In short
Memory anxiety and evidence-based ways to improve memory, focusing on why forgetting is normal and what actually helps (sleep, attention, and specific learning strategies).
Guests
Charan Ranganath, professor at UC Davis (memory researcher); Lauren Frank, professor at UC San Francisco (memory replay); plus episode mentions Jan Born (University of Tübingen) and other researchers (Bruce Miller, Christopher Madden, Joel Kramer, Mark Roy, Sarah Raskin, Stephen Dikoski).
Key claims
Forgetting is default because the brain discards most information; key misplacement is explained by interference from repeated similar actions; “event boundaries” (room changes) can make you temporarily unable to retrieve intentions; memory improves when you sleep after learning and when you get wakeful rest; exercise supports brain health partly via better sleep; supplements/puzzle claims are mixed—curcumin shows limited working-memory evidence; phosphatidylserine has some trials.
Notable examples
losing keys/garage door checks; “kitchen” forgetting until returning; Spanish phrase lesson where guessing first improves recall; memory palace and songs for memorization; sleep study with emotionally intense stories remembered better after four years; crosswords show possible dementia delay but confounded by baseline differences.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOUnderstanding Memory Concerns
0:45 to 3:38
Discussion on common worries about memory and personal anecdotes.
“Senior producer Meryl Horne got to chatting with some of our colleagues at Spotify about this.”
Introduction to Memory Myths
3:38 to 4:13
Teasing the main questions about effective memory improvement techniques.
“Memory will be back just after the break.”
Expert Insights on Memory
4:56 to 14:00
Interview with Charan Ranganath discussing memory processes and tips.
“And with me is senior producer Beryl Horne.”
Implanting Memories and Learning Tricks
14:00 to 19:15
Explore techniques to improve memory retention through mental strategies and emotional engagement.
“So what's really fascinating about that is I've planted a memory.”
Implanting Memories and Learning Tricks
19:16 to 20:37
Explore techniques to improve memory retention through mental strategies and emotional engagement.
“So are there bigger things we can be doing here?”
Exploring Supplements for Memory Boost
22:22 to 26:47
Investigate the effectiveness of various supplements and lifestyle choices on memory enhancement.
“Well, I mean, there's tons of things that people say can boost our memories.”
The Role of Sleep in Memory
26:48 to 28:00
Understand how sleep impacts memory retention and recall through scientific studies.
“Like it's hard to tell from those if there is a real benefit to this kind of puzzle.”
The Impact of Sleep on Memory
28:00 to 32:40
Learn how sleep enhances memory retention and the effects of sleep deprivation.
“They got around 30 people into a lab at night and had them read something.”
Strategies for Memory Improvement
32:40 to 34:08
Explore additional methods to boost memory beyond sleep, including relaxation techniques.
“We know that really helps, yes, for sure.”
Understanding Memory Retention
34:08 to 35:28
Discover the normalcy of memory lapses and how attention influences memory formation.
“And another thing that you hear a lot is about the power of exercise.”
Show all 11 chapters
Expert Advice for Better Memory
35:28 to 36:52
Learn effective ways to cement memories during meaningful experiences.
“I just had this really nice picnic last weekend with my family, and I was thinking it would be, like, really nice to be able to, like, hold on to that memory in as much detail for the rest of my life, ideally.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Loren Frank:Hi, I'm Wendy Zuckerman and you're listening to Science Versus. So we're back with a bunch of brand new episodes. Did you miss us? We missed you. Thanks so much for joining us again. And if you like what we're doing here at Science Versus, please tell your friends about us. Share the love. All right, let's get into it. This is the show that pits facts against... Duh. Facts. Facts against memory.
0:35Loren Frank:That's right. Today we are pitting facts against memory. Because a lot of us think that our memory has gone down the toilet. Senior producer Meryl Horne got to chatting with some of our colleagues at Spotify about this.
0:50Jan Born:Do you worry about your memory?
0:51Charan Ranganath:Oh, yes, I certainly do, yeah. I definitely would give it a D. Yes, I worry about my memory, and I have for a very long time. It's kind of like a blurry fog, like a gauze over everything.
1:04Loren Frank:And people were really noticing this in their day-to-day at home.
1:08Charan Ranganath:I certainly lose things around my house a lot more often.
1:11Jan Born:Like what?
