Something You Should Know
Why We Forget & The Amazing Story of Your Body’s Atoms - SYSK Choice
Sat, 22 Feb 2025
People talk about “the power of touch” – but what does this power do? When you hug or shake hands or put your arm around someone – what is so powerful about that. This episode begins by exploring the power of touch and reveals how it improves our lives. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-R9qyWEJuDI The way the human memory works is amazing. Not always accurate – but amazing. How does memory work exactly? Why is it we remember some things so well and other things we don’t recall at all? Listen as we explore all of this plus why memories get distorted over time and how you can make your memory work better when you want it to. My guest is Andrew Budson M.D. Andrew is a professor of neurology at Boston University School of Medicine, and author of the book Why We Forget and How To Remember Better: The Science Behind Memory (https://amzn.to/3S45vND). You are made up of atoms and molecules and cells that all come together to make you – you. But where do those atoms and cells come from? How do they work to make you a real person? Here to reveal some interesting answers to this puzzle is Dan Levitt and award winning writer and producer of science and history documentaries for the National Geographic, Discover, Science, and The History Channel and he is author of the book What’s Gotten Into You : The Story of Your Body’s Atoms, from the Big Bang Through Last Night’s Dinner (https://amzn.to/3YuAWDb) First impressions really matter. Because first impressions tend to stick in people’s minds. People size you up in about 7 seconds. Listen as I reveal some ways to make the best of those 7 seconds so people think you are the best! Source: Marianne LaFrance author of Why We Smile (https://amzn.to/31n2v8X) PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS!!! FACTOR: Eat smart with Factor! Get 50% off at https://FactorMeals.com/something50off DELL: Anniversary savings await you for a limited time only at https://Dell.com/deals SHOPIFY: Nobody does selling better than Shopify! Sign up for a $1 per-month trial period at https://Shopify.com/sysk and upgrade your selling today! HERS: Hers is changing women's healthcare by providing access to GLP-1 weekly injections with the same active ingredient as Ozempic and Wegovy, as well as oral medication kits. Start your free online visit today at https://forhers.com/sysk INDEED: Get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at https://Indeed.com/SOMETHING right now! CURIOSITY WEEKLY: We love Curiosity Weekly, so listen wherever you get your podcasts! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: Why is touch so powerful?
Today on Something You Should Know, why touching other people, whether a big hug or a simple touch, can be so powerful. Then, understanding just how your memory works and what makes it work better and what makes it worse.
Alcohol, even having a single drink, can decrease your ability to remember things. Is it even true if you're having that drink a few days after you've remembered something?
Also, a simple way to make a good first impression. And all the atoms and cells in your body, where do they come from? Where do they go? And how long do they stay?
98% of the cells in our body are reintroduced every 10 years, which is kind of wild because we're less like a person and more like a flame, right, where the molecules are constantly cycling in and out.
All this today on Something You Should Know.
I'm Amy Nicholson, the film critic for the LA Times.
And I'm Paul Scheer, an actor, writer, and director. You might know me from The League, Veep, or my non-eligible for Academy Award role in Twisters.
We come together to host Unspooled, a podcast where we talk about good movies, critical hits, fan favorites, must-sees, and in case you missed them. We're talking Parasite to Home Alone.
From Grease to the Dark Knight.
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Chapter 2: How does memory work and why do we forget?
Hey, hi, welcome to another episode of Something You Should Know. As you no doubt recall during the whole COVID thing, we were isolated. We didn't come in contact with other people. We stayed as far away as we were told to stay away from, and we didn't touch other people.
And for the most part, that seems to have gone away, that we do now shake hands and fist bump and high five and touch other people, and that's a good thing. Because these kind of supportive touch gestures, like a pat on the back or an arm around the shoulder, these kind of touches give a burst of oxytocin that boosts our bonding sensation and our sense of well-being.
The supportive touch theory works in all kinds of environments. Sports teams who share high fives or fist bumps tend to outperform teams who don't. Students who get a supportive touch from a teacher are twice as likely to volunteer in class. And a kind touch from a doctor gives patients the sensation that their visit lasted twice as long as those whose doctors didn't touch their patients.
And that is something you should know. I know people ask the question or have pondered the question, how good is my memory? And I've always thought, well, that's kind of a hard question to answer because it really depends on what it is you want me to remember, how long ago it happened. Some people are good at remembering numbers. Other people remember names.
Some of us don't remember things like that very well at all. There are a lot of variables. And yet we have a memory, so you think it would have evolved to be really accurate, and there wouldn't be all these variables. But there are. So let's get a better understanding of our memory, how it works, and why it works that way. And here to do that is Andrew Budson, M.D.
