Focus Forward: An Executive Function Podcast Ep 16: Improve Your Memory: Neuroscience Strategies for a Healthier Brain
On this week's episode, I had the absolute pleasure of sitting down with Dr. Sherrie All, who is a neuropsychologist who specializes in memory. She and her colleagues at the Centers for Cognitive Wellness in Chicago and the D.C. area support people who have memory challenges or are experiencing cognitive decline. Sherrie also wrote a book (which you’ll hear me gush about) called the Neuroscience of Memory. This topic is especially interesting to me because working memory is one of the core Executive Functions we use everyday. My own working memory is my biggest EF achilles heel, which is probably why math and I don’t get along and why I can’t go to the store without a list because I’ll walk out with lots of stuff I didn’t need and maybe only a couple of the things I did. I have experienced a lot of frustration and disappointment in my life because of it. But, over the years, I’ve learned what strategies help me the most. Talking with Sherrie helped me understand that it’s okay to use these external resources to remember things during the day and that there are concrete things we can do to improve our brain health, which in turn, supports our memory. Listen in to learn more about memory, the brain, and what we can do to help ourselves to live independently as long as we possibly can.
Here are some resources related to our conversation:
Learn more about Dr. Sherrie All
Centers for Cognitive Wellness
The Neuroscience of Memory by Sherrie All, PhD
Learn More About Memory
Working Memory Underpins Cognitive Development, Learning, and Education
Cognitive Health and Older Adults | National Institute on Aging
Working Memory: Take Note of Your Child’s Challenges
How to Memorize More Effectively (When Technology is Not an Option!)
Memorization Strategies – Learning Center at UNC
7 Ways to Retain More of Every Book You Read by James Clear
Contact us!
Reach out to us at podcast@beyondbooksmart.com
IG/FB/TikTok @beyondbooksmartcoaching
Transcript
Hannah Choi 00:04
Hi everyone, and welcome to Focus Forward, an executive function Podcast where we explore the challenges and celebrate the wins you'll experience as you change your life by working on improving your executive function skills. I'm your host, Hannah Choi.
Hannah Choi 00:18
I am so excited to bring you today's episode, I had the absolute pleasure of sitting down with Dr. Sherrie All who is a neuropsychologist who specializes in memory. She and her colleagues at the Centers for Cognitive Wellness in Chicago and the DC area support people who have memory challenges or are experiencing cognitive decline. Sherrie also wrote a book, which you'll hear me gush about, called the Neuroscience of Memory. And this topic is especially interesting to me, because working memory is one of the executive function skills that we use pretty much all the time every single day. Working memory is the skill we use to hold information in our minds long enough to do something with it. If you run into the grocery store for just a few items, and don't bring a list, you'll use your working memory to recall that information. When you meet someone new, your working memory helps you remember their name. And if you're learning a new math formula, your working memory helps you remember the steps. My own memory has a pretty limited capacity, which is probably why math and I don't get along, why I accidentally called my friend's husband "Steve" when his name is actually Corey. And why I can't go to the store without a list because I'll walk out with lots of stuff I didn't need and maybe only a couple of the things I did. I have experienced a lot of frustration and disappointment in my life because of it. But over the years, I've learned what strategies helped me the most and talking with Sherrie really helped me understand that it's okay to use these external resources to help you remember things during the day. And that there are concrete things that we can do to improve our brain health, which in turn supports our memory. So keep listening to learn more about memory and brains and what we can do to help ourselves to live independently longer.
Hannah Choi 02:13
Hi, Sherrie, thanks so much for joining me.
Sherrie All, PhD 02:16
Thanks, Hannah. It's my pleasure. I'm so excited to be on this podcast with you.
Hannah Choi 02:21
I have I have a very, very vested interest in memory because mine is terrible, has always been terrible. I had the nickname of Forgetful Hannah when I was a child. But I think it's genetic. Because my parents don't remember calling me that. I remember though, I remember. So I am so excited about this conversation because of that. I'm basically ready to walk away with a better memory. So I hope you're gonna fix me.
Sherrie All, PhD 02:52
Oh. I'll do my best.
Hannah Choi 02:56
Okay. I did read your book though. And, and I I'm like a total nerd about it. Now I'm telling basically everyone I know, my poor family, I keep texting them like, Okay, you have to walk six to nine miles per day. And you have to learn new things. Just like telling them all the things that they have to do. So thank you for that book. Yeah, yeah. For our listeners. I will put all the info about her about Sherrie's book in the show notes so
Sherrie All, PhD 03:25
But it's six to nine miles a week.
Hannah Choi 03:27
Oh, I mean a week not a day. Oh, yeah, let's clarify that listeners you did not have to walk six to nine miles a day,
Sherrie All, PhD 03:35
People jumping up and running to the treadmill. Six to nine miles a day is helpful, too.
Hannah Choi 03:43
It's really time consuming too, so. Alright, so could you introduce yourself a little bit for us?
Sherrie All, PhD 03:51
Of course yeah. I'm Dr. Sherrie All. I am neuropsychologist by background and I really developed more of an interest in cognitive rehab rehabilitation kind of through my training. I don't know if you if your listeners know this, but neuropsychology as a field has a long about a centuries old history of telling people what's wrong with their brain and neuropsychologist are really good at doing that. And it's a lovely field and it's helping lots and lots of people. But I thought that neuropsychologist did more work in actually helping people improve their memories when I was going through graduate school and, and so when I learned what a neuropsychologist did was like, "Okay, great. Now what do we do about it?" And supervisors were kind of like yeah, we don't really do that so much. And so so it was able to really kind of carve out a some training for myself in in cognitive rehabilitation and I've made it my professional mission to really take a lot of the cognitive improvement strategies that have been living in sort of the ivory tower into the private practice space. And so, exactly 10 years ago, I opened a group practice, which is now called the Centers for Cognitive Wellness. It used to be Chicago Center for Cognitive Wellness, but we've actually expanded. And we actually celebrated our 10th anniversary last night, and cool. And really with that mission of providing kind of the what's next for people after they've been diagnosed with a cognitive decline. And we've worked mainly in the adult space for the last 10 years, we're starting to work more now with kids. But it was really important to me to work with adults initially, because there are a lot of tutoring and support services for kids. Not a lot of stuff available for adults. And so, so we do psychotherapy and cognitive rehabilitation that's sort of mixed into a psychotherapy setting. We're all mental health providers, and I have a team of 12 clinicians, and we just expanded into the DC area.
Hannah Choi 06:07
So exciting!
Sherrie All, PhD 06:08
Yeah, so we're just kind of helping people help their brains and, and then I was able to fulfill kind of a lifelong goal of publishing my first book, the Neuroscience of Memory, that you're talking so fondly about it, which is a self help workbook, that is really, you know, designed to help anybody with a brain improve their memory skills, both now and as you get older, and, but also a secondary audience for clinicians to use. And we're actually using that as a tool, it came out last July, July 2021. And I hear weekly from my clinicians are like I've got, I sold another one of your books, and we've gotten using your books, they really liked this part. And they liked that part. And so that's always really nice to hear. So it's, it's easy to kind of use with clients as they, because it's got lots of different exercises in there to help help you implement the skills and, and so we're using it as kind of a treatment tool as well,
Hannah Choi 07:12
I'm glad you understand the brain so that you can put this good work into it.
Sherrie All, PhD 07:16
Well, and I think it's important to try to for all of us to understand our brains. And that's one of my goals in the book is to help people understand how memory works. Because we know that when you understand how your brain works, you're better at operating it. And so so it is a real treat to be able to kind of take that deep dive learning and then try to put that into like plain language and sort of spread that out. Because it's important for all of us to have at least some fundamental understanding about how memory works, because then you can get better at operating it. And, and then also just to really save people from a lot of this so much anxiety, right? And there's a lot of anxiety about memory loss at every, really at like the whole lifespan, especially in adulthood. But But kids or kids are hard on themselves about their brains, too. And, and so, you know, we're way too hard on ourselves about our memories. And, and so I think that if people do understand that, like forgetting is normal, and you do need strategies, then maybe we can start to kind of dial down some of that overall anxiety. And because the anxiety makes your memory worse to like in the short term, and in the long term. Yes. Oh, like, Yeah, let's let's just be like, let's be a little kinder to ourselves and take down the temperature a little bit, right?
Hannah Choi 08:53
Yeah, yeah. And so like, when you're when your stress hormones and other brain thing, like when your stress hormones kick in, you're your executive function skills are like the first things to go. So that makes sense that your memory would be compromised if you are stressed. So if you're walking around stressed all the time, that's gonna make it harder.
Sherrie All, PhD 09:14
Yeah, you can't remember what you didn't pay attention to. And and, and so I mean, attention is really like the gateway to memory. And so attention completely gets knocked out, right? If you if you're in kind of that limbic hijack you literally the blood flow goes away from your prefrontal cortex, the thinking part of your brain where you focus and pay attention to things and it and it just goes to like the survivalistic parts of your brain and, and so you can't get focus, you can't pay attention and then then you're not going to remember that whatever that thing was, right? And so, so yeah, so it's important for us to all just kind of like take a breath.
Hannah Choi 09:59
So Oh, that's what you just something that you just said, makes me think I, when I was reading your book, you said your memory is only as good as your attention. And I was like, "shut up". I know that. (laughter) But now you're gonna have to make me now you're gonna make me pay more attention. It was so funny when I first read that I was like, ah, ah, I know that. But now I see her. Now I see it in writing. So lots of people, I mean, lots of people, regardless of their ADHD status, lots of people have, you know, challenges with attention depending on the situation, right? Or depending on how stressed you are, or what time of day it is or what situation you're in. And so can you talk a little bit more about about that and why you said that sentence that was only as good as your attention.
Sherrie All, PhD 11:01
It's gratifying to hear a reaction like that. I treat other authors exactly the same way. Oh, the hell you say
Hannah Choi 11:14
But, I'm glad you said it. Okay, cuz it's true.
Sherrie All, PhD 11:17
Yeah, it was a hard. It's a hard truth. Right?
Hannah Choi 11:19
It was. Yes, exactly. It was a hard truth that needed to that I needed to hear and that everyone else needs to hear it too.
