Good learning happens through making

mistakes. Just seeing something many

times doesn't mean you'll remember it

well. You've seen the Apple logo so many

times, of course, you know all the

features, but then when you quiz people

and test them, and I do this in my

class, people aren't sure. Is the bite

on the left or the right hand side? Is

there a stem or a leaf? The best way to

remember something is to again failures.

I'll have you draw it without looking at

it and you struggling. Wait, is it on

the left or right? And is it stem or a

leaf? And you're starting to question

all of these things. Then when you look

at the logo again, you're going to

engage in better learning than if you

hadn't done that errorful kind of trial

beforehand.

>> Welcome to the Hubberman Lab podcast

where we discuss [music] science and

science-based tools for everyday life.

[music]

I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor

of neurobiology and opthalmology at

Stanford School of Medicine. My guest

today is Dr. Alan Castell. Dr. Alan

Castell is a professor of psychology at

the University of California, Los

Angeles. He is one of the world's

foremost experts on human memory and

cognitive aging. Today we discuss what

determines if we remember something like

a name or an event or how to do

something. And we discuss how to improve

our ability to remember information of

all kinds at any age. We also discuss

how anytime we plan or imagine something

about our future, we are always building

that on memories of our past and what

that means for our ability to come up

with new ideas and plans for our lives.

And we discuss how our memory changes

across the lifespan and why some people

retain exceptional cognitive abilities

well into their 80s and 90s and even

beyond and what any of us can do to

improve our chances of maintaining or

even getting better at memory as we age.

Indeed, while most people assume that

memory decline is an inevitable

consequence of getting older, Dr.

Castell explains research that tells us

the story is far more nuanced and more

optimistic. In fact, we cover one of the

more powerful and perhaps surprising

influences on our rate of cognitive

aging, which is your beliefs about aging

itself. And finally, we discuss

so-called superagers, which is the name

given to older adults whose memory

performance rivals that of people

decades younger. He explains which super

aer protocols are accessible to anyone

and how they can be incorporated into

everyday life to benefit our mental and

our physical health. Before we begin,

I'd like to emphasize that this podcast

is separate from my teaching and

research roles at Stanford. It is

however part of my desire and effort to

bring zero cost to consumer information

about science and science related tools

to the general public. In keeping with

that theme, today's episode does include

sponsors. And now for my discussion with

Dr. Alan Castell. Dr. Alan Castell,

welcome.

>> Thank you. Nice to be here.

>> You're going to tell us how to build up

and keep our memory. But let's start by

asking what is memory? Or rather, how do

you conceptualize memory from the

standpoint of we move through life, we

experience things, let's call it

passively, or we try to remember certain

things. What determines what information

we hold on to, how long, and so on? It's

a great question and memory is really a

mental representation of the past and by

its very nature it's reconstructive.

It's never always accurate and I think

that's why it's so mysterious and

fascinating that you and I can see the

same event and then remember it

differently a week or a day later. Um,

and it starts kind of almost at the

sensory level and sometimes our mind

plays tricks on us. And that's how I got

interested in this field that how can I

think I know something and yet not know

it as well as I do. And this is

something that's called metacognition or

awareness of our own cognition. And as a

personal anecdote when you know I was in

fifth or sixth grade I had one line in

the play The Wizard of Oz. It's a line I

practiced again and again. Listen

everyone, there's a cyclone on the way.

Hurry and get into the cellar. And of

course on opening night, listen

everyone, there's a seller on the way.

hurry and get into the cyclone.

>> Nice.

>> And I was thinking, how did I manage

that? Having memorized this line, most

of the audience probably didn't even

notice. But that to me was an early

exposure to memory is not always kind of

a function of what you do with the

information. And then, you know, in high

school, I had another exposure to memory

where I just memorized a lot of things.

And that got me pretty far in algebra

and chemistry. In fact, I almost

memorized the entire periodic table. But

this was using pneummonics, you know,

little rhymes or songs. And I realized

in my first year of college that I

really didn't have a strong

understanding of chemistry, even though

I could use all these terms. And

thankfully, I took an introductory

psychology class and I realized people

studied learning and memory and kind of

false memories and why memory can and

cannot be accurate. And I I was hooked.

I found that so fascinating and I still

do today. I'm both impressed and um

intrigued to ask more about memorization

of the periodic table. Uh first question

is about pneumonics and ways that we um

try and batch and learn information by

pairing it to other things. Trying to

remember a room full of people's names

and you know you uh could pair the first

letter of their name with a fruit or

what you know people do these things. To

me, that seems like a very inefficient

way to learn because you're adding more

information that you need to store away.

So, the first question is, is that the

best way to learn large batches of

information?

>> I think it's almost a workaround. And

that's the first kind of problem people

say is I can't remember names. And by

their nature, names used to be

descriptive of person's occupation.

Someone's a baker, we call them Mr.

Baker. But that's of course evolved with

time. and names. You know, I tell people

if you can't remember someone's name,

that's probably a natural forgetting,

but you remember if you had an

interesting conversation or you remember

if you can trust them, that's probably

more important. So then to engage our

kind of knowledge base so that we can

remember names, we need to make this

arbitrary link. And so I tell people my

last name is Pastel, Castell, you know,

Castell rhymes with pastel and my

grandfather used pastels, let's say. And

so people can then make this link. But

like you say, that's effortful. It takes

time. It takes time away from kind of

the essence of something else we could

talk about. And it also leads to these

kind of predictable memory errors. So

people say, "Oh, I remember his name was

Pastel." When in fact, it's Castell. So

I think we have to almost trick our

memory into remembering things that

might be somewhat arbitrary. And that

becomes more pronounced as we get older.

You know, there's more Davids, there's

more Andrews, and it's just more

interference. And so to get around that,

we have to, you know, use deliberate

practice, retrieval practice, use the

name several times. But I tell my

students whose names I often forget,

that I'll still remember topics we've

talked about or, you know, you know, how

they felt about something. And I think

that's more important than sometimes

just remembering a name

>> to remember chemistry or uh some other

subject that involves nomenclature. I uh

not everyday terms unless you're a

chemist but to really understand the

deeper mechanics of that thing and

remember that what are some better tools

I want to say and I'm not a memory

researcher that it might be helpful to

think in terms of verbs not labels so

rather than thinking about a particular

element just in terms of its name but

think about how it interacts with

something else or um how it gives or

receives a charge in uh you certain

conditions.

>> Absolutely. I think that's what you're

looking for is deeper learning, deeper

semantic learning. And this has been

referred to as levels of processing. So

I was working at a very low level of

processing when I'm, you know, making up

happy Henry, you know, for hydrogen and

helium. Um, but if you can start to

visualize things or interact with them

and that's why we want to have, you

know, chemistry labs or places where I

found chemistry very abstract. I think

that's why I didn't really engage with

it, but I found psychology to be

something that we were interacting with

every day. I was making these memory

errors. I saw my parents and

grandparents remembering and forgetting

things and I thought, you know, how does

that happen? And the brain is so complex

that I don't think we'll ever completely

understand, you know, why this me memory

error might happen. But I think this

awareness um is really important and a

lot of good learning happens through

making mistakes. Um you know, I you

know, I play piano and I, you know,

struggle and but I know when I make a

mistake, I'm going to have to work on

this. Um and I see that with my

children. And you learn a lot by making

these mistakes. And I think that

illustrates also how our memory works.

