Latest / Do You F*cking Mind? / 447. How memory works and tools to expand working memory

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447. How memory works and tools to expand working memory · Do You F*cking Mind?

• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Hello, beautiful beans, and welcome to the podcast episode of Today.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: So in this podcast episode, we are talking all about memory.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: I've done I've done an episode.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Probably three years ago, I want to say, maybe two
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: years ago about memory. But we're going to go further
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: in depth with memory. We're going to do a bit
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: of a rehash on it, and we're going to talk
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: about ways, tips and tricks that you can improve your
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: working memory and your long term memory and also your
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: memory recall. I'm going to go into all the different
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: kinds of memory. And one thing that I want you
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: to you guys to realize is that memory can be improved.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Memory is a it's innate in us, but it can
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: also be a skill.
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  Speaker 2: It is something that we use. Is way more than
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: we realize.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: And when your memory is healthy and intact, your stress
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  Speaker 1: levels are lower. I don't think we realize how much
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: having lapses in our memory or poor memory impact our
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: overall stress. Okay, if you're constantly forgetting why you walked
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: into a room, and forgetting little things or thinking I
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: don't even know what I did on Saturday, like what
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  Speaker 1: the fuck those things are? Overall, they're going to be
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: impacting your mental health. When your memory is quite healthy
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  Speaker 1: and intact. Not only is it you know, you don't
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  Speaker 1: realize how much it alleviates your stress, but it's also
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: quite entertaining to have a good memory. I'm also going
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: to talk about why how kind of memory athletes train
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  Speaker 1: their memory because if you guys haven't heard of this,
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  Speaker 1: and surely most of you have, because I think I've
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: mentioned it before on the pod, but there's a thing
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: where you become a memory athlete. These people can memorize
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: an entire deck of cards. Some people can do more
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: like like more than ten decks of cards. I want
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: to say, like even more than that, but I don't know,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: and don't quote me on it. But basically, where you
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: shuffle a deck of cards and then you start like
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: laying the cards out in front of this person like one, two, three,
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  Speaker 1: four at that pace, right, all shuffled, and then that
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  Speaker 1: person can recite the entire deck of cards in the
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: order that they were presented to them.
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  Speaker 2: Okay.
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  Speaker 1: They can also memorize an entire page of just digits
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  Speaker 1: and letters, just a whole a four page of that.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: So and then you think, well, these people must have
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: a photographic memory, Like what is going on why are
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: these people able to like recite everything. And most of
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  Speaker 1: these memory athletes are just like you and me in
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: the sense that they started off being like I consider
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: my memory to be just average, like just what the
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: everyday person has as their memory, and they were able
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  Speaker 1: to train it just like a muscle, just like any
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: other skill. You can train your memory, which to me
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  Speaker 1: is so much more like mind blowing than someone just
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: being born with this innate skill where they've got this
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: freak talent and their brain is just wired differently. I
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  Speaker 1: think it's even cooler that you can train yourself to
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  Speaker 1: have this crazy memory storage and recall ability.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: So you dis sip in my coffee also coffee comic
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: and let's get into it. Let's talk about it.
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  Speaker 1: So another thing that I want you to think about
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  Speaker 1: when it comes to memory is that your memory is
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  Speaker 1: a huge part of what makes you you.
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  Speaker 2: Your memory is a massive part of your identity.
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  Speaker 1: It can connects you the present you to your past self,
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  Speaker 1: your past experiences. It's really important in what sets you
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  Speaker 1: apart from everyone else. Okay, it's what really makes you
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  Speaker 1: an individual. And it's also what kind of influences obviously
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: the work that you do. How good your memory is
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  Speaker 1: will heavily impact the kind of skill set that you have,
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: and it also heavily impacts your relatetionships as well. So
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  Speaker 1: your memory is a tool that we very often take
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  Speaker 1: for granted and we don't realize how much we are
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  Speaker 1: using it constantly, constantly, constantly, constantly.
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  Speaker 2: Okay.
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  Speaker 1: So firstly, I want to go over the main types
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  Speaker 1: of memory and the subcategories of memory so you get
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  Speaker 1: a really good idea of what it looks like. And
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  Speaker 1: then we're going to go into tips to actually like
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  Speaker 1: fun little exercises that you can do to begin to
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  Speaker 1: improve your memory.
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  Speaker 2: And this is where it gets exciting. Okay. So the
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  Speaker 2: first one is short term memory.
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  Speaker 1: Short term memory is the ability to recall specific information
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  Speaker 1: for a brief period, and I mean brief, okay, So
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  Speaker 1: we're talking fifteen to thirty seconds max.
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  Speaker 2: Okay.
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  Speaker 1: So, for example, memorizing a series of numbers, a series
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  Speaker 1: of words, or an exact phrase that's worded exactly in
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: a certain way that you've heard once.
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  Speaker 2: Okay.
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  Speaker 1: So if I were to rattle off a shopping list
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  Speaker 1: of maybe eight ingredients or eight things that I need
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  Speaker 1: someone to buy, you would probably remember them for about
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  Speaker 1: fifteen to thirty seconds unless you continue to repeat it
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  Speaker 1: again and again and again. That obviously will push that
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: timeline significantly further depending on how often you're repeating it.
