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Tag: memory

  • Science Says Sleeping in a Really Dark Room Will Make You Smarter

    You probably already know you need at least seven hours of sleep a night to function at your best. (And don’t say, “Not me. I do just fine on five or six hours.” According to a study published in Cell Research, only a tiny fraction of the population functions well on less than seven hours.)

    Why? A 2018 study published in Sleep says if you only sleep for five to six hours you’re 19 percent less productive than people who regularly sleep for seven to eight hours. If you only sleep five hours a night? You’re nearly 30 percent less productive.

    That’s especially true for entrepreneurs: a study published in Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice found that lack of sleep makes people more likely to start a business on impulse or whim rather than on a solid, well-considered idea. More broadly, a study published in Journal of Business Venturing found that lack of sleep causes you to come up with worse ideas.

    And to believe your bad ideas are actually good ideas. ​

    So yeah: getting enough sleep is actually a competitive advantage.

    Especially if you take it one step farther. According to a 2022 study published in Sleep, sleeping in as close to total darkness as possible can not only improve the quality of your sleep, it can also improve your memory and alertness. 

    After just two nights of wearing a sleep mask, participants:

    • displayed significantly better learning skills,
    • displayed significantly better physical reaction times, and
    • learned new motor skills more quickly.

    Why? One explanation could be the “synaptic homeostasis hypothesis,” the theory that increased slow-wave activity during sleep (which is promoted by darkness) promotes the “down-scaling” of synapses that became saturated while you were awake and restores your capacity for encoding new information. 

    Or, in non researcher-speak, a dark night’s sleep primes both your cognitive and motor skills for the next day. The same holds true for feeling (and actually being) more alert.

    That doesn’t mean I’m eager to embrace a sleep mask. It feels weird to have a mask on, and it made me feel like I didn’t sleep as well. But I’m probably wrong; as the researchers write: 

    It deserves mention that even though participants reported that sleeping with the control mask was more uncomfortable in comparison with the eye mask, this did not impact self-reported sleep quality, morning alertness, or sleep parameters.

    So even if you don’t love the idea of a mask, the mask will still — in terms of the benefits it provides — love you back. 

    But you don’t have to wear a mask. Draw your blinds. Consider room-darkening curtains. Turn off device notifications and leave them face-down on your nightstand. The darker you make your bedroom — the more you limit the presence of ambient or intermittent light that can disturb your sleep — the more you’ll benefit in terms of memory performance and alertness the next day.

    As the researchers write:

    Given the current climate of life-hacking, sleep monitoring, and cognitive enhancers, our findings suggest the eye mask as a simple, economical, and noninvasive way to get more out of a night of sleep.

    And so is a really dark room.

    The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.

    The final deadline for the 2026 Inc. Regionals Awards is Friday, December 12, at 11:59 p.m. PT. Apply now.

    Jeff Haden

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  • Hot coaching commodity Lane Kiffin has a tough decision 12 years after USC fired him

    Twelve years ago, coach Lane Kiffin was humiliated, fired by USC athletic director Pat Haden on an airport tarmac at 3 a.m. moments after the Trojans had flown in from Phoenix after getting crushed by Arizona State, 62-41.

    OK, so maybe it wasn’t the tarmac, maybe that’s just Trojan lore, maybe the abrupt firing took place in a small room next to the runway.

    Either way, the memory has been burned in Kiffin’s heart and mind, helping motivate him to increased success on the field and seemingly heartfelt balance in his personal life.

    Now the tables have turned. Kiffin, 50, has led Ole Miss to a No. 5 national ranking and 10-1 record, the fourth year in the last five the Rebels have won at least 10 games. He seemingly shed the reputation for aloofness and me-first attitude that dogged him as a failed NFL head coach at age 32 and as an Alabama assistant let go by Nick Saban days before a national title game for focusing too much on his next job.

    Yet, here we are again, Kiffin apparently contemplating the unthinkable. Would he really abandon Ole Miss on the eve of the College Football Playoff for Florida or Louisiana State, fellow SEC schools and established national powers hunting for head coaches?

    A young fan shows his support for Mississippi coach Lane Kiffin during the second half of a game against Florida in Oxford, Miss., on Nov. 15, 2025.

    (Rogelio V. Solis/Associated Press)

    Kiffin’s ex-wife Layla — they are on friendly terms — and 17-year-old son Knox recently were flown on private jets to Gainesville, Fla., and Baton Rouge, La., presumably to check out the livability and vibes of the potential next entry on Kiffin’s resume.

    Ole Miss is well aware of Kiffin’s impending decision and clearly want to know the answer ahead of the Rebels’ regular-season finale Nov. 28 against Mississippi State. Kiffin, however, denied rumors that Ole Miss athletic director Keith Carter had given him an ultimatum to decide before then.

    “Yeah, that’s absolutely not true,” Kiffin told “The Pat McAfee Show” on ESPN on Tuesday. “There has been no ultimatum, anything like that at all. And so I don’t know where that came from, like a lot of stuff that comes out there. Like I said, man, we’re having a blast. I love it here.”

    In fairness to Kiffin, the urgency to decide now rather than at season’s end is a function of today’s college football recruiting calendar and transfer portal. The high school signing period begins Dec. 3 and the transfer portal opens Jan. 2.

    The first round of the CFP will be Dec. 19 and 20. The quarterfinals are on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. Florida and LSU can’t wait that long to hire a coach.

    What should he do? Most seasoned pundits believe he should not budge.

    “Kiffin should stay and see the season out; attempt to win, try to reach the Final Four or beyond, make the memories, and forge the deep bonds that coaching is supposed to be about,” longtime columnist Dan Wetzel wrote for ESPN.

    Reasons to jump to LSU or Florida are that both schools are in talent-rich states with massive fan bases and deep tradition. The ceiling is higher and the stands fuller than in Oxford, Miss. Also, coaches at those established SEC powers tend to dig in for years. Who knows when a similar opportunity will present itself?

    Kiffin’s quandary is understandable. Old Miss administrators, however, vividly recall 2022 when Kiffin was courted by Auburn and allowed the issue to linger and sabotage a potentially great season. The Rebels were 8-1 when the rumors began and then lost four in a row.

    Nobody at Ole Miss wants another collapse because Kiffin — again — had a wandering eye. His decision is difficult, and won’t wait.

    Steve Henson

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  • Science Says Fit People’s Brains Are Built Differently (and They’re Smarter)

    You probably know that exercise helps you perform better under stress. You probably know that exercising at moderate intensity for 20 minutes elevates your mood for up to 12 hours. You might know exercise is one of the five daily habits a 30-year Harvard study shows can not only increase your lifespan by 12 to 14 years, but also cut your risk of Alzheimer’s in half.

    You might even know that exercise increases the production of a protein that supports the function, growth, and survival of brain cells.

    But what you probably don’t know is that a study published in Nature found a definite link between physical fitness and improved cognitive function, one that results in improved memory, reasoning, sharpness, and judgment. 

    Want to find out where you stand? All you have to do is take a quick walk.

    During the study, the researchers asked participants to walk as quickly as they could and measured how far they got in two minutes. The mean distances achieved were 660 feet for men and 640 feet for women. (That extrapolates to a 16-minute mile, or a pace of slightly under four miles an hour.)

    Then they asked them to take a variety of cognitive tests, and compared the results:

    It surprised us to see that even in a young population, cognitive performance decreases as fitness levels drop. We knew how this might be important in an elderly population, which does not necessarily have good health, but to see this happening in 30 year-olds is surprising.

    This leads us to believe that a basic level of fitness seems to be a preventable risk factor for brain health.

    Just as importantly, when the researchers took MRIs of participants, they found that “higher (levels of personal fitness) is associated with preserved white matter microstructure and better performance in a wide range of cognitive domains.”

    Somewhat simply put, fitter people have greater white matter integrity. White matter is made up of bundles of myelinated axons that affect learning and brain functions and coordinate communication between different brain regions.

    More simply put, fit people’s brains are built a little better, which helps them remember, reason, and decide better. White matter integrity improves episodic memory, or personal experiences. White matter integrity improves cognitive flexibility, processing speed, and fluid intelligence.

    White matter integrity helps you better draw on what you’ve learned in the past to make quicker, smarter decisions in the present.

    All from being able to walk a little farther in two minutes.

    So let’s work on that. Walk as fast as you can for two minutes and see how far you get. Where you fall on the scale — under or over 660 or 640 feet — doesn’t really matter. The goal is to work to improve on that result, because doing so should improve your white matter integrity.

    If you’re don’t exercise, start walking for 15 minutes every day. (As an added bonus, other research shows a 15-minute walk can significantly increase your lifespan.)

    But don’t do a circuit; walk away from your home for 7.5 minutes, then walk back. Over time, try to walk farther on the “out” 7.5 minutes and still make it back in 7.5 minutes.

    That will increase your speed and with it, your level of fitness. (And force you to do the whole 15 minutes; when I go for long bike rides, I always ride away from my house for half the intended distance because then I have no choice but to complete the second half if I want to make it home.) 

    Then consider exercising more. Exercising regularly also checks off an item on the Harvard list of five daily healthy habits.)

    If you’re under the study’s mean distance, shoot for 660 and 640 feet for men and women, respectively. And consider adding other forms of cardio, and maybe even a little strength training.

    Do that, and your results on the two-minute walking test will improve a lot faster, and with less effort, than you think.

    As a result you’ll feel better — both physically and mentally — and you could improve your memory, reasoning, decision-making, and ability to make connections and draw on past experiences.

    Can’t beat that.

    The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.

    The early-rate deadline for the 2026 Inc. Regionals Awards is Friday, November 14, at 11:59 p.m. PT. Apply now.

    Jeff Haden

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  • The number of daily steps you take may delay Alzheimer’s progression

    (CNN) — Increasing the number of steps you take every day may slow cognitive decline in older adults who already have biological signs of early Alzheimer’s disease, according to a new observational study.