That just seeing something many times

doesn't mean you'll remember it well.

And this is a classic demonstration

that, you know, you've seen a penny many

times. You don't remember all the

features on the penny. I've updated that

to the Apple logo. You know, you've seen

the Apple logo so many times. Of course,

you know all the features. But then when

you quiz people and test them, and I do

this in my class, people aren't sure. Is

the bite on the left or the right hand

side? Is there a stem or a leaf? Um, but

if you make people draw it while they're

looking at it, they're going to remember

it better

>> while they're looking at the actual

>> while they're looking at it. Or if they

actually the best way to remember

something is to again failures.

>> I'll have you draw it without looking at

it and you struggling. Wait, is it on

the left or right? And is it stem or a

leaf? And you're starting to question

all of these things. Then when you look

at the logo again, you're going to

engage in better learning than if you

hadn't done that errorful kind of trial

beforehand. Even if you don't redraw it

correctly.

>> Exactly. Yeah. So this sort of thing is

you know in a in a academic setting we

don't want failure. We want people to do

well. But I think the sort of retrieval

failure with some you know corrective

feedback is really beneficial and that's

kind of how you learn through life. You

know you make mistakes and then you

correct them. But if you're constantly

just doing it the right way, you're not

really noticing these features. And

we've tried to extend this to other

domains like you know it's called

habituation. You stop noticing things

around you, like where the nearest fire

extinguisher is, let's say. And I

guarantee hopefully there's one

somewhere nearby and you've probably

walked by it many times, but you stop

noticing it. And it's only until you'll

need it, you'll realize, wait, where is

it? And so we've done this study where

you have to, instead of me telling you

where it is, you have to get up and find

it. And so now you're engaging with the

environment, you're going to go look for

it and be like, gosh, it's been there

the whole time. have walked by it so

many times have never noticed it. And I

think that's the difference between

seeing something and noticing it. So

someone who studies vision, we know a

lot of information reaches the retina,

but then how much of it reaches our kind

of more conscious level. And not all of

it does. And I think that's what makes

psychology interesting.

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to get up to 27% off. Yeah, the big

revelation for me when learning about

neuroplasticity, and it was such an

obvious one once I heard it, uh, was

that if you can perform a mental or

physical task, there's no reason for

your brain to change. You clearly

already have the circuit. So it's the

gap between desired performance and

current performance that actually

triggers the opportunity for plasticity.

>> Yeah. And those can be uncomfortable

positions, right? Where it's like, I

don't know this. Am I am I going to be

able to learn it? And I think that's the

this metacognitive aspect of when are

you aware of that? And a lot of learning

now is unsupervised learning.

>> You know, it's not that you're going in

classrooms and teachers are telling you

what to do. You want to learn a new

instrument,

>> you might do a lot of it on YouTube,

right? You're going to try and figure it

out. you want to learn new language, you

want to learn how to communicate with

people, there's going to be a lot of

trial and error. And I think kind of the

best learners are the ones who persist

um who are curious because that's how

you're going to get a lot of feedback

asking not just lots of questions but

the right questions. Yeah. Yeah. And I

think the frustration and agitation I do

believe that's the you know the release

of uh catakolamines you know epinephrine

norepinephrine and those change the

millu around synapses and um let them

change you know all the things that we

want to avoid are the things that

actually allow us to learn. It could be

that people that are very good at

learning and have this willingness to

embrace so-called beginner's mind. Like,

you know, like, okay, they're excellent

in one domain and they're perfectly

happy to be a raw beginner in a

different domain. I always wonder if

they experience agitation the same way

that anyone else would, but that they

don't have the same relationship to it.

Like, oh, here's that autonomic arousal

again, and you know, here it is. And

maybe they don't conceptualize as

frustration. So in terms of

>> getting better at learning and

remembering things um have you or any

other laboratories parsed kind of

people's um framework around it like I

know there's a vast literature around

growth mindset but but I'm I'm thinking

more in terms of how people

think about their own levels of

frustration because if you go oh like

here I am frustrated again awesome let's

go now's the opportunity versus h like

I'm I'm terrible at this I know I should

push through I I just wonder whether or

mindset can actually make a difference.

>> I think it can. I think our goals can

play a big role. A lot of the learning

we do is sometimes, you know, learning

to take a test or learning, you know,

something because it'll be on a test.

But as we get through life, we realize

you're interested in bird watching or

music or skateboarding. You know, a lot

of this is going to be observational

learning. It's going to be talking to

other people. So, I think it comes down

to curiosity, which is almost closing

this knowledge gap where here I am, but

I want to be here. How can I get from

here to here? And some of it is there's

a strong motivation there. And that's

something we've started to study with

older adults as well because um we know

memory declines happen with age, but not

all things change equally. And in fact,

there are certain memory systems that

might actually remain stable or even

improve. And I think some of the keys

here are curiosity, being interested in,

you know, listening to a podcast,

talking to someone else, closing that

knowledge gap, and then kind of

extending that and going further. And I

I sometimes find there's topics that I'm

not so interested in, but then there's

some that I will almost become obsessive

about that it's like I'm going to watch

that YouTube video and the next one and

the next one and then 45 minutes later.

And I think that that can be, you know,

kind of a waste of time in some ways,

but it shows that our brain is craving

this information. And uh that's

something that I'm really curious about

how that will change as we get older.

And some of our research suggests that

as we get older, we're more selective

about what we focus on. And I think that

can be beneficial. So maybe you don't

waste as much time on learn trying to

learn everything, but you're more

focused on the things you want to learn

about. Do we know that it's important to

continue to seek out new information as

we get older in order to maintain our

memory? Or is it sufficient to just make

some effort to remember the past, what

we need to do to get through our day?

You know, I think this gets down to this

question people think I really should be

striving to to keep my memory. Everyone

wants to keep their memory. Sure, that

makes sense. But how hard should people

push to learn new information as opposed

to you maintaining what they've got?

>> Yeah, it's a great question. I think

it's a little bit of both and you want

to have that sort of balance. So, if you

know, if you if you play piano, my

father in his 80s, 90s still plays

piano. I don't think he's learning new

pieces, but he's strengthening the the

pieces he knows and that keeps him

sharp. Um, on the other hand, being

exposed to new things, if you're

traveling, if you're talking to

different people, that can be really

important for things like even

neurogenesis. You want to, you know,

develop new brain cells, which we know

doesn't just stop as we, you know, reach

a certain age. [snorts] So, it's

probably a bit of both. And people ask

me, you know, what's the best thing to

keep my brain sharp as a cross word

puzzles? And that's interesting because

I think as we get older, our actual

verbal knowledge is maintained, if not

improved. So in a way you're

strengthening a strength and I think

that can be beneficial but probably the

other things to do are do new things.

you know, go outside and appreciate the

birds or talk to someone who has a

different perspective or you go to a

different restaurant even. All of these

things I find as I get older, I have a

lot of routines. But it's when I start

to violate these routines, take a

different way to work or, you know, try

something different at a restaurant, I

can almost feel like, wow, that was a

different experience today. I did

something else. And

>> I think so, I think both are really

important.