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  Speaker 1: But just to hear something once, it will stay in
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  Speaker 1: your short term memory for fifteen max.
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  Speaker 2: Thirty seconds. Okay for the.
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  Speaker 1: General population, I'm not talking about these like you know
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  Speaker 1: that there are people that have quite advanced memory centers
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  Speaker 1: in their brain, but they differ from the norm, the
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  Speaker 1: population normal. Okay, So yeah, basically, the way to keep
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: anything in your short term memory is to continue to
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  Speaker 1: repeat it back to yourself so it can stay in
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  Speaker 1: your memory, so you can that lag, that fifteen second
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  Speaker 1: lag keeps getting extended further and further and further. So
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  Speaker 1: that's called maintenance rehearsal. If you are needing to repeat something,
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: someone's like, oh, can you remember these five digits, and
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: you go, okay, that's called maintenance rehearsal. I'm rehearsing something
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  Speaker 1: so I maintain it in my short term memory. But
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  Speaker 1: if you stop repeating it, then you're going to have
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  Speaker 1: trouble recalling those exact numbers, those exact words, or that
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: exact phrase ten minutes later, twenty minutes later, you might.
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  Speaker 2: Recall one or two things.
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  Speaker 1: If it's numbers that are not attached to any meaning whatsoever,
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  Speaker 1: you might not recall any If it's a shopping list
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  Speaker 1: where it's an ingredient that you think, oh yep, I
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  Speaker 1: like you attach it to another thought, you're more.
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  Speaker 2: Likely to remember that, but you won't remember the whole list.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, so kind of at that time frame, the memory
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  Speaker 1: is going to decay and it.
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  Speaker 2: Will likely disappear forever.
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  Speaker 1: If something happens where it's more of an emotional response
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  Speaker 1: to something, you have the opportunity for something to move
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  Speaker 1: into your long term memory.
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  Speaker 2: And I'll explain what happens with long term memory in
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  Speaker 2: a second, or it decays altogether. So they're the two options.
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  Speaker 2: There's no other option. It decays or it goes into
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  Speaker 2: your long term memory. Then we've got working memory.
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  Speaker 1: And this is a little bit better than short term
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  Speaker 1: memory in the sense of like how long you can
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  Speaker 1: hold onto something for because working memory holds onto bits
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  Speaker 1: of information long enough for you to use it. This
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  Speaker 1: is extremely important. Working memory is what we use the
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: most day to day, especially when we're doing heavily focused tasks.
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  Speaker 1: When we're at work, when we're working on, you know,
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  Speaker 1: writing or an essay or debating, your working memory.
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  Speaker 2: If you're someone.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: Who's like debating or really good at arguing, or really
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  Speaker 1: good at putting concepts together, or if you're maybe a
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  Speaker 1: lawyer or a judge or something like that, your working
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  Speaker 1: memory would need to be very fucking good because you
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  Speaker 1: need to keep the entire train of what has just
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  Speaker 1: been spoken about and keep it relevant to what you're
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  Speaker 1: about to either talk about or write about or whatever. Okay,
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  Speaker 1: if I am doing an essay on something and I'm
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  Speaker 1: reading a paper, I'm reading a journal article, and I
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  Speaker 1: need to then like kind of summarize and use it
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  Speaker 1: as a reference, my working memory would have to be
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  Speaker 1: pretty good because I need to remember what it is
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  Speaker 1: that I'm working on, to summarize and remember the relevance
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  Speaker 1: of what I'm writing, to put it all together. So
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  Speaker 1: working memory, we use it constantly, constantly, Okay, It's like
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  Speaker 1: a temporary storage system while you're kind of problem solving
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  Speaker 1: or or performing a task. So you hold this thing
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  Speaker 1: in your short term memory, but it is relevant to
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  Speaker 1: what you're doing to help you with this next step,
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  Speaker 1: so it's staying in there a little bit longer than
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  Speaker 1: just like, here's a piece of information, now just remember it.
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  Speaker 1: It's kind of it's more including different regions of the brain,
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  Speaker 1: and it's including like your working memory.
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  Speaker 2: Okay.
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  Speaker 1: Individuals with ADHD have deficits in working memory. Okay, So
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  Speaker 1: for them, they're going to find it harder to stay
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  Speaker 1: on track with a task, or stay focused on a
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  Speaker 1: train of thought or in a conversation, or they're going
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  Speaker 1: to find it harder to stay organized. People who you
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  Speaker 1: know how sometimes you try and have a debate with someone,
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  Speaker 1: or even you're discussing or disagreeing something with someone and
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  Speaker 1: they're going on a fucking tangent and they're unable to
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  Speaker 1: stick to what it is that you're talking about. They
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  Speaker 1: may have some kind of lapses within their working memory
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  Speaker 1: where where they're not able to stick to exactly what
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  Speaker 1: it is that we're talking about. Right. There are behavioral
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  Speaker 1: tools to get better at work memory, by the way,
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  Speaker 1: but this skill just does not come as easy to
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  Speaker 1: be with ADHD. Then for other people. Okay, some people
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  Speaker 1: just innately have it quite good. Some people struggle with
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  Speaker 1: it a bit more. Then we have long term memory.