Sherrie All, PhD 11:26
Yeah, of course. Because I mean, well, let's just think about it. I mean, it's simple mechanics. Your brain stores information, like memory is like the storage of information that gets into your brain. Right? That attention is the gateway, you cannot expect yourself to remember things that you didn't notice in the first place. kind of simple. Um, and, and so, one thing I like to kind of talk about is that, like, I use this analogy of my husband. This, you know, it's been a while now, it's probably been about 15 years since this happened. But remember, when like flat screen TVs were coming out, like the plasma TVs and, and the high definition and he like, got a second job, because you know, they weren't cheap back there were like, several $1,000, right. And so you get a second job, he saves up a bunch of money, he buys the first plasma TV, and he sticks it on the wall. And he plugs it into our satellite service. And an end, the picture is garbage. It is really, really terrible. And we're like, what, what's the deal? Like, this is supposed to be like an amazing picture. It's high definition. So we call up the satellite company. And they're like, Oh, you got a new high definition television? Well, yeah, you need to pay like an extra $5 a month to get the high definition signal, you're not getting the high definition signal. And, and that's really sort of how I think about like attention and memory, that like memories, like the high def TV, right that it but it has to have a high def signal coming into it for it to function correctly. And so so all of the strategies that we know for improving attention are going to improve memory kind of down the line, because you're getting in higher quality data, more data, kind of coming in into your brain. So I usually will use this example when I'm talking about mindfulness and meditation, because that's what mindfulness does for you is that it allows you to kind of like widen your lens and just, you know, choose to be more aware of whatever's kind of happening in that moment. And, and so then you get higher definition data kind of coming into your, into your brain. And so, so it's just really important to remember that, like, if you were kind of like, not present or like, not there Ellen Langer, as a Harvard psychologist who has this really great quote, that, like, "when you're not there, you're not there to know that you're not there". Yeah. Like, you know, your thoughts are often in lala land, you know, you're thinking you're worrying about the future, you're ruminating about the past. You're not paying attention and you're not so you're not going to notice like what somebody said to you or what the news program said and, and so you may have to like, you know, ask for clarification back it up. That yeah, don't like Be nice to your memory. Don't expect it to remember things that that you didn't notice in the first place. It just yeah, that way.
Hannah Choi 14:50
Do you think that the lifestyle that people live and societal impact of maybe you know, social media and just How quickly information is passed to us? Do you think any of that has impacted people's perceptions that they have memory problems? When maybe when we lived like a simpler life when there were like less demands on us or less information coming in all the time? Do you think that that has increased?
Sherrie All, PhD 15:20
I mean, I've felt it, I don't know. I can't, I can't speak to the data on this necessarily, you know, but I think anecdotally, like, there's, there's some actually some really, one thing I have looked into, because one thing I noticed kind of early on, when I started in private practice, and that, you know, I have this habit of opening like, way too many tabs on my right, and, and then and then having to switch it. So So in neuropsychology, we call it set shifting, that if you're having to switch your attention from one to the other, you know, that colloquially, we call it multitasking. And, and it actually, there are some studies to show that that actually takes a really big toll on your performance, that they've done it with college students where they do two tasks, then their processing speed goes down by about the same as like being high on pot. And there's a big cost to kind of like switching back and forth. And but but even with, like computer usage, it's sort of this, the girls also described this thing called, like, the threshold effect, that when you cross over a threshold, like from one room to the other, that sometimes your your memory will kind of reset in and so you'll lose whatever that thing is that you are kind of holding in your working memory, it'll, it'll just kind of go away. And I'll notice that kind of on my computer screen, you know, it'd be like, I'm going to my email to look for this thing. And then I get to my email and like, something will distract me, right. And then it's like, what was that thing? You know? And so, you know, with technology, social media, like we're getting a small bits, right, like that. We're, we're switching very quickly, on a on a really regular basis. I'm sure that that takes a toll on like, sustained attention. Yeah, I think kind of the overall stress level. But the other thing that I wanted to say, kind of related to your question is that, you know, it's some of the stuff we're learning about Instagram and eating disorders and suicide. And you know, that a lot of it's perfectionism, right? And that, so I see a lot of people who suffer from cognitive perfectionism. You know, and even just socially, you know, that when people find out that I'm a memory expert, and then and then they'll find out, you know, so example of something I forgot. They're like, Oh,
Hannah Choi 17:59
Do you ever lie about your job?
Sherrie All, PhD 18:00
So sometimes I do.
Hannah Choi 18:03
Like "I'm in finance".
Sherrie All, PhD 18:04
I was at a party recently, and I made everybody else tell me what they did before I told him what I did, right.
Hannah Choi 18:15
That's awesome.
Sherrie All, PhD 18:17
But again, like, we were hard on our memories, we kind of expect it to be perfect. But the other thing is that the cost of having a bad memory is is real. In and so I don't think that people's fears are unwarranted because, you know, kind of back to your question about simpler society. You know, if you were a farmer, and you had kind of this, you did the same routine, day after day, year after year, in the cost of like, kind of losing your cognitive skills isn't quite as big as what it is for, like a tech industry. Yeah. Right. Your job is to write code. And then you can't focus anymore, you're making costly mistakes, then, you know, our incomes are really dependent on our cognitive skills now. Yeah. And then one other thing that I think is worth noting about sort of the collective fear about cognition is that rates of dementia are legitimately increasing. With the baby boomers turning 65 and aging into we're going to see an increase in the prevalence of dementia. Unlike anything that's ever happened in human history, it's going to see a lot more examples of it where people are struggling because of cognitive decline. And I think that in some, it's, it's happening on an individual level to more and more people where they're seeing family members, you know, loved ones like their old football coach, you know, Really declining and so, so people, you know, people, understandably are going to be really scared about that too.
Hannah Choi 20:07
Right, the more examples that they have of it in their lives, the more fear they will feel themselves.
Sherrie All, PhD 20:13
Yeah. And we're seeing it with concussions, right with all the media attention put on this chronic traumatic encephalopathy that, that, you know, it's pathology that we've seen in the brains of retired NFL players. But it trickles down into where, where people have kind of a misunderstanding about concussion recovery. And if they have one concussion, then they become very fearful. They think it's easy to understand that you would, by watching all the media coverage about these concussions and this neuro pathological disorder that can that can come from that, that people will automatically assume it's not a huge mental leap to think, oh, no, I bumped my head. And now I've lit the fuse on a neuro degenerative disease. That's not really the case. We don't have those kinds of links between like, a regular concussion, you know, for everyday people like ourselves, you know, compared to what's happening to these professional athletes. We all need to remember that? We're not NFL players, right? I am not an NFL player.
Hannah Choi 21:33
Neither am I. Yeah. I can't even watch football.
Sherrie All, PhD 21:38
Like, we expect we expect people to get better over time, like
Hannah Choi 21:43
That's good to hear
Sherrie All, PhD 21:45
Even from more serious brain injuries, people get better. Not all the way sometimes, like with a serious brain injury. But, um, but if you, you know, if you didn't lose consciousness, and, you know, you didn't have like, extended periods of what we call post traumatic amnesia, or like, extreme mental confusion for like, a really long period of time, then, you know, odds are that you're gonna get better. And, but But what you believe about your memory makes a big difference.
Hannah Choi 22:17
Yeah. Right. And if you Yeah, and I think like, if we look, if we look we instead of looking for, we don't notice all the times, we do remember something, we just pay attention to the times that we don't, we look for those negative cases. What about all of this, like, I'm wearing clothes. So obviously, I remembered something today.
Hannah Choi 22:20
You remembered at least one thing today
Hannah Choi 22:27
That that's something that I've been working on myself is like, changing my identity. So I've always thought of myself, I mean, like, I was Forgetful Hannah. And so now I'm trying to change my identity. It's very difficult because I constantly just go to that, well, I'm just a forgetful person. So it's, it's, um, it's hard work. It's hard work to do. And if any of my family and friends are listening, they're probably like, yeah, your identity has not changed. But I'm trying, I'm trying to for myself, just change that. Because maybe if I stopped believing that so much about myself, I will actually come out with a better memory than I believe that I have.
Hannah Choi 23:25
Right? Yeah, change the narrative. You know, yeah, exactly. saying mean things to yourself, like, Stop criticizing yourself. And you people do it with all sorts of things. You know, if you say, like, I'm bad with money, you know, then that, you know, that belief leads to behaviors, and, you know, but, but you can learn how to be better at money, you know, oh, you know, I can't, I can't exercise, you know, but then you start to you shift some of that, and it like behavior and beliefs, kind of, you know, they play with each other. And, but, but they, you know, they go hand in hand. And so sometimes if you try a new behavior, then that can affect your belief. If you try to change your belief, then that can kind of lead you to a new behavior. So, it's worth doing the work because, you know, we really can rewrite those narratives.
Hannah Choi 24:16
Yeah, so much of so much of what I do for myself and also for my clients is, is that and so I have a question. So for myself, just speak for myself, specifically, because I'm myself and I can relate. So should I, I use a lot of strategies to help myself remember things because I know that memory is challenged for me. So I use a lot of different strategies. I use Google Tasks, Google event reminders, I have a planner I use post it notes. I put signs on the door I asked my partner, my husband to help me remember things I have people text me I mean, I have a lot of different strategies that I use. At But sometimes I feel like that's not helping my memory, it's just helping me not, it's just helping me do those things. It's not, like not like a practice to improve my actual memory. So for someone who has a challenges with memory, should is that enough or should there be additional practice to help improve my memory so that maybe I don't need to use all those tools.
Sherrie All, PhD 25:31
I don't think there's any evidence to date that we need to be doing anything different to specifically beef up our memory circuits. You know, I could be proven wrong with science kind of down the line. But the current state of the evidence is that there really doesn't seem to be a difference between cognitive activity, what type of cognitive activity and, and, and, and kind of preventing dementia, that like people who are cognitively active no matter what the cognitive activity is, it can be attention training, it could be processing speed, it could be problem solving, it could be memory strategies, all of those are, you know, they all of those are pretty equal in terms of the data that if you just kind of live a cognitively stimulating life, then your your risk for dementia is is mild to moderately reduced. There are some people who would say, well, oh, this this one, you know, like, I think if there is one type of training platform that maybe has outperformed some others, it's it's more kind of in like, processing speed. And so, so that said, like, I love your systems. Yeah, and, and, and that's the stuff that we would train someone who didn't have those systems and was complaining about their performance, we would actually work to try to get them to implement those types of systems. But the people who have really exceptional memories are ones that have kind of used the strategies of like, organizing information, or using visualization strategies, or just using externalizing strategies, which, you know, you use a lot of those. And so I think the goal for Functional Independence is whatever keeps you independent and doing a good job. Right. And so if you need to externalize those things, great. Right? Like, because that's what's gonna keep you you know, independent performing your job. Doing a good job, getting promoted.
Hannah Choi 27:59
Doing a Podcast, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Well, that that is great to hear. Because, I mean, that's what I do as an executive function coach is I you know, exactly that, right. We teach people strategies to level the playing field in whatever area, they feel challenged. And so
Sherrie All, PhD 28:21
that's why we love working with the beyond booksmart executive function coaches, too, because you guys are so great at like, helping our clients implement, you know, a lot of these daily functioning strategies. And, and then there's more to it too, because if you're, if you're succeeding, then you kind of have that upward positivity spiral that's going to reduce stress. And and that's good for your brain in the long term. And then also, you know, I, I, it makes me sad, Hannah, that you actually beating yourself up about your strategies.