    The presence of beta amyloid and tau proteins are hallmark signs of Alzheimer’s. Amyloid can begin to accumulate in the spaces between neurons as early as one’s 30s, potentially affecting communication between brain cells. As amyloid deposits grow, they can lead to a rapid spread of abnormal tau proteins, which form tangles inside brain cells, thus killing them.

    “Physical activity may help slow the buildup of tau — the protein most closely linked to memory loss — and delay cognitive decline in people with early Alzheimer’s,” said lead study author Dr. Wai-Ying Wendy Yau, a neurologist and memory disorders physician scientist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

    Cognitive decline was delayed by an average of three years for people who walked 3,000 to 5,000 steps per day, and by seven years in individuals who walked 5,000 to 7,500 steps per day, Yau said in an email.

    While the research is informative, relying on a specific number of steps per day to prevent Alzheimer’s is too simplistic, said neurologist Dr. Richard Isaacson, director of research at the Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases in Florida. He was not involved in the study.

    “I get really cautious about catchy numbers like walking 5,000 or 7,000 steps,” said Isaacson, who conducts studies on cognitive improvement in people who are genetically at risk for Alzheimer’s disease.

    “If someone has excess body fat, if someone has prediabetes, if someone has high blood pressure, just walking a certain number of steps won’t be enough,” he said. “Everyone needs their own individualized plan.”

    No decline in beta amyloid

    The study was small — only 296 people between the ages of 50 and 90 — but researchers used objective measures, which improved the reliability of the 14-year study published Monday in the journal Nature Medicine.

    “The strength of this research is the combination of serial highly specialized scans that measure amyloid and tau deposition in the brain, with cognitive assessments and baseline step count. This is unique,” said Masud Husain, a professor of neurology and cognitive neuroscience at the University of Oxford’s medical science division, in a statement. He was not involved in the study.

    Steps were measured by pedometer; participants underwent yearly cognitive testing for an average of nine years; and everyone received a PET (or positron-emission tomography) scan at the beginning of the study to measure levels of amyloid and tau. A smaller group received a follow-up PET scan at the end of the study.

    While tau buildup slowed by between three and seven years for people who walked up to 7,500 steps per day, people who were sedentary had a significantly faster buildup of tau proteins and more rapid declines in cognition and daily functioning, the study found.

    An unusual finding was the lack of a relationship between physical activity and a decline in beta amyloid, which appears before tau.

    “Instead, for a given amount of elevated amyloid burden, higher step counts were associated with slower accumulation of tau, which largely explained the relationship with slower cognitive decline,” said Yau, who is also an instructor at Harvard Medical School.

    Because the study was only observational, it cannot show a direct cause and effect, Yau said. However, such studies reinforce existing knowledge that what is good for the heart — such as walking, stress reduction, quality sleep and a plant-based diet — is good for the brain, experts say.

    “We’ve known for years that mice which exercise on their little wheels have about 50% less amyloid in their brains,” Isaacson said. “While we need more research in people, I’m convinced exercise on a regular basis reduces amyloid buildup and improves cognition.”

    Sandee LaMotte and CNN

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  • The Scientists Who Want to Rewire Your Past to Fix the Present

    Memories are the language we use to tell the story of our life—an ever-changing language.

    In the last several decades, scientists have shown just how malleable our memories really are. We don’t so much recall the past when we remember something; rather, we recall our recollection of the past. And every time we dig back into the crevices of our mind, the details of our remembrances can shift ever so slightly for any number of reasons, including our current emotional state.

    Usually, this system works perfectly fine enough. But sometimes, we can conjure up or even be coerced into creating false memories of events that never happened, a phenomenon that’s occasionally fueled moral panics and wrongful convictions.

    Scary as all this might sound, some neuroscientists have started to explore the positive implications of our shifting memory. If it’s possible to induce a traumatic false memory in someone, for instance, why not a happy one? Or maybe we can erase real traumatic memories that are greatly contributing to a person’s depression, or at least blunt the emotional toll of those memories. Some people might also benefit from interventions that would allow them to more easily recall happier memories during times of turmoil.

    In 2012, Steve Ramirez—a PhD student at the time—and his colleagues at MIT began to publish research that helped propel the now fast-growing field of memory manipulation. They demonstrated that it’s possible to physically and reliably implant a false memory in the brains of lab mice.

    In his upcoming book, How to Change a Memory: One Neuroscientist’s Quest to Alter the Past, Ramirez details the early neuroscience research that made his experiments possible, the leaps and bounds that he and other scientists have made since, and the potential expansive future that lies ahead for the field. The book isn’t just a breezy summary of memory research, though, it’s an engaging and at times heartbreaking telling of Ramirez’s personal journey pursuing this research. At the heart of this journey are the memories of his mentor, research partner, and friend Xu Liu, who unexpectedly died at the age of 37 not long after their professional collaboration at MIT had ended.

    Gizmodo reached out to Ramirez to talk about the origins of his book, the ethics of manipulating memory, and why learning about the foibles of remembering has made him an optimist. The following conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and grammar.

    Ed Cara, Gizmodo: The book is equal parts memory science and memoir. Was this something you set out to do from the get-go, or an idea that emerged along the way as you were writing it?

    Steve Ramirez: I have a two-tiered answer.

    I knew that I’ve always wanted to write a book. That’s just a childhood dream that I had ever since exploring places like Barnes and Nobles growing up and just getting lost in the bookstore.

    I always thought it would be awesome to produce something that one day belongs there. I had no idea really what I would write about; I just knew that it was a goal of mine to write a book in general. And I also grew up really consuming as much nonfiction as possible. So people like Oliver Sacks, Steven Pinker, and Mary Roach. I really loved their approach to book writing.

    But admittedly, those kinds of books always left me feeling like, “Man, this all sounds awesome. I just wish I knew a little bit more about the human element that was involved in producing all of the grand discoveries that they talk about in their books.” So I figured when I started writing the book, the only way I could tell this story is from a personal lenses. Because I’m both a person and a scientist.

    Usually, the world only tends to see the outcomes of your work, the discoveries or the papers. But the human element part was the one that I always felt was missing, something that’s still very much me. So I wanted to infuse that voice in it as much as possible, so that it could be as authentic as possible. And that admittedly was the hardest part of this whole journey, because that’s the part where I had to really learn to turn complicated thoughts into words, let alone the written word, and into a narrative. But it was also the most rewarding part because I do think that I just gained like a whole new language for conveying my own thoughts and feelings around science, around my friendship with Xu, and around the discoveries we made.

    I felt that if I could give the reader as close to a 360 degree view of what it means to be a person doing science, then I produced the kind of book that I was really longing for, so to speak, growing up.

    Gizmodo: Can you give us a bird’s eye view of the science surrounding memory manipulation? Just how far have things progressed since the studies that you and Liu conducted over a decade ago?

    Ramirez: It’s mind boggling to be honest.

    I mention towards the very end of the book about how what started as one paper and one poster with Xu and I has turned into so much more.  We just had a meeting in Ireland this past year that had a couple hundred researchers with dozens and dozens of posters. It’s a whole meeting dedicated to this topic that wasn’t really in existence a decade, a decade and a half, ago. So the field has just become so expansive in both in its techniques and its concepts.

    It’s kind of dizzying in all the best ways because I think it’s as close to a mini-renaissance in memory research as we could have hoped for. Not only are there hundreds and hundreds of projects that are focused on trying to manipulate engrams [Author’s note: engrams are considered the physical traces of memory created in the brain] and seeing what we can do with them, but there are now whole generations of new scientists working in the field trying to chip away at this problem of how memory works. So it’s been inspiring and dizzying at the same time to see the field in its heyday.

    Just to give a quick glimpse—because the field has been so extraordinarily prolific in the last decade and a half. But what started as our ability to artificially turn on one specific memory in the brain has turned into success story after success story. We’ve been able to restore memories that have started to be lost in all sorts of cases, from amnesia to Alzheimer’s disease to sleep deprivation to addiction. We’re even now activating positive memories in all sorts of contexts, whether it’s models of depression, anxiety, and so on.

    Gizmodo: It seems like there will be very real therapeutic applications based on this work soon enough. But I think for many people, this kind of research also evokes Hollywood-inspired fears of mass mind control or other scary futures (Total Recall, Inception, etc). How do we ensure that memory manipulation will be done ethically in people, especially as it starts to reach the medical toolbox?

    Ramirez: We have to have an ongoing, fully transparent conversation between everyone. It doesn’t matter if it’s the top floor of the ivory tower, the first floor of the ivory tower, or just the lay audience. Everyone has a stake here, because it has to do with something that presumably everyone has, which is memory. So I think if we continue to have this kind of transparent public-facing dialogue about what memory manipulation can really mean, then I think we can not just use it for the greater good, but we can also establish important seat belts so that to prevent misuse.

    We’re definitely not Total Recall-ing or Inception-ing the human brain right now. But we also weren’t genetically engineering embryos 30 years ago, before the Human Genome Project was published. So we want to start this conversation decades in advance, so that if and when we get there, we have the proper seat belts to prevent misuse. And it’s not perfect, but I think that one way we can lean into this is by saying, “Let’s give ourselves some ethically bounded or motivated goal for this kind of research.” And in my opinion, the goal is to understand memory so that we can restore health and wellbeing to an individual, and therefore to people.

    So if our goal is to use this to promote human flourishing in any capacity that involves wellbeing and restoring health, then we’re in business because then it means that we could use these kinds of approaches in a clinical setting or in a medicinal setting. So we’re not just wiping away the memories from someone like me, Steve, who can’t get over a high school breakup—because life will teach me how to learn and grow beyond those kinds of events.

    But we can use it in a clinical setting for the person who’s really debilitated by any given disorder. We can have a medical framework to work from, in the same way that we wouldn’t prescribe an antidepressant to the whole population of Boston, but we would give it to the person living with depression who really would benefit from it. If health restoration is the goal, then we can at least begin to work with that kind of similar infrastructure, while also trying to prevent misuse.

    Gizmodo: Speaking as a journalist who’s investigated how false memories can lead people astray in horrific ways, learning about the fragility of memory has been existentially frightening at times. But it seems like your research has left you with an overall optimistic perspective—a trend I’ve noticed with other memory scientists I’ve chatted with! At least for you, why is that?