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  Speaker 1: We're going to break this down further, but Basically, most
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  Speaker 1: of our memory is where we think about the past
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  Speaker 1: and whatever are our.
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  Speaker 2: Long term memory.
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  Speaker 1: So if you can recall something that was mentioned to
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  Speaker 1: you once or that occurred once after even thirty seconds,
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  Speaker 1: it's technically classified as a long term memory, which is bizarre.
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  Speaker 1: And the reason for that is that just an arbitrary
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  Speaker 1: piece of information, it's likely going to decay if it's
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: not relevant to your working memory. If it's just presented
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  Speaker 1: to you once and then never and then not again,
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  Speaker 1: and you haven't done this maintenance rehearsal, but you're able
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: to remember it later, that's likely gone into your long
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: term memory. And there's many bits and pieces that happen to,
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: you know, to strengthen a memory and to put it
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: into your long term memory properly. But things like names
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: of locations, your best friend's birthday, an interesting fact that
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: someone shared with you. Someone might share a fun fact
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: with you once and you're like, fuck, that's so interesting,
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: and so it triggers all these other areas of your
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: brain waking up like wow, you may never forget that
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: fact ever again, because it resonated with you your emotions. You
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: got like you know, and then you started thinking like
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: how that relates to other things that you had learned,
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: and because you start using more resources in the brain,
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: you're more.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: Likely to remember that thing for longer. Same with emotions.
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  Speaker 1: Every time something is layered with an emotion, that memory
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: is going to be very, very heavily consolidated into your
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: long term memory. Now we've got explicit long term memory,
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  Speaker 1: and these are things that we consciously and purposely try
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: to recall. This is fun numbers, this is birthdays, graduation days,
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  Speaker 1: when certain things happened in your life. Explicit memories can
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: be episodic or semantic. Okay, Episodic memories are episodes in
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  Speaker 1: your life, things that you can remember that have occurred
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: as like episodes in your life, like the day you
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: graduated high school, the day you got dumped, your twenty
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  Speaker 1: first birthday, like any kind of episode, milestone, event, circumstances
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  Speaker 1: that have happened in your life. Semantic is kind of
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: general facts or bits of information that you've kind of absorbed,
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: like a random fact that you remember from a trivia
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  Speaker 1: night that you went to that just stuck with you,
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: or something that you might have heard on my podcast
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  Speaker 1: that you're like, wow, that's so interesting. I've told so
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: many people, I've never been able to forget it. Then
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  Speaker 1: we've got implicit long term memory. So these are not
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: as forced or deliberate. It's not something that you're like,
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  Speaker 1: I now need to remember this thing, or it's not
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: an episodic thing of like some big event in your
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: life that you're like, okay, that's now so emotional, like
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  Speaker 1: I never forget that thing. Implicit is more like motor
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  Speaker 1: skills that you learn, like driving, riding a bike, something
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  Speaker 1: that gets learned within that uses different parts of the
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  Speaker 1: brain that you can return to at a later stage
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  Speaker 1: and still be able to do that thing. That's why
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: they were saying it's like riding a bike, you know,
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  Speaker 1: because it's kind of this implicit. Once I've learned it,
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: then it's kind of in me forever to have that skill.
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  Speaker 1: To an extent, it might not be as polished. It
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  Speaker 1: kind of forms unconsciously, and it can also affect the
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: way you behave, the way you think, the way you act.
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  Speaker 1: This is kind of also like procedural memory. So procedural
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  Speaker 1: memory is a form of implicit long term memory. And
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: this is like specifically like riding the bike. It requires
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: effort at first, but once you muster that skill, it
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  Speaker 1: just becomes this kind of I.
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  Speaker 2: Just now know how to do that thing.
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  Speaker 1: Reading writing skills like that, you don't ever have to think, oh,
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: how do I do that thing again?
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  Speaker 2: It's just now you've learned it.
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  Speaker 1: It also often included with motor skills, things that you
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  Speaker 1: know include multiple regions of the brain together, not just
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  Speaker 1: like a thought that I'm recalling. It's more like I'm
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  Speaker 1: doing this thing.
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  Speaker 2: Okay. Now, how we access long term memory?
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  Speaker 1: This is really important, and this is like the crux
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  Speaker 1: of memory really because if you can't access it, it's
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: fucking Firstly, how do we know that it's in our memory?
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: And secondly, what is the point of it if we
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: cannot access or retrieve this memory? So how we access
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: this long term memory is something called memory retrieval, okay,
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  Speaker 1: And there's a few ways that we can retrieve our memories.
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  Speaker 2: We have recall, recognition, and relearning.
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  Speaker 1: Now, recall is the shit that you can access without
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: really needing any hooks or cues, like memory hooks or
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: memory cues. And when I talk about memory hooks or
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: memory cues, that's when you're like, I need to like
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: retrace my steps and then I'll be like, oh, my
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: memory just got triggered and then I remembered something. Recall
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  Speaker 1: is this ability to if I said to you, what's
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: the protagonist actor off Titanic, you can go bang Leonardo DiCaprio.
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  Speaker 2: That's your recall memory. Okay. It's a factor that you
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: know that you've just gone and tapped into. I've recalled it.
