom mix of three active ingredients

so whether the teen is up against acne dark spots uneven texture they sort of get a simplified all in one solution made for them and no office visit no copay. Your teen's provider has their back.

They can adjust the formula as their skin changes. This is so great. Yeah, it's really cool. God, I wish we had this one when we were teenagers. You've got to get your child's treatment plan right, okay? And the way to do that, you start by answering questions online about their skin and then sending in a couple of photos to curology. You know, I think honestly, this is one of those things like when riders been using it,

you can see a difference. As a part of your teen's trial, they'll get a month supply of custom skin care formula, along with a cleanser and moisturizer designed by curology dermatologists. As the end of the trial period approaches, you're going to have the option

to adjust the plan. Now, after that, you'll receive your supply every two months, hassle-free, and deliver to your door. Pause or cancel any time. Do you see how you just pause there? Mm-hmm.

Exactly. So go to curology. dot com slash sibling for a free 30-day trial just pay for shipping and handling 495 that's c-U-R-O-L-O-G-Y dot com slash sibling to unlock your free 30-day trial see cureology dot com for all the details there have to be moments where someone might say something to you and you're like that's that's nuts like you're Like you're, that's not even, that doesn't even fit into the narrative of what was happening in the moment. Absolutely.

Absolutely. And this is, this is part of how the memories for stuff that happened, your episodic memory can drift further and further away from what actually happened over time. So if the person who's talking to you talked about this story and thought about it a lot and gabbed about it in line with the telephone game, it's going to become something totally weird. Or is like histrionic by nature, like constantly going over something. Yes, you know, rather than trying to be right, like in terms of whose memory is right, am I right or are you right?

It's almost like you can, when you're locked horns like this, you can kind of toss it out the window and say, well, memory is probably, this kind of memory is probably wrong. And what I'm looking and what I'm looking for from you is the emotional validation. Right. That's the disconnect. The disconnect isn't really about. what happened. The disconnect is about... Right. It's not even about the actual physical memory. It's more about, well,

this is how I felt in that moment. So aside from what the truth is of what the exact memory was, I know that this feeling is real. Which is what people latch on to and they latch on to the problem and this is a problem because this was what I'm latching onto and I have to hold this and you're like

but like I don't see it that way. I can't hold on to that memory because it's not mine. So what's the solution? I find that more people get into arguments and relationships end because they remember something that happened versus they're actually working through something through feelings. Does that make sense?

It does. So you give these people my book and you tell them. You're free for what happened is inaccurate. And we're going to talk about how we feel. Right, exactly. I have a question off topic from this, blackout drunk. Yeah. What goes on?

Because it is about memory. And I, by the way, I don't, I do not have this, but I know a lot of people who do. And, you know, it's boom, they wake up. I don't remember anything. I can't pull it back. Yeah. So your hippocampus goes offline when you're that drunk. when your blood alcohol level reaches a certain point and it varies in different people,

when your hippocampus is soaking in booze, when your hippocampus is soaking in booze, it goes offline, it shuts down. And I don't know the molecular mechanisms of that. I don't know if anybody does, but I do know that much. And so what does that mean? That means that you cannot consolidate or form any new memories. And so what that means is that everything that your eyes are seeing, that you're conscious of, because you're still moving through the day and night, you're still doing all the things. But your hippocampus can't consolidate any of those sight, sound, smells, feelings, or information into a consciously held lasting memory. So you're doing all of this with no ability to remember any of it. What was the most shocking kind of realization when you're doing all your research on

memory that for yourself, like, what was the one thing that you were like, I would have never thought that our brains had this capacity? I mean, I think the most fascinating thing was learning about the people who have highly superior autobiographical memory. These are people who do remember the details of every day, even if it's boring, unemotional and not significant. Mary Lou Henner, I think her name's Mary Lou Henner. Yeah, yeah. So I interviewed her for the book. she's in the book. And I could, I could not stump her. It was hysterical. I was giving her all these dates. Wow. She instantly knew the day of the week. Here was the weather. Here's what I was doing. Here's what I was wearing. Like all of it. Here's what was happening in the news. Oh, my God.