>> We do get set in our ways. That's a it's

a real thing. you know, [clears throat]

habits can be healthy and we can talk

more about that because there those

routines, you know, I drove this way and

I didn't get into a car accident or I

even noticed my students in my classes

after the first couple of weeks, they

all sit in the same seats. I'm always

like, why why is that? And it's like,

well, I didn't get attacked by a snake

here, so it's safe. Maybe evolutionarily

it makes sense. But I'll sometimes

halfway through the quarter say, okay, I

want everyone to get up and switch sides

and sit somewhere else. And students are

like, "This is terrible. Like, I have to

move." But there's some benefits to

having a different perspective uh both

physically and possibly mentally that

you're going to then remember things

differently. And I know if I've taken a

class in a different classroom every

year, I can almost revisit each of those

rooms and try and recall what I learned.

But if you learn all in the same spot,

there's a lot of interference. So I

think there there can be benefits to

changing our habits. Um but it can be

uncomfortable, especially at first. I

went to a lot of scientific meetings

early in my career and I would change

seats at after every break. It was the

only way I could stay awake through all

the talks. Some talks would naturally

keep me awake and some just wouldn't. I

mean, they don't tell you this, but

there are a lot of great talks at

meetings and often a lot of boring ones,

too. And you feel obligated to stay.

Later in my career, I gave myself

permission to get up and take a walk,

but you know, um, so I do think that one

learns differently. It even if you just

change the novelty of seat position.

>> Yeah. And I think that's a great example

of as you've gotten older, more

experienced. First of all, you give

yourself the leeway like, hey, I can get

up if this isn't working for me or I

want to see something else. But I've

also learned I learn better if I sit

over here and then over here and then

over here. And you know, that's those

are some principles of memory that I

think when you have this metacognitive

insight, um, you can use it effectively.

And I I've learned and I've seen my

children learn sometimes through

mistakes or sometimes this works better

for me. And I think that's fascinating

that we can do that.

>> It is interesting that almost everybody

has an experience of saying like a gaff

like saying something stupid or um

getting the wrong answer publicly and

the the shame and the arousal that comes

with that means a we we're never going

to forget the right answer, but we tend

to remember the experience of of of

embarrassment more. Yeah.

>> Than the it sort of swamps the

information somehow. And it just raises

this question for me is is there a

slight to severe

emotional tag on every memory we have.

>> I think you know a part of our brain

like the amydala that's involved in

processing emotions is is very active

and is maintained throughout age. It's

other parts of the brain tend to

decline. So I think you're right that

there can be an emotional attachment to

a lot of our memories. Some of them are,

you know, bittersweet. Some of them are

things we go back to for comfort.

Sometimes we even change them a little

bit so they fit the way we might have

thought they happened.

>> I think that happens

>> and that can be at large.

>> Sure. And that's part of our emotional

tuning like what makes us feel good. Um

some memories we don't want to revisit.

Some you know PTSD there's a lot of

research on how we can try and help

people. Um so I think memory can be

tuned that way and a lot of it can have

an emotional veillance and those are

usually the memories that we cherish.

They're the ones that we might be afraid

of. I I still remember even though I'm

not sure I remember it accurately this

Wizard of Oz and now when my daughter

was in Wizard of Oz I was like oh this

is such a great play so I was thinking

positively about it even though at that

time

>> of getting the line wrong

>> of getting the line wrong.

>> What do you think happened there?

>> You know I was probably just distracted

you know you do a lot of these dress

rehearsals. I'm not clearly I'm not an

actor but you do a lot of these

rehearsing and you don't see the

audience. You don't appreciate what's

going on. Um, especially when you're

young, you know, all of a sudden like,

oh, there's all these people watching me

and I know I know what I'm supposed to

say, but I kind of I'm not convinced

most people even remembered it. I'm not

even sure my parents were there, you

know? So, I think we then think of it as

a very strong emotional memory, but it

guides us. And to me, that that's a

lasting memory in a sense because it

kind of forced me to think, how does

memory really work? I thought I knew how

it worked. And I see a lot of people,

you know, studying in ways that aren't

always as effective. You know, we know

some of the work, this is colleagues at

UCLA studied desirable difficulties. How

can you make learning kind of

uncomfortable, but that you'll remember

things better? And it goes against a lot

of our intuitions. A lot of teachers

will want to say, how can we make

learning easier? And I think that's

probably the first problem is you don't

want it to be easy. You want it to be

not a struggle, but a challenge so that

you can appreciate just how difficult it

is. So, if I learned nothing else from

that Wizard of Oz is now when I, you

know, do a presentation or talk to other

people, I love to see the room I'm going

to be working in or maybe, you know, a

scientific presentation, maybe you've

done this, too. The night before you're

like, "Oh, this is the auditorium." And

probably raises your, you know, arousal

level, but it makes you feel more

comfortable than the day of.

>> I don't have a photographic memory. I

wish I did, or maybe I wish I I didn't,

but a long time ago, I decided, um, I

was in a in a really cool circumstance.

I was on a picnic. I think it was my

first girlfriend. And I remember

thinking like, gosh, she's so beautiful.

I'm just going to take a picture. We

were just sitting at this park that's up

in the hills behind uh where I used to

live. And I just went and I decided,

okay, like I remember the picture. Now,

of course, in my mind now, it's it's

blurry. Like I don't remember specific

details, but I remember more or less I

think I remember that the angle was

that. And then

>> like a year and a half ago, I was in uh

Manhattan. and I was in an Uber and I

just was like maybe I could just do that

for a like a trivial

>> street scene. So I just like look there

was that one of those scaffolds for

construction and I just decided you just

do that and there was a guy walking by

and I'm like I wonder if I'll remember

it and I still remember it. Now the

question I have is do I actually

remember the content of what I saw?

>> Mhm.

>> Besides just their crude, you know, the

scaffold, the guy in one case, you know,

my my girlfriend, we were sitting on

this nice big lawn above there this lake

there. It's it's a beautiful spot uh in

Palto still there. or is what's stamped

in my decision to do that and the and

the sort of conscious collection of it

is are is it these weren't like big

emotionally salient events where the the

difference between these visual memories

and other visual memories is that the

emotional load wasn't that high

>> but I made the decision to do it. It was

like it was coming from me.

So, I'm not just trying to remember like

like we also went to was her senior my

junior prom. Like I don't I remember a

few things from that prom,

>> but I can't reme I don't have a visual

picture of the prom, but the prom was

also a lot more emotionally,

you know, laden than anything I just

described. Does that make sense?