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  Speaker 1: Another thing is you know, like basically anything you could say,
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  Speaker 1: you know, what was the name of that bar that
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: we went to last week?
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  Speaker 2: That's your recall memory.
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  Speaker 1: What was that name of that person that we went
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: to high school that used to always blah blah blah.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: Recall memory?
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  Speaker 1: Okay, And that is how you're retrieving the memory. And
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: I'll give you two examples here with an exam. Say
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: you're doing an exam and you just get asked a
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: straight up question like how would you blah blah blah
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: blah or what is the what is the whatever? And
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: it's just just a question, right, not multiple choice. It
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: is just a question. You are using your recall memory.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: You're thinking, Okay, I now have to think back at
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: what I studied and learned andtrol that's the answer. Bang'm
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: gonna write that down Okay, then we've got recognition. Okay,
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  Speaker 1: So this is when you can identify something that you
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: have learned before, but it has to be placed in
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: front of you.
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: This is multiple choice.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: So multiple choice is recognition kind of memory retrieval. And
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: you might not have normally been able to recall that
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: thing if you didn't have it in front of you,
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: but now that it's in front of you, you're like, oh, yeah, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: for sure it's this, I now recognize it.
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  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: So a lot of people think that, you know, if
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: I can't retrieve it out of thin air, then I
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: must not actually have a clear memory. But that's not
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: necessarily the case, because recognition accounts for a huge amount
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: of our ability to retrieve a memory. So, like I said,
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: multiple choice in an exam. The reason that a lot
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: of exams, a big portion of it are multiple choice
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: because they you know, there is that understanding that you know,
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: recognition is a lot easier.
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: Less taxing on the mind than straight up recall.
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  Speaker 1: You get those four options and you're like, I never
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: would have remembered that, but now that I'm saying it,
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: that absolutely jumps out and now I can link it
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: and it's a hook and I can now remember why
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: that's the right answer, and then you can probably expand
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: on your memory and going deeper as to why that
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: is the correct answer. So it's yeah, much easier than
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: recalling it from scratch, but you do need that knowledge
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: to be there somewhere for you to be able to
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: recognize it. And then we've got real learning, which is
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: a form of memory retrieval. So relearning is something that
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: you may have forgotten or forgotten to an extent, and
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: recall and recognition does not help you in retrieving that memory. Okay,
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: But then when you begin to learn it again, you
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: learn it much faster, much faster. You master it much
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: faster the second time. So there is this like I
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: did learn it, there's this weird like part of your
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: brain that has retained it, but it's not coming up
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: into your conscious awareness. A really good example of this
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: for me would be French. Okay, so I learned French
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: at UNI. I did like a double I did a
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: double major, one in cognitive neuroscience, one in French, and
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: my French was.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: Fucking good, like good.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: I could get up and do an entire oral presentation
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: where I'm being peppered with questions from the entire class
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: and the lecturer, and I could answer everything in French.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: Right about like critiquing a movie that was really Auntie
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: done in the fifties. I couldn't do that now, There's
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: no fucking way in hell. Then I went to France
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: and I spoke French a lot there. Then when I
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: was in France.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: Last year, my how I was up keeping.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: My level of French was pretty poor. I'd like passively
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: listened to French podcasts and stuff like that. And I
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: got there and I'm like, oh, I've lost so much
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: of this fucking skill.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: It is like a bit depressing.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: When you think about it, because you put so much
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: effort in and if you don't use it, you lose
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: it because your brain's like, can't you are not using this?
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: Why am I going to expend all this energy in
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: keeping it at the forefront.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: So yeah, in a nutshell, you get there and you're like, wow,
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: my god, it's like a decayed a lot to my memory.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: But after having a few conversations, after being exposed to it,
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: when you like order things.
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: At cafes or restaurants or whatever, when you put in.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: The effort, it starts coming back really quickly, really quickly,
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: and then you're like, oh shit, there's these words that
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: I hadn't used for ages, but now it's coming back
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: to me. Now that they're talking to me in person,
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: it all makes sense. I'm understanding everything. And then after
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: a couple of weeks being in a French speaking country,
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: before you know it, you're like, oh my god, I'm
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: so much more comfortable than I was even.
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: Just three weeks ago.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: But had I not had the previous knowledge of French,
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: there's no way that this French would have come to
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: me so easily, if that makes sense. The same goes
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: with many, many, many skills that we do that we
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: think we've lost, and then, kind of like anatomy, you
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: start studying anatomy again, you're like, wow, I'm able to
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: retain this so much faster. It's coming back to me
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: a lot faster now. So those are the main ones, recall, recognition,
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: and relearning. Now, when we make a memory, we first
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: need to encode the memory. Okay, this is how this
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: information makes its way to your brain.
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: Encoding is crucial. So when we talk.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: About how we're going to form memories, how we're going
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: to get better at making memories, encode and code and
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: code encode. If the quality of the encoding is poor,
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: the quality of the retrieval is it's going to be dogshit.
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: Now, if you are distracted when something occurs, you're encoding
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: is not going to be good. It's going to be very,
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: very poor. If there's a lot of emotion and focus
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: and intention around that, the encoding is going to be fantastic.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: As you know, the more parts of the brain are
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: involved in this process, in this consolidation and encoding of
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: the process.