    Ramirez: I’m glad you asked, because I really do think that it’s shaped my rosy outlook.

    I think I have a deep respect for what memory is and for what it can be. And I’ve certainly experienced the highs of memories, sitting with a positive memory and feeling motivated, and the lows of memories, recalling something surrounded by grief or loss that can immediately put me in a more pensive or somber state.

    So the fact that memory can do that in just a few seconds without really even breaking a sweat is so—it’s almost awe-inspiring. And I think that throughout my career, especially with the ability to tinker with memories, I’ve just gained such a deep respect for this cognitive faculty that we have that can do amazing things. And I’ve also started to think about it as something that we can imbue with healing properties.

    In the big picture, I hope by spreading that kind of deep appreciation for what memory is and can be, that we can all connect a little bit more. Because when I hear from people who are in recovery who are at meetings, those are underpinned by everyone’s memories and lived experiences of the hardships that they’ve had to deal with.

    But sharing those kinds of memories immediately connects the room at a really fundamentally human level. And I think that if we all took a step back, I am willing to bet anything that we all have at least one memory we can share that will connect us with practically anyone else in the world. And then suddenly, connection becomes the theme, and then being a little bit more empathetic or sympathetic or tolerant suddenly comes into play.

    That’s what gives me the sort of rosy-eyed view of what the world can be, because it’s certainly not a reflection of where the world is now, unfortunately.

    Gizmodo: What do you most hope readers can take away from your book?

    Ramirez: I hope that they take away that deep appreciation for what memory really can be—its ability to transport us back to the most meaningful moments of our past, or to be used as building blocks to imagine whatever future we want to imagine. That it’s really almost this magical property that our brain has that it endows us with so effortlessly.

    On the personal front, I hope that readers take away from it the very human process that doing science actually is like. Because science just produces truths that exist in the pantheon of truths in the world, but the process of getting there is a very topsy-turvy, roller coaster, flawed, and exciting human endeavor. So that I hope this at least paints that picture in a little bit.

    At the end of the day, what a reader can really come away with appreciating isn’t just that we have memories, but that we also are all, fortunately and unfortunately, depending on your perspective, destined to become memory.

    I think there’s a lot of power in that realization, and that was one way I came to terms with the time I spent with Xu. And I think one way of reconciling, or at least resolving, that hard-to-swallow pill of someday becoming memory is that we live a life that one day might be honored in a similar way as how I am using this book to honor my friend. And that’s a way of addressing not just the more difficult memories of our past, but even honoring our grief and really putting that part of memory at center stage.

    So it’s a long-winded answer, but basically I hope that people connect with some of the memories I’ve shared, and maybe they’ll see a little bit of themselves and connect with that as well. Because then there’s a very real human conversation to be had there, one that is less intimidating and more accessible.

    How to Change a Memory: One Neuroscientist’s Quest to Alter the Past is being published by Princeton University Press, and will be available starting November 4.

    Ed Cara

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  • Keep Forgetting Things? 4 Simple Ways–in 2 Minutes or Less–to Remember More, Backed by Neuroscience

    Some of my best ideas come to me when I’m exercising.

    At least I think they’re some of my best ideas; by the time I actually get a chance to write them down, I’ve often forgotten them. While you could argue that something I was unable to remember for an hour or so can’t be that great, still: we’ve all had things we wanted to remember, but couldn’t.

    So what can you do if you need to remember something important? Most memory-improvement techniques — like mnemonics, chunking, and building memory palaces — involve a fair amount of effort. 

    But these simple strategies to improve your short-term memory and recall require almost no effort — and very little time.

    1. Say it out loud.

    We’ve all been around people who repeat things they’re learning out loud. Or just mouth the words. They look a little odd: smart people just file knowledge away. They don’t have to talk to themselves. 

    Actually, smart people do talk to themselves.

    A study published Learning, Memory, and Cognition found that saying words out loud — or just mouthing them — makes them more distinctive by separating them from all the other words you’re thinking. In short, saying words out loud makes them different.

    Which makes them more memorable. 

    So go ahead. When you need to remember something, say it aloud. Or mouth it to yourself.

    Your cerebral cortex will thank you for it.

    2. Predict whether you will actually remember.

    Sounds odd, I know. But a study published in the Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology shows the simple act of asking yourself whether you will remember something significantly improves the odds that you will remember, in some cases by as much as 50 percent.

    That’s especially true for remembering things you want to do. Psychologists call them prospective memories: remembering to perform a planned action, or recall a planned intention, at some point in the future. Like remembering to praise an employee, email a customer, or implement a schedule change.

    Why this works is somewhat unclear. Maybe the act of predicting is a little like testing yourself; research shows that quizzing yourself is an extremely effective way to speed up the learning process. What is clear is that the act helps your hippocampus better form and index those episodic memories for later access.

    So if you want to remember to do something in the future, take a second and predict whether you will remember.

    Science says that act alone makes it more likely you will.

    3. Rehearse for 40 seconds

    Memory consolidation is the process of transforming temporary memories into more stable, long-lasting memories. Even though the process of memory consolidation can be sped up, still: Storing a memory in a lasting way takes time.

    One way to increase the odds is to rehearse whatever you want to remember for 40 seconds. A study published in The Journal of Neuroscience found that a brief period of rehearsal — like replaying an event in your mind, going over what someone said in a meeting, or mentally mapping out a series of steps — makes it significantly more likely that you will remember what you rehearsed.

    As the researchers write, that “brief period of rehearsal has a huge effect on our ability to remember complex, lifelike events over periods of one to two weeks. We have also linked this rehearsal effect to processing in a particular part of the brain: the posterior cingulate.”

    Which should be long enough for you to actually do something with whatever you hope to remember.

    4. Close your eyes for 2 minutes.

    A study published in Nature Reviews Psychology found that “… even two minutes of rest with your eyes closed can improve memory, perhaps to the same degree as a full night of sleep.”

    Psychologists call it “offline waking rest.” In its purest form, offline waking rest can be closing your eyes and zoning out for a couple of minutes. But offline waking rest can also be daydreaming. Mind-wandering. Meditating. Basically turning your mind off for a minute or two.

    While mentally disconnecting doesn’t sound productive, when it comes to remembering more, it is: without those intermittent periods of lack of focus, memory consolidation doesn’t occur nearly as efficiently.

    So go ahead and zone out for a couple minutes. As the researchers write, “Moments of unoccupied rest should be recognized as a critical contributor to human waking cognitive functions rather than a waste of time.”

    Can’t beat that.

    The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.

    Jeff Haden

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  • Science Says These 2 Minutes Can Dramatically Improve Your Memory, Recall, and Knowledge

    Want to improve your memory? Of course you do. Knowledge is great, but success in any pursuit is based on what you do with what you know — so it follows that the more you retain and remember, the more you can do.

    Fortunately, there are plenty of simple ways to remember more —

    The list goes on. And they all work, but they all (except for getting a good night’s sleep) require time and effort.

    But this doesn’t. A study published in Nature Reviews Psychology found that “… even two minutes of rest with your eyes closed can improve memory, perhaps to the same degree as a full night of sleep.”

    Psychologists call it “offline waking rest.” In its purest form, offline waking rest can be closing your eyes and zoning out for a couple of minutes. But offline waking rest can also be daydreaming. Mind-wandering. Meditating. Basically turning your mind off for a minute or two.

    While mentally disconnecting doesn’t sound productive, when it comes to remembering more, it is: Without those intermittent periods of lack of focus, memory consolidation doesn’t occur nearly as efficiently.

    As the researchers write:

    From an evolutionary perspective, activities such as daydreaming and zoning out seem to be a colossal waste of time that could instead be spent searching for food or remaining alert to danger from predators.

    However, periods of reduced attention to the external world are a universal feature of human (and animal) experience, which suggests that spending a portion of time disengaged from the sensory environment might serve an important function. 

    Periods of offline rest permit the reactivation of recently formed memory traces.
    This iterative reactivation of memory could strengthen and stabilize newly formed memories over time, contributing to early stages of memory consolidation during the first few minutes following encoding.

    That’s good news for anyone who has ever daydreamed for a few seconds during a meeting. Or lost focus during a presentation. Or lost track, mid-conversation. (Hey, you’re not lazy or inattentive or unproductive: You’re making memories!)

    As with most things, the better approach is to be intentional. Say you couldn’t take notes during a meeting. Get back to your desk and write down a few bullet points. But then, if you can, close your eyes for a minute or two. Don’t replay the conversation, or try to memorize facts and figures. 

    Instead, zone out. Engage in a couple of minutes of offline waking rest.

    While that sounds counterintuitive, according to the researchers, “Moments of unoccupied rest should be recognized as a critical contributor to human waking cognitive functions rather than a waste of time.”

    Sounds like a great use of two minutes to me.

    The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.

    Jeff Haden

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  • Neuroscience Says This Is How You Can Turn a Bad Memory Into a Good (and Useful) Memory

    I was staying in a hotel with our two grandsons and the fire alarm went off at 1 a.m. We threw on coats, hustled down the stairs, and stood in the cold in front of the building. While most fire alarms are false alarms, turns out there was a small fire.

    Months later we were staying in a hotel and the fire alarm went off. One grandson immediately freaked out. The other said, “Hey, all right.”

    Same event, two very different reactions. Why?

    Neuroscientists call the process of linking feelings with a memory valence assignment. Once we experience something, our brains associate it with a positive or negative feeling, or valence, which helps us know whether to seek or avoid it in the future. 

    For one grandson, a fire alarm is a bad memory. Fires mean buildings can burn down. Fires mean we could get badly hurt. For the other grandson, a fire alarm is a good memory. Fire alarms are early warnings that help keep people from being injured. Fires alarms mean safety.

    How valence assignment happens, at a cellular level, is unclear. Scientists know that different sets of neurons are activated when a valence is positive, and others when a valence is negative. 

    “We found these two pathways — analogous to railroad tracks — that were leading to positive and negative valence,” writes professor Kay Tye, “but we still didn’t know what signal was acting as the switch operator to direct which track should be used at any given time.”