Hannah Choi 29:05
I'm not going to anymore!
Sherrie All, PhD 29:06
Yeah. That's kind of a layer of stress. Right like that.
Hannah Choi 29:10
Yeah. Right.
Sherrie All, PhD 29:11
Strategies. You burst out some cortisol. That's not good for your brain cells. Yeah, right. Right. Yeah. Like celebrate your strategies.
Hannah Choi 29:22
Okay, yeah, I'm going to and I, it feels really good to hear that because I, I don't know why, but I saw it as, like a flaw that I had to use them even though I even said to you before, like, why do people look down on on using strategies and here, I was doing that without even realizing it. And I just know that when I use those strategies, it improves everything for me, it improves. You know, my just my day to day existence. In my, my relationships with everyone, and, and my relationship with myself too, so, so I'm going to use them proudly now.
Hannah Choi 30:10
You're like a systems queen?
Hannah Choi 30:14
Well, you know, I mean I do teach people I like, I hope that I have also done that metacognition piece and figured out what works for me to know. But, what that actually reminds me what you were saying before how important that metacognition piece is, and how important it is to figure out like, how our brains work, and how, what works for us, and what doesn't work for us and why we do those things and why we don't do those other things. And it's just so important. And I feel like it, it feels like to me that that piece is not valued by everyone, because it is you're not, I don't know if I'm right. But it is not immediately valued because you are not actually producing anything when you are sitting and thinking about yourself. No, you're not. Right? You're not like creating anything, you're not making anything, but you are learning so much. And so I just hope that people recognize the value of sitting and thinking about yourself. Yeah, there's so much in there.
Sherrie All, PhD 31:24
And then, you know, putting those systems in place, because, I mean, it's basically like, a lot of what you're describing is like basic project management, you know, and like, I, I took a class where, you know, I had to kind of learn some project management, and I learned that I'm, like, terrible naturally, like, my natural instinct is to just like, jump right into the task, you know, and like, as a group, we're like, no, no, we're gonna, we're gonna wide now we're gonna, you know, lay out are all the steps and like, the timeline and like, oh, okay, but like, going, right? Like what you're saying, like, we put too much value on sort of the output. But if you take a step back, like when you do your, your, your task list, you're probably going to get so much more done that day, than if you hadn't if you just jumped right into the thing, because you forget all those other things like,
Hannah Choi 32:27
yeah, or I didn't think about like, well, let's see, I'm feeling I have a lot of energy right now. So I should do the thing that's going to be the most energy sucking and then save the other things for later or, like, I'm feeling very unmotivated right now. So I should just do that, like little things that don't take much that might make me feel better. So yeah. So yeah, so like the the same what you were just saying, like, thinking that the thinking about yourself is the same as stopping to plan a little bit before you jump in. So totally, yeah. So much value in that. So talking about strategies, what are your go to strategies for people to, to remember stuff? And I guess this can apply to anybody. I mean, a lot of us coaches work with students, but a lot of our clients are adults too. And, and I imagined that the strategies aren't really any different from between younger and older people.
Sherrie All, PhD 33:22
Yeah, they're pretty universal. Right? Okay, so well, because probably because I have a background in clinical neuropsychology, it's, it's important for me to first kind of diagnose the problem, right. So our strategies need to be really customized to whatever situation a person's having, right. And so, so there are kind of some universal strategies that that we can teach people. But it's, it's never a one size fits all. And, and, and so it's important to kind of match the strategy with the person, because that also, it's just not feasible. It's like, physically impossible to do all the strategies all the time. So so what I try to, you know, kind of empower my clinicians to do is to have sort of a toolbox. And I think that's kind of what beyond booksmart does a good job of too. It's like, you know, that the executive function coaches like you guys do have like a nice system and program, but but your executive function coaches have enough of kind of a toolbox to be able to kind of pick and choose to sort of match for like, Whatever, whatever the situation is. So anyway, I think go to strategies are number one, particularly when we have folks with attention problems, working memory problems, is that we try to get them to slow down a little bit. It's If they can, right, or be strategic about fast and slow, and, and so so, so will will, one of our first steps is to actually try to get them to engage in some sort of mindfulness practice. And what's nice about the world of mindfulness is that there are, you know, 50 bajillion different practices that we can, you know, choose from, because that's also not a one size fits all, there's people who really resonate with breathwork. And then there are people who love, you know, guided imagery, and then there are people, you know, you know, I think open monitoring, you know, it's sort of like, sit for one minute and just, you know, notice what's happening and be in the present moment. That can be great. For some people, I think it can be really torture for people who have attention problems and have sort of a really active Default Mode Network, where their minds are just kind of going all the time. It's what So, but, but, you know, kind of having a little bit of that cultural debate of like, okay, slow down, be present, be engaged, maybe start to notice what's happening in your body, kind of be present. Number two, would be using a lot of those externalizing interventions. So, so making lists, setting alarms, I love "can't miss reminders". This is we use a program called Cog Smart that's out of the VA system, it was originally developed for people with brain injuries and severe mental illness. And then they have a new program for people with mild cognitive impairment, which like maybe some of the earlier stages of dementia. And, and so they'll you know, put up you know, it put up like a little post it on your coffee maker that says walk the dog, you know, because you might, you might forget to walk the dog, I'm never going to forget to make coffee in the morning. So just kind of putting some of those reminders in sort of an obvious place. Another strategy they use is self-talk. And so that can kind of help you stay on target, as you're kind of going from one thing to the other. And that you kind of say, you know, I'm gonna go to the kitchen, I'm gonna get some yogurt, you know, and I'm going there, I'm gonna say, and you can say it out loud. You can say it to yourself in your head. Yogurt. Yeah. Yogurt. Yogurt. Yeah. So, so So those are some of my favorites. I think, you know, and so those are all kind of on the like, attention part of of the pathway to memory. But we also have other strategies for helping you memorize things, right. Like, and, and that's important for when the moment requires it. Like, where are you parked in a parking garage, for instance, right, like stopping and taking like a little mental snapshot and kind of rehearsing it or sort of visualizing it.
Hannah Choi 38:00
I loved that section of the book. It was so fun to do that, to do the list. And then to try to remember the list and then reuse the different strategies. It was very cool. Yeah, it was very convincing.
Sherrie All, PhD 38:13
Yeah. And so, you know, you can take some steps to get things to stick in your brain better, when that's needed. But it's not needed for everything right in. And so especially now, like, and this is something that, that we've been kind of debating in, I guess, kind of wringing your hands around since ever since humans became literate. And we just don't memorize things the same way that we used to, because we don't really have to write and so the newest iteration of that is the internet. And, and so you can even tell the difference between like Boomers and Gen Xers compared to like Millennials of like, how long I'm a Gen Xer. And I will spend a good 10 minutes trying to remember a fact about something. And my Millennial friends, like have already looked it up on their phone. Right.
Hannah Choi 39:08
Right. Yeah.
Sherrie All, PhD 39:14
Just grew up with like, you know, 10-year-old encyclopedia. Yeah.
Hannah Choi 39:21
Like, oh, I hope it's in the index. That's really funny.
Sherrie All, PhD 39:27
I mean, so that's the newest version of it, right? But as a species, we've been doing that externalizing ever since we had the ability to write things down and then go back and read them the way things are now. You don't have to memorize everything. I think you're probably going to be okay. I don't think it's causing Alzheimer's disease. The only what's causing Alzheimer's disease is that people are living way longer than they used to. You know, but so anyway, but when what when the moments right, Like when you need to memorize something like if you're an actor, and you're you have to memorize things, or you're getting a speech, or you need to, you're at a job and you need to memorize, like a certain, you know, list of steps to kind of make that automatic, then, then those those strategies can be helpful, you know, but yeah, but but I think that sometimes people assume that they have to kind of do that for everything. And then they worried because we're not doing it like we used to. It's gonna make me have Alzheimer's.
Hannah Choi 40:34
Okay, good to know. Not, I could be wrong,
Sherrie All, PhD 40:41
to always be open to being wrong. Right.
Hannah Choi 40:43
Right. Well, I hope you're not. So one additional thing that, that I got a very clear message in your book is that the pretty much the most important thing that we can do for our memories is exercise. And so can you talk a little bit about that?
Sherrie All, PhD 41:03
Yeah. So I do, I had been saying it's like the number one best thing you can do for your brain? And it probably is, although I am starting to tweak that a little bit that everything is, is memory strategies are customizable. So everybody has like a different? I think everybody actually does have like, a different probably priority. Number one. No, like, if you're a smoker, I'm gonna want you to quit smoking, before I make you get on a treadmill. I have an idea. Yeah. Like our individual, right, you know, it's Sleep, sleep is really important too. And we're learning a lot more about that. The reason that for a long time, we've been saying that exercise is the is the best strategy is because it's had the best science up to this point. And by best science, it means that we can do experiments. And so we have some really good causal data to show that when people are physically active, they get have bigger brains, the memory circuits in their brain are bigger, they grow new brain cells, and it actually increases the rate of brain cell growth. And we haven't seen that with any other type of lifestyle strategy, except for stress goes in the other direction, we know that. So the stress hormone cortisol keeps you from growing new brain cells. And, and so so, you know, managing stress may be you know, the opposite of, of, you know, kind of the same as exercise and, but, but the quality of the data is, is really, really strong. And so, so that's why we really kind of hang out, hang our hats on that one, because it lends itself to doing experiments. And, you know, whereas things like socialization,
Hannah Choi 43:04
It's harder to measure, harder to measure
Sherrie All, PhD 43:07
And harder to manipulate. You know, make people get friends.
Hannah Choi 43:13
Just be more social.
Sherrie All, PhD 43:16
And like it!
Hannah Choi 43:19
Enjoy it don't get stressed. Meet five friends have five 10-minute conversations. measure your heart rate, or whatever. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, it really shows you I mean, that's a great example for how research is really beneficial, or can be really beneficial, and why it is so important to research things
Sherrie All, PhD 43:45
And also to kind of get some help. And so one of the things in the book is for people, one of the early exercises is for you to kind of gauge like what is your overall risk, right? Like where I use this brain 401k investment analogy in the book that, you know, our risk for dementia is really predicted more by how much brain cells and skills you have sort of stored in this cognitive reserve, and everybody kind of varies in those in how much reserves they have. And we can measure that by seeing how, you know, people with higher reserve have people with bigger brains have a bigger resistance to dementia. And, and that you can build your reserve throughout your life, like through these different lifestyle areas. But one of the early exercises in the book is for you to kind of do a self assessment, you kind of rate your portfolio, your brain 401k portfolio, you know, so am I, I may be doing really well in mental stimulation because I have a mentally stimulating job, but I'm not exercising a whole lot and I have a lot of stress. And so those are kind of the two areas where I need to maybe beef up my own individual efforts, right compared to somebody else, who, you know, maybe exercises a whole lot, but you know, he's just retired and it's not, you know, socializing as much as they used to maybe not learning new things and so that their own strategy is going to be different than than mine in. And so really kind of personal. It's all custom, right? We're human strengths and weaknesses, and we gotta figure it kind of focus our efforts.