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: The other thing that we need to think about.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: Is that sleep plays a huge role in the quality
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: of encoding memories. So if you're someone that's really stressed
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: or getting really poor sleep. You hear a lot about
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: women in the postpartum time frame who you know, they've
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: just had the baby, the baby's really not sleeping, They've
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: got months of sleep deprivation. One of the main things
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: that is a stresser on top of everything else is
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: their memory. They're like forgetting really basic things. They're like,
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: I'm forgetting normal words, I'm this and.
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: That, I'm fucking right.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: It's because they're you know, sleep plays such a huge
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: role in this encoding of the memory in consolidating these things.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: So it's going to like fuck up your ability to
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: retrieve and to focus on whatever. Sleep and memory go
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: like hand in hand. So it's not forever. Once you
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: start getting your adequate sleep back, you haven't shot your
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: encoding to pieces.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: That's not what happens. It's just temporary.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: Once you start get your solid sleep again, everything starts
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: to mend itself. The brain's very like malleable like that.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: But yeah, that's what you're gonna find. You're gonna find like, fuck,
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: why can't I remember things? If your sleep is shit,
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: it's going to heavily negatively impact your encoding.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: So keep that in mind, not.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: To say you have to like force yourself to sleep
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: better if you can't, but just be kinder to yourself
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: if you're like, oh, yeah, okay, this is why it's
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: just a season I'm going through and that will change.
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: But yeah, emotions are really crucial. So have you ever.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: Had an event that's like, let's say, a car accident,
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: you got into a car accident. Emotions are so important
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: in the kind of what am I trying to say
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: in the encoding of a memory that not only will
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: you remember that car accident quite intensely, but you're probably
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: going to remember everything that happened before the car accident
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: and everything that happened after the car accident. It's going
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: to be quite quite sharp and clear because of the
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: memory around it. And there's been many many studies around that,
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: like people that have gone through really like intense events
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: and also like catastrophic events like floods, fires, you know,
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: or all things like that. When you interview people about
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: these events, they found that not only are these people
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: able to recall these events in quite vivid detail, but
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: they're also able to recall so much of what happened
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: before and after the event, especially before it's almost like
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: the whole day is now like seed into their brain.
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: So then when it comes where am I up to? Now?
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: One thing that we do know about long term memory
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: is that it's stored in different parts of the brain.
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: Okay, so we know that it's not.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: Completely localized to one area. A lot of our memory
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: is in the hippocampus part of the brain. However, we
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: know that from brain injury patients and you know, amnesia patients,
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: that a lot of this procedural and episodic memory. So
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: like how to do a task counter, ride a bike,
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: how to draw, how to do all of those things
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: might be completely intact when other things are not. So
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: there's been cases in the past. I'm going to just
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: quote a very famous case. If you're a psychology or
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: a neuroscience student, you've heard of this Henry Malayson about
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: a million times. But if you haven't heard of it,
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: There's a patient called Henry Malayson, known as HM because
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: his name was kept secret while he was still alive
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: because well just for privacy reasons. But basically this man
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: was he had like both his hippo campuses completely destroyed
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: because he was he had such bad siezures, like such
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: bad seizures.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: So he had surgery on both these areas of the brain.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: Obviously, they didn't know at the time that the hippo
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: campus was heavily involved in memory. And what they noticed
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: is that he, you know, his memory was fucking shot
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: to pieces. It fixed the siezures, like nine to nine
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: percent of them, so that was a success in that regard,
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: but it destroyed his memory.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: He would not remember.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: What he ate when he ate, how much money hit nothing.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: So he of course needs like he needs support workers
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: around him all the time. Now to care for him,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: because you would just die if you don't remember when
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: you ate or how to get home, like nothing, okay,
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: But he could remember procedural tasks, He could remember motor
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: skills like you know, playing the piano. Well, there were
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: certain things that he could do that never left him.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: He also retained all the information that occurred prior to
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: the surgery, so he could know everything about history. You're
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: asking about history facts and all of that, and that
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: was still retained even though the hippocampus that working, like
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: the parts of his memory were shot to pieces. So
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: it's like, obviously we're dealing with multiple reagions of the
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: brain that are working here that allow him to retrieve
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: x amount of things, but nothing short term, nothing that's
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: happened since that allow him to procedural memories as well.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: So we've learned through patients who have gone through you know,
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: these fucked old school surgeries and also through amnesia patients
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: of the fact that memory is like it encompasses way
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: more than what we know of in the brain. Now,
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: let's talk about ways that you can actually improve or
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: train your memory. Now we have, firstly, there's one that's
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: called mnemon fucking mnemonics like M N E M O mnemonics, right,
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: and this is things where you create a word where
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: every letter stands for something like roy g big is red, orange, yellow, green,
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: and blue indigo, like so.