That's so fun. Yeah. And so for her, it's really a superpower. And in part it's a superpower because she's such an optimistic, positive person. So okay, ready? Again, you remember what you pay attention to. This isn't just like, oh, where'd I put my phone? Where'd I put my glasses? My keys. Where'd I park my car? Those things go missing, not because you have Alzheimer's. It's because it's a symptom of distraction, not a symptom of memory loss. Like, I didn't pay attention to where I put it so I can't find it. But it also has to do with, like, are you an optimist? Do you pay attention to, do you practice gratitude? Do you pay attention to the abundance and the joy and the awe and the magic? Or are you focused on all the things you don't have and the scarcity and the injustices and all of the

horrible moments, the breakups and the bad days. So Mary Lou is an optimist. And so she doesn't mind remembering every day because she really just focuses on the ones that were great. Some people with highly superior autobiographical memory can't stop reliving the worst days of their life in vivid specific detail. And for them, this is a curse. So that translates to all of us though. Right. So I don't have highly superior auto, highly superior autobiographical memory. I can't remember what happened last Wednesday. But I also, the memories that I do keep tend to be the ones I pay attention to. They are the ones I pay attention to. And these tend to be really positive, joyful, good staff. Let's, let's talk about lines for a second, because it's sort of an interesting,

some people have to learn, they can learn their lines and they know them like the back of their head and they remember them because they've just, they've had to really... Within, within two seconds. Like, some people can read it and boom. Well, what I'm saying is there's people who learn them and really learn them and have to learn them intensively and they remember them for long periods of time.

Then there's people like me who, if you could give me a whole monologue, I could memorize it this morning and shoot it in an hour. But then if you tell me two days later, hey, let's do that scene again. It's like, I'll have to recall, it'll take me a second, you know, the same thing, but it's not like ingrained in my brain.

Then there's people like Oliver who just like have such a hard time actually memorizing. And is that, is that because what you were saying that it's the visual, it's the visual connection to... It can be. So, so for a member, for this kind of memorizing, we got to get the information into the brain and then we have to be able to get it out.

And there are different strategies for both of those steps. And some people are really good at some aspects and some people are better at others. So one way to get it in is to just hammer it over and over, repeat it, repeat it, repeat it. So neurons that, neural connections that are repeatedly activated become stronger. So the better way, though, actually,

isn't just to put the information in to memorize it. It's to reverse it and get the information out. So this is self-testing. Self-testing works better than just passively rereading the information over again. So this is like flashcards. So Oliver, it's like, okay, what's the next line? Do I know it? Try to recall it.

Try to retrieve it. So go and reverse, like fetch that memory. And then if you were able to do it, ooh, that's stronger than just reading the next line again. If the information that you're trying to remember is somehow you can make it visual. So if a lot of people do this very easily, oh, I can imagine that. I can see it. And then relate it to you. So you're more likely to remember something that's personal than that's not personal.

So right, you remember every time you wash the dishes, but you might not remember every time your spouse or your kid wash the dishes, right? So you remember what's personal to you. So if you can make the material associated with other memories in your brain that are already strong, it's going to help you. So the more you can identify with the material and make it, about you and your life and things that you know, visual, put it in its place. Like, oh, I can picture this in my own house.

So the more that you can attach to this, oh, this reminds me of a song when I was 16, when I was seeing that girlfriend and, oh, I lived in Washington, D.C. And, oh, like, so, like, it can, it'll help you remember the lines. Some of us don't need all of that. You can just, like, hammer it over and over and your neurons will do it. But then, like Kate just said, so maybe that's good at getting my, the memory. in, but I haven't really created a lot of robust, interesting, rich details associated with it. So now it might be kind of tough to retrieve it because it just kind of exists on its own.

Whereas if I had a lot of attachments to it, right? Lots of embellishments, things that are associated with it. It might then really help me retrieve it later. I think that's a really great thing for anyone in school or for anyone in the arts that, you know what I mean? Even for remembering names, It's like sometimes when I remember when I'm I've always in my mind I tell myself I'm terrible at names and then someone said well just when someone says what their name is just like think of it as someone that you know or if it sounds like someone you know remember like connect it to something else. And now that's, you know, it's actually a really good tool for it's one of those things when people are talking about, you know, when you read those books, like how to succeed, remember people's names, speak their name when you're talking to them. So like if someone says, hi, my name's Sarah, you're like, oh, Sarah, it's so nice to meet you. Yes, yes, you're hitting all of this. Exactly right. So this is so wise

because yes, when you say it out loud, you're giving your brain another experience with it. Oh, you're hearing it again. Oh, there it is again, Sarah. So it's going, it's activating those neurons again. Proper nouns are super hard for our brains to remember. So you can think like proper Like names, movie titles, book titles, cities, they're kind of, they're abstract made-up concepts. You can think of them as living in a house in a neurological cul-de-sac in your brain. Yeah, they might be associated with other things, but ultimately there's only one way to get to that house at the end of the street. Super hard to retrieve it and once you've put, once you've made the memory. Whereas common names, common nouns like spoon, dish, phone, computer,