Hannah Choi 45:29
Yeah, and that's, I guess that's, again, where that metacognition piece comes into, and really spending the time to look at your life and to look at how your memory impacts you, and how, and what areas you maybe need to, you know, like, spend more time with or, or back off on or whatever it is. So, in your book, you cover a variety of different areas like exercise, and socialization and learning new things, which are three that you've already mentioned. In addition to those, what are some others that people should consider when they're thinking about their brain health?
Sherrie All, PhD 46:06
So some new data that's come out about sleep is especially for the risk of Alzheimer's disease is that when when we're asleep, when you're in deep sleep, the glial cells, they're these like support cells that surround the neurons in your brain, they actually shrink by about 20%. And it allows the spinal fluid to come in and flush out toxins, oh, it's probably like the lymphatic system of the brain and clay and so it's, they call it the glymphatic system, the glial cells. And one of the things that gets flushed out is the amyloid plaque that causes Alzheimer's disease. We all make amyloid plaque and, but, but normally, it's going to be flushed out through the spinal fluid.
Hannah Choi 46:58
Fascinating.
Sherrie All, PhD 46:59
And it's only becomes problematic when it sticks in your brain and starts to kind of choke off your neurons. And so they're Matthew Walker is a neuroscientist who's written he wrote a book called Why We sleep and then he's he's runs a research lab where they are putting out papers and, and so they've actually found a correlation between people who sleep less in their 50s 60s and 70s have more amyloid plaque in their brain. We don't it's it's a correlation. So we don't know which causes which it could be that amyloid causes you to stop sleeping much or that not sleeping enough, you know, causes the amyloid to build up. But that's actually like most of our dementia prevention strategies are focused on trying to help you kind of just maintain as many neurons as you can. But this is actually a little bit more directly impacting the pathology of Alzheimer's, that, you know, if you get really good deep sleep, then, you know, you may actually be preventing the pathology of Alzheimer's like flushing that amyloid out.
Hannah Choi 48:02
Wow, that's so interesting.
Sherrie All, PhD 48:05
REM sleep is important for helping the amygdala is this little structure in your brain, that's kind of your fear detector, it's the thing that sort of sets off the fight or flight response. And it's kind of always looking out for things that it thinks might kill you. And then and then when it thinks that something might kill you, then it triggers you know, you to release all that cortisol and have those kinds of exaggerated responses. And you have the limbic hijacking, and you can't concentrate and you're, you know, you know, producing toxic chemicals to your brain cells, and you're keeping your brain from growing new brain cells. So, the amygdala if you lose one night asleep, your amygdala is 60%. more active.
Hannah Choi 48:49
Wow. That's not good.
Sherrie All, PhD 48:56
A recipe for yelling at your kid.
Hannah Choi 48:58
Yeah. And no wonder, right.
Sherrie All, PhD 49:03
And sleep is important for that kind of calming of the amygdala, most of your REM sleep later in the night, and an epic and if you have middle insomnia, if you're up for more than half an hour, the entire sleep architecture of your night sort of starts over where you don't actually won't get enough REM cycles. So you do more deep sleep early in the night. And so it's important to just try to maybe like sleep through the night. So so when we have people who talk about sleep problems, we we, as a practice, send them to a sleep center. Study. We need to know what's going on. Do you have sleep apnea? Do you have there's a cognitive behavior therapy for insomnia CBT-I that's very behaviorally based and so it's just about following kind of some simple rules to you know, make sure that you're going to bed when you're tired. And enough that you're, you know, kind of helping your body sort of reengage those natural circadian rhythms maybe not, you know, having like a caffeine curfew, not knowing what time it is at night is like a really big piece of that too, because that sticks that you go through when you make four o'clock. It's got like, two more hours.
Hannah Choi 50:23
Yes. You do the math, the insomnia math. Yes. My sister went through the CBT for insomnia. And it just really, really, really helped her.
Sherrie All, PhD 50:36
Yeah, it helped me, I did it. You know, I yeah, I got really bad insomnia during the pandemic and found out I have sleep apnea. So I went on. Yeah, and if you've ever tried CPAP, and you feel like you've tried it a few years ago, you're like, Oh, it's terrible. I can't stand it. Like, the machines are getting better and better.
Hannah Choi 50:55
Oh, that's good to know. Yeah. And so have you noticed? And have you noticed an impact on your on your awakening? You're Awake, awake, life,
Sherrie All, PhD 51:04
How I feel during the day? Yeah. One hundred percent..
Hannah Choi 51:07
Yeah, that's great.
Sherrie All, PhD 51:09
I would walk around, like, face tired, or time focusing and have like, you know, and have kind of a hair trigger. And yeah, wait, and, and I've been able to lose it since then. But I think one of the biggest pieces, because I told this, the CBT therapist, I was like, You're not taking my phone away. It's not just I thought I was psychologist or a that makes me a really terrible patient. Right.
Hannah Choi 51:37
Right. Sure. I know what to do. Right? I'm only here because someone told me to.
Sherrie All, PhD 51:46
So, so we tell people about like, like, we'll give them information about sleep hygiene. You know, those are things like, you know, limit screens at night have, you know, that kind of stuff? I go, I go I'm not, I'm not giving up my phone. She's like, okay, that's okay. You know. So what we've devised is that because I have a really active default mode network that I think people with ADHD we're seeing, have that. And which means that when I wake up in the middle of the night, I just start thinking about all sorts of things, right. And I turn on a podcast. Like maybe right now someone is listening to us on this podcast.
Hannah Choi 52:31
We're happy to keep your company.
Sherrie All, PhD 52:34
I'll turn on a podcast, it has to be like a certain level of interesting because I'm going to fall back asleep. So maybe, maybe it's not this one.
Hannah Choi 52:41
Yeah, maybe it's just too engaging. They're not good for the middle of the night.
Sherrie All, PhD 52:45
It depends. But I have a little post it. It's a stack of post it notes that I take to my phone to cover up the clock, like, so I can turn my podcast on, but I don't know what time it is.
Hannah Choi 52:58
Yeah, that's so smart. I love that she told you that she let you keep it. Right. And that goes back to make the strategy work for yourself. Yeah. And, and, and it's okay. If if whatever tweak you have done to the strategy is different than what they say you should do. If it works for you, then then that's good enough. Okay.
Sherrie All, PhD 53:19
Yeah, it's collaborative, right? Yeah, no, none of these interventions could be to top down because people are gonna be resistant. And then they can't do it. Yeah. Right. We all have issues with authority.
Hannah Choi 53:31
Right. Yeah. Right. I'll just suffer instead of doing what you suggested. Well, thank you so much. This has just been such a great conversation. Is there anything else you want to add that we missed?
Sherrie All, PhD 53:47
Well, get the book.
Hannah Choi 53:49
Yes. Are sure you guys have to read this book Neuroscience of Memory by Sherrie All, Dr. Sherrie All it's so good. It's so good. And I love I just love how you wrote it. There was one thing you said like you it was a list of things that can be impacted in you. And you said you had the list. And then you said "...and stuff like that". I was like, Yes. Like you get you just wrote "and stuff like" that in a book. I was just so great. Because I feel like there's so much pressure out there to just have everything be on like super professional sounding. And that's what I want to read because that's what I can relate to. And it was just it was so accessible. Such a great book. So thank you.
Sherrie All, PhD 54:34
Yeah, I like to think of it as kind of like your girlfriends guide to your brain.
Hannah Choi 54:37
Yeah, that's what it felt like it was really it's really, really nice. So I highly recommend everybody find it
Sherrie All, PhD 54:44
And the audio book, I got to narrate it. So you can listen to me!
Hannah Choi 54:47
Oh, cool.
Hannah Choi 54:50
That's great. You have a good voice
Sherrie All, PhD 54:51
And if you listen while you sleep and maybe you sleep with me.
Hannah Choi 54:55
I love it. And where else can our listeners find you?
Sherrie All, PhD 55:01
So you can find me at Sherrieall.com. That's my page that I keep for speaking and writing. And then if you want to access our clinics were at cogwellness.com. We have a location in Chicago, and then in Chevy Chase, Maryland, and hopefully some other states as we continue to grow. Because, you know, we're really passionate about helping people improve their cognition. And there are other practices that do what we do. And, you know, but, but I think that, particularly for some of the early stage dementia work, where we're one of the few people that are kind of helping people implement a lot of those recommendations from neuro psychologists. And so, you know, we just like to be able to help a lot more people. But so, so clinically, we're there for now, and but hopefully, hopefully near you soon.
Hannah Choi 55:52
Yeah, great. Well, thank you again, and I love I love how there are so many practical things that people can do to improve their memory and decrease or maybe not decrease, but improve the chances of living independently longer. And I love that. So thank you for all the work that you do. And I'm sure that that everyone out there that has met with you is just so with you. And your and your practitioners have been so grateful for the support. Yeah, maybe make it a little less scary, right. less scary. Yeah.
Sherrie All, PhD 56:27
And hire a Beyond BookSmart executive function coach. Yeah, put these things in practice.
Hannah Choi 56:34
Yeah. And like what we were saying earlier, you know, these, figuring out exactly what strategies are going to work for you. It is nice to have the support of someone else that has like a sort of, like a like at outset an outsider viewpoint and can help help you get out of your own head.
Sherrie All, PhD 56:53
Don't judge yourself for all your systems, right?
Hannah Choi 56:55
That's right! No judgment, this is a judgment free zone.
Sherrie All, PhD 56:58
That's right! Celebrate!
Hannah Choi 56:59
Yay. Yes, yes. I am so excited to go forth and use my strategies proudly. And I'm and I'm just going to keep continuing to spread the word that it's okay to use strategies. You do not have to remember everything on your own.
Sherrie All, PhD 57:14
You can't you cannot you can't. That's right. This, those five people are
Sherrie All, PhD 57:18
Like four or five.
Hannah Choi 57:19
Yeah, four, probably four.
Sherrie All, PhD 57:20
And they're probably probably lying anyway.
Hannah Choi 57:22
yeah, actually, just like quickly use some, like, they have a device in their ear. All right. Well, thank you so much.
Sherrie All, PhD 57:33
Likewise, this has been a pleasure. And thank you. Thank you.