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: You know, for the for the colors of the rainbow.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: It's where you've got words where each letter represents something.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: And then it helps you like it helps like jog
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: your memory to be like, oh this is it's like
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: an acronym, but not then we've got something called chunking.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: Chunking is really really really helpful. So chunking is basically
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: where it's easier to recall things in chunk instead of
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: as individual components of that thing. Acronyms are a way
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: of chunking. So if you can remember the acronym word,
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: then you're more likely to remember something. For example, if
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: you're going to go grocery shopping, I'd say, like, I
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: need coffee apples, like Greek yogurt, and eggs, I could
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: say cage cage coffee apple, Greek yogat, eggs, cage cage cage.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: That kind of serves as a placeholder, right, and then
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: you're probably going to remember those four ingredients a lot
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: more than if you go then and be like, but
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: what was the last ingredient? If you remember at least
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: the first letter, it'll be like that hook and you're like, oh, eggs,
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: that's what it was. Then we've got like with numbers,
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: when you look at phone numbers, they're always like it's
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: like four, one, eight, fucking you know. So it's like
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: you've got four numbers, then three, then three. Also, if
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: I was to say remember the numbers one, eight, seven, six,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: you're more likely to remember if I said remember eighteen
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: seventy six, right, because you look at it as.
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: Maybe like a year or maybe you know. So things
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: like that.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: Chunking is really really helpful to remember something. And memory
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: athletes use chunking and what I'm about to talk about
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: now a lot, and it's called deep processing. So deep
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: processing is your key to really improving your memory. Deprocessing,
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: I think is probably and chunking, but one of the
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: best tools that you can use to improve your short
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: term memory. So deprocessing is linking bits of information, tiny
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: tiny bits of information, with deeper information that you already
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: know so it sticks. Okay, So you're basically trying to
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: make an arbitrary piece of information meaningful, and the moment
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: it becomes meaningful, you're less likely to forget that thing. So,
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: for example, if someone if you meet someone and they're
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: not you know that they're just like an acquaintance. You're
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: not like I have to remember this person or whatever.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: And you meet them and they say their name is Leo.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: If you say Leo, Leo, Leo, Leo, Leo, Leo, Leo Leo,
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: you're probably still not going to remember that name later on, right,
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: because you've not linked to anything meaningful.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: But if you say Leo, Leo has.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: A beard and it's like a main and Leo means
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: lion in Latin, so this guy has a main because
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: he's a lion, you've instantly linked it, and then you're
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: not going to forget you see this can't with a
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: beard again, you're like Leo, how's it going, right? Because
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: in your head you're like lion main beard. It doesn't
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: matter how random the link is. If you've just tried
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: to get one physical trait of that person just in
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: your head.
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: Don't say it to them because they're going to think
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: you're fucking weird.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: Can't but just one physical attribute and think how could
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: I link that to their name, and it can be
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: quite abstract.
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: But as long as it makes sense to me, then
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: that's deep processing. Right.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: Or if someone reminds you of a person, then how
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: can you link that memory of the person to the
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: name and this and that. It doesn't matter how weird
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: it is. As long as it makes sense to you,
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: that's it. You're not going to forget it now, you
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: will not forget Leo the beard the main he's a lion,
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: he's got red hair, He's fucking Leo.
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: Sense.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: Another thing that you might think of is, for example,
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: one thing like with the hippocampus.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: Okay, the hippocampus.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: This is what I did unintentionally without even realizing it
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: when I was, you know, learning about anatomy of the brain.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: And the hippo campus is very like heavily involved in
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: like memory processing and stuff within the brain and like
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: where memories formed and like transferred into the brain. So
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: I remember thinking, and this is before I learned this skill.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: I remember thinking of a giant hippopotamus hippo, right, who
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: has to store a lot of memories in his head.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: So he's so big because he's got so many memories
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: in his head and I'm picturing this hippopotamus.
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: Camping Hippo campus. Okay. So that way, when we would
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: be like asked of, like, what.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: Is the role of the hippocampus, I think, well, the
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: hippopotamus is such a big head because he's got a
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: story of his memories that because it's a big head.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: And then I'd be like, oh, it's for memory, okay.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: And then next time someone would ask me where's memory
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: formed in the brain, I just think of this hippopotamus camping,
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: and oh, the hypocampus.
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: Okay. So little things.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: Like that, How can I link a word to have
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: some sort of meaning. I've done deep processing. A lot
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: of us do it subconsciously. A lot of us have
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: to learn how to do it consciously.
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: But irrelevant. Once you learn how to do it, it's
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: a skill that you can use for the rest of
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: your life.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: This kind of deep processing is used by memory athletes
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: a lot, okay, And it's focusing on kind of the
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: learnings and associations which lead to better storage and better encoding.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: And also, like I said, if you're distracted, your encoding
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: is going to be shit. The moment you use deep processing,
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: you can't possibly be distracted because you're using again your
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: recall or your working memory or different parts of your
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: memory to be like, what can I link this too?
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: So you're already focused, so that already helps with encoding.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: Then you're like, okay, I've done deep processing. Bang now
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: it's encoded. The likelihood of me forgetting this is just
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: going to be lower than if some I just passively
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: heard something and hoped to remember it later.
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: Okay. Yeah.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: Shallow processing, as opposed to deep processing, is where you're
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: trying to recall something just based on kind of like
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: rote memorization, where you just like.
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: Repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat repeat. We know for a fact
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: that that is one of the poorest ways to retain information.
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: It works, but not great.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: The best way to retain information is to do this
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: deep processing. It is a lot faster, a lot more efficient,
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: a lot more effective, and a lot more accurate as well.