Those live in Main Street, USA, millions of intersections in and out. There's a lot of ways to get there. So this is why we often have that tip of the tongue, like, oh, my God, what's his name? Oh, my gosh. Yeah. I know, but I can't get there. What is it? It'll come to me. It'll come to me.

That's what I'm always like, then I got to let go. And then it comes. You got to let go. And, you know, like, that's the best strategy. The best strategy when that happens, actually, is either Google it and it's okay to you. It's not cheating. It does not make you dumbart. It's not making your memory.

worse. It is, this is a normal glitch in memory retrieval. There's not Alzheimer's. Actually, leaving it alone is great because here's what's going on. If you don't leave it alone, you've probably landed on a loosely related word, something similar in sound or meaning or has the same first letter. And your brain is like hooked into that. We call it the ugly sister of the target. And it's searching that other neural neighborhood now. So like one time I couldn't come up with the name of the famous surfer. And I said, oh, is his name Lance? Laird Hamilton. It's Laird Hamilton.

But I came up with Lance, which sent, actually it was my boyfriend, sent his brain to Lance Armstrong. And so now we're like, you know, we're in that neighborhood of cycling, Tour de France. Yeah, your brain's everywhere. So you got to, like, stop it.

Because, like, call off the hunt, and then your brain can stop perseverating in the wrong neighborhood. And that's why later on, like hours later, it'll just, oh, there it is. What about multitasking? So my thing was is that women are always like, oh, we're great multitaskers and we're this and we're that.

And when people say that to me, I'm like, I am the worst multitasker. I don't want to do it. I'm not interested in doing it. Like if Kate is on the phone texting or whatever, that's it. You can't be like, hey Kate, hey Kate, hey Kate. It's almost like her ears just shut off. Yeah, I tell everybody, don't bother me when I'm doing.

I'm not listening. I am totally engaged in something else. what are your thoughts on multitasking and is it good? Is it bad? Is it harmful for our memory? So here's the deal. Again, it's this misconception that's out there. We tend to brag about our ability to multitask. Like, this is this amazing superpower. And yet what we're doing, we're shortchanging ourselves in a number of ways. But with respect to memory, again, you can only remember what you're paying attention to. That's the gateway to memory. Okay. So, I can't remember anything about this present moment for more than 15 to 30 seconds if I don't pay attention to it. Then it'll just go into the ethers. It's gone.

I can drive over a really big bridge, right? I can drive over the bridge with my eyes open and not remember having driven over it. I can be 10 minutes down the road and be like, where am I? Did I go over the bridge? Because I wasn't paying attention to it. I was lost in thought. I was listening to an audio book. I've seen that bridge before.

It's not interesting. Wow, right? So you can't remember what's right in front of you if you don't pay attention to it. So if you're trying to do five things at once, you are spreading your attention thinly over each of those things. So you're giving each of them a little bit of your attention, but not really powerfully to any single one. And so if you remember any one of those things later, it won't be very strong.

It will be a, those connections will be weak. That memory might be really tough to retrieve. It might not last forever and ever. So you might not remember it at all. So if you really want to remember what you're doing, it's about being present. It's about paying attention to one thing at a time. It really is. So yay.

Yay for you. I think that's really interesting. I think people will love to hear that because, you know, I know for me restructuring my days to actually spend on one thing, you know, knowing that everything's going to be focused on that has been so much more helpful to everybody. benefits of journaling. So I, I, it's one of those things for me that I've always loved doing. I have a ton of journals. I'm terrible at being, um, diligent about it. I wish I was more, I wish I was, I was more strict with myself about journaling. Does that help us with our memory? Is that a great, is that a great thing to be doing for our brains? Yes, it is. And so it's interesting though. So when you write something down about what, so, I'm going to, if I'm going to go to, before I go to bed tonight, I'm going to journal what happened today. I'm choosing certain parts of what happened today. I'm not writing everything,