Hannah Choi 57:38
And that's our show for today. Be sure to check out the show notes for links to all of Sherrie's resources, plus some more that I found to share with you. If you're like me and are challenged by your working memory, I really hope this episode has motivated you to find and use even more strategies that help you remember more stuff, which in turn will help you feel more confident. I know it's made a huge difference for me. Thank you for taking time out of your day to listen. If you like what you're hearing, please share focus forward with your colleagues and your family and your friends. You can subscribe to focus forward on Apple and Google podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts. If you listen on Apple podcasts, give us a boost by giving us that five star rating. Sign up for our newsletter at www.beyondbooksmart.com/podcast. We'll let you know when new episodes drop and we'll share information related to the topic. Thanks for listening
Ep 16_ Improve Your Memory_ Neuroscience Strategies for a He...
Thu, Dec 15, 2022 10:24AM • 58:42
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, strategies, memory, brain, book, neuropsychologist, called, attention, dementia, learning, important, exercise, brain cells, stress, systems, helping, alzheimer, hannah, clinicians, sleep
SPEAKERS
Sherrie All, PhD, Hannah Choi
Hannah Choi 00:04
Hi everyone, and welcome to Focus Forward, an executive function Podcast where we explore the challenges and celebrate the wins you'll experience as you change your life by working on improving your executive function skills. I'm your host, Hannah Choi.
Hannah Choi 00:18
I am so excited to bring you today's episode, I had the absolute pleasure of sitting down with Dr. Sherrie All who is a neuropsychologist who specializes in memory. She and her colleagues at the Centers for Cognitive Wellness in Chicago and the DC area support people who have memory challenges or are experiencing cognitive decline. Sherrie also wrote a book, which you'll hear me gush about, called the Neuroscience of Memory. And this topic is especially interesting to me, because working memory is one of the executive function skills that we use pretty much all the time every single day. Working memory is the skill we use to hold information in our minds long enough to do something with it. If you run into the grocery store for just a few items, and don't bring a list, you'll use your working memory to recall that information. When you meet someone new, your working memory helps you remember their name. And if you're learning a new math formula, your working memory helps you remember the steps. My own memory has a pretty limited capacity, which is probably why math and I don't get along, why I accidentally called my friend's husband "Steve" when his name is actually Corey. And why I can't go to the store without a list because I'll walk out with lots of stuff I didn't need and maybe only a couple of the things I did. I have experienced a lot of frustration and disappointment in my life because of it. But over the years, I've learned what strategies helped me the most and talking with Sherrie really helped me understand that it's okay to use these external resources to help you remember things during the day. And that there are concrete things that we can do to improve our brain health, which in turn supports our memory. So keep listening to learn more about memory and brains and what we can do to help ourselves to live independently longer.
Hannah Choi 02:13
Hi, Sherrie, thanks so much for joining me.
Sherrie All, PhD 02:16
Thanks, Hannah. It's my pleasure. I'm so excited to be on this podcast with you.
Hannah Choi 02:21
I have I have a very, very vested interest in memory because mine is terrible, has always been terrible. I had the nickname of Forgetful Hannah when I was a child. But I think it's genetic. Because my parents don't remember calling me that. I remember though, I remember. So I am so excited about this conversation because of that. I'm basically ready to walk away with a better memory. So I hope you're gonna fix me.
Sherrie All, PhD 02:52
Oh. I'll do my best.
Hannah Choi 02:56
Okay. I did read your book though. And, and I I'm like a total nerd about it. Now I'm telling basically everyone I know, my poor family, I keep texting them like, Okay, you have to walk six to nine miles per day. And you have to learn new things. Just like telling them all the things that they have to do. So thank you for that book. Yeah, yeah. For our listeners. I will put all the info about her about Sherrie's book in the show notes so
Sherrie All, PhD 03:25
But it's six to nine miles a week.
Hannah Choi 03:27
Oh, I mean a week not a day. Oh, yeah, let's clarify that listeners you did not have to walk six to nine miles a day,
Sherrie All, PhD 03:35
People jumping up and running to the treadmill. Six to nine miles a day is helpful, too.
Hannah Choi 03:43
It's really time consuming too, so. Alright, so could you introduce yourself a little bit for us?
Sherrie All, PhD 03:51
Of course yeah. I'm Dr. Sherrie All. I am neuropsychologist by background and I really developed more of an interest in cognitive rehab rehabilitation kind of through my training. I don't know if you if your listeners know this, but neuropsychology as a field has a long about a centuries old history of telling people what's wrong with their brain and neuropsychologist are really good at doing that. And it's a lovely field and it's helping lots and lots of people. But I thought that neuropsychologist did more work in actually helping people improve their memories when I was going through graduate school and, and so when I learned what a neuropsychologist did was like, "Okay, great. Now what do we do about it?" And supervisors were kind of like yeah, we don't really do that so much. And so so it was able to really kind of carve out a some training for myself in in cognitive rehabilitation and I've made it my professional mission to really take a lot of the cognitive improvement strategies that have been living in sort of the ivory tower into the private practice space. And so, exactly 10 years ago, I opened a group practice, which is now called the Centers for Cognitive Wellness. It used to be Chicago Center for Cognitive Wellness, but we've actually expanded. And we actually celebrated our 10th anniversary last night, and cool. And really with that mission of providing kind of the what's next for people after they've been diagnosed with a cognitive decline. And we've worked mainly in the adult space for the last 10 years, we're starting to work more now with kids. But it was really important to me to work with adults initially, because there are a lot of tutoring and support services for kids. Not a lot of stuff available for adults. And so, so we do psychotherapy and cognitive rehabilitation that's sort of mixed into a psychotherapy setting. We're all mental health providers, and I have a team of 12 clinicians, and we just expanded into the DC area.
Hannah Choi 06:07
So exciting!
Sherrie All, PhD 06:08
Yeah, so we're just kind of helping people help their brains and, and then I was able to fulfill kind of a lifelong goal of publishing my first book, the Neuroscience of Memory, that you're talking so fondly about it, which is a self help workbook, that is really, you know, designed to help anybody with a brain improve their memory skills, both now and as you get older, and, but also a secondary audience for clinicians to use. And we're actually using that as a tool, it came out last July, July 2021. And I hear weekly from my clinicians are like I've got, I sold another one of your books, and we've gotten using your books, they really liked this part. And they liked that part. And so that's always really nice to hear. So it's, it's easy to kind of use with clients as they, because it's got lots of different exercises in there to help help you implement the skills and, and so we're using it as kind of a treatment tool as well,
Hannah Choi 07:12
I'm glad you understand the brain so that you can put this good work into it.
Sherrie All, PhD 07:16
Well, and I think it's important to try to for all of us to understand our brains. And that's one of my goals in the book is to help people understand how memory works. Because we know that when you understand how your brain works, you're better at operating it. And so so it is a real treat to be able to kind of take that deep dive learning and then try to put that into like plain language and sort of spread that out. Because it's important for all of us to have at least some fundamental understanding about how memory works, because then you can get better at operating it. And, and then also just to really save people from a lot of this so much anxiety, right? And there's a lot of anxiety about memory loss at every, really at like the whole lifespan, especially in adulthood. But But kids or kids are hard on themselves about their brains, too. And, and so, you know, we're way too hard on ourselves about our memories. And, and so I think that if people do understand that, like forgetting is normal, and you do need strategies, then maybe we can start to kind of dial down some of that overall anxiety. And because the anxiety makes your memory worse to like in the short term, and in the long term. Yes. Oh, like, Yeah, let's let's just be like, let's be a little kinder to ourselves and take down the temperature a little bit, right?
Hannah Choi 08:53
Yeah, yeah. And so like, when you're when your stress hormones and other brain thing, like when your stress hormones kick in, you're your executive function skills are like the first things to go. So that makes sense that your memory would be compromised if you are stressed. So if you're walking around stressed all the time, that's gonna make it harder.
Sherrie All, PhD 09:14
Yeah, you can't remember what you didn't pay attention to. And and, and so I mean, attention is really like the gateway to memory. And so attention completely gets knocked out, right? If you if you're in kind of that limbic hijack you literally the blood flow goes away from your prefrontal cortex, the thinking part of your brain where you focus and pay attention to things and it and it just goes to like the survivalistic parts of your brain and, and so you can't get focus, you can't pay attention and then then you're not going to remember that whatever that thing was, right? And so, so yeah, so it's important for us to all just kind of like take a breath.
Hannah Choi 09:59
So Oh, that's what you just something that you just said, makes me think I, when I was reading your book, you said your memory is only as good as your attention. And I was like, "shut up". I know that. (laughter) But now you're gonna have to make me now you're gonna make me pay more attention. It was so funny when I first read that I was like, ah, ah, I know that. But now I see her. Now I see it in writing. So lots of people, I mean, lots of people, regardless of their ADHD status, lots of people have, you know, challenges with attention depending on the situation, right? Or depending on how stressed you are, or what time of day it is or what situation you're in. And so can you talk a little bit more about about that and why you said that sentence that was only as good as your attention.
Sherrie All, PhD 11:01
It's gratifying to hear a reaction like that. I treat other authors exactly the same way. Oh, the hell you say
Hannah Choi 11:14
But, I'm glad you said it. Okay, cuz it's true.
Sherrie All, PhD 11:17
Yeah, it was a hard. It's a hard truth. Right?
Hannah Choi 11:19
It was. Yes, exactly. It was a hard truth that needed to that I needed to hear and that everyone else needs to hear it too.
Sherrie All, PhD 11:26
Yeah, of course. Because I mean, well, let's just think about it. I mean, it's simple mechanics. Your brain stores information, like memory is like the storage of information that gets into your brain. Right? That attention is the gateway, you cannot expect yourself to remember things that you didn't notice in the first place. kind of simple. Um, and, and so, one thing I like to kind of talk about is that, like, I use this analogy of my husband. This, you know, it's been a while now, it's probably been about 15 years since this happened. But remember, when like flat screen TVs were coming out, like the plasma TVs and, and the high definition and he like, got a second job, because you know, they weren't cheap back there were like, several $1,000, right. And so you get a second job, he saves up a bunch of money, he buys the first plasma TV, and he sticks it on the wall. And he plugs it into our satellite service. And an end, the picture is garbage. It is really, really terrible. And we're like, what, what's the deal? Like, this is supposed to be like an amazing picture. It's high definition. So we call up the satellite company. And they're like, Oh, you got a new high definition television? Well, yeah, you need to pay like an extra $5 a month to get the high definition signal, you're not getting the high definition signal. And, and that's really sort of how I think about like attention and memory, that like memories, like the high def TV, right that it but it has to have a high def signal coming into it for it to function correctly. And so so all of the strategies that we know for improving attention are going to improve memory kind of down the line, because you're getting in higher quality data, more data, kind of coming in into your brain. So I usually will use this example when I'm talking about mindfulness and meditation, because that's what mindfulness does for you is that it allows you to kind of like widen your lens and just, you know, choose to be more aware of whatever's kind of happening in that moment. And, and so then you get higher definition data kind of coming into your, into your brain. And so, so it's just really important to remember that, like, if you were kind of like, not present or like, not there Ellen Langer, as a Harvard psychologist who has this really great quote, that, like, "when you're not there, you're not there to know that you're not there". Yeah. Like, you know, your thoughts are often in lala land, you know, you're thinking you're worrying about the future, you're ruminating about the past. You're not paying attention and you're not so you're not going to notice like what somebody said to you or what the news program said and, and so you may have to like, you know, ask for clarification back it up. That yeah, don't like Be nice to your memory. Don't expect it to remember things that that you didn't notice in the first place. It just yeah, that way.