1:12Charan Ranganath:Just like keys, phone, glasses. And sometimes it's in the matter of like five, like five minutes. Like I put it down five minutes earlier and I'm like, where is that? I often forget if I've closed the garage door and I have to go back and I have forgotten once and someone else has texted me.
1:31Loren Frank:And so now I'm very conscious about that.
1:33Jan Born:I mean, it's definitely frustrating. It's a little embarrassing. It's a little scary because I'm like the catastrophizing part of me is like, oh, it's all downhill. from here.
1:45Loren Frank:And it is so scary, this idea of losing our memory. Some of our colleagues had seen it happen to people they love, like their grandparents, and it was really hard to watch. Another person we talked to, Connor, he's the guy that keeps losing his keys. He was worried that he wouldn't be able to hold on to important memories in his life.
2:05Charan Ranganath:It causes me concern about how that will affect the rest of my life, especially like when Luke and I, Luke, my husband, and I decide to start a family. I want to be able to, you know, like my brain to be able to capture those moments more, just better, be able to do it better.
2:28Loren Frank:And so with the stakes being so high here, it's not surprising that online you'll hear people claiming to have the solution, telling you that you've got to train your brain with puzzles or giving you some secret pill or hack to save your memory.
2:45Charan Ranganath:Struggling to remember things? Here's a brain hack that could boost your memory by 80%. Morning ritual to improve your focus and memory. If you do daily crossword puzzles, you could have a sharper brain later in life. There's certain nootropics and you can take those and they can enhance memory. It's not horse s**t or snake oil or placebos. It's real.
3:03Loren Frank:And the folks that we were talking to just wanted to know, is this stuff for real or not? I mean, bottom line, they had one big question for us. Can you tell me what I should do to have a better memory? So today on the show, what actually works, if anything, to improve your memory? Is there anything you can do to keep it sharp as we all get older? Because when it comes to our keys or wallets, a lot of us have been wondering.
3:32Charan Ranganath:Where is that?
3:33Loren Frank:Then there's science.
3:38Loren Frank:Science vs. Memory will be back just after the break.
4:04Charan Ranganath:And the timelines? Ooh, yeah, still tight. With all the best creative AI models in one place,
4:11Loren Frank:Firefly brings your ideas to life. Learn more at adobe.com slash firefly. This episode is brought to you by Torchiatry. When your mental health is suffering, finding the right treatment can be overwhelming. That's where Torchiatry comes in. Torchiatry is an online psychiatry practice with licensed psychiatrists who can evaluate, diagnose and provide ongoing medication management when appropriate. They accept major insurers, can treat anxiety, ADHD, depression and more. And you can schedule your first visit in days, not months. Go to talkiatry.com slash science vs to get matched in minutes. That's T-A-L-K-I-A-T-R-Y dot com slash science vs.
4:56Loren Frank:talkiatry.com slash science vs.
5:05Loren Frank:Welcome back. Today, we're looking at memory. And with me is senior producer Beryl Horne. Hey, Beryl. Hey, Wendy.
5:12Jan Born:Do you worry about your memory? How is it? Mine's really bad, I think. Oh. I was thinking about this a lot for this episode. And I remembered this time when I was in college that I just like forgot my PIN number for like several days to this debit card that was like my main debit card that he used for years. Oh, yeah. And he was just like gone one day. And then eventually just came back to me randomly when I was like in an elevator. But like, what was that? Like, that feels worse than normal. Yeah.
5:43Loren Frank:Yeah. No, that stuff has definitely happened to me as well. I'll go to do something and go, oh, oh. So how worried should we be about our memories, Meryl.
5:55Jan Born:I called up Charan Ranganath, professor at the University of California, Davis, to talk about this.
6:01Charan Ranganath:When I ask people about their memory, 90 % of them say that they're terrible at memory or they have memory problems.
6:08Jan Born:What would you say to that 90 %?
6:10Charan Ranganath:Well, what I would say is this. First of all, forgetting is the default.
6:16Jan Born:Our brain wants to forget most stuff. That's actually by design.
6:20Charan Ranganath:What I mean by that is you experience all this stuff. At this moment, you're getting a barrage of information. A massive amount of that information is lost within just an hour of learning.
6:35Loren Frank:That sounds, yes. That's right. That sounds about right. Yeah. Forgot the end of my sentence just there. That's normal, he's saying.