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: Um coolbins.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: Now, we also have something called a method of low
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: key I believe it's called and this is also known
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: and this is very heavily used a BYuT memory athletes.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: It's known as the memory palace. Okay, this is a
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: great fucking tool. So this is a really good storage
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: for memory enhancement. So basically it evolves placing items in
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: your imagination in specific locations in this palace that you've
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: created in your head, or a familiar route or space
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: or something that you know, and then when you retrieve
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: that information, you imagine yourself going through this palace, okay,
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: going through this street that you know, and then you
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: start to retrieve these pieces of information. So when I
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: was talking about the card game thing, there was I
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: don't know if it still exists, but there was a
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: thing on Netflix. It was Vox on Netflix about memory,
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: and they interviewed these memory athletes and this one woman,
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: she's fucking unbelievable.
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: She had purple hair and she's just insane with her memory.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: I don't know if it still is on Netflix, but
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: even maybe hopefully on YouTube.
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: Look it up if you're interested. It's very very cool.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: And basically what she would say is when she's doing
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: the card game memory exercise where you like, flip flip,
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: flip flip, she's got a character for every single card
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: that exists. So obviously the King, Queen Jack, that's easy
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: because they like, they already have their own characters, but
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: she'd also have characters for all the other ones like
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: ten nine eight bl So as it's being flipped, I
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: mean she's doing this at a very rapid pace because
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: she's like created a skill in her head.
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: But we could do it but a lot flower.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: But as it's being flipped, she starts imagining this memory palace.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: She's got a location in her mind that she knows
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: quite well, and I think for her, she's walking through
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: a strait or a city or something. So she now
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: starts to think the King of Hearts was and then
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: she's thinking of what he's doing, and then it passes
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: this thing and then this other character. So she's now
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: created a very rich story in her head and very quickly.
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: And then when it comes to recalling, it's like she's
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: recalling a story with meaning versus.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: Im and that I have to wrote memorize. Okay, So
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: she is now like, I'm just telling a story that
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: has meaning, that's got deep processing where I'm using this
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: what's it called this fucking method of low ki or
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: the memory palace method, and therefore I'm able to retain
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: and retrieve this information so much better.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: And then of course, you know when we talk about
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: retracing your steps to find a lost item that has
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: got to do with finding, like hooks and placeholders. Hooks
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: and placeholders are things that kind of like recognition in
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: you know, memory retrieval, where it's going to quote unquote
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: jog your memory.
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: So if you're just sitting here.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: Just trying to use straight up recall to remember where
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: you left an item, it's going to be harder because
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: you're like, there's so many possibilities. But if you go
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: through retracing your steps, then you have this recognition. Like,
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: for example, if I'm like, where the fuck did I
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: put this lip balm or whatever, and I'm like, I know,
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: I went into my car.
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: If I sit down in my car, I'm like.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: Oh my god, I actually opened the glove box because
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: I needed to put something else in the glove box
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: and that's where I ended up putting it. And I
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: would have never remembered that had I not brought myself
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: to the car and had that kind of you know,
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: hook or kind of placeholder that's going to jog my memory. Okay,
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: So retracing your steps is also a very powerful tool
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: to jog.
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: Your memory into something. Now, you can also.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: Practice recall, and practicing recall helps train you'll recall memory ability.
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: Okay, So a good one to do is, if you're
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: someone that.
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: Always uses your diary or your photo album to remember
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: what you did on a certain day, try to give
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: yourself a few minutes of just trying to straight up
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: recall what you did that day. So, for example, if
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: I think, OK, what did I realistically do on Saturday?
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: A lot of people, if they've just got a lot
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: on their mind and they normally used to doing that,
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: they can't even remember what they did on Saturday. I mean,
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: you're probably listening to this on a Monday. I'm recording
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: this on a Thursday, so it makes a bit more sense.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: But the further you get away from that Saturday, the
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: more you're like what did I actually? Like, even right now,
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: I'm like what the fuck did I on Saturday? And
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: it takes me like pausing and thinking and then like
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: taking a moment and being like, oh, okay, now it's
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: slowly starting to come back to me.
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: I remember what I did on Sunday. Now I'm trying
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: to think what I did on Saturday.
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: And without relying on looking at my diary or looking
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: through my photo album on my phone to trigger a memory.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: Because the moment you've got that trigger, you're like, oh, yeah, okay,
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: I can recognize I've got that recognition. It's easy to
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: recall it. But we're trying to we're trying to really
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: train now recall memory. So sometimes if you sit with
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: something long enough, you'll be amazed that eventually you can
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: recall it. And then the more you do it, the
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: easier it's going to be. Don't think, oh, I thought
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: about it for thirty seconds, it's not coming to me.
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: It's not coming to me. I'm not gonna because then
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: you start to really not trust your ability to recall things.
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: If you can sit in it for a little bit longer,
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: make it like a game, make it fun, don't put
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: stress on yourself. But then you're going to start to
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: realize that things are actually coming to my memory. Things
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: are like, oh, that came out of no way, I
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: remember that. Then like and then you can ask yourself
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: questions like did I actually meet up with someone, did
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: I sleep in? Was there an event? Did I see
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: my family? And then you start going through and then
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: you'll start to like things.