    So as part of a study published in Nature by Tye and her colleagues at the Salk Institute, genes were selectively edited to remove the gene for neurotensin, a signaling molecule, from the brain cells of mice; without neurotensin, the mice could no longer assign positive valence to a memory. 

    Lacking neurotensin didn’t affect negative valence, though. In fact, the mice got even better at assigning negative valence. The neurons associated with negative valence stay switched on until neurotensin is released. 

    Which makes sense. After all, fear is a survival instinct. Avoiding dangerous situations helped keep our ancestors alive. (Think of it as your brain’s way of saying, “I’ll assume (this) is bad… until I know for sure it’s good.”)

    Then the researchers introduced high levels of neurotensin and found they could promote reward learning (think positive associations), and further dampen negative valence. According to Tye, “We can actually manipulate this switch to turn on positive or negative learning.”

    All of which sounds good if you have a steady supply of neurotensin on hand. (Which, of course, you don’t.) But there are a few ways to game your neurochemical system.

    One way is to reframe a negative experience. That’s what one grandson did. Initially the fire alarm scared him, but he decided to see getting out of the hotel as an adventure. And he decided to see a fire alarm as a good thing, because it’s a sign there might be a problem.

    You can do the same. Say a sales demo goes poorly. That memory cause you to think you never want to do another sales demo again.

    Or you could decide that memory will help you never do another sales demo that way again. Maybe you weren’t prepared. Maybe you didn’t read the room. Maybe you didn’t build in a few pauses so you could adjust, in the moment, to how your presentation was being received.

    Mentally assigning positive outcomes, like, “Here’s what I learned,” to an experience will help you assign a positive valence to that experience.

    In time, you’ll even think back fondly on the time you bombed, because it served as a springboard for later success.

    Another way is to mentally take a step back to focus on your overall sense of self-worth before you do something difficult. A study published in Psychological Science found that a few minutes of self-affirmation minimized participants’ psychological response to failure if a particular task didn’t go well.

    That’s because confidence is situational. Stick me in a gym with a bunch of people lifting weights and even if I’m not as strong, I still feel confident, and like I belong. Stick me in a Pilates class, though, and I’ll instantly feel insecure (and justifiably so.) The same is probably true for you. You probably feel self-assured speaking to ten members of your team; stick you in front of ten strangers, though, and that confidence likely disappears.

    But confidence is also transferable. Success in one pursuit yields greater confidence in other areas of your life. When you feel good about yourself in one way — when you achieve some degree of success in one aspect of your life — you tend to feel better about other parts of your life as well. 

    After all, if you can do one thing well, you can do lots of things well.

    Before you do something that might result in a negative memory, take a moment to reflect on all the things you can do well. That way, if you fail, you’ll be able to see that moment for what it is: just one step, however feeble, on a journey to eventual achievement.

    Another way is to make a feeling granular rather than general. For example, unlike a general feeling like feeling stressed, a granular emotion is a specific feeling like fear, worry, or anxiety. (Compared to feeling “happy,” a granular emotion might be pleased, delighted, or excited.)

    The more general the feeling, the more likely you are to assign a negative valence to the situation that sparked the emotion.

    My grandsons and I dying in the first hotel was extremely unlikely. The building had a number of exit points and stairways. It had fire escapes on opposite sides of the building, accessible from the roof. Plus we all know how to get out of a building quickly; we’ve done it before. We know what to do.

    All of that helps us assign a more positive valence to a fire alarm — and hopefully hopefully respond better if it ever happens again. The grandson who assigned a negative valence came home from school the day they had a fire drill and said he wasn’t scared of fire alarms any more because unlike his classmates, he’s been in a real fire drill. (Hey, whatever works.)

    Which, ultimately, is the point. You can’t always control what happens. But you can always control how you respond.

    And the more positive the valence you assign to a situation, especially to a seemingly uncomfortable or challenging situation, the better you’ll be able to respond.

    Because bravery isn’t an absence of fear. Bravery is doing what you need to do in spite of fear — something finding a way to assign a positive valance will make a lot easier.

    The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.

    Jeff Haden

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  • Cognitive Science Says This Is the Best Way to Learn Faster, Increase Recall, and Improve Your Memory

    How does learning work? Encode, store, retrieve: take it in, find a place for it, pull it out when you need it. If you can’t retrieve information, you haven’t really learned it.

    So since we all learn best by doing, it only makes sense that testing yourself — as long as you do it the right way — is the best way to learn faster and retain more.

    Granted, taking a test kind of sucks. Tests assess, measure, and judge, and who enjoys being judged? Taking a test can feel high pressure, high stakes.

    But what if there is no pressure? What if there are no stakes? What if a test isn’t used to evaluate your knowledge, but help you learn faster and better?

    A meta-review of a number of studies published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology found that self-testing — which is inherently low-stakes, since testing yourself means you’re the only person who knows the results — is the most effective way to speed up the learning process. A massive study published in Psychological Science in the Public Interest backs up that finding, showing that self-testing is the most effective learning technique, edging out distributed practice and interleaving.

    Why? Partly because of the additional context self-testing naturally creates. Quiz yourself and answer incorrectly, and not only will you be more likely to remember the right answer after you look it up, you’ll also remember the fact you didn’t remember.

    Getting something wrong is a great way to remember it the next time, especially if you tend to be hard on yourself. In a weird way, when it comes to memory, what you got wrong can be stickier than what you got right.

    For example, I sat in the parking lot looking up the answer to a question I thought I had gotten wrong on the Class A contractor’s license exam; I feel sure I’ll never forget that bolts must be placed within 12 inches of all sill plate joints. You could argue that was a high-pressure situation, but it really wasn’t. Instead of studying a lot to prepare, I took the test to see what I needed to learn since you can retake the test as often as necessary within a one-year period.

    I truly saw it as practice test, so the stakes felt low. (As it turned out out I passed the first time, but I still remember the answers to questions I thought I had gotten wrong, and looked up afterwards.)

    The same approach works when you’re teaching new employees. Say you’re training new technicians to perform a process. Stop halfway and give them a pop quiz, and the stakes — since the quiz feels like an assessment, not a learning tool — and they’ll feel the stakes are high. (If nothing else, no one likes to be wrong in front of other people.)

    But what if you pass out a quick quiz, let them take it, go over the answers, and tell them to throw away their papers when you’re done? Take makes it a low-stakes test that fosters learning.

    And provide a number of other positive outcomes. According to a study published in Psychology of Learning and Motivation, low-stakes self-testing provides a number of benefits:

    • Self-testing (and retrieving) aids retention. Learning a presentation? Quiz yourself on what comes after your intro. Quiz yourself by listing the four main points you want to make. Quiz yourself on sales estimates, key initiatives, or results from competitive analysis. That will force you to practice retrieving the information you want to remember, which will make it stickier.
    • Self-testing identifies knowledge gaps. Test yourself, and you’ll quickly discover what you don’t know. Then you can focus on learning that. (And you’ll be more likely to remember that information since you didn’t know it the first time.)
    • Self-testing helps you learn more the next time you study. Studies show that people who took a test before they studied retained information better than those who did not. (Think of it as priming your study pump.)
    • Self-testing organizes knowledge. Reading is fairly passive. Testing forces you to make connections, or recognizes gaps in your ability to make connections. Testing helps you realize, “Ah — this goes with that,” or “This causes that,” and makes you cluster information so it makes better sense.
    • Self-testing helps transfer knowledge to new situations. People who are repeatedly tested are better able to apply what they know to new situations. Think of it as the, “Hmm, this is a lot like that, but with one little twist” effect. 
    • Self-testing helps retrieve information not tested. Granted, this one seems odd. Still: take a test, and you’ll better remember information that was studied but not tested. (I’m guessing that’s the result of the overall memory boost frequent low-stakes testing provides.) 
    • Self-testing prevents interference from prior material. Try to learn a lot at once, and it all tends to run together. Or, more likely, you’ll remember what you learned early in the session, but after a while the rest is just a blur. Toss in a few quizzes along the way, though, and that doesn’t tend to happen. If you need to learn a lot of material, break the session into chunks by inserting a few quizzes. (And if you’re teaching new employees a lot of material, definitely throw in a few low-stakes quizzes.)

    ​Best of all, testing tends to encourage more learning. While self-testing certainly reveals what you don’t know — at least not yet — it also helps you feel good about how much you have learned.

    The result is a virtuous cycle. You feel good about improving, which motivates you to keep trying to improve, self-testing reveals you’ve continued to improve.

    That’s another benefit of frequent, low-stakes testing.

    Not only do you learn more, you also want to learn more.

    The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.

    Jeff Haden

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  • Strengthen Your Memory for a Business Edge | Entrepreneur

    Disclosure: Our goal is to feature products and services that we think you’ll find interesting and useful. If you purchase them, Entrepreneur may get a small share of the revenue from the sale from our commerce partners.

    Running a business is already a mental marathon—juggling meetings, client names, deadlines, and numbers that matter. And when your brain doesn’t keep up, it’s a problem.

    According to the National Institute on Aging, our memory changes as we get older, and “some people notice that they don’t remember information as well as they once did and aren’t able to recall it as quickly.” Needless to say, this natural process is not great for those trying to run a business.

    Think of memoryOS as a gym membership for your mind, offering you a pathway to the recall strength you need to stay sharp. And right now, you can grab a one-year subscription for just $74.99 (MSRP $149.99).

    Unlike generic “brain games,” memoryOS is built on scientifically proven methods, such as mnemonics and spaced repetition, the company says. It introduces a modern twist: the Virtual Mind Palace. This centuries-old technique (used by memory champions and scholars) has been digitized and gamified, making it fun and engaging to practice.

    The result? Users report an average 70% boost in memory recall, the company says.

    Imagine walking into a client meeting and remembering every name. Or recalling key figures from last quarter’s reports without flipping through notes. That’s the kind of advantage memoryOS brings to professionals—whether you’re pitching, leading a team, or negotiating at the table.