6:45Jan Born:Yeah, but that's normal. Like, OK, so like the point of memory isn't to log everything that's happening to us, that barrage. Like right now, there are probably things happening to you that aren't even kind of making it to your conscious awareness. Right. Like the feeling of the chair on your butt probably weren't even thinking about that. Right. Right. And then there's the stuff that like makes it over that first hurdle. So you're aware of it. But the brain decides like it's not really important to store that.
7:14Charan Ranganath:And so memory, if you want to take a cheesy analogy, memory is basically packing for the journey of life. The brain is saying, okay, I got to pack some stuff. What am I going to pack with me based on what I think I'll need in the future, right?
7:32Jan Born:A lot of the things I feel like I tend to forget are just really boring or like meaningless to me. Like what was the name of the person I just met? Did I water my plants? Like kind of makes sense that I'd be forgetting to do these things that like I don't really give a crap about.
7:45Charan Ranganath:Exactly. Like imagine if you remembered every temporary password you have, right? Like if your brain was just hoarding memories nonstop.
7:54Jan Born:And the reason the brain isn't hoarding memories nonstop is because it doesn't have infinite resources to store everything. Yeah. Fun facts. Charin told me that the power our brain operates on is roughly the same as a light bulb. Oh. But then issues pop up when our brain economizes so much that we forget stuff that we actually want to remember. And Charon says that he forgets stuff all the time, too, just like the rest of us.
8:22Charan Ranganath:Where I put my keys, where I put my phone. I lose track of conversations. You know, I actually got contact lenses because I kept misplacing my glasses.
8:33Jan Born:And he's not worried about any of that. I mean, in the moment, he'll still get frustrated, but then he'll tell himself, oh, no, wait, this is normal. And he actually has scientific explanations for why we tend to forget a lot of stuff like this. So, like, let's start with that key thing. There's a scientific explanation
8:52Loren Frank:as to why we keep losing our keys.
8:55Jan Born:There is, yes. It's called interference. Basically, like, putting our keys down, it's something we do, like, thousands of times, countless times. Yes. And so we have a ton of memories for putting down our keys. Yeah. That kind of get in the way when we're trying to remember that specific place, we just put them last.
Read the full transcript
9:16Loren Frank:That's right. That's right. You put them on the table. You put them on the bench. You put them in your coat pocket. Winter coat pocket. Jeans pocket. Yes. And then when you've got to go through that boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, your memory is just like throwing out all of these ideas.
9:32Jan Born:Yeah. It's like a needle in a haystack. Yes. Got it.
9:35Loren Frank:Uh-huh.
9:35Jan Born:And Charon says that like rather than trying to do that at all, maybe just like buy a hook for your keys.
9:42Charan Ranganath:Putting your keys in the same place for one thing all the time makes it a lot easier. So building that habit in.
9:48Loren Frank:Everyone should have a key spot. Come on, come on. We don't need a PhD for this one.
9:54Jan Born:The bigger point is like, yeah, don't worry if you keep losing your keys. But he also talked about like this other thing that happens all the time.
10:03Loren Frank:Uh-huh.
10:03Jan Born:So imagine you're in your bedroom and you realize, oh, I need to get my glasses, which are in the kitchen. But then when you get to the kitchen, your mind goes blank. So this happens to Charon all the time.
10:18Charan Ranganath:I'm thinking to myself, why am I in this kitchen?
10:21Jan Born:Yeah.
10:21Charan Ranganath:And so I'll see some chocolate, I'll eat it, you know, I might grab a bag of chips or something like that. And then I come back to the room and boom, it comes back to me, right? Now, the fact that it comes back to me says that I did have that memory. I didn't lose it, but I couldn't find it in the moment, right?
10:40Loren Frank:This is so—I love this. It's so relatable, particularly the chocolate. That's exactly right. So this is also normal.
10:50Jan Born:Yeah, it is. And the reason that it happens is super interesting. And it's all about how our memories are tied to the specific place where they're being created. So like right now we're talking, you're in your office, looks like. Yes, yes. So like, you know, there's all this stuff happening. We're having this conversation. Maybe there's like birds chirping outside or, you know, emails dinging. And your brain is kind of processing all this as it's happening. And then at some point you'll leave your office. And at that moment, your brain will be like, and scene. There's like a little reset that happens.
11:27Jan Born:and when you go into the next room, a new scene begins. And so in between each of the rooms is this boundary, right? We call it an event boundary because there's like a boundary between two different events. And scientists think there is a flurry of activity in the brain at these transitions, at these event boundaries.