>> Yeah, it's a fascinating question

because I think selection is the

important thing here that you're making

a conscious decision like this is a

special moment. Can I just take a

picture of it? And the work on visual

memory is interesting. We are very

visual people but the research on

photographic memory does show that even

people who have very strong visual

memory will make memory errors. So it's

not that you know it's exactly

photographic but their visual memory is

exceptional. I think what's interesting

here and this is something I think is

important is the selection process that

you're choosing. This is a special

moment. I'm going to time stamp it and

remember it.

>> You're not, you know, doing anything

special other than realizing a lot is

going on. Now there's probably some

emotional veilance there. versus taking

this random picture in New York City.

>> And it would be interesting to kind of

test your memory later because we know

sometimes we think we remember something

well and in fact we misremember things

or details and hopefully you know you

got the right girlfriend of course but

maybe the hill looks a little bit

different or sometimes people are like

of course it was spring cuz we went to

the prom but it's like no actually now

that you know we it was a different

season entirely that was fall and

confusing with the other picnic I took.

M but I think that's important

especially as you know we get older that

there are some memories these days we

have our phones for everything so you

probably you probably couldn't then but

you could have pulled out your phone and

actually taken a picture and you see a

lot of people offloading information now

>> that you know I'm not going to remember

this I'll take a picture there is some

research showing that that act of

deciding to take the picture actually

improves your own memory

>> for the event

>> for the event.

>> Interesting. Now, it can also make your

memory worse because you're realizing I

want to I'm taking this photo so I don't

need to remember it later. And so, you

could see it going both ways, but that

selection process is important. So,

sometimes you're choosing this is

mundane. I'm going to offload it and

take a picture or this is a special

moment. I want to take this picture. And

I see it, you know, when I take pictures

of my family. This is a special moment.

I want to take this photo. But there are

times where I'm like, I don't have my

camera. I don't want to interfere. this

is going to be like an internal memory

that I can take um and hopefully it

lasts forever.

>> I tell myself that my mindset

[clears throat] at the time was this is

a special moment. I never want to forget

this.

>> Yeah.

>> I hope I never forget it.

>> Well, you know, memory is reconstructive

and I think, you know, the more you

retrieve it and go back there, the more

you'll have this feeling of remembering

it. And our brain does a lot of

interesting things in terms of, you

know, reconstructing the past also has a

similar brain signature as imagining the

future. which you know in some ways

makes sense. We shouldn't have separate

parts of the brain for thinking about

the past and thinking about the future.

But that can kind of then predict why

you might misremember something. Why

your imagination has to be based surely

on the experiences you've had already

right or you know if I say what would it

be like to go to Mars? Well you've never

been to Mars but you've seen movies in

the past about it. So our, you know, if

I said imagine a space alien, you and I

being similar age are probably going to

think of the ET version of one,

>> whereas someone who's younger than us

might have a very different kind of

representation of that. So it's

interesting to think of memory as kind

of a reconstruction of the past, but

also imagining the future involves, you

know, our past experiences.

>> Never thought about it that way. It's

the perfect time, I think, to raise the

quote that uh a former guest on this

podcast put on social media the other

day. They weren't his words, but this

Morgan Howell, who did a really

wonderful episode on the psychology of

money. Um, and I I really love his first

book, but also his second book u the art

of spending money. Um, he put out a he

said it's a Russian quote, "The past is

more unpredictable than the future."

Yeah. goodness, that raises questions

about eyewitness testimony, um, spousal

arguments. You know, I occasionally will

get an email, my wife and I are have a

debate or my husband and I are debate

and and I have a rule. I I don't get

into uh spousal uh debates or arguments

of any kind. So,

>> do we remember things the way they

happened or do we confabulate uh do we

um muck it all up?

>> You know, I don't think we muck it all

up and I don't think we do it

intentionally either. But as a result of

all the information we have in our

memory, we're constantly interpreting,

you know, the future and our current

state. And you spoke a little bit about

eyewitness memory. I think that's a

really good example of that where

something horrible might have happened

and like your experience where you think

you're taking a picture and you're going

to remember everything and it feels like

you will. I can remember the shirt. I

can remember the smell. I can remember

the weather. Um, and sometimes that can

be accurate, but a lot of research shows

that sometimes we misremember these

things. In some of these classic cases,

unfortunately, um, you know, now that

there's DNA evidence, you can determine

that maybe they got the wrong person.

And when that happens, you want to look

back and say, how could that happen? And

some of it comes down to faulty

eyewitness identification. And these are

not cases where people are lying or

intentionally changing things, but

they'll identify someone. They'll say,

"That's the person." And as a result of

identifying that person in a lineup,

that person then replaces what they

actually saw. So our memory can be

contaminated just like any form of

evidence could be contaminated. And then

when you replay it again, you're

replaying the person you identified, not

the person you actually saw. Wow. So

it's almost like we as we become more

familiar with this person that we

identified, quote unquote, our knowledge

about them, facial features, etc. is is

elaborated in our brain and we

superimpose that on the actual

experience.

>> Yeah. And and this is you know one of

the most famous cases Ronald Cotton case

where really horrible event happened um

and the woman made a point of trying to

remember her attacker. So it wasn't just

she got a quick glance but she had a

long interaction with him and that's you

know a traumatic event and she said if I

survive this I want to remember his face

so I can identify him later. So this is

like the the perfect situation where

your memory should be sharp. And um it

was crossra identification which we know

is not as reliable as identifying

someone of your own race. And when she

saw a lineup she identified she took her

time and said this feels like it's a

multiplechoice test. And I studied hard

for it. She took her time and she

identified the person and she thought in

her mind this is the person who was

inches from my throat. um and she

identified him and he had a an alibi

that didn't stand up and he was you know

then you know found guilty and it was

only you know decades later that DNA

evidence exonerated him and she felt

horrible. um she felt like, you know,

and there's a lot of reasons why this

could happen, you know, whether leading

questions or how the identification

process was conducted, but she was

trying to do what she felt was her job

and take someone who she thought was

guilty off the street and um later they

got to meet in fact and she you know

could apologize to him. She felt

terrible. And so this is one case study

and you know I wouldn't draw any

conclusions but it had a lot of the

principles that we've talked about where

you feel like you're taking a photo.

It's a cross race identification where

your confidence might be high for good

reason um but accuracy might not be and

then this kind of changing of the face

whereas once you identify the face

that's what you start to remember and so

I think there's a lot of interesting

memory principles at play here. How does

the legal system deal with this kind of

thing? I mean nowadays there's so many

more cameras and phones which can track

location. I like to think those things

have improved the courtroom scenarios uh

that it's harder for people to make

genuine mistakes.

>> Yeah. I think it's you know memory

should be treated as one source of

evidence just like DNA just like any

sort of evidence but also we need to be

aware that it can be contaminated just

like any other source of evidence as

well. So we can't just say oh well DNA

evidence is perfect. Well, it can also

be contaminated in predictable ways. And

I think, you know, coming back to this

idea of metacognition, most people feel

like they have a pretty good

understanding of how memory works,

>> but it's not always accurate. And

sometimes confidence, high confidence

doesn't necessarily mean high accuracy.