    With guidance from World Memory Champions, bite-size microlessons fit into even the busiest schedules. In just a few minutes a day, you’ll start noticing improvements in how quickly and confidently you can store and retrieve important information.

    And it’s not limited to work. From remembering speeches to never forgetting a password again, memoryOS helps cut down on those frustrating “what was that again?” moments in everyday life.

    For entrepreneurs and executives, the ability to remember more means making faster decisions, stronger connections, and ultimately, running your business with greater confidence.

    Get a 1-year subscription to the memoryOS Expert Plan while it’s on sale for just $74.99 (MSRP $149.99).

    memoryOS Expert Plan: 1-Year Subscription

    See Deal

    StackSocial prices subject to change.

    Running a business is already a mental marathon—juggling meetings, client names, deadlines, and numbers that matter. And when your brain doesn’t keep up, it’s a problem.

    According to the National Institute on Aging, our memory changes as we get older, and “some people notice that they don’t remember information as well as they once did and aren’t able to recall it as quickly.” Needless to say, this natural process is not great for those trying to run a business.

    Think of memoryOS as a gym membership for your mind, offering you a pathway to the recall strength you need to stay sharp. And right now, you can grab a one-year subscription for just $74.99 (MSRP $149.99).

    The rest of this article is locked.

    Join Entrepreneur+ today for access.

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  • New Mexico teen becomes first girl in her county to earn the rank of Eagle Scout

    TO PROVIDE FEEDBACK TO ABC. CHANGES CAME TO THE BOY SCOUTS IN 2019, WHEN THE ORGANIZATION REBRANDED, OPENED ITS DOORS TO GIRLS AT THAT POINT, THEN THIS YEAR BECAME WHAT THEY CALL SCOUTING AMERICA. AND NOW THE FIRST YOUNG WOMAN IN VALENCIA COUNTY JUST ACHIEVED THE RANK OF EAGLE SCOUT. OUR OWN PEYTON SPELLACY JOINS US IN THE STUDIO THIS MORNING WITH MORE ABOUT HER STORY. HI, PEYTON. HEY, TODD AND ROYALE. SO TO BECOME AN EAGLE SCOUT, YOU MUST COMPLETE A MAJOR COMMUNITY SERVICE PROJECT FOR 17 YEAR OLD GABRIELLE MONTOYA. THAT MEANT TAKING SOMETHING LIKE A TIRE AND TRANSFORMING IT INTO A DOG BED FOR THE VALENCIA COUNTY ANIMAL SHELTER. IT’S TAKEN HER ABOUT FIVE YEARS TO BECOME AN EAGLE SCOUT, WHICH IS THE HIGHEST RANK IN SCOUTING, REQUIRING YEARS OF DEDICATION, LEADERSHIP AND COMMUNITY SERVICE. I ALSO WANT TO SHOW YOU HER UNIFORM HERE. THE SASH HOLDS MORE THAN 40 BADGES, EACH ONE REPRESENTING A SKILL THAT SHE’S MASTERED FROM FIRST AID TO SPACE EXPLORATION AND SHOTGUN SAFETY. EACH SKILL ALSO HELPED HER PREPARE FOR LIFE IN HER DREAM TO BECOME A VETERINARIAN. ONE OF THE THINGS THAT I WANT TO DO WITH MY LIFE IS HELP THOSE ANIMALS AND HELP OTHER PEOPLE WHO LOVE THEM IN THE SAME WAY THAT I DO. AND PART OF THE REASON THAT SCOUTING SORT OF HAS ASSISTED ME IN THIS WAY IS BECAUSE, YOU KNOW, YOU LEARN A THING OR TWO FROM MERIT BADGES LIKE THESE AND YOU LEARN HOW TO, YOU KNOW, BE THE BEST PERSON THAT YOU CAN BE THROUGHOUT THIS JOURNEY, MONTOYA SAYS SCOUTING HELPED HER GROW AS A LEADER AND AS A PERSON, AND HER MESSAGE TO YOUNG GIRLS WHO WANT TO BECOME AN EAGLE SCOUT IS TO JUST TAKE THE LEAP.

    Teen becomes first girl in her county to earn Eagle Scout rank

    17-year-old Gabrielle Montoya’s 5-year journey led to community service, leadership, and more than 40 merit badges

    Updated: 11:22 AM EDT Sep 20, 2025

    Editorial Standards ⓘ

    Changes came to the Boy Scouts in 2019 when the organization rebranded and opened its doors to girls. This year, it became Scouting America.Now, Valencia County, New Mexico, can boast its first girl to achieve the rank of Eagle Scout.Seventeen-year-old Gabrielle Montoya earned the honor after five years of dedication, leadership, and community service. To reach the highest rank in scouting, she completed a major project that turned old tires into dog beds for the Valencia County Animal Shelter.Her uniform sash carries more than 40 merit badges, each marking a skill she has mastered, from first aid to space exploration and shotgun safety. Those skills, Montoya said, have prepared her not only for life but also for her dream career as a veterinarian.”One of the things that I want to do with my life is help those animals and help other people who love them in the same way that I do,” she said. “And part of the reason that scouting sort of has assisted me in this way is because, you know, you learn a thing or two from merit badges like these, and you learn how to, you know, be the best person that you can be throughout this journey.”Montoya also takes pride in the patches displayed on her uniform.”This is my patrol patch. We’re part of the Frosty Flippers. And the patrol is basically a leadership group within the troop. So kind of like a bureaucracy if you think, like, different levels of government, we’ve got the same thing in the troop,” she said. “This is a Journey to Excellence Award. And what this represents is a couple of things that our troop had to do in order to take the step up and be a step above, and maybe like an average Scout troop.”She pointed out one patch in particular.”This patch right here is particularly important. This is in memory of one of the scouts in our brother troop, who actually was an Eagle Scout named Evan Strickland, who passed away during an Osprey accident in service. So we wear this in memory for him and in memory for his family as well,” she said.Other patches on her uniform represent the High Desert Council, the troop she helped found, her role as a junior assistant scoutmaster, and her Eagle Scout rank. She also wears patches for completing polar bear plunge activities and for her membership in the Order of the Arrow, scouting’s honor society.Montoya said scouting helped her grow as a leader and as a person. Her advice to other girls hoping to follow in her footsteps is to take the leap.

    Changes came to the Boy Scouts in 2019 when the organization rebranded and opened its doors to girls. This year, it became Scouting America.

    Now, Valencia County, New Mexico, can boast its first girl to achieve the rank of Eagle Scout.

    Seventeen-year-old Gabrielle Montoya earned the honor after five years of dedication, leadership, and community service. To reach the highest rank in scouting, she completed a major project that turned old tires into dog beds for the Valencia County Animal Shelter.

    Her uniform sash carries more than 40 merit badges, each marking a skill she has mastered, from first aid to space exploration and shotgun safety. Those skills, Montoya said, have prepared her not only for life but also for her dream career as a veterinarian.

    “One of the things that I want to do with my life is help those animals and help other people who love them in the same way that I do,” she said. “And part of the reason that scouting sort of has assisted me in this way is because, you know, you learn a thing or two from merit badges like these, and you learn how to, you know, be the best person that you can be throughout this journey.”

    Montoya also takes pride in the patches displayed on her uniform.

    “This is my patrol patch. We’re part of the Frosty Flippers. And the patrol is basically a leadership group within the troop. So kind of like a bureaucracy if you think, like, different levels of government, we’ve got the same thing in the troop,” she said. “This is a Journey to Excellence Award. And what this represents is a couple of things that our troop had to do in order to take the step up and be a step above, and maybe like an average Scout troop.”

    She pointed out one patch in particular.

    “This patch right here is particularly important. This is in memory of one of the scouts in our brother troop, who actually was an Eagle Scout named Evan Strickland, who passed away during an Osprey accident in service. So we wear this in memory for him and in memory for his family as well,” she said.

    Other patches on her uniform represent the High Desert Council, the troop she helped found, her role as a junior assistant scoutmaster, and her Eagle Scout rank. She also wears patches for completing polar bear plunge activities and for her membership in the Order of the Arrow, scouting’s honor society.

    Montoya said scouting helped her grow as a leader and as a person. Her advice to other girls hoping to follow in her footsteps is to take the leap.

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  • Boosting BDNF Levels in Our Brain to Treat Depression  | NutritionFacts.org

    We can raise BDNF levels in our brain by fasting and exercising, as well as by eating and avoiding certain foods.

    There is accumulating evidence that brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) may be playing a role in human depression. BDNF controls the growth of new nerve cells. “So, low levels of this peptide could lead to an atrophy of specific brain areas such as the amygdala and the hippocampus, as it has been observed among depressed patients.” That may be one of the reasons that exercise is so good for our brains. Start an hour-a-day exercise regimen, and, within three months, there can be a quadrupling of BDNF release from our brain, as seen below and at 0:35 in my video How to Boost Brain BDNF Levels for Depression Treatment.

    This makes sense. Any time we were desperate to catch prey (or desperate not to become prey ourselves), we needed to be cognitively sharp. So, when we’re fasting, exercising, or in a negative calorie balance, our brain starts churning out BDNF to make sure we’re firing on all cylinders. Of course, Big Pharma is eager to create drugs to mimic this effect, but is there any way to boost BDNF naturally? Yes, I just said it: fasting and exercising. Is there anything we can add to our diet to boost BDNF?

    Higher intakes of dietary flavonoids appear to be protectively associated with symptoms of depression. The Harvard Nurses’ Health Study followed tens of thousands of women for years and found that those who were consuming the most flavonoids appeared to reduce their risk of becoming depressed. Flavonoids occur naturally in plants, so there’s a substantial amount in a variety of healthy foods. But how do we know the benefits are from the flavonoids and not just from eating more healthfully in general? We put it to the test.

    Some fruits and vegetables have more flavonoids than others. As shown below and at 1:51 in my video, apples have more than apricots, plums more than peaches, red cabbage more than white, and kale more than cucumbers. Researchers randomized people into one of three groups: more high-flavonoid fruits and vegetables, more low-flavonoid fruits and vegetables, or no extra fruits and vegetables at all. After 18 weeks, only the high-flavonoid group got a significant boost in BDNF levels, which corresponded with an improvement in cognitive performance. The BDNF boost may help explain why each additional daily serving of fruits or vegetables is associated with a 3 percent decrease in the risk of depression. 