11:50Loren Frank:When you leave a room or leave your house or when you leave a scene, you can almost see the camera in your mind clicking to take a photo to create a memory. Yeah. And so to tie this back into why when you leave one room and go into the kitchen, you totally forget what you were doing. That's because you like a memory ended and now you're in the middle of a new memory and it's hard to get back. Yeah. Here's how Charon described it.
12:26Charan Ranganath:I have to mentally time travel back and I have to leap across these different rooms, basically, in my mind to get back to this moment in time and remember what happened.
12:38Jan Born:And then I realized, oh, actually, event boundaries. This can explain a lot of my day-to-day forgetting. So this is why every time I go into my bathroom, I'm like, oh, I really need to order more lotion. Like this bottle has been empty for like weeks. I'd leave the bathroom and forget about it immediately. And the next time I'm in the bathroom, I'm like, oh, right, the lotion. I should probably just order the lotion in the bathroom is what I'm learning by saying this out loud.
13:03Charan Ranganath:Yes, exactly. Isn't that great? You've already learned something today that you need to get lotion. So yeah, and this is one of the hardest things that the brain has to do, is remembering to do something in the future. Because once the future comes, that context is different. And so how do you remember it later on? It's a miracle that we ever do this properly, right?
13:26Jan Born:And knowing what he knows now about memory, Charan gave me some advice. he was like, try doing a little prep work before you leave the room to set your brain up for success.
13:38Charan Ranganath:So if I want to remember what I need to do in the kitchen, what I really should do is imagine myself in the kitchen.
13:47Jan Born:While you're still in your office.
13:49Charan Ranganath:While I'm still in my office, imagine myself in the kitchen and imagine myself basically finding my glasses and being happy that I found my glasses, right?
13:59Jan Born:Yeah.
14:00Charan Ranganath:So what's really fascinating about that is I've planted a memory. I've sort of done an inception thing where I've sort of implanted a memory in myself so that later on when I walk into the kitchen, that memory just pops up again, right? And that's basically the smart way of doing it, which I never do. Because you forget to do that. I forget to do that, exactly.
14:21Jan Born:I have actually remembered to try this and it worked. What did you do? I just was in the kitchen and was thinking I need to send an email when I get back to my office. And so I just imagined sending the email. And then I remembered to send the email when I got back to my office. Whoa. And there are other tips, too, for trying to remember things that are science-backed. So actually, Wendy, I'm curious. Like, do you have specific things that you're trying to get better at remembering?
14:50Loren Frank:I guess something that really annoys me about my memory is that I can't learn Spanish faster. And words that I knew in Spanish then are lost to me, and I wish I could hold on to them.
15:04Jan Born:Yeah, I relate to that. Okay, so I have a trick for you. Okay. What's a word that you want to learn in Spanish?
15:17Loren Frank:99.9 % of the Spanish language.
15:23Loren Frank:What about a phrase? A phrase, I would like. Yeah, that's good. Okay, what about, um, that's so funny. Okay, okay, so what's your guess for how to say that? Oh, este muy divertido or something. Oh, sorry to anyone who speaks any language. What is it?
15:49Jan Born:Okay, so the answer is, and I need to check this because it's just Google. Do you want me to call my mom? Sure, yeah, yeah. Let's get the real answer. I don't know your mom spoke Spanish. Yeah, she's Peruvian. And you still don't.
16:02Loren Frank:I know. I can talk to my mom about it. Hey, Wowie. Hi. We're recording a Science Vestas episode. How do you say that's so funny in Spanish? Esto. Esto. Es. Es.
16:22Loren Frank:Muy chistoso. Esto es muy chistoso. All right. Love you. Love you. Gracias. De nada. Love you. Bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye.
16:35Jan Born:All right.
16:36Loren Frank:Okay.
16:37Jan Born:Esto es muy chistoso.
16:39Loren Frank:Esto es muy chistoso. Okay, okay.
16:43Jan Born:Okay. So what we just did will make for a stronger memory than if I had just told you, Oh, it's esto es muy chistoso. Like, without making you guess first. Okay, just making me guess it. Okay, okay. So remember you tried to guess like, oh, is this? I said divertido or something like that.
17:00Loren Frank:Yes, it says.