And I think part of the reason we're

fooled is usually, you know, the more

you see something, the better you'll

remember it, just like the Apple logo.

But that's not always the case. And

there's predictable reasons why. the

more you see something, the more you

might stop attending to the features or

you don't need to use it. And so that is

a more kind of predictable memory

principle. But we don't have this, you

know, always accurate metacognitive

insight. And I I think that's

interesting. I think that's both

concerning, you know, in the eyewitness

memory case, but it's also important for

learning. How can we be kind of

effective and maximize our learning?

>> I have a question about what I want to

call medium-term memory. I don't even

know if that's a real term. Short-term

memory. Working memory. Listeners to

this podcast may or may not be familiar,

but working memory is like keeping a

phone number online in your head or a

string of numbers um until you need it

and then kind of you may or may not

remember it long term. Long-term memory,

obviously. Long-term memory. But there's

this thing that I do. I'm there's today

is a bit of a confessional. So, um, when

I check into hotels, um,

um, I always look at the map of how to

get out in a fire because once staying

at a hotel in San Francisco for a donor

event, the alarm went off in the middle

of the night. Everyone, of course, stuck

their head out to look to see if anyone

was leaving and everyone like, "We're

not leaving." And then they called

everyone's room. It was an actual fire,

which taught me like when the alarm

goes, go. Right.

>> But,

>> and it was pretty confusing. Yeah,

>> wide hallways, wasn't clear. Exit sign

was not to like the actual stairwell. It

was, you know, was not a good situation.

But of course, got out fine. But from

now on, before I go to sleep, I go and I

look at [laughter] the where you are

here.

>> I look for the exit.

I occasionally walk the hall. I don't

want to be in this situation again.

Especially in a high-rise. I just do not

want to be in a situation where I can't

get out of a building that's on fire. I

figure it takes like 5 minutes. People

laugh at me. And I do this, but I make a

mental map. Okay, so let's assume it's

Smokeoky. I do this thing. Okay, I would

which is the closer door? I would go

right, then left, right, then left,

right. Okay, so I drill it in my head.

Good. And I go to sleep. I never

remember the maps, but it's not working

memory. It's not short-term memory. I

couldn't tell you for the life of me

what the last hotel map looked like in

my head. Had a you are here, red dot,

had doors, had exit. So it had these

component parts. But what term memory is

that? And thank goodness I don't

remember because it's going to change

every time I'm in a different hotel.

Yeah. So, what are the mechanisms that

allow for selective forgetting that's

healthy?

>> And also, is medium-term memory an

actual thing?

>> Well, I think when you're saying

medium-term, that's your everyday basic

memory function where you're like, I

need to remember things, but I don't

think I need to remember them that long,

but I really need to remember them today

or tonight, and it makes me sleep better

at night. And I've had a similar

experience. I was um staying in a hotel

with my family and the fire alarm went

off. And we're like, "What do we do?"

Well, we know we don't take the

elevator. That's what you're always

told. And I don't think I looked at the

map, but you could I looked down the

hall and I swear when I looked down the

hall, I saw smoke. And so I'm like,

"Let's not go that way." So, we went

down the other way. We rushed down the

stairs. We got outside and the kids were

pretty, you know, traumatic. And

actually, one of our children was like

eight stories ahead of us going down the

stairs. But what's interesting is I

thought I saw smoke and that's maybe I

didn't have my glasses on but that's my

mind playing tricks on me. So maybe that

was my concern. But I think that you

know this everyday memory is is really

relevant and um when you're studying

that map you're making notes of like

okay it's close by. It's down the hall.

I've got to go down here. Um and that

can be very informative and useful for

survival. And there's some research

saying that that's basically what our

brain is tuned towards is surviving. You

know, where am I going to eat? How am I

going to sleep? How am I going to um so

when you say everyday memory, I think

that's probably the most important

thing. And part of that memory formation

is also then forgetting it and updating

it. It's as simple as you you need to

know your hotel room number when you're

staying there. But if I ask you your

hotel room number a week later, it's

gone. But that's good in a way because

you're going to have other numbers to

remember and other hotel room numbers to

remember. So there's benefits of

forgetting. Um and you want to So I

think that's an interesting insight.

You're doing some processing to remember

something but then you need to update it

and forget it. Um and you know it's the

same thing. I think the best thing you

can do in that case is, you know,

studying the map is one thing, but some

people aren't great with maps and where

am I in the hotel is doing that active

learning of actually walking the halls

of like, well, I go down here and

there's there's the elevator, so I can't

go there. Oh, there are the stairs. I'll

remember that. And then you can kind of

encode it. So that sort of active

learning is like us with the fire

extinguisher. We made people get up and

find it instead of telling people where

it was. And I'm always, you know, when

you're on a flight, they'll always, you

know, say there's six emergency exits on

this plane. And then I think they do the

wrong thing. They they tell you where

they are. [snorts] I think the best

thing would be to say, you know, there's

six emergency exits on this plane. I'm

>> not going to tell you where they are.

[laughter]

>> Well, I'm not going to say not where

they are, but go find them. And I

notice, maybe it's just myself being

anxious, is as soon as they say that,

I'm looking behind me. I'm making sure I

know where they all are.

>> Whereas most people are like, "Oh, they

pointed here, here, and here. And I'll

even say sometimes the nearest one is

behind you. And I'm like, well, I want

to see where it is behind me. And so I

think that sort of act of learning,

whether you call it everyday memory, is

is really important. And I think when we

talk about memory, people are like, I

can't remember names. I'm like, that's

kind of a common thing.

>> But if you you need to sometimes

remember like what medication are you

taking or how did you react the last

time you saw this person? And those

sorts, I think it's really important to

be in tune with what you're calling this

kind of everyday average memory. I'd

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Thank you for that. And I'm going to use

that as weaponry when I get teased for

uh walking the the fire exits. But it

was because the in part because the

first time people were asking, "Hey, do

you know if we should leave? Do you know

do you know which way to go?" And I

realized, "Okay, next time it might as

well be me. I I'll be the guy that knows

which way to go." Certainly for myself.

And then I can tell other people which

way to go. Nobody else here knows where

to go. And most likely they're not going

to know the next time. I do the thing on

the plane, too. I think, okay, I

actually read the thing of how to Yeah.

take it out because I figured well I've

experienced how under conditions of very

high arousal you just default

>> to what almost feel like whatever was

trained whatever reflexes you have I

mean I had a scuba diving accident years

ago and I don't like to say you know

came close to the end but it was an air

failure and it was a whole mess and you

just default to

>> yeah we had to do the whole share error

thing it was a precarious situation to

begin with and and you just default to

these routines actually recently I

watched what I think is a spectacular

documentary about Dean Potter, who was a

he was a free solo climber, a

predecessor to um to Alex Honold.