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: Will start to crop up in your memory.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: Then we've got another thing that you can really do
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: is remember any event that's a cur relatively recently, like
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: in the last couple of months, and then think, I'm
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: going to just, for shits and googles, I'm going to
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: remember this event and I'm going to see how much
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: of that day I can remember. This is really good
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: to work on your recall memory ability. So if I think,
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: for example, I'm going to remember, you know, live my
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: best friend her son's first birthday that was in May,
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: so it's like two months ago, I can remember being there,
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: what did I wear? And now I start to think, okay, yeah,
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: I actually do remember what I was wearing that day
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: because it was the first time I was like fully
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: getting my pregnant belly out, So now I remember the
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: top and I was wearing jeans. I also remember where
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: I parked on the street with tyrone. I also remember
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: what I ate that day. I also remember going home
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: and having a nap. And then before you know it,
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: you start being like, wow, I'm working on my procedural
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: memory because I'm using it as a game, another tool
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: that you can play, and I've done this sometimes do
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: this when I'm bored, to just.
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: Test my memory.
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: But I try and think, I try and work back
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: through the years of my life and try and remember
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: significant things that have happened in every single year of
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: my life, working backwards, and I say how far I
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: can go?
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: So I got twenty twenty five, twenty four, twenty three, twenty.
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: Two, and every single year I'm plucking out yep, that happened,
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: that happened, that happened, And that's all recall recor and
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: it's your training your brain like a muscle.
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: Do that.
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: One's really fun to do because then you'll be amazed
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: at how many Once you have one hook like trigger memory,
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: then it's easier to recall more and more and more
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: and more and more. Because I find that for me,
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: my episodic memory is innately quite good. I'm pretty good
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: in general at remembering events and remembering, depending on how
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: significant the event was, what I did before and after
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: that event, for the most part, not with everything. Like
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: you can't say, I remember that time we had coffee
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: a year ago, what did you do that morning?
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: I won't remember that.
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: But for example, I'll remember everything I did beforehand on
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: the day of my live show a year and a
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: half ago. Things like that I will have like quite
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: a strong memory. But my memory where I need to
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: really practice and put in a lot of effort is
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: with like faces and names that kind of like e
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: call and recognition memory for faces and names. So you
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: might find yourself really strong in one area and quite
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: weak in another, and that's just where you lean in
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: and kind of do more practice.
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: Another thing that I.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: Also do is like think of a trip or a
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: holiday that you did ages ago, and try and think
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: of the exact you know, path that you talk if
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: you've ever done like a euro trip, which what was this?
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: Because you know you normally do, especially when you're younger,
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: three days he three days he three days he thread
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: and it's just like a blur. How many can you
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: remember in order?
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: You know?
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: And then it's like little things like that that you
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: just sit there. So instead of like always being you know,
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: I'm just going to go home and just be on
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: my phone whatever, I'm going to play this little memory game.
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: Or while I'm like maybe cleaning the kitchen, I can
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: listen to music and play this memory game.
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: It's these little things that you can start to do
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: to work.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: On your memory, and you're going to find that your
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: storage and retrieval is going to improve. Another thing that
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: I mentioned a couple of episodes ago that wasn't actually
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: that relevant to memory, but it does impact your memory.
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: Is passive use off your mobile phone like social media,
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: and passive meaning just scrolling versus active use where you're
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: like putting up a story, talking to like you know,
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: chatting on your stories, or replying to a message or
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: messaging or commenting. That's active use, so that's less negatively
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: impactful than passive use. Passive use has been found to
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: directly impact your ability to recall and retrieve memories the
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: next day, not permanently long term, but the next day.
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: But if you're doing it every single day, then you're
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: going to find a lag in your memory overall.
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: Okay, so sleep, poor sleep, passive use of social.
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: Media there, and not paying attention like being distracted. Those
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: three things are going to be the major things that
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: impact your ability to encode and retrieve memory.
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: And then the things to improve that.
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: Of course is adequate sleep, doing things like deep processing,
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: so the opposite of being distracted, where you deep process
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: something instead of wrote learning. And then if you are
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: going to be on your social media, limit the time
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: a bit and then at the very least be like,
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: how can I make my twenty minutes or thirty minutes
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: a bit more active on social media instead of being
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: so passive.
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: So fucking good times. I love doing these kinds.
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: Of episodes around like the exact ways how the brain works.
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: If you have any kind of episodes that you're like, babe,
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: I want to go in like the ins and outs
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: of how the brain works for this exact thing, then.
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: Send me through a message.
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: Because I just, yeah, this is kind of like I
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: really enjoyed doing these episodes and I thought.
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: That was really fun. Give it a go, try it play,
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: do these little exercises.
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: Look up memory athletes and look up vox episode on
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: memory athletes.
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: If it's not on Netflix, try and find it maybe.
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: On YouTube, because it's if you find this interesting, you
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: will find that episode fucking fascinating.
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: It's like the brain is whoa old. Anyway, That is
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: all for today. Thank you so much for listening, and
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: that is all.
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: I will see you back here next time or for
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: the head noise episode at the end of the week.
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: That is all. Love you guys so much.
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: As always, remember becind to yourself, be kind to your brain,
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: don't text it from anyone, and especially don't text it
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: from yourself O