Hannah Choi 14:50
Do you think that the lifestyle that people live and societal impact of maybe you know, social media and just How quickly information is passed to us? Do you think any of that has impacted people's perceptions that they have memory problems? When maybe when we lived like a simpler life when there were like less demands on us or less information coming in all the time? Do you think that that has increased?
Sherrie All, PhD 15:20
I mean, I've felt it, I don't know. I can't, I can't speak to the data on this necessarily, you know, but I think anecdotally, like, there's, there's some actually some really, one thing I have looked into, because one thing I noticed kind of early on, when I started in private practice, and that, you know, I have this habit of opening like, way too many tabs on my right, and, and then and then having to switch it. So So in neuropsychology, we call it set shifting, that if you're having to switch your attention from one to the other, you know, that colloquially, we call it multitasking. And, and it actually, there are some studies to show that that actually takes a really big toll on your performance, that they've done it with college students where they do two tasks, then their processing speed goes down by about the same as like being high on pot. And there's a big cost to kind of like switching back and forth. And but but even with, like computer usage, it's sort of this, the girls also described this thing called, like, the threshold effect, that when you cross over a threshold, like from one room to the other, that sometimes your your memory will kind of reset in and so you'll lose whatever that thing is that you are kind of holding in your working memory, it'll, it'll just kind of go away. And I'll notice that kind of on my computer screen, you know, it'd be like, I'm going to my email to look for this thing. And then I get to my email and like, something will distract me, right. And then it's like, what was that thing? You know? And so, you know, with technology, social media, like we're getting a small bits, right, like that. We're, we're switching very quickly, on a on a really regular basis. I'm sure that that takes a toll on like, sustained attention. Yeah, I think kind of the overall stress level. But the other thing that I wanted to say, kind of related to your question is that, you know, it's some of the stuff we're learning about Instagram and eating disorders and suicide. And you know, that a lot of it's perfectionism, right? And that, so I see a lot of people who suffer from cognitive perfectionism. You know, and even just socially, you know, that when people find out that I'm a memory expert, and then and then they'll find out, you know, so example of something I forgot. They're like, Oh,
Hannah Choi 17:59
Do you ever lie about your job?
Sherrie All, PhD 18:00
So sometimes I do.
Hannah Choi 18:03
Like "I'm in finance".
Sherrie All, PhD 18:04
I was at a party recently, and I made everybody else tell me what they did before I told him what I did, right.
Hannah Choi 18:15
That's awesome.
Sherrie All, PhD 18:17
But again, like, we were hard on our memories, we kind of expect it to be perfect. But the other thing is that the cost of having a bad memory is is real. In and so I don't think that people's fears are unwarranted because, you know, kind of back to your question about simpler society. You know, if you were a farmer, and you had kind of this, you did the same routine, day after day, year after year, in the cost of like, kind of losing your cognitive skills isn't quite as big as what it is for, like a tech industry. Yeah. Right. Your job is to write code. And then you can't focus anymore, you're making costly mistakes, then, you know, our incomes are really dependent on our cognitive skills now. Yeah. And then one other thing that I think is worth noting about sort of the collective fear about cognition is that rates of dementia are legitimately increasing. With the baby boomers turning 65 and aging into we're going to see an increase in the prevalence of dementia. Unlike anything that's ever happened in human history, it's going to see a lot more examples of it where people are struggling because of cognitive decline. And I think that in some, it's, it's happening on an individual level to more and more people where they're seeing family members, you know, loved ones like their old football coach, you know, Really declining and so, so people, you know, people, understandably are going to be really scared about that too.
Hannah Choi 20:07
Right, the more examples that they have of it in their lives, the more fear they will feel themselves.
Sherrie All, PhD 20:13
Yeah. And we're seeing it with concussions, right with all the media attention put on this chronic traumatic encephalopathy that, that, you know, it's pathology that we've seen in the brains of retired NFL players. But it trickles down into where, where people have kind of a misunderstanding about concussion recovery. And if they have one concussion, then they become very fearful. They think it's easy to understand that you would, by watching all the media coverage about these concussions and this neuro pathological disorder that can that can come from that, that people will automatically assume it's not a huge mental leap to think, oh, no, I bumped my head. And now I've lit the fuse on a neuro degenerative disease. That's not really the case. We don't have those kinds of links between like, a regular concussion, you know, for everyday people like ourselves, you know, compared to what's happening to these professional athletes. We all need to remember that? We're not NFL players, right? I am not an NFL player.
Hannah Choi 21:33
Neither am I. Yeah. I can't even watch football.
Sherrie All, PhD 21:38
Like, we expect we expect people to get better over time, like
Hannah Choi 21:43
That's good to hear
Sherrie All, PhD 21:45
Even from more serious brain injuries, people get better. Not all the way sometimes, like with a serious brain injury. But, um, but if you, you know, if you didn't lose consciousness, and, you know, you didn't have like, extended periods of what we call post traumatic amnesia, or like, extreme mental confusion for like, a really long period of time, then, you know, odds are that you're gonna get better. And, but But what you believe about your memory makes a big difference.
Hannah Choi 22:17
Yeah. Right. And if you Yeah, and I think like, if we look, if we look we instead of looking for, we don't notice all the times, we do remember something, we just pay attention to the times that we don't, we look for those negative cases. What about all of this, like, I'm wearing clothes. So obviously, I remembered something today.
Hannah Choi 22:20
You remembered at least one thing today
Hannah Choi 22:27
That that's something that I've been working on myself is like, changing my identity. So I've always thought of myself, I mean, like, I was Forgetful Hannah. And so now I'm trying to change my identity. It's very difficult because I constantly just go to that, well, I'm just a forgetful person. So it's, it's, um, it's hard work. It's hard work to do. And if any of my family and friends are listening, they're probably like, yeah, your identity has not changed. But I'm trying, I'm trying to for myself, just change that. Because maybe if I stopped believing that so much about myself, I will actually come out with a better memory than I believe that I have.
Hannah Choi 23:25
Right? Yeah, change the narrative. You know, yeah, exactly. saying mean things to yourself, like, Stop criticizing yourself. And you people do it with all sorts of things. You know, if you say, like, I'm bad with money, you know, then that, you know, that belief leads to behaviors, and, you know, but, but you can learn how to be better at money, you know, oh, you know, I can't, I can't exercise, you know, but then you start to you shift some of that, and it like behavior and beliefs, kind of, you know, they play with each other. And, but, but they, you know, they go hand in hand. And so sometimes if you try a new behavior, then that can affect your belief. If you try to change your belief, then that can kind of lead you to a new behavior. So, it's worth doing the work because, you know, we really can rewrite those narratives.
Hannah Choi 24:16
Yeah, so much of so much of what I do for myself and also for my clients is, is that and so I have a question. So for myself, just speak for myself, specifically, because I'm myself and I can relate. So should I, I use a lot of strategies to help myself remember things because I know that memory is challenged for me. So I use a lot of different strategies. I use Google Tasks, Google event reminders, I have a planner I use post it notes. I put signs on the door I asked my partner, my husband to help me remember things I have people text me I mean, I have a lot of different strategies that I use. At But sometimes I feel like that's not helping my memory, it's just helping me not, it's just helping me do those things. It's not, like not like a practice to improve my actual memory. So for someone who has a challenges with memory, should is that enough or should there be additional practice to help improve my memory so that maybe I don't need to use all those tools.
Sherrie All, PhD 25:31
I don't think there's any evidence to date that we need to be doing anything different to specifically beef up our memory circuits. You know, I could be proven wrong with science kind of down the line. But the current state of the evidence is that there really doesn't seem to be a difference between cognitive activity, what type of cognitive activity and, and, and, and kind of preventing dementia, that like people who are cognitively active no matter what the cognitive activity is, it can be attention training, it could be processing speed, it could be problem solving, it could be memory strategies, all of those are, you know, they all of those are pretty equal in terms of the data that if you just kind of live a cognitively stimulating life, then your your risk for dementia is is mild to moderately reduced. There are some people who would say, well, oh, this this one, you know, like, I think if there is one type of training platform that maybe has outperformed some others, it's it's more kind of in like, processing speed. And so, so that said, like, I love your systems. Yeah, and, and, and that's the stuff that we would train someone who didn't have those systems and was complaining about their performance, we would actually work to try to get them to implement those types of systems. But the people who have really exceptional memories are ones that have kind of used the strategies of like, organizing information, or using visualization strategies, or just using externalizing strategies, which, you know, you use a lot of those. And so I think the goal for Functional Independence is whatever keeps you independent and doing a good job. Right. And so if you need to externalize those things, great. Right? Like, because that's what's gonna keep you you know, independent performing your job. Doing a good job, getting promoted.
Hannah Choi 27:59
Doing a Podcast, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Well, that that is great to hear. Because, I mean, that's what I do as an executive function coach is I you know, exactly that, right. We teach people strategies to level the playing field in whatever area, they feel challenged. And so
Sherrie All, PhD 28:21
that's why we love working with the beyond booksmart executive function coaches, too, because you guys are so great at like, helping our clients implement, you know, a lot of these daily functioning strategies. And, and then there's more to it too, because if you're, if you're succeeding, then you kind of have that upward positivity spiral that's going to reduce stress. And and that's good for your brain in the long term. And then also, you know, I, I, it makes me sad, Hannah, that you actually beating yourself up about your strategies.
Hannah Choi 29:05
I'm not going to anymore!
Sherrie All, PhD 29:06
Yeah. That's kind of a layer of stress. Right like that.
Hannah Choi 29:10
Yeah. Right.
Sherrie All, PhD 29:11
Strategies. You burst out some cortisol. That's not good for your brain cells. Yeah, right. Right. Yeah. Like celebrate your strategies.