17:01Jan Born:That was wrong. Right. But it doesn't really matter that it was wrong. It's like just the fact that you made a guess at all before finding out the right answer really helps make a better memory for it. Interesting. Why is that? Well, one scientist I talked to said that he thinks it's like upping the stakes emotionally. because like if I had just told you here's the answer, you'd be like, okay. But if I ask you first and then you kind of struggle with it and then I'm like, you're wrong, it's this instead, then you like give more of a crap about what the real answer is. So your brain is more likely to like log that memory as importance because, you know, generally we're more likely to remember stuff that's happened if it's made like an emotional impact on us.
17:46Loren Frank:Esto es muy interesante. Yeah, see.
17:52Jan Born:And it also helps if you want, you could write it down after you learn it. Like handwriting is actually, we think, better than typing. Right. Okay. And by the way, I asked Charon about those people who seem to have like amazing memories, who are like winning memory competitions.
18:08Loren Frank:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
18:09Jan Born:So how do they do it? Are their brains just magical?
18:13Charan Ranganath:No, most of the research suggests that their brains aren't magical. but a big part of it is really learning skills.
18:21Jan Born:So like one skill they'll often learn is how to put information they need to memorize into a memory palace, which is kind of like imagining a place that you're really familiar with and then like putting different information into like different rooms. And this kind of thing works. It's sort of helping your brain create a story around information to make it more meaningful.
18:43Loren Frank:Right, yes, because we know from many years at Science Versus is people don't remember random information as well as they remember anecdotes and stories.
18:54Jan Born:Yeah.
18:54Loren Frank:You're just harnessing this fact.
18:56Jan Born:Yeah. And the other hack you might have heard of is turning something into a song. That's been used for centuries. And there's research that says, yeah, this works. That's great.
19:08Loren Frank:Okay, well, this has been a very optimistic first half. I do feel better about my memory. I guess it would still be great to just have a better memory in general. So are there bigger things we can be doing here?
19:24Jan Born:Yeah. Like, is there anything that can boost our memory in general for everything rather than having to use all these like piecemeal hacks? Yes. I did actually find something that can do that. Which I'll tell you about after the break.
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22:17Loren Frank:Welcome back today on the show, how we can boost our memory. Meryl, where do we go next?
22:24Jan Born:Well, I mean, there's tons of things that people say can boost our memories. Um, let's start with supplements because there's this like parade of supplements going around the podcast circuit and, you know, there's big influencers who are into them, sometimes selling them. Yes. And so I wanted to look at the science and I actually found this really big review that came out recently that's sort of perfect for answering this. Okay. So what they did is they looked at a ton of different supplements that are supposedly good for memory, over a hundred of them. and then they looked at the most common ingredients, like the stuff that just popped up again and again and again to find out whether anything really works.
23:05Jan Born:And there were some things that had a little bit of evidence behind them. So there's this chemical called curcumin. It's the thing that's in turmeric. And that's actually been found to help a little bit with something called working memory, which is kind of your ability to, like, keep things in your head at the moment, like remembering what I just said a few seconds ago. But it doesn't seem like it really helped for other types of memory. Uh-huh.
23:34Loren Frank:Interesting that it works at all because turmeric has been on the superfood list for years now. And I have always wondered if it was all garbage, but there is a little bit of evidence behind it.
23:47Jan Born:Yeah, I was surprised too. I was like, maybe there's something there. Uh-huh. And then I wanted to mention one other one called phosphatidylserine. I've tried to mention this other one. Phosphatidylserine. Phosphatidylserine. Phosphatidylserine. Uh-huh. You'll find it in some of these supplements also. And there are a couple of trials suggesting that it can help with memory, like for some people.
24:14Loren Frank:What does it do? What is it doing?
24:17Jan Born:It's actually part of the membrane that's in our neurons. So like the outer envelope of our neurons have phosphatidylserine in it. So it kind of makes sense that like maybe it could work. Uh-huh. So like those two were like the cream of the crop that this review found. Okay. For a lot of the other stuff in this pills, there's either like mixed evidence for it or, you know, nothing at all or like really tiny crappy studies. Okay, so, you know, you want to put a little turmeric on your dinner, go for it.
24:52Loren Frank:But what else do we have here? Does stuff like crossword puzzles work? I mean, a lot of people think crosswords help with memory, right?
25:02Jan Born:Yes, I feel like we all hear this. So I looked into that. And there are actually a couple studies on this. Yes. So they'll typically gather a bunch of people in their 70s and 80s and ask them, OK, who does crossword puzzles? Right. And then they'll track them for years and see who gets dementia. And they find that actually like there might be a benefit here. The people who say that they do crosswords are less likely to get dementia or maybe they'll get it a few years later than the people who weren't doing the crossword puzzles. Uh-huh. Like they'll have more years of good memory.