    What’s more, as seen here and at 2:27 in my video, a teaspoon a day of the spice turmeric may boost BNDF levels by more than 50 percent within a month. This is consistent with the other randomized controlled trials that have so far been done. 

    Nuts may help, too. In the PREDIMED study, where people were randomized to receive weekly batches of nuts or extra-virgin olive oil, the nut group lowered their risk of having low BDNF levels by 78 percent, as shown below and at 2:46.

    And BDNF is not implicated only in depression, but schizophrenia. When individuals with schizophrenia underwent a 12-week exercise program, they got a significant boost in their BDNF levels, which led the researchers to “suggest that exercise-induced modulation of BDNF may play an important role in developing non-pharmacological treatment for chronic schizophrenic patients.”

    What about schizophrenia symptoms? Thirty individuals with schizophrenia were randomized to ramp up to 40 minutes of aerobic exercise three times a week or not, and there did appear to be an improvement in psychiatric symptoms, such as hallucinations, as well as an increase in their quality of life, with exercise. In fact, researchers could actually visualize what happened in their brains. Loss of brain volume in a certain region appears to be a feature of schizophrenia, but 30 minutes of exercise, three times a week, resulted in an increase of up to 20 percent in the size of that region within three months, as seen here and at 3:46 in my video. 

    Caloric restriction may also increase BDNF levels in people with schizophrenia. So, researchers didn’t just have study participants eat less, but more healthfully, too—less saturated fat and sugar, and more fruits and veggies. The study was like the Soviet fasting trials for schizophrenia that reported truly unbelievable results, supposedly restoring people to function, and described fasting as “an unparalleled achievement in the treatment of schizophrenia”—but part of the problem is that the diagnostic system the Soviets used is completely different than ours, making any results hard to interpret. There was a subgroup that seemed to correspond to the Western definition, but they still reported 40 to 60 percent improvement rates from fasting, but fasting wasn’t all they did. After the participants fasted for up to a month, they were put on a meat- and egg-free diet. So, when the researchers reported these remarkable effects even years later, they were for those individuals who stuck with the meat- and egg-free diet. Evidently, the closer the diet was followed, the better the effect, and those who broke the diet relapsed. The researchers noted: “Not all patients can remain vegetarian, but they must not take meat for at least six months, and then in very small portions.” We know from randomized controlled trials that simply eschewing meat and eggs can improve mental states within just two weeks, so it’s hard to know what role fasting itself played in the reported improvements.

    A single high-fat meal can drop BDNF levels within hours of consumption, and we can prove it’s the fat itself by seeing the same result after injecting fat straight into our veins. Perhaps that helps explain why increased consumption of saturated fats in a high-fat diet may contribute to brain dysfunction—that is, neurodegenerative diseases, long-term memory loss, and cognitive impairment. It may also help explain why the standard American diet has been linked to a higher risk of depression, as dietary factors modulate the levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor.

    Michael Greger M.D. FACLM

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  • Video: ‘We’re Still Living in Fear’: Escaping the Attacks in Lebanon

    Video: ‘We’re Still Living in Fear’: Escaping the Attacks in Lebanon

    new video loaded: ‘We’re Still Living in Fear’: Escaping the Attacks in Lebanon

    transcript

    transcript

    ‘We’re Still Living in Fear’: Escaping the Attacks in Lebanon

    Tens of thousands of people have been displaced in Lebanon. Khaled Hussein, 20, fled Syria as a child. He describes the bombardment that forced his family to flee again.

    Khaled Hussein, filmed this video from his home near the Lebanese city of Nabatiyeh. It shows an Israeli airstrike hitting just a few hundred meters away and hide here on base. As the bombings continued, Khaled and his family decided they had to escape. They’re now among at least 800 people taking shelter at this U.N. facility south of Beirut after fleeing the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah. Since last week, Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon have killed more than 700 people and forced more than 90,000 to leave their homes. For Khaled, like many of the people sheltering here, it’s not the first time he’s been forced to flee war. In just a matter of days, hundreds of facilities like this have been set up across Lebanon to shelter people displaced by violence. Many of the people here are Syrian and Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon. For Imad Ahmed, a Palestinian refugee living in southern Lebanon, it’s the third time he’s had to flee a war with Israel. But this time, he’s had to do it with his children. Outside, dozens of people are hoping to get in, but being turned away because the facility doesn’t have the space to welcome them. The growing number of internally displaced has Lebanese authorities worried of a looming humanitarian crisis if the fighting continues.

    Recent episodes in International

    International video coverage from The New York Times.

    International video coverage from The New York Times.

    Matthew Cassel and Meg Felling

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  • How the Brain Decides What to Remember

    How the Brain Decides What to Remember

    “There has to be some kind of triage to remember what is relevant and forget the rest,” Zugaro said. “Understanding how specific memories were selected for storage was still lacking … Now we have a good clue.”

    Last December, a research team led by Bendor at University College London published related results in Nature Communications that anticipated those of Yang and Buzsáki. They too found that sharp wave ripples that fired when rats were awake and asleep seemed to tag experiences for memory. However, their analysis averaged a number of different trials together—an approach less precise than what Yang and Buzsáki accomplished.

    The NYU team’s key innovation was to bring the element of time, which distinguishes similar memories from one another, into their analysis. The mice were running around in the same maze patterns, and yet these researchers could distinguish between blocks of trials at the neuronal level—a resolution never reached before.

    The brain patterns are marking “something a little bit closer to an event, and a little bit less like a general knowledge,” said Loren Frank, a neuroscientist at UC San Francisco who was not involved in the research. “That strikes me as a really interesting finding.”

    “They’re showing that the brain is maybe creating some kind of temporal code to distinguish between different memories occurring in the same place,” said Freyja Ólafsdóttir, a neuroscientist at Radboud University who was not involved with the work.

    Shantanu Jadhav, a neuroscientist at Brandeis University, praised the study. “This is a good start,” he said. However, he hopes to see a follow-up experiment that includes a behavioral test. Demonstrating that an animal forgot or remembered particular trial blocks would be “the real proof that this is a tagging mechanism.”

    The research leaves a burning question unanswered: Why is one experience chosen over another? The new work suggests how the brain tags a certain experience to remember. But it can’t tell us how the brain decides what’s worth remembering.

    Sometimes the things we remember seem random or irrelevant, and surely different from what we’d select if given the choice. “There is a sense that the brain prioritizes based on ‘importance,’” Frank said. Because studies have suggested that emotional or novel experiences tend to be remembered better, it’s possible that internal fluctuations in arousal or the levels of neuromodulators such as dopamine or adrenaline and other chemicals that affect neurons end up selecting experiences, he suggested.

    Jadhav echoed that thought, saying, “The internal state of the organism can bias experiences to be encoded and stored more effectively.” But it’s not known what makes one experience more prone to being stored than others, he added. And in the case of Yang and Buzsáki’s study, it’s not clear why a mouse would remember one trial better than another.

    Buzsáki remains committed to exploring the roles that sharp wave ripples play in the hippocampus, although he and his team are also interested in potential applications that might arise from these observations. It’s possible, for example, that scientists could disrupt the ripples as part of a treatment for conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder, in which people remember certain experiences too vividly, he said. “The low-hanging fruit here is to erase sharp waves and forget what you experienced.”

    But for the time being, Buzsáki will continue to tune in to these powerful brain waves to uncover more about why we remember what we do.

    Original story reprinted with permission from Quanta Magazine, an editorially independent publication of the Simons Foundation whose mission is to enhance public understanding of science by covering research developments and trends in mathematics and the physical and life sciences.

    Yasemin Saplakoglu

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  • Westminster man secures posthumous Purple Heart in tribute to WWII veteran father

    Westminster man secures posthumous Purple Heart in tribute to WWII veteran father

    World War II Air Force veteran Major Richard Olson never discussed his military service with his son, Dick Olson.

    “I didn’t have all that much time to be asking these questions while he was at home,” Dick, a Westminster resident, told the Denver Post in an interview. “He was a distant father, and I imagine a lot of that came from what happened to him during the war and in service.”

    After Richard died, Dick turned to military archives, old photos and interviews with the surviving members of his father’s B-24 Liberator airplane crew to learn about the veteran’s journey. Through his research, Dick discovered that his father, despite being seriously injured in a plane crash before enduring months as a prisoner of war, had never received a Purple Heart.

    For seven years, Dick worked to correct the oversight. In April, the Air Force agreed to posthumously award Richard a Purple Heart.

    The veteran was 22 years old when he enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps in February 1941, according to his son. The service was renamed the U.S. Army Air Forces in June of that year and became the U.S. Air Force in 1947.

    “He grew up through the Depression and everything else,” Dick told The Post. “I think he joined because he was looking for three square meals a day.”

    Courtesy of Dick Olson

    Richard Olson (bottom center) poses with a B-24 crew after completing a six hour training flight. (Photo credit: Courtesy of Dick Olson)

    Olson later became the co-pilot of a B-24 bomber plane in the 484th Bombardment Group combat unit. A week after D-Day, while stationed in southern Italy, his crew was shot down over the Adriatic Sea by eight German fighter planes while flying to Munich.

    “They lost an engine, and they couldn’t keep up with the rest of the bombers, so they had to turn around to go back,” Dick said. “Two of the gunners were killed on the plane. And then the plane was set on fire and I think they had two more engines shot out.

    “But there was a big fire in the bomb bay so they had to get out of the plane. So they did, and everybody bailed out, the ones that were still alive.”

    Shell fragments struck Olson’s leg and he sustained a back injury that left him with chronic pain.

    Most of the men landed on the Italian coastline northeast of Venice, according to conversations Dick had with B-24 crew member John Hassan. He was transferred to two other POW camps and after 10 months of incarceration, Olson was liberated on April 29, 1945, from Moosburg, Germany.