>> Um he was kind of the guy to beat and

Honold passed him up pretty early, but

and he got into wing suiting and base

jumping and the whole thing. And there

was this um there's a scene where um so

be warned if you watch this amazing

four-part series. There's a scene where

uh people were doing base jumping in

Yusede are advocating for it being legal

in Yusede. It's illegal. And so there

were a bunch of spectators there and

they were doing this big demonstration

jump. And a woman who was a very very um

seasoned base jumper, she didn't want to

use her own gear because they were

confiscating people's gear at the

bottom. So, she borrowed someone else's

gear and she jumps and she's used to

pulling from a leg a leg pull I guess it

is. And you just see her the whole way

down.

>> The whole way down. And she's got, you

know, she's got a parachute on.

>> Yeah.

>> And just, you know, um not to give it

away, but I guess, you know, um gave it

away that uh she

dies. But the whole way down, you can

see her just doing this routine

movement.

>> Yeah.

>> And she put on a different pack. She

knew that it was a different pole

location. So under conditions of very

high arousal,

>> even highly highly trained people um for

that that condition, they just default

to whatever it is that they're used to

doing. And if you don't know what to do,

you default to not knowing what to do.

If you know what to do, you default to

what you think you need to do in one

situation. And I've I've had that

experience scuba diving. It's very clear

from this documentary. the and I think

we're all a little naive in thinking

that oh no like when the alarm goes and

everything is crazy like I'm going to

sort through this in a in a regimented

way like or I'll be so keyed up I'll

I'll have to figure it out. This is not

quite the case. The brain seems to not

work that way.

>> Yeah. I think we discover that um you

know in these extreme situations but

also even kind of in some simple

situations there's there's a really

concerning thing that happens that

people will leave children infants in

the back of their car

>> unattended and you know and these

infants will will die on hot days. When

you look at these investigations, the

reason this happens is, you know, these

are very responsible, very intelligent

parents who will, you know, put their

child in the car and then get in the car

and then you just get in this mode of

I'm going to work. I'm going to do my

job and you're in this routine. The baby

falls asleep, you drive to work, you go

upstairs, you do, and then you and then

you get this phone call of like, where's

your infant or why haven't they been

dropped off? And you're thinking, what

what are you talking about?

>> Whoa.

>> Exactly. I'm sure many people listening

to this are like there's no way. There's

no way.

>> Well, I think there's like there's no

way that could happen to me. This must

be some person who's super distracted or

has this. Sadly, it happens too often to

people of, you know, all sorts of

people. And I think that's part of the

issue is like like you were saying,

she's going to grab the strap where it

normally is. You drive to work a hundred

times this way, but it's this one day

where it was your turn to take the

infant to daycare and you just get into

this mode, this habit, this routine. And

now we have to have, you know, our car

talking to us. You know, some cars will

even say, you know, have you checked the

back seat for an infant? It's like,

gosh, have we come to that level where

we need to be reminded of these things?

So I think that's where you know it it

you're right it becomes lethal that you

know sometimes it's talked about in

terms of prospective memory remembering

to do something in the future. We think

of memories usually as remembering to do

some from the past right but a lot of it

is you know what do you have to do

today? Are you meeting this person? We

have offload this to our phones and get

reminders. Um but we're prone to

forgetting and um especially under

you're talking about high arousal. this

person's falling. But it's even as

simple as when you're in the car and and

you're probably aware when you're in the

car, you start mind wandering. You're

thinking of a million other things and

all of a sudden you've arrived somewhere

or you missed your turn. So our brain

kind of takes over in ways that we might

not be sure about. Yeah. One of the

things that spooks me about scuba diving

and I love scuba diving is, you know, I

got my Patty certification because it's

a bit more involved, but it worries me

that you actually don't have to update

and if you do, not very often. You can

It's been gosh it's been four or more

five years since I went scuba diving

last time. I've got my card. I have my

gear

>> and if somebody wants to go scuba diving

tomorrow I can do it legally.

>> Yeah.

>> But there's a lot involved you know like

you need to brush up. And so you know I

mean here in the United States we have

all this like you know people can sue

each other there all these legal

protections but there's still a lot of

ways in which we can do damage to

ourselves or others just by virtue of

the fact that we're we don't have to

brush up on driving skills. Yeah,

>> you know, it it's kind of a shock to me

that we don't have more more problems

related to forgetting.

>> It's true. I think the more you think

about it, it's amazing how much we do

remember, especially under some

circumstances. But I agree that a lot of

this, you know, scuba diving, too,

because you're underwater with, you

know, buoyancy, you have to figure

things out. And I got certified, too,

when I was 20. I wouldn't trust myself

to to do it again. I'd want to probably

take the entire course again. Um, and

maybe but when you're 30 maybe you feel

confident and you know especially

drivers like new drivers you know you

give very little training to younger

drivers and then you're like you're on

your own. Uh I've seen it with my

children learning to drive. I also

realize I'm not as good a driver as I

thought I was. I'm certainly passing on

some habits that I probably should be

more aware of and they're more

rulebased. They're aware of how to do

things. But I have this feeling like

this wisdom. Well, you don't need to do

that or you know that's the rule, but I

do it this way. So, I think you're

right. I think we revisiting these

things more often and being more

cognizant probably would make us safer.

On the lighter side, um many people who

are concerned about their memory as they

age will ask about forgetting. Um, I

want to know why as people get older,

they tell the same stories over and over

again, same jokes over and over again.

Have they forgotten that they've said

the joke or they just doing it for their

own entertainment or [snorts]

I don't know like what what is this

about? Like I feel like someone needs to

do that study like like why why

[clears throat] do people tell the same

stories as they get older? I I think

there's a lot of reasons and you know a

lot of memories do change with age and

some forms of memory like source memory

uh tends to decline with age. You can't

remember where you saw the headline or

who you told the joke to. Um and

sometimes I'll even say, you know, have

I told you this before? But sometimes

it's just such a good joke or such a

good memory. I'm like, I don't really

care because I'm going to tell it to you

again because I'm enjoying this. And my

kids will be like, yeah, we've heard

that so many times. I'm like, yeah, but

it's so good. So, it's probably a little

bit of both. But I think there's also

some nostalgia. Like we do share family

histories this way.

>> And I think you know when families get

together for Thanksgiving there's this

rehashing of do you remember when this

happened? It's like yeah we tell that

story every time. Um a lot of our

histories used to be oral histories

where you know we're telling stories and

reminding people and it's how we

determine what foods were safe. But

yeah, I can see it's certainly

frustrating and I think we think gosh

I'm talking to this older person.

They're telling me the same thing again

and you're nodding. But I I take a

certain amount of enjoyment from it.

There's a nostalgia. Um there's also a

feeling of familiarity.

>> And so probably it's it's a collection

of things. But you do see more

pathological aging that people will

completely forget. Um you know, they'll

say the same things. They'll ask,

"What's for dinner again?" 5 minutes

later, "What's for dinner again? What's

for dinner again?" And that's where it's

probably more concerning. Um but it is

an interesting thing to note that as we

you know get older we might engage in

that sort of behavior.

