Welcome to Huberman Lab Essentials,

where we revisit past episodes for the

most potent and actionable science-based

tools for mental health, physical

health, and performance.

I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor

of neurobiology and opthalmology at

Stanford School of Medicine. And now for

my discussion with Dr. Wendy Suzuki.

Wendy, great to see you again and to

have you here. It's been a little while.

>> It's been a while. So great to be here,

Andrew. Thank you so much for having me.

>> Yeah, delighted. I'd like to start off

by talking about memory generally and

then I'd love to chat about your

incredible work discovering how exercise

and memory interface and what people can

do to improve their memory and brain

function generally.

>> Yes.

>> Maybe you could just step us through the

basic elements of memory.

>> Well, I like to say there are four

things that make things memorable.

Number one is novelty. If it's something

new, the very first thing uh the very

first time we've seen something or

experienced something, our brains are

drawn to that. Our attentional systems

draw us to that. And when you are paying

attention to something, that's that's

part of what makes things memorable.

Second is repetition. Third is

association.

So if you meet somebody new that knows

lots of people that you know. So you and

I share many many many many people that

we both know. It's easy to remember.

It's easier to remember you especially

if you were somebody new that I hadn't

met before. We have met before. Uh so

association. Um and then the fourth one

is emotional resonance. So we remember

the happiest and the saddest moments of

our lives and that also includes you

know funny surprising things. Uh that is

the interaction between two key brain

structures. Uh the amygdala which is

important for processing uh lots of

emotional particularly threatening kinds

of situations but uh those threatening

surprising kinds of situations. The

amigula takes that information and makes

another key structure called the

hippocampus

work better to put new long-term

memories in your brain. So that in fact

is the key structure for long-term

memory. This structure called the

hippocampus.

>> Yeah. Step us through kind of what this

structure is, what it looks like.

>> The word hippocampus means seahorse. It

is visually anatomically beautiful with

these kind of interwining

sub regions within it. So that's

anatomically functionally what does it

do? Well, it's easiest to understand

what it does when you uh look at what

happens when you don't have a

hippocampus anymore. We know this from

the most famous neurological p patient

of all time. Uh his initials were HM. So

all psychology neuroscientists

neuroscience students know him. Uh he

was operated in 1954

and the paper was published in 1957. Um

they removed both his hippocampi because

he had very terrible epilepsy and um

they knew that the hippocampus was the

genesis of of epilepsy and this was

experimental. his epilepsy was so bad

that they decided not just to remove one

hippocampus but both. And what happened

was immediate um immediate loss of all

ability to form new memories for facts

and events. So this hippocampus does

something with all of these perceptions

that are coming at us every single day,

every minute of the day. And not for all

of them, but for some of them that have

these features that we just talked

about, maybe they're novel, maybe they

have associations, maybe they're they're

emotionally relevant, maybe uh uh maybe

they've been repeated. Some of those

things uh in the realm of facts or

events get uh uh encoded in our

long-term memory. The hippocampus and

what it does really defines our own

personal histories. It means it defines

who we are. Because if we can't remember

what we've done, the information we've

learned and and the events of our lives,

it it changes us. That that's what

really defines us. But what people have

started to realize that it's not just

memory. It's not just putting together

associations for what, where, and when

of of events that happened in our past,

but it's putting together information

that is in our long-term memory banks in

interesting new ways. I'm talking about

imagination. So, without the

hippocampus, yes, you can't remember

things, but actually, you're not able to

imagine

uh events or situations that you've

never experienced before. So what that

says is the hippocampus

is important for memory is a too simple

a way to think about it. What the

hippocampus is important for is what

we've already talked about associating

things together writ large. Anytime you

need to associate something together

either for your past your present or

your future you are using your

hippocampus and it takes on this much

more important role in our cognitive

lives when we think about it like that.

That is kind of the new the new

hippocampus that that neuroscientists

are studying these days.

>> There are some memories that can be

formed very quickly. So-called one trial

learning.

>> What is it about emotionally salient

events that allow memories to get

stamped in? There is this protective

function um of our brains that has

evolved over the last 2.5 million years

that you need to pay attention and

remember certain things for your

survival. If something terrible happens,

if something very scary happens, um you

remember that and that that fear and

that memory of all those things. I mean,

I I have one uh when I lived in

Washington DC, I went to work at NIH on

a Sunday afternoon and I came back and

when I rounded the corner to my door of

my apartment, um it was crowbar barred

in. Somebody had taken a crowbar, opened

up my door and stole the nicest things

in my apartment. Ever since then,

whenever I rounded that corner, I still

had that memory. It was terrible

because, you know, it put me in a

terrible state when I was just coming

home. And that that's a survival

mechanism. Do you want to uh be alert to

possible danger? Absolutely. Yes. So

part of those one trial memories I think

is often taking advantage of this

evolutionarily developed system to tamp

in things that could be potentially

dangerous to you into your memory. So

you forever will remember this

particular corner or this this hallway

because that is where something really

bad happened to you.

>> For people trying to learn information

that they're not that excited about,

right?

>> Is there something that we can do to let

to leverage knowledge of how the memory

system works naturally to to make that a

a more straightforward process? Maybe we

could talk about your story and how um

you came to the place you are at now

>> because I think it provides a number of

tools that people could um implement

themselves.

>> Yeah. Yeah. As I was working to get

tenure at NYU and and as you know it's a

it's a stressfilled process. They give

you six years to you know show your

stuff and you are judged in front of all

your colleagues and either they say okay

you can join the club or they say sorry.

And so my strategy was um I'm just going

to not do anything but work. I'm going

to uh just work as hard as I can for the

six years. And um what happens when you

work and you don't have any sort of life

outside of work? Uh you gain 25 pounds,

which is exactly what I did. And you get

really really stressed. And so I decided

to go on vacation and I I did a

adventure river rafting trip in Peru.

And so I go by myself and you know meet

other interesting people and um I I was

the weakest person on this whole trip.

It was embarrassing. And I came back and

I said, "Okay, I cannot be the weakest

person. I'm in my late 30s. I have to do

something." So I went to the gym. Fast

forward year and a half, I've lost the

25 pounds. So proud of myself. So much

happier. And I'm sitting in my office

doing what you and I do a lot which is

writing an NIH grant which is our

lifeblood right and um writing writing

writing and this thought goes through my

mind that had never gone through my mind

before which was during this six years

of grant of frantic grant writing when I

was trying to get tenure and that

thought was grant writing went well

today that that felt good but when I

thought about it I thought it's it's not

just today my grant writer writing seems

to have been getting smoother like I'm

able to focus longer. it the sessions

feel feel better to me and you know at

that point the only thing that I changed

in my life it was a huge thing but I had

become a gym rat rather than a

workaholic and that's when my you know

spidey sense for neuroscientists popped

up and I said what do we know about the

effects of exercise on your brain um

because if I think about it what was

better about my writing is I could focus

longer and deeper very important And I

could remember those little details that

you try and pull together for your

million-doll NIH grant from, you know,

30 different articles that you have open

on your screen all at the same time.

That's a hippocample memory. I was

studying that. I was writing the grants

on on hippocample memory. And uh so

that's when I got really interested in

the effects of exercise on both

prefrontal focus and attention function

and hippocample function because of my

own observation and this kind of I still

remember where where I was sitting which

office I was in when I had this

revelation. But the thing that really

sealed it for me is right around that

time um I got a phone call from my mom

um who said that my dad wasn't feeling

well and that he had um told her that he

got lost driving back from the 7-Eleven

which was literally seven blocks from

our house that I grew up in. And um I

knew that was that was hippocample

function. I suspected dementia. I

suspected though didn't want to admit

Alzheimer's dementia which he which he

had. My dad is the engineer not so

active all his life but would loved and

sit sit and read books all day. My mom

was the athlete. She she played tennis,

team tennis into her 80s and it started

to show at that point. I noticed that

all the things that were improving in my

brain suddenly went away in my my dad's

brain and I started thinking this isn't

just something to help you know somebody

who wants to get tenure um this is

something that could help millions and

millions of people most importantly our

aging population what if you know what's

happening and so the thing that makes me

wake up in the morning is when I

realized that every single time you move

your body um you are um releasing a

whole bunch of neurochemicals and some

of them we've talked about that the good

mood comes from dopamine and serotonin

and neuradrenaline but the thing that

gets released also particularly with

aerobic exercise is a growth factor

called um brain derived neurotrphic

factor or BDNF and that is so important

because what it does is it goes directly

to your hippocampus and it helps brand

new brain cells grow in in your

hippocampus. We all have that. Even if

you're a couch potato, you can get new

brain cells in your hippocampus to grow.

But it's like giving your hippocampus a

um a boost with this regular BDNF if you

are exercising, which means that we all

have the capacity to grow a bigger,

fatter, fluffier hippocampus. And so

what I like to give people is this image

of every single time you move your body,

it's like giving your brain this

wonderful bubble bath of neurochemicals.

What's going on? I I need my bubble bath

of noradrenaline and dopamine and

serotonin and growth factors. And with

regular bubble baths, what am I doing?

I'm growing a big fat fluffy

hippocampus. And I'm not going to cure

my father's dementia, Alzheimer's

dementia. But you know what? If I go

into my 70s with a big fat fluffy

hippocampus, even if I had that in my

genes and it starts to uh kick in, it's

going to take longer for that disease to

start to affect my ability to form and

retain new long-term memories for facts

and events, which is my motivation for

getting up and doing my 30 to 45 minutes

of of aerobic exercise every day.

>> Tell us your routine. Your routine is 30

to 45 minutes of are you a Pelaton

cyclinger? Are you Does it matter? The

data suggests that as long as your heart

rate is getting up for these long-term

effects on your hippocampus and

prefrontal cortex, you also um get

better at shifting and focusing your

attention. Um for that you need

cardiovascular and what I use is um a

video workout. They are 30 minutes that

I sometimes add on a 10 to 15 minute

stretch at the beginning or at the end.

But um I love the variety. Sometimes I

do it with weights, sometimes I do it

without weights. Uh uh I love

kickboxing, so they have a lot of

kickboxing in there. It just fits my um

fits my fits my routine and it's always

there and I don't have to get all

dressed up to go to the gym to uh to to

work out. So that's that's what I do.

>> So let's imagine your morning routine.

You you do your cardiovascular exercise.

Okay, so you're pumping more blood.

>> That's the definition of a higher heart

rate. Stroke volume of the of the of the

heart goes up over time. You're getting

fitter. So blood flow to the brain is

increasing. Do we know

>> how that gets translated to a signal to

release more BDNF?

>> Yeah. Um before I go into the aerobic

thing, I always like to start with the

least amount of exercise to get

something really useful because I don't

want people to say, "Oh god, I hate, you

know, sweating. I don't want to listen

anymore." So, so I always like to start

with um studies have shown that just 10

minutes of walking outside can shift

your mood. That is part of that

neurochemical bubble bath that you're

getting. Dopamine, serotonin, nor

adrenaline. Um and 10 minutes and

anybody can walk for 10 minutes. Um and

so that is uh for all of you thinking

that out there, what is the minimum that

I could get some of these brain effects?

10 minutes of walking. That minimum

amount of movement in your body can get

you th those mood effects. But what

about the big fat fluffy hippocampus?

What about the better performing

prefrontal cortex? That's where you

start to need the the cardio cardio

workout. And from my reading of the

literature, there haven't been enough

studies, you know, um, uh, directly

comparing contrasting kickboxing with

running with, um, whatever whatever

other cardio that you need to do. But

any cardio workout that is done has

these positive effects. So, I'm going to

say my interpretation of that is that

whatever way you get your heart rate up,

including a power walk, a power walk can

get your heart rate up, that that is

beneficial. and what is happening. There

are two pathways that have been studied

about how you go from moving your body

to more BDNF that that neurotrofen

that's uh that's um increasing the

growth of new hippocample brain cells.

The two pathways are the following. One

is a myioine which is a protein released

by the muscles. So and not your heart.

These are strided muscles um in your

body. And so by running this these were

studies done in rats on running wheels.

They showed that the running rats had um

more of this myioine release the myioine

past the bloodb brain barrier. So it got

into the the uh rarified very protected

bloodstream of inside the brain and that

myioine stimulated the release of BDNF

in the brain. That's pathway number one.

Pathway number two comes through the

liver. Uh because exercise is a stress

on generally. Uh how do we know that?

Well, cortisol is released whenever we

exercise it. We we need we need uh that

sugar uh in our blood. And so so that's

how the physiological um mechanisms

work. And so um there is a uh ketone um

beta hydroxybutyrate that we've known

for a very long time that gets released

by the liver during exercise. And we

also know that that particular ketone

passes that bloodb brain barrier and

it's another stimulant for BDNF. So kind

of the final common pathway seems to be

um BDNF stimulation in the hippocampus.

Is it the only one? Probably not. But

that's the one that has been studied

most most clearly. So it's you know it

comes from all of our physiological

systems. Our muscles working our liver

um responding to the stress of of

exercise. And what is it doing? It is

making our uh you know giving more BDNF

precursors to get into our brain to

cause the upspike of BDNF um which is

part of your bubble bath that you're

getting every time you move.

>> This issue of new neurons

>> is one that you hear a lot. you know,

neurogenesis. You're going to grow new

neurons, new neurons. And and my

understanding is that the rodent

literature is very clear. Running more

on a wheel can trigger neurogenesis that

literally that the the birth of new

neurons and the addition of new neurons

to the hippocampus. And in humans, I

think it's been a bit controversial.

Some people say absolutely yes. Other

people say absolutely no, there are new

neurons added to the adult brain. I

haven't followed that literature down to

the detail. Um but I do remember one

study that I don't think is contested

which is the work of Rusty Gage at the

Sulk Institute where they actually

injected a a sort of die type marker

into the brains of terminally ill humans

who very graciously offered to have

their brains removed and dissected after

death. And in these very in some cases

very old

>> terminally ill humans they did see

evidence for new neurons being born in

the hippocampus.

>> Can I trust that idea still? Is that

generally accepted? Well, so after that

study, which was quite a while ago, uh

there are more recent studies, still

controversial, but um showing and

demonstrating using even new and better

techniques than were used in that that

original Rusty Gage study, which was

groundbreaking at the time that um that

suggest and I think show that there are

new neurons born in adult human brains

into the ninth decade of life. So they

not only did this I think those those

patients were in their 60s then they

they died of cancer um but but these new

studies uh looking across the timeline

can we see because the other thing was

yeah maybe you have some when you're 20

but by the time you're older and you

might need these new neurons you have no

new neuron growth and so these studies

seem to uh suggest that yes yes you did

yes you do and we all do even into old

age. If you would, could you tell us

about some of the more specific effects

of exercise on memory?

>> Absolutely. Let me start with um kind of

the immediate effects, acute effects as

they're called, of exercise on the

brain. So, this is asking what does a

one-off exercise session do for your

brain? And there um uh there are three

major effects that have been reproduced.

I've seen it in my lab. Many labs have

reproduced this. This is usually an

aerobic type type exercise session. 30

30 to 45 minutes. What you get is that

mood boost very very consistent. You get

um uh you get uh improved prefrontal

function typically uh tested with a

stroop uh test which is a test that uh

asks you to shift and focus your

attention in specific ways. um it's a

challenging task and clearly dependent

on the prefrontal cortex largely and um

significant improvements in reaction

time. So your your speed at responding

often a motor kind of uh but cognitive

motor response is is improved. one of

the unpublished studies that I did

looking at the effects of 30 minutes of

age appropriate workout um in subjects

ranging in age from their 20s all the

way up to their 90s. So what are the um

the things that I saw most consistently

irrespective of your age everybody got a

decreased anxiety and depression and uh

hostility score which is very important

you know so it's it's not just

decreasing your anxiety and depression

but decreasing your hostility levels

>> making the world a better place

>> making the world a better better place

>> energy the feeling of energy went up and

um what we found is in the older

population even more than in the younger

population. We saw improved performance

on both stroop and um Ericson flanker

task which are which is another task

dependent on um really focusing in on

different letters and paying attention

to what letter is being shown. Um so so

these are consistent effects. How long

do they last? One of the studies that I

did publish in my lab showed that the

immediate effects of exercise lasted up

to two hours. Unfortunately, that was

the longest that we last. They were

still there at 2 hours. Um, so that's,

you know, that's that's a pretty big

bang for your buck. That is one 30

minute.

>> So, what this tells me is that, um,

exercising early in the day

>> may have a special effect,

>> right? I know there there are moms and

dads out there and they just say, "Look,

I have a kid that the kid's more

important than my doing my exercise."

So, you will get benefits if you if you

do it whenever whenever you can. So,

that's great. More power to you. But

what all the neuroscience data suggests

is the best time to do your exercise is

right before you need to use your brain

in the most important way that you need

to use it every day. And so that is why

the morning for most of us is

beneficial. That's why I do it in the

morning. I'm lucky enough to be able to

do that.

>> I also want to emphasize I'd love to get

your thoughts on just memory and memory

loss in general.

>> You know, my understanding of the

literature is that somewhere in our 50s

or 60s, we start noticing little hiccups

in memory.

>> Yeah. But I have to imagine that doing

the exercise throughout one's entire

life is going to help offset some of

this simply because of the BDNF and

other downstream effects.

>> Yeah. First, I want to share one of my

favorite studies, which is a

longitudinal study um done in Swedish

women. And this was published in 2018.

And uh what they did was back in the

1960s, they found um Swedish women, 300

Swedish women in their 40s and they

characterized them as low fit, midFit,

high fit. Okay? And then 40 years later,

they came back and found these women.

let them do live their lives and they

asked what happened to these women as a

function of whether they were low fit,

midFit, high fit in their 40s. They're

now in their 80s. Um and what they found

was that um relative to the low fit or

midFit women, the women that were high

fit gained nine more years of good

cognition

later in life. Now, this is not a

randomized control study. Um, this is a

correlational study. But does it agree

with everything that we've been talking

about today? Yes. Does it agree with

this idea that, you know, the women that

were high fit were giving their brains

this this bubble bath very, very

regularly for that entire 40 years and

that built up their big fat beautiful

hippocampi. Yes, it does. So, um, that's

one of my favorite studies.

>> Yeah. another cause for getting the

exercise in consistently.

>> Yes. So, when I jumped into the exercise

work, um, everybody was studying people

65 or older because that's when

cognitive decline begins. And if the

idea is exercise can help you with your

cognition, then makes sense. However, I

thought, well, you know that it's great.

There's lots of work there. I wanted to

know what happens in people in their 40s

and their 50s, maybe even their their

30s and their 20s. Why? Because that's

when we as humans are able, ready, will

willing and able to increase our

exercise and um gets us set set up to,

you know, build our brains as we go into

our 60s. And so um the first study that

I did looked at low fit participants

from their 30s to mid-50s. And we wanted

to ask this question, you know, how much

exercise do you really need to start

seeing benefits? Do you see benefits? Or

maybe you have to wait until you start

seeing cognitive decline to get

benefits. That was one of the the

theories out there. And so that's what I

wanted to do. And so what we did was

three months of two to three times a

week cardio. It was a spin spin class.

So spin classes are great for cardio.

And the the comparison group was two to

three times a week of competitive video

scrabble. So no heart rate uh change,

but but they had to come into my lab and

and be in a group just like they were in

a group for the for the um um spin

class.

uh we tested them cognitively

cognitively at the beginning of the end

of the session. What we found was two to

three times a week of cardio in these

people. They were low fit which means

specifically that they were exercising

less than 30 minutes a week for the

three months previous to the experiment.

So they went from that to two to three

times a week of spin class. And what we

found was um changes in baseline rates

of their positive mood states went up

relative to the video scrabble group. Um

their uh body image got more positive

because they were exercising which is

great. And really important their

motivation to exercise went up

significantly compared to the video

scrabble group which is which is great.

So the more you exercise the more

motivated you are to exercise. What

about cognition? and what changed in the

cognitive circuits of their brain.

Number one, we got improved performance

on the stoop task, but uh we're headed

towards my favorite structure which is

the hippocampus. What we found was

improved performance on both a

recognition memory task which was a um

memory encoding task um and uh that is

can you can you differentiate uh similar

items that we're asking you to remember

and an spatial episodic memory task

where we had them play one of those doom

like games when they went into this

spatial maze and they had to do things

in a virtual city. their performance

there got better which is very very

classically dependent on the

hippocampus. So it was so satisfying to

to do this study because um uh I've been

wanting to answer this question. What is

a minimum amount or doable amount of

exercise that will get you these

cognitive benefits? And now I can say in

30 to 50 year olds that are low fit two

to three times a week. Is that doable?

Absolutely. Will it be hard if you're

low fit? Yeah, it's it's going to be

challenging, but absolutely doable. This

is not like you have to become marathon

runner to get any of these benefits.

This is you have to start moving your

body on a regular basis, two to three

times a week.

>> How long are those sessions again?

>> 45 minutes.

>> 45 minutes.

>> Yeah. 45 minutes. Uh warm up for 5

minutes and a cool down for 5 minutes.

So, it's really 35 minutes. 35 minutes

of, you know, they're really pushing

you. Yeah. The second study that I

wanted to share is part two of that

study that I just described, which was

the low fit people. Next, we moved to

midFit people. Like, what about us? You

know, we're already exercising. How how

am I going to benefit from increasing my

exercise? So, here again, we

collaborated with a great um spin studio

that had a whole bunch of midfit people

that that by our definition were

exercising um two to three times a week

on a regular basis. That's great. All

you people out there that are doing

that, you should know you're already

benefiting your brain. But our question

was, what if we invited them to exercise

as much as they wanted at the spin

studio for three months from, you know,

two to three times all the way up to

seven times a week. And let's just see

what happened. And the control group,

um, we asked them not to change their

exercise. Um, and so what we ended up

with was a nice big array of starting

with midFit people that exercise between

staying at two to three times a week all

the way up to seven times a week. And

the bottom line from that study is every

drop of sweat counted. That is the more

you change and you increase your workout

up to seven times a week, the better

your mood was. you had lower um lower

amounts of depression and anxiety,

higher amounts of good um uh good affect

and the better your hippocample memory

was with the more you worked out. Again,

this was for three months. So, I love

that too because it gives power to to

those of us that are, you know,

regularly exercising and wondering, do I

really need to I mean, is it really

going to help me? And the answer is yes.

I mean not all of us can exercise go to

a spin class seven times a week but um I

love the message that our body is

responsive to that and and you can get

better hippocample function better

overall baseline mood a effect with with

a higher level. So it works for uh the

midfit uh people as well. What is if any

the value of affirmation of telling

yourself something positive about

yourself or of exercise on not the

exercise itself but on mood, self-image,

memory and brain function. Yeah, I

looked into this because I am also a

certified exercise instructor and the

form of exercise that I teach is called

intensi that it's a form of exercise

that was developed by this amazing um

fitness instructor Patricia Moreno. Um

and she combined physical movements from

kickbox and dance and yoga and martial

arts with positive spoken affirmations.

So each move, if you're punching back

and forth as you would do in a kickbox

class, you don't just punch, you say

something like, "I am strong now," which

every punch is associated with a word.

And you know, you you can um create your

own series of affirmations with the

moves that you put together. There's

something about the declaration using

your own voice of saying things that

you, you know, don't often say to

yourself, like, "I'm strong. I'm

inspired. I believe I will succeed are

all the kinds of affirmations you say.

And so I started to look into what was

known about affirmations. And it was

clear that there was a literature

showing that that uh positive

affirmations, saying them or reading

them, um could change mood. It really

gets you into a habit of of saying good

things about yourself. And then you

start to remember uh start to realize,

oh my god, I'm so mean to myself. I I

have lots of negative thoughts going on

about about myself in my head and which

was part of the other reason why I loved

this this particular form of exercise.

So what you get in intensate is the mood

boost from the positive spoken

affirmations together with all the other

brain and um a effect boosts that we've

been talking about for this whole uh

podcast from the exercise because it's a

sweaty workout as well. So

>> interesting. I'd like to touch on

meditation.

>> Yeah. Sounds like you've discovered a

minimum a close to minimum threshold of

meditation that can really benefit us.

So um so maybe you tell us about that

that study.

>> Very practical study. Um just 10

minutes, not 30 minutes, not an hour

meditation. That's too hard. 10 minutes

guided meditation. A um it's a body

scan, very basic but easy to follow kind

of meditation. Uh we looked at cognitive

effects um before and after this. It was

eight weeks of daily it was actually

12minut meditation um 12 minutes of body

scan meditation and um what we found was

significant decreases in stress

response. So we did the strier stress

test to see how how you responded to a

unexpected stressful situation. The

meditators did much better. their mood

was better and their um their cognitive

performance was also better.

>> I know there's so much evidence that

meditation is beneficial.

>> Yes.

>> How do you think it's working or what

what do you think it's doing?

>> I think that one of the most important

things that gets um worked when we are

doing a simple 10 minute or 12 minute

body scan um meditation regularly. this

10 minutes a day, 12 minutes a day is um

the habit building and the practice of

focusing on the present moment. I think

that is very hard for us modern humans

to do. If you know how to do that, that

gives you this powerful tool for the

rest of your day. You're not locked into

that fearful future thinking that so

many of us have or that that that uh

just reliving of the terrible past, but

you could enjoy enjoy the present

moment.

>> Are there any other things besides

exercise and meditation that you would

like to see people do in terms of trying

to increase their powers of attention?

So I would say the top three uh tools

that everybody right this minute today

can use to up their capacity to attend

where they want to. Uh include exercise

for the reasons we've talked about. It

has a direct effect on functioning of

the prefrontal cortex. Meditation also

clearing

improved ability to to focus and and

particularly focus on the present

moment. Um and the third has to be

sleep. It is so important for all core

cognitive functions uh uh including

attention, including creativity,

including uh um just good basic brain

function. So exercise, meditation, sleep

can help you learn, retain and perform

better than if you do not have these

three things in your life. Wendy, thank

you so much for your leadership in the

university system, for your leadership

in public education, for the decades of

important work on memory and neural

circuitry, which uh we've got to learn

about today as well. Thank you ever so

much.

>> Thank you, Andrew. Fun conversation.