    “He just said it was a very dull existence and of course they were hungry all the time,” Dick told The Post. “There was not a whole lot to do there. They played sports and the American Red Cross supplied them with books and boardgames and sporting equipment and different things to keep their morale up.”

    Richard Olson's identification card from his time as a POW in Stalag Luft III. (Photo credit: Courtesy of Dick Olson)

    Courtesy of Dick Olson

    Richard Olson’s identification card from his time as a POW in Stalag Luft III. (Photo credit: Courtesy of Dick Olson)

    Olson stayed in the Air Force for 16 years after his liberation from the POW camp and became a major, father and husband before leaving the military in 1961, according to his obituary.

    “My parents split when I was about 13,” Dick said. “He moved away from the household and they got divorced.”

    After the divorce in 1969, Dick saw Richard three more times before the veteran passed away in 1996 from multiple myeloma.

    “I was always interested in his Air Force career. And since he never talked about these other guys, I wanted to find them and talk to them myself,” Dick said.

    He connected with John Hassan, the navigator in Richard’s B-24 crew, in 1997. “Going through some of his papers, I found a phone number for John and called him up and started looking for all the other crew members also,” Dick said, “I eventually did make contact with the ones that were living or family members for the ones who had passed away.

    “John was my dad’s best friend on the crew and we became really good friends,” Dick added. “He pretty much had a photographic memory, so that’s how I know an awful lot about that crew.”

    While researching the crew, Dick helped the plane’s bombardier, Walter Chapman, get a Distinguished Flying Cross he should have been awarded decades prior.

    Like Chapman, Olson was also missing an award: a Purple Heart for sustaining an injury while in the line of duty.

    “There was mention of everything else, like the Distinguished Flying Cross and Air Medals,” Dick said. “All the ribbons and medals that he was entitled to, except for the Purple Heart.”

    A collection of medals, honors and other items made by Dick Olson for his late father WWII veteran Major Richard Olson at his home in Westminster, Colorado on Jun 19, 2024. (Photo by Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post)
    A collection of medals, honors and other items made by Dick Olson for his late father WWII veteran Major Richard Olson at his home in Westminster, Colorado, on Jun 19, 2024. (Photo by Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post)

    Olson’s capture as a POW right after the B-24 crash meant his wounds went undocumented. In 2017, Dick decided to file a claim with the Air Force Board for Correction of Military Records and prove that his father had been injured. “I thought to myself, this is unfinished business, I’ve got to see if I can get this thing,” Dick said.

    After an extensive filing process, the Board for Correction rejected Dick’s request in 2020.

    Julianna O'Clair

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  • Scholarship established in memory of Schoharie limo crash victim

    Scholarship established in memory of Schoharie limo crash victim

    ALBANY, N.Y. (NEWS10) — Amanda Rivenburg was one of the 20 people killed in the 2018 Schoharie limo crash. Living Resources, the non-profit where Amanda worked for over seven years, has established a scholarship to honor her memory.

    The Amanda R. Rivenburg Memorial Scholarship Fund was established with an initial investment from Amanda’s father, Thomas Rivenburg, and is being matched by the Living Resources Foundation. Anyone who wants to honor Amanda’s legacy can also make a donation to the fund.

    “Amanda loved her role at Living Resources and believed deeply in the potential of others, which is why this scholarship fund is tailored exclusively to benefit the dedicated individuals who work tirelessly at Living Resources supporting those with developmental disabilities,” said Thomas Rivenburg.

    The Amanda R. Rivenburg Memorial Scholarship Fund is currently offering three annual scholarships of $500, $1,000, and $2,500 to Living Resources staff members who are pursuing an Associate’s Degree, Bachelor’s Degree, or Master’s Degree, respectively. Awards will be paid directly to the recipient’s college or university.

    As the fund balance grows, more scholarships may be added. Living Resources said the Scholarship Committee will include three members appointed by Thomas Rivenburg, two members of the Living Resources Foundation Board of Directors, and two members of the Living Resources Corporate Board of Directors.

    Applications will be available during the month of June each year. Living Resources said preference will be given to students pursuing a degree in Social Work or a related field.

    Living Resources works to support and empower those with disabilities or other life-challenging conditions. At the time of her passing, Amanda was Assistant Director of the Day Community Opportunities Program.

    “Living Resources is proud to partner with Tom Rivenburg in establishing the Amanda R. Rivenburg Memorial Scholarship Fund,” said Living Resources CEO Elizabeth Martin. “Together, we believe that investing in and nurturing a culture of learning, growth, and excellence within our organization is crucial.”

    Sara Rizzo

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  • Brain-Boosting Grapes  | NutritionFacts.org

    Brain-Boosting Grapes  | NutritionFacts.org

    Grape juice and whole grapes are put to the test for brain function, including cognitive decline in early Alzheimer’s.

    In 2010, the first controlled trial was published that examined how the brain responds to grape juice. It helped aged rats, but what about people? “Concord grape juice supplementation improves memory function in older adults with mild cognitive impairment”—or so says the title. The problem is that the study was funded by Welch’s, and, though the authors claim they have no financial interest in the outcome, that seems disingenuous. I mean, do they think Welch’s would ever fund them again if they found grape juice wasn’t good for you? And, indeed, that title is a bit of industry spin. I’m sure that’s what they wanted to find.

    Older adults with memory decline (but not dementia) were randomized into a placebo-controlled, double-blind trial with Concord grape juice versus a similarly looking and tasting Kool-Aid type of drink with the same calories and same sugars. That’s a solid study design. And, berries have those wonderful polyphenol phytonutrients, which have anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties, so it certainly could help brain function and it did seem to help with verbal learning, as you can see in the graph below and at 1:21 in my video Friday Favorites: Benefits of Grapes for Brain Health.

    The odds you’d get such notable results just by chance are like 1 in 25, whereas the higher recall scores are not considered to be statistically significant, since even if there wasn’t an effect, you might get those kinds of results by chance 1 in every 8 or 10 times you’d run the experiment, as shown in the graph below and at 1:38 in my video. And, by convention, we like at least 1 in 20—a p-value of 0.05 or less—especially if we’re looking at multiple outcomes, which increases the likelihood that something will pop up as a fluke. The bottom line is that we’re less confident in these memory outcomes. If this study hadn’t had industry funding, I imagine it would be titled more accurately. Perhaps “Concord grape juice supplementation improves verbal learning in older adults with mild cognitive impairment”—which is still an important finding, and we have the Welch’s corporation to thank for it. Without industry funding, a study like this might never get done. 

    The findings suggest that drinking grape juice is superior to drinking a grape Kool-Aid type of beverage, not necessarily for helping memory, but maybe for helping with learning. When the study was repeated, though, it did seem to help one measure of memory, but no benefit was found for verbal learning, even when using the same test as before, which calls the previous results into question. So, we’re left uncertain about what effects, if any, grape juice has on the aging brain. 

    What about the brains of middle-aged mothers? The Welch’s-funded researchers noted significant improvements in one measure of memory and driving performance as measured in a fancy driving simulator, suggesting you might be able to stop a dozen yards earlier on the highway after drinking grape juice than if you had instead had a grape Kool-Aid type of drink. I do like how they tried to translate the cognitive effects into more meaningful metrics, but it’s important to acknowledge, as they did, that no effects were found for the majority of cognitive consequences. And, when you study 20 different outcomes, the odds are pretty good that you’d just get a statistically significant result or two by chance, as you can see below and at 3:33 in my video. 

    The latest study involved giving a single dose of a cup of purple grape juice or white grape juice (to which flavor and color had been added to disguise it) to young adults with an average age of 21. In this way, researchers could see if there’s something special about those deep purple polyphenol pigments in Concord grape juice. Their findings? They got the same kind of results: two cognitive measures just reaching statistical significance, but that’s out of seven different outcomes, as you can see below and at 4:12 in my video. So, instead of a p-value of 0.05 as the cut-off for significance, we’d really like to see closer to 0.007, and none hit that. Maybe it’s because they didn’t use whole food like in that blueberry study I profiled before. 

    There was a study that looked at actual grape consumption by utilizing freeze-dried grape powder to capture the whole food (instead of just the juice) versus a sugar-matched placebo. The researchers used PET scans to track changes in brain metabolism associated with early Alzheimer’s in a group of older adults already suffering from mild cognitive decline. Although the changes couldn’t be picked up on neuropsychological testing, in those early-stage Alzheimer’s regions, the placebo group continued to worsen, but the grape group “was spared such decline,” suggesting a protective effect of grapes. You can see these points illustrated in a graph and brain mapping pictures below and from 5:11 in my video. You can see locations where brain metabolism declined after eating six months of placebo grapes (colored red in the video), compared to the level of decline in a brain after six months of eating actual grapes. 

    When commercial entities fund studies, it’s more for marketing purposes than science. That doesn’t necessarily mean the findings are invalid, but you do have to pay special attention to things like the framing of the research question, the experimental methods, statistical analysis, biased interpretation of results, or spin.

    The blueberry video I mentioned is Flashback Friday: Benefits of Blueberries for the Brain. You may also be interested in the Benefits of Blueberries for Mood and Mobility.

    What else might help protect brain function? Check out related posts below.

    Michael Greger M.D. FACLM

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  • U. Md. researchers examine how naptime impacts brain development in preschoolers – WTOP News

    U. Md. researchers examine how naptime impacts brain development in preschoolers – WTOP News

    When should young children drop their afternoon nap? University of Maryland researchers are looking to better understand why the transition happens. 

    When should young children drop their afternoon nap? University of Maryland researchers are looking to better understand why the transition happens. 

    “We know sleep is very good for the brain, and it’s very good for our memories,” said University of Maryland professor Tracy Riggins. “Preschoolers are sponges that soak up a bunch of information about the world. They learn so much every day. Isn’t it interesting that that’s also the same time they’re transitioning out of the afternoon nap?”

    Riggins and her colleague Rebecca Spencer, from UMass Amherst, are conducting a first-of-its-kind study on preschoolers, sleep, memory and the brain.

    Riggins said children typically drop the nap between two and eight years of age. They want to understand why the transition happens, and why it might occur at different points in time for different kids.