right? I'm not the courtroom stenographer. Again, your brain is not a video camera. I am selecting certain details of today and how I felt about it to write down. In doing so, I will make it more difficult for me to remember what I did not include, but I will better remember what I included. By the simple act of writing it down, that reinforces my experience and the knowledge and how I felt about it to begin with. And I'll probably go back and read that journal at some point. So every time I do that, I am now reinforcing those neural connections and making that memory stronger. But anything I left out is now going to be tougher for me to, if I need a detail I didn't include later, if I was like, oh, remember, we went to dinner in the North End that night, but I didn't

write that in my journal for some reason. I don't remember that, actually. No, I don't think that happened. So, but it does help. And this is why, you know, social media has a lot of dark side, but on the upside, it can really help with memory because it is somewhat like journaling, right? We have the chronology of what happened if you post regularly, say, on Instagram, you get the photos, you might geotag your location, write some details about what happened. And now if you scroll through your own profile, your own page, you have a nice little photo album, a nice little sort of visual journal of what of your memories that could help help you keep those. It's also, it's also technology can probably help with the memory. Like if you really wanted to

journal every day in a way where you remembered things that throughout the day, if you just, you could just dictate it into your notes, you know, talked with Lisa, had the most amazing conversation about memory and her new book, you know, the next. little thing happens, you love it, you sit in the car, you're like, oh, my little girl just said this, it was the cutest thing on the planet, you know, and then go back at night and write it down. That's also, if you're someone who really wants to focus on that. I have a quick question.

Our brains, I guess we can say that our brains have been evolving over the last 300,000 years. Am I correct about that? There's an evolutionary process to that organ? Definitely. Okay. So given the fact that we are in a new age as far as technology goes, as far as the screens that we're looking at and our children, our brains are probably evolving some way, good or bad, into something different. I mean, have you studied this at all or have any hypothesis as to sort of what might be happening? Because I'm concerned with my, not concerned, but I look at my kids and they're on their phone. and they're so deep in? I mean, is this changing chemistry at all? Yeah, and so you don't even have to think about this

in terms of evolution. You can just think of it in terms of your own individual life and your kids' own individual life. So your brain, again, brain-body connection. So we know we influence our heart health. We know we can influence our reproductive parts. We know we can influence our brain. And so what we do changes our brain.

Every time you make a memory, you are changing your brain. You are making long-lasting, stable alterations and neural connections that did not exist before. Your brain is different every single day based on what happens and how you live. So how we live now is really different than how we lived 100 years ago. And so it does affect our brain. So does it hurt it or help it? In some ways, we can argue both sides of that fence.

So our attention spans are definitely decreasing. Our brain's ability to sustain lasting attention as a culture is diminishing. So, you know, when TED Talks first started, they were around 20 minutes long. I just gave one the other day. And they told me that my time had to be within seven minutes. So, right? Like bite-sized chunks. Like, God bless the podcast out there because we're reaching people who still know how to pay attention

for more than five minutes at a time. But so a lot of our, our, our, um, the advertising, the way we use social media, the way YouTube works is it's, it's quick, it's snappy. It's, you know, can we hold your attention for five minutes? So it's different than when we were growing up, right? Or when I was growing up and you had to wait once a year to watch the Wizard of Vaz. And you sat in front of that TV and you watched all the commercials and the whole thing. Oh, yeah, I know.

So now it's different. And so your brain. is not a static blob of pink goo in your head. It is a very dynamic organ that changes in response to everything we experience. I just wonder if we're breeding narcissists. Because we're just, we're constantly looking at ourselves, these kids and of reevaluating themselves on videos and pictures and it's so immediate. And how is that, how are we not breeding a bunch of little bastard narcissists?

There are mental health consequences to social media for sure. And for some people, this has become a very vulnerable place for depression and anxiety and mood disorders. And, you know, maybe some narcissism is on the uptick as well. I don't know. But I think that it does that herein lies like the dilemma for every parent to have to look at that. And it's our job to hopefully create an environment where our children are connecting to each other. everybody puts their phones down and you have traditions and, you know, whether that be through your religion or through just your family traditions,

like that that we remain connective and off of our tablets. I mean, but that's a whole other podcast. Yes. Yeah, we won't get into that. It's like to reel it back into memory for a second. So like if I'm constantly on my phone, so, you know, if I, if you want to build, if you want to create rich, deep, amazing memories of what is happening in your life, then you've got to be available to what's happening in the three-dimensional world. So if I'm in Starbucks line on my

phone scrolling through Facebook, my best friend from kindergarten could be in the line behind me, but I don't notice her because my head is in my phone. So even just a simple example like that, Like, can you be available to the life you're living? Yes. Outside of the screen. Love it. Because then you will remember more. I am available to the life I'm living.