Andrew is the Chief of Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology and Associate Chief of Staff for Education at the VA Boston Health Care System. He's a professor of neurology at Boston University School of Medicine and author of the book, Why We Forget and How to Remember Better, The Science Behind Memory. Hey, Andrew, thanks for coming on Something You Should Know.
Thanks so much for having me.
So since I set it up the way I did, let's start with the variables. Why are people's memories different? Why do some people remember things better than others? Why? Why?
Well, everyone is a little bit different in what they are good at remembering, but almost everybody is good at remembering some things. I think it seems as if some people's memories are sort of good in general because they're good at remembering things like people's names or dates or things that are often tested. But in fact, we're all good at remembering things that are important to us.
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Chapter 3: What are the common changes in memory with aging?
So one of the, I think, fundamental questions people have, maybe they wouldn't ask it this way, but so we talk a lot about memory's imperfections, that we don't remember things as well as we think we do. So maybe that's not what memory was meant to do. Evolutionarily, what is the purpose of memory? If it isn't to take snapshots so we can remember exact details, what is it good at?
What memory is really good at is being able to take this information that happened in the past and allow us to flexibly and creatively put it together in new ways to envision different possible futures. And we think that that is why memory is so easily mixed up and distorted, because it did not evolve in order to remember things perfectly from the past.
Memory evolved in order to have us use that past information to plan for the future.
I remember someone saying that when you recall a memory that you've recalled before and before and before, that what you're really remembering is the memory of remembering it. And that over time, that can distort the memory because you're not remembering the thing you're remembering when you remembered it last time.
No, I think that's totally correct. And one of my favorite examples of this is if you, let's say, are watching a movie, and let's say you started off watching this movie yourself, but now your spouse comes home and you enthusiastically describe the movie to your spouse. And then there's this memory of your spouse that is getting mixed up with your memory of watching the movie.
And so then when you talk about this movie with your friend, say a month later or a year later, you may now have incorporated your wife into this memory as well. And when you think about watching the movie and remember it, you say, oh, right, and I watched it with my wife.
And yet you didn't. And so what are the things that affect memory in terms of how we live our life, our lifestyle things, you know, drugs, alcohol, lack of sleep? What are the things that make memory worse? And perhaps what are some of the things that can make memory better?
So alcohol, although I want to preface my comments by saying there's not evidence that one alcoholic beverage a day is harmful in any sort of permanent way to your brain or another part of your body, but even having a single drink can decrease your ability to remember things.
And one of the somewhat perhaps depressing aspects of that statement I just meant is it's even true if you're having that drink a few days after you've remembered something. So if you do what I used to do in college, which is I would study during the week and then I would enjoy having fun on the weekends with my friends and drinking some alcohol.
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Chapter 4: Why do we have vivid but inaccurate memories?
So there's a lot of things out there that can interfere. But let me just mention a couple of the things that can actually make things better. Getting enough sleep is beneficial for your memory.
paying attention more and if that means that you're stimulated either endogenously because you're excited about the learning that's taking place or you're excited about whatever you're doing, that's gonna help you remember things better.
And there's nothing wrong with using a little bit of a stimulant like a cup of coffee or tea or another caffeinated beverage that can help you to be more alert and pay attention a little bit better and things that you pay attention to better, you'll remember better.
We're talking about how your memory works, and my guest is Andrew Budson. He is a doctor and author of the book, Why We Forget and How to Remember Better, The Science Behind Memory.
Hello, this is Jack Wilson inviting you to join me at the History of Literature podcast. We cover everything from ancient epics to contemporary classics, and we do so with intelligence, wisdom, creativity, and fun. Our guests include award-winning novelists, brilliant scholars, and various other geniuses.
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Chapter 5: How can lifestyle affect memory performance?
too many cups of coffee and you are sort of hyperactive and you can't pay attention to anything, the same thing can happen if you took too much of any stimulant, including those sold in supplements.
You mentioned at the beginning of our discussion that everybody's different, that some people remember some things better than other people. But there are also people who just say, oh, my memory is not very good. I just can't remember things. Is that a thing? And what is that thing?
I really think the more that I talk with people, you know, I speak with a lot of people about memory. And sometimes people say, oh, my memory is terrible. I can't remember anything. And then I'll say, well, you know, what do you do for a living? Oh, well, I'm a mechanic. You know, I fix cars. And I'm like, well...
Do you remember all the different parts of the cars and what goes in a 57 Chevy versus a 2002 Toyota? I was like, oh, well, that stuff's easy. That's not hard. And it's like, ah, I see. So you're able to remember the things that are important to you. And that's a pattern that we really do see.
For me, for example, it's very easy for me to listen to a patient tell an entire, say, 30-minute story of all the different problems that they have related to their thinking and memory. And I can remember it with very high fidelity and write that in my note with no problem. And the medical students that I work with, their jaws drop on the floor.