    “We hope it’s a first step in understanding those intricate relations between memory, sleep, and the brain,” Riggins said. “We know they’re tied together, but we don’t actually know how they’re tied together.”

    She hopes the research provides more answers for educators, day care providers and parents. Riggins said there are currently no scientifically-based recommendations for napping in preschoolers, which is why daycares handle naptime differently.

    “Some of them have a mandatory two-hour rest period. Others have a 45-minute optional rest period, and some have no rest period at all,” she said. “And they might not remember anything from that class if they’re not able to take a nap, which will help them consolidate the information.”

    Riggins says they are looking to recruit about 180 children, ages 3-5, to participate in this study. Those children should be napping on average five days a week or more. Researchers would measure memory and brain activity while the kids are awake as well as when they’re sleeping. Participants will be compensated.

    If you’re interested in learning more about the study, visit the university’s Neurocognitive Development Lab website.

    Get breaking news and daily headlines delivered to your email inbox by signing up here.

    © 2024 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.

    Linh Bui

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  • Social Bonding Through Movies: The Emotional Magic Behind Watching Films Together

    Social Bonding Through Movies: The Emotional Magic Behind Watching Films Together


    Movies can be an excellent social bonding experience in a variety of situations, including first dates, family movie nights, group watches, couples therapy, and professional settings. Learn more about the emotional dynamics behind watching films together.

    Beyond being a source of entertainment, films have the power to foster social bonds and create shared experiences among individuals.

    Whether it’s getting together at a friend’s house on a weekend night, embarking on a first date at the theaters, or upholding a family tradition of watching the same movie during holidays, watching movies together is one of the most common ways we connect with others.

    But what’s the psychology behind these cinematic connections? Let’s dive into the many social benefits behind movie watching and how they can improve our relationships in a number of different social settings.

    Shared Experiences

    Every time you press “Play” on a new movie, you are starting a collective journey with whoever you are watching with. No one knows what will happen, so you are both entering the unknown together and experiencing it for the first time.

    Every film is a rollercoaster of different emotions – joy, laughter, surprise, fear, suspense, disgust, sadness, anger – and everyone is experiencing those emotions together as a “hive mind.” Research shows emotions are contagious, and when multiple people are experiencing the same emotion in unison, feelings are often amplified more than if you were just experiencing it by yourself.

    Movies create new shared experiences that mark new chapters throughout our relationship. “Remember that one time we saw Wolf on Wall Street? That was fun!” A memorable movie can become a distinct event in our relationship’s storyline, especially if it symbolizes a special day like a first date, birthday, or anniversary, giving us a positive memory to look back on and reminisce about.

    Watching movies together doesn’t require much work, it effortlessly creates a sense of unity among the people watching. Even if everyone hates the movie, it still creates a shared bond, “Wow, that movie was really stupid!” and then you can all laugh about it.

    Icebreaker and Conversation Starter

    Watching films together serves as an excellent icebreaker, especially in situations where individuals may be meeting for the first time or trying to strengthen new connections.

    The movie theater, often considered a classic venue for a first date, provides a natural conversation starter. After the credits roll, initiating a conversation becomes as easy as asking, “Did you like the movie? Why or why not?” Ask about favorite scenes or whether they’ve seen other movies featuring the same actor or actress.

    Use the film as a springboard into other topics to talk about. If you’re skilled at conversation threading, you should be able to take one thing from the film and branch off into more important subjects. If it’s a film about music, inquire about their musical preferences or whether they play an instrument. For sports-themed movies, explore their favorite sports or childhood sports experiences.

    Icebreakers aren’t exclusive to first dates; they’re equally helpful in building connections in various scenarios, whether it’s getting to know a coworker outside the office or deepening a friendship.

    One fair criticism of movies as a bonding experience is that you don’t get to do much talking during them. It’s a passive experience, not an active one. But there are also benefits to this: it’s a shared experience with little effort (no pressure, just sit and watch), and it gives you a convenient starting point for more meaningful conversation later on.

    Nostalgia and Tradition

    For many, watching films together is not just an occasional activity but a cherished tradition that spans multiple generations.

    Family movie nights play a pivotal role in strengthening the bonds between parents and children. Holiday film marathons, especially during festive seasons, elevate our collective spirit and enhance the joyous atmosphere. Revisiting favorite childhood movies creates a profound sense of nostalgia, keeping us connected to our past.

    One popular family tradition may be during Christmas, such as having A Christmas Story playing in the background as you decorate the tree or watching It’s A Wonderful Life every Christmas eve.

    These traditions are about more than just the movie; they’re about creating a whole family experience. Infuse your own unique twist by turning it into a game, baking homemade cookies before watching, or simply enjoying jokes and good company. The film itself is just one aspect of a complete family ritual and bonding experience.

    When families embrace these shared traditions, they contribute to a profound sense of belonging and unity. These rituals become the threads weaving together the fabric of family ties and friendships over long periods of time.

    Team Building and Group Bonding

    Beyond personal connections, watching films together can be an effective team-building activity in professional settings.

    Organizational unity can be difficult to achieve for many companies, especially when workers have radically different jobs and skillsets, often being assigned to work within one department of a company but being siloed off from the organization as a whole.

    Movie nights and film screenings can be an effective way to provide employees with a stronger sense of unity and camaraderie. Different departments that normally don’t see each other get to cross-pollinate and make connections with faces they don’t often get to see. Scheduled events like this can foster a team of teams mindset, helping to interconnect different departments into a cohesive whole.

    Perhaps certain movies depict an idea, philosophy, or mindset that an organization wants to embrace more of. Requiring every employee to watch a movie together is more than just making friends at work, it can also tap into a deeper meaning behind the organization’s mission and purpose.

    Couples Therapy

    Movies can serve as bouncing points to important conversations that need to be had between spouses and loved ones.

    It’s not always easy to bring up certain topics of conversation, but through film you can organically dive into subjects that otherwise wouldn’t get brought up in everyday discourse, like mental health, sex and intimacy, or experiencing grief after a tragedy or loss.

    It’s common for a couples therapist to recommend a specific movie to their clients. You may already know of a movie that you’d like to share with someone. You can also ask friends or seek recommendations online. Ask yourself, “What’s something I really want to talk about with my partner?” then “What’s a good movie that can introduce this topic?”

    A powerful film can help couples process their relationship more clearly. It shows the universality of humanity – you’re not alone with whatever you are going through – and brings ideas out in the open that need to be expressed or talked about.

    One exercise you can try together is to each take notes or fill out a movie analysis worksheet while watching.

    Communal Bonding and Bridging Social Divides

    On a larger scale, film watching can help bridge cultural and social divides, as well as be used as a tool for communal bonding.

    Social events such as public screenings, outdoor showings, movie festivals, or drive-thru theaters are great settings to watch a movie among a large and diverse group of people within your community.

    These days with easy access to streaming services at home, most people watch movies all by themselves, but there used to be a time when movie-watching was an intrinsically social activity done in public spaces.

    As we continue to see a decline in community feeling, movies may be one avenue to start bringing people together again as a cohesive group.

    One idea is for local organizations to throw more public events with film features to celebrate holidays or special events – or you can set up a projector on your garage door and invite some neighbors for a weekend movie watch.

    Conclusion

    Watching films together is more than just a passive form of entertainment; it is a dynamic social activity that brings people together, creating lasting bonds and shared memories.

    Films are universal connectors. Whether it’s with family, friends, or colleagues, the act of watching a movie together creates an automatic bond and sense of unity.

    Are you a big movie watcher? In what situations can use film watching to improve your relationships with family, friends, loved ones, or coworkers?


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    Steven Handel

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  • PCOS, a painful condition for millions of women, linked to memory loss, study finds

    PCOS, a painful condition for millions of women, linked to memory loss, study finds


    Study finds link between PCOS and cognitive decline in mid-life.

    Study finds link between PCOS and cognitive decline in mid-life.

    Photo by kevin turcios on Unsplash

    Statistically, you know someone — or several someones — who have it. It affects an estimated 8–13% of reproductive-aged women, according to the World Health Organization, and continues to be one of the most ubiquitous yet mysterious conditions in modern medicine.

    Polycystic ovary syndrome, or PCOS, is a female hormonal disorder defined by irregular menstruation and high levels of the hormone androgen. It comes with a slew of undesirable, uncomfortable, and even dangerous symptoms, from irregular periods and ovarian cysts to type 2 diabetes and endometrial cancer. There are so many symptoms associated with the condition that it is often difficult to diagnose, as many of these symptoms could have a variety of causes, according to Women’s Healthcare of Princeton

    Now, a new study has found yet another hardship associated with PCOS: cognitive decline in mid-life.

    Researchers followed 907 women for 30 years, according to the study published Jan. 31 in the journal Neurology. At the beginning of the study, all participants were 18-30 years old, and 66 of them had PCOS. 30 years later, at the end of the study, the researchers gave the women tests to measure memory, verbal abilities, processing speed and attention.

    The researchers found that the people with PCOS scored lower (about 11% lower) on tests in memory, attention and verbal abilities, compared to those without PCOS.

    The study also included brain scans of a subset of the participants. Analyzing the scans, researchers noticed that the participants with PCOS had significantly reduced integrity of the white matter in their brains.

    White matter “connects regions that send and receive signals, affecting the ability to focus and learn, solve problems, and stay balanced when walking,” according to the Gillings School of Public Health. “It’s a significant area of interest for public health experts since conditions that impact white matter can lead to significant cognitive impairment and increase the risk of long-term neurological problems.”

    According to the study, this could be further evidence of early brain aging among participants with PCOS.

    In a news release, study author Heather G. Huddleston spoke about the impact this kind of decline could have on people’s lives, aside from just forgetting where they put their keys.

    “This could impact a person on many levels, including quality of life, career success and financial security,” she said.

    But all is not lost. Next, Huddleston said future studies should examine how to possibly mediate the adverse cognitive effects of PCOS for those who live with it.

    “Making changes like incorporating more cardiovascular exercise and improving mental health may serve to also improve brain aging for this population.”



    Julia Daye

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