25:42Loren Frank:Okay.
25:43Jan Born:Okay. But there are a couple of big caveats here. One is that these studies also find a benefit for other stuff too. It's not just crossword puzzles like reading the newspaper, knitting, cooking, like a bunch of stuff that sort of just uses the brain has also been linked to a lower chance for dementia. And then the other caveat is that it could just be that the people who have a better memory in the first place are doing more crosswords.
26:16Loren Frank:Their memory was already better, and so they kept doing it. Versus someone like me, who I get very frustrated because I'm terrible at crossword puzzles, and so I don't do them. My memory already kind of sucks. We don't know if the crossword was causing the improvement. Exactly.
26:35Jan Born:or if it was just the people who already had a better memory were doing crossword puzzles. Like there are some clinical trials on crosswords and brain training games in general, but those are all kind of a mess. Like it's hard to tell from those if there is a real benefit to this kind of puzzle. So bottom line, Merrily, you're going to be doing more crossword puzzles? No, I'm also terrible at them.
26:59Loren Frank:Okay.
27:00Jan Born:So let's talk about something that's maybe not as sexy as a crossword puzzle.
27:07Loren Frank:sleep oh no it's even it's even less sexy than a crossword puzzle sleep is
27:15Jan Born:cool i guess in a sleep we're talking about sleep i just like i just like couldn't imagine
27:20Loren Frank:anything less sexy than a crossword puzzle and then you're like let's talk about something a little less sexy than crossword puzzles i was like what a long division like i want to um
27:32Jan Born:Is sleep sexier than a crossword puzzle? Am I wrong about this?
27:36Loren Frank:I think sleep is sexier than a crossword puzzle.
27:39Jan Born:Oh, great. Then let's go to something much sexier than a crossword puzzle. Sleep!
27:45Loren Frank:So sleep, the hack for our memories.
27:49Jan Born:Yeah, so there are tons of studies on sleep and memory. I wanted to tell you about this particular one that I found just because it was so weird. It was done by Jan Born at the University of Tübingen in Germany. So here's what they did. Okay. They got around 30 people into a lab at night and had them read something. Kind of a bedtime story?
28:14Charan Ranganath:Stories, short texts, kind of describing, for example, a murder of a child. Yeah, they were very cruel.
28:23Jan Born:Oh, Jesus. It sounds like it would be pretty intense.
28:26Charan Ranganath:Yes, it is intense, definitely.
28:30Jan Born:And, you know, part of the reason they chose this was because they wanted people to really be paying attention to the thing they were reading. And they figured, like, all this should do that. Okay. But so then they moved on to the sleep part of the study. So after reading this story, they either had people sleep for a few hours or they had them stay awake. And then they tested them to see how good their memories were for the thing that they just read. And the sleep made a difference.
28:58Charan Ranganath:And you find an immediate enhancing effect of sleep on the memory for these stories.
29:04Jan Born:But what really caught my eye about this study was what happened next. So the researchers then waited four years and then called up some of the same people to ask them what they could remember. And you just called them up out of the blue?
29:18Charan Ranganath:They were out of the blue, yes. Yes, they were not prepared.
29:21Loren Frank:Yeah, what did they find? Did the people who had slept remember more four years later?
29:27Jan Born:Yeah. The people who had read that type of story still remembered it better than the people who didn't sleep during that original study four years ago. Whoa, that is crazy. And since then, we've had other studies finding that, yes, sleep does enhance all different types of memory, not just reading this kind of emotionally traumatic stuff, but it can even help with motor memories. So learning how to do a new skill with your body. And it's not a small effect either. Like you'd probably notice it. Roughly how many studies have now found that if you sleep right after learning something, your memory for it is better.
30:03Jan Born:Are there like a dozen, more than a dozen?
30:05Charan Ranganath:Oh, no, thousands of studies. It's incredible. The amount of research, yeah, provides you with a safe feeling. Yeah, this is true. Sleep consolidates memory, yeah?
30:16Jan Born:We really know this by now.
30:17Charan Ranganath:Yes, I think this is for sure, yeah?