>> What is the consensus now on Alzheimer's

and memory loss generally? Meaning is it

inevitable that people lose some amount

of memory and um conditions like

Alzheimer's are just a more rapid

downward trajectory and we could talk

about super aers. These people that seem

to maintain cognition well better than

their their peers anyway. Are there

people who just, you know, are sharp

till the day they take their last breath

and that last breath comes in their 90s

or even past 100?

>> Yeah, I think just the the diversity

that accompanies aging is really

interesting. You could look at a

100-year-old who's doing really well and

a 60-year-old who's not doing so well.

So, we can't just use kind of biological

age as as the marker. Um, and as a

psychologist, of course, I'm interested

in psychological aspects. Um, and

there's, you know, an old study on nuns

who, you know, it's interesting to see

how you can test different people, but

nuns are very committed to their their

profession. Um, and you found that these

nuns, how they aged, some of them

certainly when they passed away, their

brains had these kind of hallmark signs

of dementia, plaques and tangles, but

behaviorally they were still high

functioning. So, it's really interesting

that the hardware shows what we see as

dementia and specifically Alzheimer's

disease, but their behavior uh was that

of a fairly healthy cognitive person.

So, something else has to be going on.

And you know, it could be some people

say it's having a sense of purpose,

could be having social connections. We

know that's incredibly important. I

think we do have a certain amount of

control over it. And some of it might be

based on physical exercise and sleep. So

I know things you've talked about before

and some it is having kind of a positive

attitude about aging that if you feel

like you you know some people say well

it's all genetic so what do I have to

do? Well if you go on a walk some really

good research shows that you know

walking three or four times a week um

can enhance hippocample function the

part of the brain that's very involved

in declarative memory. Um and that part

of the brain you know having turned 50

recently tends to decline by about one

to two% a year in terms of volume. So

this is kind of physical shrinkage of

the brain.

>> But in the walking group the group that

was randomly assigned to walk three four

times a week for 40 minutes compared to

a stretching group who's still engaging

in exercise but not cardiovascular

exercise. The walking group their you

know hippocamp is actually increased in

volume by 1%. So you're changing the the

brain, but you're also changing the

behavior. Their memory was much better a

year later. So I think, you know, if you

saw a doctor and said, you know, I'm

having some memory problems. What can I

do? Most people are looking for a pill

or, you [snorts] know, sometimes it's

eat this or do that. But I think

physical exercise can be so important.

Uh, and it probably the mechanism we

don't know exactly, but it probably

trickles down to things like

improvements in sleep as well. M you

know if you're getting exercise maybe

earlier in the day you're going to have

better mood you're going to sleep

better. We know a lot of memory

formation happens when you're sleeping.

Uh we know as we get older our sleep

quality tends to decline even if our

quantity tends to increase. So I think

just knowing that there are some things

we can do and I'm using physical

exercise as the example and it doesn't

have to be you know the extreme version.

um walking, dancing, um a lot of people,

you know, enjoy being outside. Uh that

can be incredibly important to offset

some of the things we do know can can

lead to dementia.

>> Was the walking vigorous?

>> You know, in this group, I think it's

really 30 to 40 minutes. And there's

nothing special certainly about walking,

but it's something where you can

randomly assign people to either walk or

engage in stretching.

>> So if you're biking, if you're swimming,

if you're dancing, any of these things

can be beneficial. But here it's, you

know, you can randomly assign people to

walk and and it should be at a rate

where you're, you know, there's research

showing that the people who walk

slightly faster actually live longer.

Um, so, you know, you're not sure

exactly

>> reverse causality there.

>> Could certainly be that. And and a lot

of this research, it's tough to do aging

research because it's hard to randomly

assign people to to certain conditions,

>> but I think as a psychologist, knowing

that you have a little bit of control

over the process is important. And I

think, you know, most people when they

talk about aging, they're so worried

about dementia and, you know,

Alzheimer's disease as a specific form,

but balance is even more important, I

think. And most people aren't even aware

of their balance.

>> So, one in four people over the age of

65 will experience a fall. And that fall

can be very detrimental. You can break

your hip, your collar bone. Often, you

know, you're getting up at night more

frequently. You trip over a carpet or a

rug. And you know, if you're in bed

recovering from these falls, you're not

walking. You know, your hippocampus is

shrinking. If you ask people, "How's

how's your balance?" Most people are

like, "Well, it's fine. I I don't

haven't had a fall." But there's a very

simple test. We could do it now if you

wanted where you just stand up and see

if you can balance on one leg for at

least 10 seconds. And I have, you know,

when I do presentations, I do this

ideally 30, 40 minutes into the

presentation. We shouldn't be sitting

for so long. And most people do pretty

well. it's a younger group and sometimes

it's older adults I'm speaking to and

you can tell you know I'm like make sure

you have something you can hold on to

and you can tell that balance changes

considerably with age

>> and then I say okay now try doing it

with your eyes closed

>> and I actually usually don't do this

with my older adult group because then

you see the younger people start to tip

and you know it's very we get a lot of

cues from our visual environment for

balance

>> the young the older people tip

>> everyone you'll see the younger people

start to tip that's why it's even more

surprising It's like a field sobriety

test.

>> It very much is, but it's this again

from this metacognitive standpoint where

you think your balance is fine because

you haven't had a fall, but you could be

close to falling at any given point. And

so, you know, the cerebellum, the almost

very primitive part of the brain is

involved in a lot of this. What's

interesting with balance is it's very

trainable. And so, you know, there's

parts of balance that involve visual

inner ear, but if you engage in some

training, and it can be as simple as

standing on one leg or doing yoga or

taichi, you can improve your balance

considerably within a month or two. And

so, I think when I talk to older adults

who, you know, sometimes are even

middle-aged, worried about their memory,

I think balance is often overlooked and

it's something that's trainable. Um, so

I've started to do it a little bit and

I've noticed changes in my balance.

>> Sometimes good. I also notice I don't

sleep well. my balance isn't as good.

Um, and I think that's probably the most

important thing to be on the lookout for

because, you know, these things are

related. If you if you lose your balance

and you have a fall, you're not going to

be engaging physical exercise. Your

memor is going to decline.

>> Yeah, the old skiers and the uh old

surfers look to be in pretty awesome

shape. Um, there are million compounds

there. The sunlight, the social

connection, the water, the cold, the,

>> you know, I mean, there are a bunch of

things. Um, obviously it's not just the

skiing or the surfing, but there are

certain sports where you look at the

people and you say, "Okay, they're not

the biggest and strongest, nor are they

the ones with the most endurance, but on

balance, they seem strong. Their posture

looks good."

>> Yeah.