Hannah Choi 29:22
Okay, yeah, I'm going to and I, it feels really good to hear that because I, I don't know why, but I saw it as, like a flaw that I had to use them even though I even said to you before, like, why do people look down on on using strategies and here, I was doing that without even realizing it. And I just know that when I use those strategies, it improves everything for me, it improves. You know, my just my day to day existence. In my, my relationships with everyone, and, and my relationship with myself too, so, so I'm going to use them proudly now.
Hannah Choi 30:10
You're like a systems queen?
Hannah Choi 30:14
Well, you know, I mean I do teach people I like, I hope that I have also done that metacognition piece and figured out what works for me to know. But, what that actually reminds me what you were saying before how important that metacognition piece is, and how important it is to figure out like, how our brains work, and how, what works for us, and what doesn't work for us and why we do those things and why we don't do those other things. And it's just so important. And I feel like it, it feels like to me that that piece is not valued by everyone, because it is you're not, I don't know if I'm right. But it is not immediately valued because you are not actually producing anything when you are sitting and thinking about yourself. No, you're not. Right? You're not like creating anything, you're not making anything, but you are learning so much. And so I just hope that people recognize the value of sitting and thinking about yourself. Yeah, there's so much in there.
Sherrie All, PhD 31:24
And then, you know, putting those systems in place, because, I mean, it's basically like, a lot of what you're describing is like basic project management, you know, and like, I, I took a class where, you know, I had to kind of learn some project management, and I learned that I'm, like, terrible naturally, like, my natural instinct is to just like, jump right into the task, you know, and like, as a group, we're like, no, no, we're gonna, we're gonna wide now we're gonna, you know, lay out are all the steps and like, the timeline and like, oh, okay, but like, going, right? Like what you're saying, like, we put too much value on sort of the output. But if you take a step back, like when you do your, your, your task list, you're probably going to get so much more done that day, than if you hadn't if you just jumped right into the thing, because you forget all those other things like,
Hannah Choi 32:27
yeah, or I didn't think about like, well, let's see, I'm feeling I have a lot of energy right now. So I should do the thing that's going to be the most energy sucking and then save the other things for later or, like, I'm feeling very unmotivated right now. So I should just do that, like little things that don't take much that might make me feel better. So yeah. So yeah, so like the the same what you were just saying, like, thinking that the thinking about yourself is the same as stopping to plan a little bit before you jump in. So totally, yeah. So much value in that. So talking about strategies, what are your go to strategies for people to, to remember stuff? And I guess this can apply to anybody. I mean, a lot of us coaches work with students, but a lot of our clients are adults too. And, and I imagined that the strategies aren't really any different from between younger and older people.
Sherrie All, PhD 33:22
Yeah, they're pretty universal. Right? Okay, so well, because probably because I have a background in clinical neuropsychology, it's, it's important for me to first kind of diagnose the problem, right. So our strategies need to be really customized to whatever situation a person's having, right. And so, so there are kind of some universal strategies that that we can teach people. But it's, it's never a one size fits all. And, and, and so it's important to kind of match the strategy with the person, because that also, it's just not feasible. It's like, physically impossible to do all the strategies all the time. So so what I try to, you know, kind of empower my clinicians to do is to have sort of a toolbox. And I think that's kind of what beyond booksmart does a good job of too. It's like, you know, that the executive function coaches like you guys do have like a nice system and program, but but your executive function coaches have enough of kind of a toolbox to be able to kind of pick and choose to sort of match for like, Whatever, whatever the situation is. So anyway, I think go to strategies are number one, particularly when we have folks with attention problems, working memory problems, is that we try to get them to slow down a little bit. It's If they can, right, or be strategic about fast and slow, and, and so so, so will will, one of our first steps is to actually try to get them to engage in some sort of mindfulness practice. And what's nice about the world of mindfulness is that there are, you know, 50 bajillion different practices that we can, you know, choose from, because that's also not a one size fits all, there's people who really resonate with breathwork. And then there are people who love, you know, guided imagery, and then there are people, you know, you know, I think open monitoring, you know, it's sort of like, sit for one minute and just, you know, notice what's happening and be in the present moment. That can be great. For some people, I think it can be really torture for people who have attention problems and have sort of a really active Default Mode Network, where their minds are just kind of going all the time. It's what So, but, but, you know, kind of having a little bit of that cultural debate of like, okay, slow down, be present, be engaged, maybe start to notice what's happening in your body, kind of be present. Number two, would be using a lot of those externalizing interventions. So, so making lists, setting alarms, I love "can't miss reminders". This is we use a program called Cog Smart that's out of the VA system, it was originally developed for people with brain injuries and severe mental illness. And then they have a new program for people with mild cognitive impairment, which like maybe some of the earlier stages of dementia. And, and so they'll you know, put up you know, it put up like a little post it on your coffee maker that says walk the dog, you know, because you might, you might forget to walk the dog, I'm never going to forget to make coffee in the morning. So just kind of putting some of those reminders in sort of an obvious place. Another strategy they use is self-talk. And so that can kind of help you stay on target, as you're kind of going from one thing to the other. And that you kind of say, you know, I'm gonna go to the kitchen, I'm gonna get some yogurt, you know, and I'm going there, I'm gonna say, and you can say it out loud. You can say it to yourself in your head. Yogurt. Yeah. Yogurt. Yogurt. Yeah. So, so So those are some of my favorites. I think, you know, and so those are all kind of on the like, attention part of of the pathway to memory. But we also have other strategies for helping you memorize things, right. Like, and, and that's important for when the moment requires it. Like, where are you parked in a parking garage, for instance, right, like stopping and taking like a little mental snapshot and kind of rehearsing it or sort of visualizing it.
Hannah Choi 38:00
I loved that section of the book. It was so fun to do that, to do the list. And then to try to remember the list and then reuse the different strategies. It was very cool. Yeah, it was very convincing.
Sherrie All, PhD 38:13
Yeah. And so, you know, you can take some steps to get things to stick in your brain better, when that's needed. But it's not needed for everything right in. And so especially now, like, and this is something that, that we've been kind of debating in, I guess, kind of wringing your hands around since ever since humans became literate. And we just don't memorize things the same way that we used to, because we don't really have to write and so the newest iteration of that is the internet. And, and so you can even tell the difference between like Boomers and Gen Xers compared to like Millennials of like, how long I'm a Gen Xer. And I will spend a good 10 minutes trying to remember a fact about something. And my Millennial friends, like have already looked it up on their phone. Right.
Hannah Choi 39:08
Right. Yeah.
Sherrie All, PhD 39:14
Just grew up with like, you know, 10-year-old encyclopedia. Yeah.
Hannah Choi 39:21
Like, oh, I hope it's in the index. That's really funny.
Sherrie All, PhD 39:27
I mean, so that's the newest version of it, right? But as a species, we've been doing that externalizing ever since we had the ability to write things down and then go back and read them the way things are now. You don't have to memorize everything. I think you're probably going to be okay. I don't think it's causing Alzheimer's disease. The only what's causing Alzheimer's disease is that people are living way longer than they used to. You know, but so anyway, but when what when the moments right, Like when you need to memorize something like if you're an actor, and you're you have to memorize things, or you're getting a speech, or you need to, you're at a job and you need to memorize, like a certain, you know, list of steps to kind of make that automatic, then, then those those strategies can be helpful, you know, but yeah, but but I think that sometimes people assume that they have to kind of do that for everything. And then they worried because we're not doing it like we used to. It's gonna make me have Alzheimer's.
Hannah Choi 40:34
Okay, good to know. Not, I could be wrong,
Sherrie All, PhD 40:41
to always be open to being wrong. Right.
Hannah Choi 40:43
Right. Well, I hope you're not. So one additional thing that, that I got a very clear message in your book is that the pretty much the most important thing that we can do for our memories is exercise. And so can you talk a little bit about that?
Sherrie All, PhD 41:03
Yeah. So I do, I had been saying it's like the number one best thing you can do for your brain? And it probably is, although I am starting to tweak that a little bit that everything is, is memory strategies are customizable. So everybody has like a different? I think everybody actually does have like, a different probably priority. Number one. No, like, if you're a smoker, I'm gonna want you to quit smoking, before I make you get on a treadmill. I have an idea. Yeah. Like our individual, right, you know, it's Sleep, sleep is really important too. And we're learning a lot more about that. The reason that for a long time, we've been saying that exercise is the is the best strategy is because it's had the best science up to this point. And by best science, it means that we can do experiments. And so we have some really good causal data to show that when people are physically active, they get have bigger brains, the memory circuits in their brain are bigger, they grow new brain cells, and it actually increases the rate of brain cell growth. And we haven't seen that with any other type of lifestyle strategy, except for stress goes in the other direction, we know that. So the stress hormone cortisol keeps you from growing new brain cells. And, and so so, you know, managing stress may be you know, the opposite of, of, you know, kind of the same as exercise and, but, but the quality of the data is, is really, really strong. And so, so that's why we really kind of hang out, hang our hats on that one, because it lends itself to doing experiments. And, you know, whereas things like socialization,
Hannah Choi 43:04
It's harder to measure, harder to measure
Sherrie All, PhD 43:07
And harder to manipulate. You know, make people get friends.
Hannah Choi 43:13
Just be more social.
Sherrie All, PhD 43:16
And like it!
Hannah Choi 43:19
Enjoy it don't get stressed. Meet five friends have five 10-minute conversations. measure your heart rate, or whatever. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, it really shows you I mean, that's a great example for how research is really beneficial, or can be really beneficial, and why it is so important to research things
Sherrie All, PhD 43:45
And also to kind of get some help. And so one of the things in the book is for people, one of the early exercises is for you to kind of gauge like what is your overall risk, right? Like where I use this brain 401k investment analogy in the book that, you know, our risk for dementia is really predicted more by how much brain cells and skills you have sort of stored in this cognitive reserve, and everybody kind of varies in those in how much reserves they have. And we can measure that by seeing how, you know, people with higher reserve have people with bigger brains have a bigger resistance to dementia. And, and that you can build your reserve throughout your life, like through these different lifestyle areas. But one of the early exercises in the book is for you to kind of do a self assessment, you kind of rate your portfolio, your brain 401k portfolio, you know, so am I, I may be doing really well in mental stimulation because I have a mentally stimulating job, but I'm not exercising a whole lot and I have a lot of stress. And so those are kind of the two areas where I need to maybe beef up my own individual efforts, right compared to somebody else, who, you know, maybe exercises a whole lot, but you know, he's just retired and it's not, you know, socializing as much as they used to maybe not learning new things and so that their own strategy is going to be different than than mine in. And so really kind of personal. It's all custom, right? We're human strengths and weaknesses, and we gotta figure it kind of focus our efforts.