30:20Jan Born:And on the flip side, we do think that getting crappy sleep is a risk factor for dementia and Alzheimer's disease. And do we know why sleep is so important for memory? Well, one reason has to do with like how our brains make memories in the first place. Uh-huh. So like, let me just like nerd out to you a little bit about that for a second. Please. It's really cool. So after we have an experience, we think that our brains will like replay little bits of it after it happens. I talked about this with Professor Lauren Frank. He studies memory at the University of California, San Francisco. So like after we have this conversation, we'll both have little like sections of it kind of flying through our brains unconsciously for the rest of the day.
31:05Charan Ranganath:We think so. Yes. Right. And then some of those might become conscious. Many of them are probably unconscious. But if the conversation makes a big impact on you, yes, it comes back. That's cool.
31:17Loren Frank:That is so cool.
31:18Jan Born:Right? Like we can see these things happening in the brain. Yeah. And we think these events, these replay events are important for like consolidating memories into kind of long term memories. Uh-huh. But to take this all back to that sexy place we started, sleep, this really matters because we know a lot of these replay events are happening then, during sleep. Like, we can actually see these replay events happening in rat brains while they're sleeping.
31:49Loren Frank:We can see in the rats the do-do-do-do, do-do-do-do, do-do-do. Mm-hmm.
31:54Jan Born:So, yeah, all of this started kind of getting to me because I actually have not been sleeping great. So I talked to Lauren about that. As I've been learning about this, it just makes me feel kind of crappy because I have a two-year-old who just like wakes up multiple times a night still. And yes, that is kind of feel like, oh, it's not just me. My memory is completely screwed. Like, how bad?
32:15Charan Ranganath:I mean, we're that's it. We're amazingly flexible beasts. Right. So that we can adapt. You are clearly a highly functioning individual, despite the fact that you have a two-year-old who wakes you up all the time. But you will probably be a more functional individual in a couple of years.
32:29Loren Frank:Something to look forward to. Yeah, I can't wait. Okay, so before the break, you promised us a thing to boost all of our memories, and that is sleep. We have to sleep?
32:42Jan Born:We know that really helps, yes, for sure. But that's not the only thing, because it is annoying when you get that advice, and you can't actually control your sleep, right? So I asked Lauren, like, what else we got? And he said that actually there is other stuff we can do because sleep isn't the only time we see those replay events. Like we also think that our brains can strengthen memories when we're just kind of like hanging out, not doing much.
33:10Charan Ranganath:You can just take a walk. Anything that's kind of less of this constant stimulation that you're trying to pay attention to, less of, you know, people talk about the constant dopamine hits of, oh, look, here's something new, exciting on the phone. Right. So something where you can just be for a little while and let your brain process.
33:28Jan Born:We know that if you try to learn something new and then you just relax for a bit, it can also help cement your memory. So a big review of these studies found that wakeful rest after learning something new can improve memory. Mm-hmm. And so like now it's kind of making me change the way I think about just like, oh, if I'm taking a little walk, maybe my brain is kind of working behind the scenes to do all this stuff that's helping my memory get better. And so I'm kind of trying to let that happen more rather than constantly be like shoving my phone in my face.
34:02Loren Frank:Yeah, and shoving more things in your brain, but actually letting it have that downtime. Yeah.
34:08Jan Born:And another thing that you hear a lot is about the power of exercise. That can really help your memory, too. The truth is, exercise is definitely good for the brain. But rather than it being like a silver bullet for memory specifically, it's more like if you generally want to feel like mentally sharper, you should definitely exercise. Like doing exercise in your 40s and 50s can kind of create a like buffer against cognitive decline when we age.
34:40Loren Frank:Also, exercise helps you sleep. So all comes back around. Right. Okay, so here is what I have learned. If I can remember it. A bunch of the things that we do day to day and maybe think it's a sign that we're losing our mind and our memories are actually totally normal. Things like leaving a room, walking into another one and forgetting why you were there, forgetting where you put your keys. This is just part of how memory works. But if you are still worried about your memory and you'd like to improve it, one of the best things you could do is to get more sleep. And barring that, give your brain a bit of downtime.
35:27Jan Born:Yes. And one more final piece of advice from Charin that I really loved, which is basically that if you want to make your brain think something is important enough to remember, then you got to pay attention to it in the first place. Here's what I asked him. I just had this really nice picnic last weekend with my family, and I was thinking it would be, like, really nice to be able to, like, hold on to that memory in as much detail for the rest of my life, ideally. Is there a way I could use one of these hacks to, like, cement this memory into my brain?
