Improve Your Memory With Ease!
Posted Sep 17, 2022 at 11:47
These are my notes from the latest ‘The huberman podcast episode #73’ and i wanted to share them all with you!
In this episode, Dr. Huberman talks with Dr. Wendy Suzuki , whose research focuses on memory, attention, brain plasticity and simple, daily habits that can be leveraged to improve learning, focus, memory and cognitive ability.
This was a deeper dive into the latest episode, which was all about memory and tools for enhancing it
How Memories Form
4 things make things memorable:
Novelty / Repetition / Association /Emotional resonance. Interaction of the amygdala (threatening situations) with the hippocampus.
Hippocampus
Hippocampus is a complex brain structure embedded deep into the temporal lobe. It has a major role in learning and memory. It is a plastic and vulnerable structure that gets damaged by a variety of stimuli.
HM Study: If you remove the hippocampus, you immediately lose all ability to form new memories for facts or events.
The hippocampus defines our personal history, it gets to define who we are.
We need the hippocampus for imagination. It’s not important just for memory. Without it, you are not able to imagine events or situations that you have never experienced before.
Long-term memories are stored in the cortex, but some are stored in the hippocampus sometimes for a very long time.
One-trial memory
We are better at remembering something after just one time, if it represents a negative event. This is a survival mechanism.
You NEED to remember some things for your survival.
Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF)
Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF) is a key molecule involved in plastic changes related to learning and memory.
It goes to the hippocampus and helps new brain cells grow. It gives the hippocampus a boost.
Exercise and Memory
Acute effects of exercise on the brain:
- Mood boost
- Improved pre-frontal function
- Improvements in reaction times (motor response)
The least amount of exercise: 10 minutes of walking outside can change your mood.
For a better hippocampus, you need cardio (any cardio workout).
Timing of exercise: data suggests that exercise is best to do right before you need to use your brain. So the morning is beneficial. It does NOT mean that exercise later in the day is useless.
Performing exercise at roughly the same time each day will make it easier.
The longer you work out and increase the frequency of your workouts, the better the benefits. “Every drop of sweat counts”.
The ones who exercise consistently have better cognitive abilities, especially later in life.
Study: fit women enjoyed 9 more years of cognitive performance.
Improve cognition with exercise
Study: 2 months of 45-minute cardio workouts 2–3 times weekly (in 30 to 50-year-old people who were Unfit prior to the study). Effects: Improved mood and body image, and the motivation for exercising went up significantly. Cognition: improved performance in both recognition tasks and memory tasks.
Meditation
Study: 12-minute guided meditation (body scan and easy to follow).
Frequency: daily / Cognitive effects: decreases in stress-response, improved cognitive performance.
What’s going on during meditation? It’s the habit of focusing on the present moment and enjoying it.
Increase Attention
Top 3 tools:
- Exercise
- Meditation
- Sleep