Before we go, any tips for people out there for boosting their memory, strengthening their hippocampus, you know, and obviously get your book, read your book. But anything that you could just gift out to our listeners. Yeah. So we've already talked about some of these, but super quick, get a good night's sleep. Exercise every day if you can. Eat a healthy whole foods colorful diet. Eat the rainbow. Manage your stress. Breathe in and out through your nose. Count of nine people. You have time for that. If you want to remember more of what's going on, what you're studying, what happened, make it meaningful. Feel it. We better remember something that's emotional versus not emotional. So don't be afraid to feel things. Repeat it, rehearse it. So say it again, do it again, look at it again, put it on, write it down in your journal. We practice. So if you're trying to learn how to do something, practice makes perfect.

That saying actually works. So do it again and again, and you will remember it better. You'll remember it even better after a night's sleep. So if you're learning to play for release on the piano and you're struggling and each step is labored and you have to look at the sheet music, you will improve just after a good night's sleep. It will consolidate that memory into a choreography that's memorized while you sleep. What else? Visualize it.

Make it and make the visualization weird. So again, we remember what's surprising and new and what surprising can be kind of bizarre or disgusting or sexy or like not just plain old, plain old. So I tell people, I love this one. So, okay, I need to remember to buy milk at the store, and say I don't write it down, which I should because you should always write down what you plan to do later. So your memories for what you need to do later suck. Write it down, people, that's not cheating.

That's good practice. But say I don't, I need to buy milk, and I'm going to forget to buy it probably if I don't write it down or attach some visual image to it, make it weird, and put it somewhere that I know. So here's what I imagined. I imagined Dwayne the Rock Johnson, milking a cow. cow that's standing on my kitchen table and Tina Faye is lying on the table with her mouth open and the milk is just like overflowing and spilling all over her. This is very weird and I don't even want to get into.

So I did not forget. I know it's kind of gross. I did not forget the milk that day. So yeah, make it a little embarrassing, right? I made you feel something right now, right? You're like, ew, right? You're going to look at that milk very differently. I know.

So you just felt something, and that will make it memorable. By the way, that should be a milk commercial because I will definitely buy that milk. Fantastic. Well, thank you so much, Lisa. This was awesome. And so amazing. So great. So much fun.

I'm so grateful for you coming on. And I can't wait to talk to you. you more because I have so many more questions. I hope we get to do this again at some point. I know. Me too. Me too. That would be fun. Thank you so much. Yay. Thank you. Thank you. Sibling Revelry is executive produced by Kate Hudson and Oliver Hudson.

Producer is Allison Bresnick. Editor is Josh Windish. Music by Mark Hudson, aka Uncle Mark. If you want to show us some love, rate the show and leave us a review. This show is powered by Simplecast. I'm Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman, host of the psychology podcast. Here's a clip from an upcoming conversation about how to be a better you. When you think about emotion regulation, you're not going to choose an adaptive strategy which is more effortful to use unless you think there's a good outcome.

Avoidance is easier. Ignoring is easier. Denials easier. Complex problem solving. It takes effort. Listen to the psychology podcast on the iHeartRadio app. Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's important that we just reassure people that they're not alone, and there is help out there.

The Good Stuff Podcast, season two, takes a deep look into One Tribe Foundation, a nonprofit fighting suicide in the veteran community. September is National Suicide Prevention Month, so join host Jacob and Ashley Schick as they bring you to the front lines of One Tribe's mission. One Tribe, save my life twice. Welcome to Season 2 of The Good Stuff. Listen to the Good Stuff podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. In early 1988, federal agents raced to track down the gang they suspect of importing millions of dollars worth of heroin into New York from Asia. Had 30 agents ready to go with shotguns and rifles and you name. Five, six white people pushed me in the car.

Basically, your stay-at-home moms were picking up these large amounts of heroin. get to do is receive the package. Don't have to open it. Just accept it. She was very upset, crying. Once I saw the gun, I tried to take his hand, and I saw the flash a light. Listen to the Chinatown Stang on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast.