Hacking Tips for Memory Boost

Many of us in the US live high-pressure mindset lives. We are always on the “go”. Lots of things to check off on our daily lists, so many “to-do’s”. Many of us constantly run around slightly out of breath.

I remember going out with friends once, and a guy in his early 30s was pulling on a rubbery band that was on his wrist.

“Why are you doing that?” I asked.

He responded that his therapist had him do this whenever he caught himself slightly not breathing or out of breath from all the many things he was trying to accomplish within a single day.

The world looks at us and notices that Americans work, work, work. We work through lunch. We work through summer. We ask each other upon meeting, what do you “do”? We are into high-powered “do”-ingness.

I was on a dance cruise once, and it was sunset. I went onto a deck with lots of tables filled with folks from all over the world. I sat down with some French, Italian, and German couples, and shared I was from Texas.

One woman leaned over and said, “You know, we all feel sorry for you American women.”

“What?” I responded, completely sideswiped, “Sorry for us? Why?”

“You have to do so much. Non-stop. Even when you are married. You work. You raise the kids, often by yourself. Living in a different city than your parents. You become a chauffeur driving your kids all over town. Your kids run you. You have to work, be a wife, and at the same time keep looking amazing. You work, work, work. It all looks completely exhausting. Why do you do it?”

I have often thought about these conversations on this deck while the sun was setting. How does all this constant high pressure affect our brains?

Duke University wanted to know, too.

Research from Duke University

Researchers from Duke studied 420 adults having them pretend to be art thieves for a day. The participants were then randomly assigned to one of two groups.

• Group One had the thieves scouting a virtual art museum in preparation for a heist.

• Group Two imagined that they were actually executing the heist within the moment.

These subtle differences in motivation -- urgent, immediate goal-seeking vs. curious exploration for a future goal -- turned out to have big differences in reframing real-world challenges. And… brain health.

• For the urgent group, we told them, “You're a master thief, you're doing the heist right now. Steal as much as you can!”

• Whereas for the curious group, we told them they were a thief scouting the museum to plan a future heist.

The impact of this difference in mindset greatly affected recall. Or… memory.

The curious group participants who imagined planning a heist had better memory the next day. Being in an urgent, high-pressure mode might be good for a short-term problem but not long-term memory. What this unique study suggests is that for encouraging long-term memory or action, stressing people out is less effective.

Urgency engages the amygdala. This is an almond-shaped brain region best known for its role in fear. But the amygdala also is involved in memory. In "urgent mode" the amygdala helps forms memories.

But curious exploration shuttles the learning-enhancing neurochemical dopamine to the hippocampus, helping form detailed long-term memories.

Want to remember better? Foster better learning? Long-term learning? Try to take the pressure-cooker vibe out of what’s going on, and foster calm, mindful curiosity.

Most adult psychotherapy is about how we encourage flexibility, which occurs best within “curious modes” of living. But it's much harder for people to accomplish calm and the best brain memory function, as we spend a lot of our adult lives in an urgent mode.

"Psychological maneuvers" that explore differences between high-pressured urgency and relaxed curiosity, maybe a good way to develop healthier memory/brain functions. And… awareness. Of how we are moving through our world.

When you move through your day, “check-in”.

Are you in high-pressure mode? Or a curious mode?

This would be a great way to “observe” how we move through our details and how it might be impacting our long-term memory of what we are experiencing.

Awareness is where it is at.

Many of us stay slightly “out of breath”.

Check-in. Are you relaxed? Curious? Breathing normally or holding your breath?

Awareness begins with practice. Practice makes us deeper, more involved in our own lives in ways that work more FOR us than AGAINST us.

Knowledge is power.

Dr. B.

What do you think of this?

---

Reference:

Instructed motivational states bias reinforcement learning and memory formation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2023; 120 (31) DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2304881120