Hannah Choi 45:29
Yeah, and that's, I guess that's, again, where that metacognition piece comes into, and really spending the time to look at your life and to look at how your memory impacts you, and how, and what areas you maybe need to, you know, like, spend more time with or, or back off on or whatever it is. So, in your book, you cover a variety of different areas like exercise, and socialization and learning new things, which are three that you've already mentioned. In addition to those, what are some others that people should consider when they're thinking about their brain health?
Sherrie All, PhD 46:06
So some new data that's come out about sleep is especially for the risk of Alzheimer's disease is that when when we're asleep, when you're in deep sleep, the glial cells, they're these like support cells that surround the neurons in your brain, they actually shrink by about 20%. And it allows the spinal fluid to come in and flush out toxins, oh, it's probably like the lymphatic system of the brain and clay and so it's, they call it the glymphatic system, the glial cells. And one of the things that gets flushed out is the amyloid plaque that causes Alzheimer's disease. We all make amyloid plaque and, but, but normally, it's going to be flushed out through the spinal fluid.
Hannah Choi 46:58
Fascinating.
Sherrie All, PhD 46:59
And it's only becomes problematic when it sticks in your brain and starts to kind of choke off your neurons. And so they're Matthew Walker is a neuroscientist who's written he wrote a book called Why We sleep and then he's he's runs a research lab where they are putting out papers and, and so they've actually found a correlation between people who sleep less in their 50s 60s and 70s have more amyloid plaque in their brain. We don't it's it's a correlation. So we don't know which causes which it could be that amyloid causes you to stop sleeping much or that not sleeping enough, you know, causes the amyloid to build up. But that's actually like most of our dementia prevention strategies are focused on trying to help you kind of just maintain as many neurons as you can. But this is actually a little bit more directly impacting the pathology of Alzheimer's, that, you know, if you get really good deep sleep, then, you know, you may actually be preventing the pathology of Alzheimer's like flushing that amyloid out.
Hannah Choi 48:02
Wow, that's so interesting.
Sherrie All, PhD 48:05
REM sleep is important for helping the amygdala is this little structure in your brain, that's kind of your fear detector, it's the thing that sort of sets off the fight or flight response. And it's kind of always looking out for things that it thinks might kill you. And then and then when it thinks that something might kill you, then it triggers you know, you to release all that cortisol and have those kinds of exaggerated responses. And you have the limbic hijacking, and you can't concentrate and you're, you know, you know, producing toxic chemicals to your brain cells, and you're keeping your brain from growing new brain cells. So, the amygdala if you lose one night asleep, your amygdala is 60%. more active.
Hannah Choi 48:49
Wow. That's not good.
Sherrie All, PhD 48:56
A recipe for yelling at your kid.
Hannah Choi 48:58
Yeah. And no wonder, right.
Sherrie All, PhD 49:03
And sleep is important for that kind of calming of the amygdala, most of your REM sleep later in the night, and an epic and if you have middle insomnia, if you're up for more than half an hour, the entire sleep architecture of your night sort of starts over where you don't actually won't get enough REM cycles. So you do more deep sleep early in the night. And so it's important to just try to maybe like sleep through the night. So so when we have people who talk about sleep problems, we we, as a practice, send them to a sleep center. Study. We need to know what's going on. Do you have sleep apnea? Do you have there's a cognitive behavior therapy for insomnia CBT-I that's very behaviorally based and so it's just about following kind of some simple rules to you know, make sure that you're going to bed when you're tired. And enough that you're, you know, kind of helping your body sort of reengage those natural circadian rhythms maybe not, you know, having like a caffeine curfew, not knowing what time it is at night is like a really big piece of that too, because that sticks that you go through when you make four o'clock. It's got like, two more hours.
Hannah Choi 50:23
Yes. You do the math, the insomnia math. Yes. My sister went through the CBT for insomnia. And it just really, really, really helped her.
Sherrie All, PhD 50:36
Yeah, it helped me, I did it. You know, I yeah, I got really bad insomnia during the pandemic and found out I have sleep apnea. So I went on. Yeah, and if you've ever tried CPAP, and you feel like you've tried it a few years ago, you're like, Oh, it's terrible. I can't stand it. Like, the machines are getting better and better.
Hannah Choi 50:55
Oh, that's good to know. Yeah. And so have you noticed? And have you noticed an impact on your on your awakening? You're Awake, awake, life,
Sherrie All, PhD 51:04
How I feel during the day? Yeah. One hundred percent..
Hannah Choi 51:07
Yeah, that's great.
Sherrie All, PhD 51:09
I would walk around, like, face tired, or time focusing and have like, you know, and have kind of a hair trigger. And yeah, wait, and, and I've been able to lose it since then. But I think one of the biggest pieces, because I told this, the CBT therapist, I was like, You're not taking my phone away. It's not just I thought I was psychologist or a that makes me a really terrible patient. Right.
Hannah Choi 51:37
Right. Sure. I know what to do. Right? I'm only here because someone told me to.
Sherrie All, PhD 51:46
So, so we tell people about like, like, we'll give them information about sleep hygiene. You know, those are things like, you know, limit screens at night have, you know, that kind of stuff? I go, I go I'm not, I'm not giving up my phone. She's like, okay, that's okay. You know. So what we've devised is that because I have a really active default mode network that I think people with ADHD we're seeing, have that. And which means that when I wake up in the middle of the night, I just start thinking about all sorts of things, right. And I turn on a podcast. Like maybe right now someone is listening to us on this podcast.
Hannah Choi 52:31
We're happy to keep your company.
Sherrie All, PhD 52:34
I'll turn on a podcast, it has to be like a certain level of interesting because I'm going to fall back asleep. So maybe, maybe it's not this one.
Hannah Choi 52:41
Yeah, maybe it's just too engaging. They're not good for the middle of the night.
Sherrie All, PhD 52:45
It depends. But I have a little post it. It's a stack of post it notes that I take to my phone to cover up the clock, like, so I can turn my podcast on, but I don't know what time it is.
Hannah Choi 52:58
Yeah, that's so smart. I love that she told you that she let you keep it. Right. And that goes back to make the strategy work for yourself. Yeah. And, and, and it's okay. If if whatever tweak you have done to the strategy is different than what they say you should do. If it works for you, then then that's good enough. Okay.
Sherrie All, PhD 53:19
Yeah, it's collaborative, right? Yeah, no, none of these interventions could be to top down because people are gonna be resistant. And then they can't do it. Yeah. Right. We all have issues with authority.
Hannah Choi 53:31
Right. Yeah. Right. I'll just suffer instead of doing what you suggested. Well, thank you so much. This has just been such a great conversation. Is there anything else you want to add that we missed?
Sherrie All, PhD 53:47
Well, get the book.
Hannah Choi 53:49
Yes. Are sure you guys have to read this book Neuroscience of Memory by Sherrie All, Dr. Sherrie All it's so good. It's so good. And I love I just love how you wrote it. There was one thing you said like you it was a list of things that can be impacted in you. And you said you had the list. And then you said "...and stuff like that". I was like, Yes. Like you get you just wrote "and stuff like" that in a book. I was just so great. Because I feel like there's so much pressure out there to just have everything be on like super professional sounding. And that's what I want to read because that's what I can relate to. And it was just it was so accessible. Such a great book. So thank you.
Sherrie All, PhD 54:34
Yeah, I like to think of it as kind of like your girlfriends guide to your brain.
Hannah Choi 54:37
Yeah, that's what it felt like it was really it's really, really nice. So I highly recommend everybody find it
Sherrie All, PhD 54:44
And the audio book, I got to narrate it. So you can listen to me!
Hannah Choi 54:47
Oh, cool.
Hannah Choi 54:50
That's great. You have a good voice
Sherrie All, PhD 54:51
And if you listen while you sleep and maybe you sleep with me.
Hannah Choi 54:55
I love it. And where else can our listeners find you?
Sherrie All, PhD 55:01
So you can find me at Sherrieall.com. That's my page that I keep for speaking and writing. And then if you want to access our clinics were at cogwellness.com. We have a location in Chicago, and then in Chevy Chase, Maryland, and hopefully some other states as we continue to grow. Because, you know, we're really passionate about helping people improve their cognition. And there are other practices that do what we do. And, you know, but, but I think that, particularly for some of the early stage dementia work, where we're one of the few people that are kind of helping people implement a lot of those recommendations from neuro psychologists. And so, you know, we just like to be able to help a lot more people. But so, so clinically, we're there for now, and but hopefully, hopefully near you soon.
Hannah Choi 55:52
Yeah, great. Well, thank you again, and I love I love how there are so many practical things that people can do to improve their memory and decrease or maybe not decrease, but improve the chances of living independently longer. And I love that. So thank you for all the work that you do. And I'm sure that that everyone out there that has met with you is just so with you. And your and your practitioners have been so grateful for the support. Yeah, maybe make it a little less scary, right. less scary. Yeah.
Sherrie All, PhD 56:27
And hire a Beyond BookSmart executive function coach. Yeah, put these things in practice.
Hannah Choi 56:34
Yeah. And like what we were saying earlier, you know, these, figuring out exactly what strategies are going to work for you. It is nice to have the support of someone else that has like a sort of, like a like at outset an outsider viewpoint and can help help you get out of your own head.
Sherrie All, PhD 56:53
Don't judge yourself for all your systems, right?
Hannah Choi 56:55
That's right! No judgment, this is a judgment free zone.
Sherrie All, PhD 56:58
That's right! Celebrate!
Hannah Choi 56:59
Yay. Yes, yes. I am so excited to go forth and use my strategies proudly. And I'm and I'm just going to keep continuing to spread the word that it's okay to use strategies. You do not have to remember everything on your own.
Sherrie All, PhD 57:14
You can't you cannot you can't. That's right. This, those five people are
Sherrie All, PhD 57:18
Like four or five.
Hannah Choi 57:19
Yeah, four, probably four.
Sherrie All, PhD 57:20
And they're probably probably lying anyway.
Hannah Choi 57:22
yeah, actually, just like quickly use some, like, they have a device in their ear. All right. Well, thank you so much.
Sherrie All, PhD 57:33
Likewise, this has been a pleasure. And thank you. Thank you.
Hannah Choi 57:38
And that's our show for today. Be sure to check out the show notes for links to all of Sherrie's resources, plus some more that I found to share with you. If you're like me and are challenged by your working memory, I really hope this episode has motivated you to find and use even more strategies that help you remember more stuff, which in turn will help you feel more confident. I know it's made a huge difference for me. Thank you for taking time out of your day to listen. If you like what you're hearing, please share focus forward with your colleagues and your family and your friends. You can subscribe to focus forward on Apple and Google podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts. If you listen on Apple podcasts, give us a boost by giving us that five star rating. Sign up for our newsletter at www.beyondbooksmart.com/podcast. We'll let you know when new episodes drop and we'll share information related to the topic. Thanks for listening