>> Um, they seem relatively happy. Who

knows, right? I'm intrigued by the fact

that I look at a lot of these videos of

of uh super aers and athletes in their

70s, 80s, 90s who are doing remarkably

well. It's very rare to see a video of

athletes or non-athletes past 80 where

they're breathing through their nose

with their mouth shut. Almost always you

see, [sighs and gasps]

>> now I'm not saying it's causal,

>> but there does seem to be a shift in the

way that people breathe as they get

older. look at some of the um I forget

his name now. He's a television um

personality u who's been around a long

he's in his hundreds and he's been on

YouTube in the news programs recently.

But at rest it's like a mouth open

breathing pattern. You kind of wonder

whether or not they're getting enough

oxygen to their brain. And I I do think

that the shift in how we breathe,

spontaneous movement, these things all

go together.

>> Um and I do think each

>> component part needs to be looked at

individually.

So, okay. So, it's the movement, it's

the exercise, the novelty, the social

connection, but ultimately there's a lot

of other things going on. Like, we know

older people just don't they don't move

spontaneously very much. We had Twilight

Tharpin here, the you know, world famous

choreographer, and she's in her

somewhere in her 80s. You know, she can

>> deadlift um twice her body weight.

>> Works out at 5:00 a.m. every morning for

two hours.

>> Wow.

>> She boxed for a while.

>> Um but actual boxing cuz she's Twilight,

right? She's a she's a really uh she's

got a lot of spirit, but

>> she doesn't sit like I'm sitting like

kind of lazy back. She's she's fully

active and she's she's moving and she's

nasal breathing when unless she's

speaking like she's

>> she's her nervous system is turned on. I

notice that and I go, God willing, I'll

be I'll be like that. But I notic with

each passing year, I take a few more

opportunities to lean against things as

opposed to standing up, not leaning

against them or starting to resemble the

bulldogs I've owned. There's opportunity

to lie down, they lie down. If there's

opportunity, you know, sleep and I don't

know that that's good. Maybe we need to

nudge ourselves to be a little more

active than we're comfortable. I think

the insight is so important to be like,

I notice I'm doing more of this or I'm

looking a lot like this and I'm

surprised things starting like posture

or even breathing. And I think, you

know, I'm not an expert in this area,

but just getting more oxygen to the

brain is so important. And I think

that's probably the mechanism be, you

know, for physical exercise, you're

getting more oxygen to your brain, which

really as you get older, it's harder to

do that. And so exercise might be kind

of the mechanism um that does that. And

maybe with the, you know, advances,

we're going to find other ways to do

that. Uh but I think that insight is is

really important. And it's also, you

know, we have age-based stereotypes of

what happens, like, oh, as you get

older, you know, let's say, you know, my

knee hurts and some people are like, oh,

well, you're just getting older.

>> Well, my other knee is the same age and

it feels fine. [laughter]

>> So, something's going on. Maybe there's

some trauma. There's something. But it

does give you this feeling like, hey,

there's something I can do. Or maybe you

know I'm a firm believer like in

physical therapy like a lot of the

exercises we do you know if you keep

doing the same thing that's great but

then you lose a lot of the other you

know muscle mass and you know I think

exercise

>> even walking people will say it's really

like a controlled form of losing your

balance and regaining it and losing your

balance and regaining it

>> and so you add that into hiking which is

has unpredictable surfaces you know all

these muscles that are you know you're

not using too often now have to be

engaged and so I

I think that coming back to like

challenging yourself can be very

important. Putting yourself in

uncomfortable positions. I mean, it's

great to be on this podcast, but there's

a time where I'm like, I'm not sure I

want to do this, right? Like, you know,

how do you get that?

>> You feeling that way now?

>> No, now I feel fine. But I think as we

put ourselves in these uncomfortable

positions and

>> I remember, you know, when I first

started teaching, you're like, gosh, 300

people, you know, is this this is an

uncomfortable situation. And one of one

of my mentors said, you know what?

there's only one thing you need to do

and that's breathe

because you start to forget that you

know that is the most primitive thing to

get oxygen to your brain that then you

can do what you probably can do quite

well

>> and that's a a psychological oversight

where we just kind of start I don't know

if it's just mouth breathing but as we

get older you know or there's more

stress we stop being aware of you know

the things that can really help us I

notice with each passing year I get a

little more difficult with myself about

the little things, you know, just like

so I try to this day I have to push

myself. I take the stairs a little bit

faster than I want to. I I don't take

escalators unless there's no stairs

available. Um when I travel I really I

find I but I have to push you know

>> I I have to I mean perhaps um uh you

know collateral advantage of doing this

podcast is I say things like that and

now I don't want to get spotted in an

airport on an escalator. Um, the other

day I normally train at home gym, but I

was in a commercial gym and I was

listening to music on my phone and this

kid came up to me and he tabed. He goes,

"I thought you don't use your phone when

you work out." I was like, "Sometimes I

listen to things I just don't I'm not

texting and sending messages." And he

was like, "Okay." You know, it's like,

"Wow, well, I have to be careful what I

say." But it's nice. It actually has a

forcing function, right? Um, and I think

that as we get older, there are a lot of

things where we're not being observed.

We're we're not we know we should do

them, but then we don't do them. And I

think the injury thing is uh and the

pain thing is is is a big one.

>> Yeah.

>> You know, I I I hear this all the time,

you know, like, yeah, I would exercise

more, but I got this shoulder thing. I

got this. And I think that's why there's

so much excitement about these peptides,

and it's still very unclear, you know,

what's going to be useful or not.

Actually, there's a study out of Helen

Blau's lab at Stanford

um on mice and humans where they found

an inhibitor of the molecule that

inhibits cartilage regeneration. They

knock out this inhibitor or they have a

drug um kind of analog that can do this

in humans and they observe regeneration

of knee cartilage. I I'm sure this is

going to be sourced to pharma. That's

going to be the path because that's the

typical path for labs at Stanford if

they have a discovery like that. But

>> how cool would that be? Yeah,

>> right now, knock on wood, I have

[clears throat] like no no joint issues,

but how cool would that be? Because I

think a lot of people just think, well,

the body wears out.

>> Yeah,

>> you know, the hip wears out, the knee

wears out. And so when they have that

pain, they don't think they could

overcome it by by movement. They they

assume, well, you know, the chassis is

kind of going and then, you know,

>> well, a lot of this, you know, comes

down to habits and some of it is

motivation, right? It's hard to get

motivated to go to the gym. And as you

get older, more aches and pains. It's

like harder to get up. it's easier to

sit down. But I think knowing you have

some control over it that you know a lot

of especially in midlife people have

back pain. It's probably the most common

thing and it's probably from sitting you

know we work a lot and especially in

midlife there's some interesting you

know it's not always a linear decline

with age and in fact there's some

interesting work on you know happiness

being more curve linear like midlife is

actually some of the lowest levels of

happiness and life satisfaction

>> really like our age 50 really

>> so I hope in some ways that can well in

some ways it can make great yeah well it

can make you feel good because it you

know a lot of people who might not feel

great at 40 or 50 if you said, "Well,

actually that's the lowest point in the

graph and it can actually get better

with age."

>> Mhm.

>> The title of my book,