They don't see how I could remember all that information. But it's because it's information that's important, that I'm used to acquiring, that I put in a framework, so it's not difficult for me. One example that was studied in the scientific literature are chess masters. And chess masters can generally glance at a chess board and be able to remember exactly where all the pieces were on the board.
But if you took those chess pieces and put them in a random assignment that could not have occurred throughout the playing of a game, then those chess masters are not as good as anybody else at remembering where they are. So it all has to do with sort of fitting into context. But I did want to comment on your remembering those numbers from long ago.
We all are particularly good at retaining pieces of information that we learned as young adults. And this is something that's a little bit mysterious. People don't really know why there's this sort of privileged period of young adulthood that we tend to remember all the songs and our friends and the phone numbers and what we were doing during that period of our life more than
But that is an interesting little fact.
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Chapter 6: Do memory supplements really work?
All of the atoms in your body started at the very beginning of time. 13.8 billion years ago, we had the Big Bang. Protons, electrons, and ultimately neutrons came out of that. They formed all of the atoms within your body. But there was a long epic journey from there to here, obviously. They went through the sun, where new elements were created.
They were in a huge molecular cloud and unbelievable collisions that created our solar system and Earth. They were in the Earth when life formed. And ultimately, through plants colonizing the continents and evolution, they found their way to us. So it's an unbelievably epic story.
But so how do those atoms get to be part of me? I mean, so they were created 13.8 billion years ago, and they must have been laying around somewhere or floating around somewhere. How do they become me?
What we're made of is almost exclusively stuff that's made from plants. All of the molecules that we're made of came from plants through actually 80% of your mass came from the air, from carbon dioxide in the air that plants transformed with sunlight and water into sugar. Another 10% of your mass came from hydrogen. which also photosynthesis turned into sugar.
Plants then created not only the sugars, but they extracted minerals from the earth. And together, they created the carbohydrates, the proteins, the vitamins that are in us. So we really, if plants were not here and photosynthesizing organisms would not be here, we would not be here.
And so how long have we pretty much known this? How long have we had this story nailed? Is this new? We've known this for years. Where are we?
Different pieces of it have been discovered at various times. Some were discovered in the 1700s when we first discovered that there was such a thing as photosynthesis. How the molecules in our body... that came from the Big Bang create life within ourselves, that's something that we've been discovering from the 1950s through the 1970s.
So different parts of the story have come to the fore at different times.
And we hear that we regenerate ourselves frequently, that we're not physically the same person we were 10 years ago. How does that work?
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Chapter 7: What is the most effective way to remember things?
And so now there's a strange way in which when I look around at people, sometimes I think, wow, you are unbelievably complex and amazing. And that really fills me with a bit of gratitude and it fills me with awe to see not just that we're here and how lucky we are, but how much we share together.
Well, this has been really enlightening, and it gives new perspective to what your mother used to tell you about how wonderful and awesome and unique and special you are. I guess we all are. I've been talking to Dan Levitt. Dan has been writing and producing award-winning science and history documentaries for quite some time, and he's got a book out called What's Gotten Into You?
The Story of Your Body's Atoms from the Big Bang through Last Night's Dinner. And if you'd like to buy it, there's a link to the book in the show notes. Thanks for coming on, Dan. Thank you so much. I so appreciate it. This was fun. I'm sure you know how important it is to make a good first impression. And you don't have much time to do it. People get a good sense of you in about seven seconds.
According to Yale University psychology professor Marianne LaFrance, 90% of a first impression is based on appearance, posture, facial expressions, and tone of voice. And there are a few things to consider to make the most of those seven seconds. Like it or not, when you meet someone new, your hairstyle will get noticed more than your facial features. Long hair says, my looks are important to me.
Short hair says, I'm confident and successful. And shoulder length hair says, I'm intelligent and level-headed. Your handshake certainly matters. People who make eye contact while offering a handshake that is firm, dry, and vigorous makes people believe you possess the qualities associated with your grip. For women, your instinct about other women are more accurate than your instincts about men.
That's because women are programmed to want to make a connection with a man, and that chemistry throws off their radar, according to Professor LaFrance. And try not to be too self-focused during those first seven seconds. How good you make the other person feel is another big factor in making a good first impression. And that is something you should know.
As always, I'd like to remind you that your help in growing our audience is greatly appreciated. So if you would spread the word and share this podcast with someone you know, that'd be great. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know.
From the podcast that brought you to each of the last lesbian bars in the country, and back in time through the sapphic history that shaped them, comes a brand new season of cruising beyond the bars.
This is your host, Sarah Gabrielli, and I've spent the past year interviewing history-making lesbians and queer folks about all kinds of queer spaces, from bookstores to farms to line dancing and much more.
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