36:02Charan Ranganath:What you really need to do in that moment is pay attention to the details. Really immerse yourself almost as a mindful observer into the sights and the sounds and the feelings of what's happening in that moment.
36:19Jan Born:Like while I'm living it, that's the first step.
36:21Charan Ranganath:While you're living it. While you're living it. And lock on to anything that makes this moment unique.
36:26Loren Frank:Well, that's just lovely advice in general, right? When you're having a beautiful moment, just focus on it. Live it. So thanks, Meryl. Thanks, Wendy. So how many citations are in this week's episode? We have 45 citations. Excellent. And if people want to find them and read more about memory, science of memory, where should they go?
36:50Jan Born:They can go to our transcripts. You can find links for it in the show notes. And then also definitely check out Charan's book, Why We Remember, is really, really good. Highly recommend that. Great.
37:02Loren Frank:And if people want to let us know what they thought of the episode, you can find us on science underscore VS. I am on TikTok at Wendy Zook. See you, Meryl.
37:17Jan Born:This episode was produced by me, Meryl Horn, with help from Wendy Zuckerman, Rose Rimler, Michelle Dang, and Aketi Foster-Keys. We're edited by Blythe Terrell. Mix and sound design by Bumi Hidaka. Fact-checking by Sam Lemmonick. Music written by Bumi Hidaka, Bobby Lord, and Emma Munger. Thanks to all the researchers we spoke to for this episode, including Professor Bruce Miller, Dr. Christopher Madden, Professor Joel Kramer, Professor Mark Roy, Professor Sarah Raskin, and Professor Stephen Dikoski. Science Versus is a Spotify Studios original. Listen for free on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
37:53Jan Born:And if you are listening on Spotify, follow us and tap the bell for episode notifications.
38:08Charan Ranganath:Class is now in session.
38:10Loren Frank:And the UPS store is here to help you ace arriving on campus.
38:14Charan Ranganath:Our certified packing experts can pack everything you need from desktops to decor. Plus, when you pack and ship with us, you get our exclusive pack and ship guarantee. Your items arrive safe or your money back. Restrictions and limitations apply. To get a 20 % off packing coupon and for full details, visit the upsstore.com slash packing. I see you. Avatar Fire and Ash is now streaming on Disney+. It's the film critics are calling the best Avatar yet. Go, go, go, go! A true epic and completely jaw-dropping.
38:50Loren Frank:This is the only purest thing in this world.
38:53Charan Ranganath:Return to Pandora on Disney+. It will be an adventure for the whole family. And watch the Oscar-winning phenomenon at home.
38:59Jan Born:This is sick!
39:03Charan Ranganath:Avatar Fire and Ash, now streaming on Disney+. Rated PG-13.
From the publisher
Lots of us feel like our memories are garbage — like we’d forget our pants if they weren’t on our legs. But what if the science told us that forgetting stuff is totally normal? We dig into the weird science of why our memories work the way they do. And if we DO want better retention in our brain box, are there science-approved ways to boost our memories? We talk to cognitive neuroscientist Prof. Charan Ranganath, neuroscientist Prof. Loren Frank, and psychologist Prof. Jan Born.
Find our transcript here: https://bit.ly/ScienceVsMemory
Check out Charan Ranganath’s book, Why We Remember: Unlocking Memory’s Power to Hold On To What Matters: https://charanranganath.com/book/
In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) Our crappy memories
(03:50) Forgetting is the default
(08:49) Event boundaries and how to get around them
(13:30) To remember more, up the stakes
(18:33) Can supplements or crosswords boost our memory?
(24:00) How sleep can enhance our memory
(28:48) “Downtime” as a memory hack
This episode was produced by Meryl Horn, with help from Wendy Zukerman, Rose Rimler, Michelle Dang, and Ekedi Fausther-Keeys. We’re edited by Blythe Terrell. Mix and sound design by Bumi Hidaka. Fact checking by Sam Lemonick. Music written by Bumi Hidaka, Bobby Lord, and Emma Munger. Thanks to all the researchers we spoke to for this episode, including Professor Bruce Miller, Dr. Christopher Madan, Professor Joel Kramer, Professor Marc Roig, Professor Sarah Raskin, and Professor Steven DeKosky.
Science Vs is a Spotify Studios Original. Listen for free on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Follow us and tap the bell for episode notifications.
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