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The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast
1KHO 721: Anybody Can Have an Extraordinary Memory | Dr. Majid Fotuhi, The Invincible Brain
01:01:33
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- [00:01]
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- [00:31]
Ginny Eric
Welcome to the 1000 Hours Outside podcast. My name is Ginny Eric. I'm the founder of 1000 Hours Outside and I have just read an incredible book. There is also an app that's going
- [00:40]
Podcast Host / Sponsor Announcer
to be available as well by the
- [00:42]
Ginny Eric
time the book is out. The book is called the Invincible Brain. This is all about how everyone's worried that they're losing their mind. The clinically proven plan to age, proof your brain and stay sharp for life. Author Dr. Majid Fatoui is here. Welcome.
- [00:56]
Dr. Majid Fatouhi
Thank you very much for having me on your podcast, Ginny.
- [00:59]
Ginny Eric
So you have got such a remarkable backstory. You have been doing working with the brain and memory and dementia and Alzheimer's for over 30 years. In fact, you've even had the opportunity to hold brains in your hand when people, when people pass away and you're able to be a part of the autopsy. And so the book is fantastic. You've even got pictures of what these different brains can look like. You've had an incredible career. I would love, love for you to just tell us, even today you're continuing to teach at John Hopkins and George Washington University and Harvard Medical School. But what got you into this line of work?
- [01:38]
Dr. Majid Fatouhi
I became interested in the brain when I was a kid. My father told my father talked to me always about how wonderful our brain is. When I was a kid, like a 70 year old, 80 year old. When I was 14 years old, I actually wrote a book about how to become successful in life as a teenager. I wrote about the importance of persistence and having a passion about your future and things like that. When I was in college, I took a course titled Physiological Psychology, which really was fascinating and I totally fell in love with studying the brain. I went to Johns Hopkins and I obtained my doctorate degree in neuroscience where I studied brain at a molecular and cellular level. I went to Harvard Medical School afterwards where I received my md. I came back to Johns Hopkins for my neurology residency and I stayed at Johns Hopkins an assistant professor of neurology. I continue to study the brain and learn about the huge capacity we have in our brains that often we don't tap into over the years, I've seen patients with all aspects of cognitive issues, including ADHD. I loved seeing patients because my patients were from 8 years old to 85 years old or. No, there was no upper limit. I had a handful of patients in their 90s as well. And I love the kids part because I love kids. I love hanging out with kids. And when I was medical school, I considered becoming a child neurologist. But I realized that the field of memory and neuroscience is so broad and there's so many things I could do and my own research was in that area. So I went this route. So that's my story. I retired from clinical practice three years ago because I felt the program I had developed was so successful. Yeah, and we had patients in our office seven days a week from 7am, from 8am to 8pm Seven days a week, like a Saturday night, seven o', clock, our office is still full. You know, we really had an incredible success. I had 25 staff and we had to work them in shifts because, you know, obviously they couldn't work 12 hour days. And I realized there's a need for what I'm doing and I can't just provide this for my patient population near Washington D.C. and that's what I've decided to do. To write a book, prepare an app, online course, give public lectures, travel around the world and talk about how people can improve their brain functions at any age. I just had an article published in Newsweek about ADHD and how people can improve their attention through what I call the five pillars of brain health.
- [04:25]
Podcast Host / Sponsor Announcer
What a career.
- [04:26]
Ginny Eric
And so remarkable that you are booked solid 12 hour days every day of the week. And so you said, I'm going to take this to the world and you write the book and I'll put a link to the app as well. And your course, everything will be available by the time you listen to this podcast. And you can pre order the book the Invincible Brain and so that you can have it. I mean, this is something that you talk about how when you go places that everyone is worried about their memory. You write this. It seems like everywhere I go, people tell me they are worried about their memories. Often they are concerned that having memory problems is a sure sign of Alzheimer's disease. I assure them, and I want to assure you that most of the time this is not the case. And you bring this up several times in the book, that people are nervous about what's going on with their brain and with their memory. So can you talk about the statistics?
- [05:16]
Podcast Host / Sponsor Announcer
You said that actually the rates of
- [05:18]
Ginny Eric
Alzheimer's are decreasing and that the age of dementia onset is going up.
- [05:24]
Dr. Majid Fatouhi
If you listen to the news, you think that everybody has Alzheimer's disease. Everywhere you go, people talk about, my memory is bad, I'm getting Alzheimer's disease. My grandfather has Alzheimer's disease, I'm memory, I have memory problems. I'm sure I'm going to be like that. And I feel horrible about that because that is so wrong. Alzheimer's association has done a wonderful job of educating the world, and especially the United States about Alzheimer's disease. But I think they've gone a little too far in promoting the awareness. It's gone a little too far to the extreme where every person worries about Alzheimer's disease. I think it's good for people to be conscious of how they can take care of their brain so that they will remain sharp in their 70s, 80s, and appreciate that there are many things they can do to take care of their brain. The way I like to talk to people about this is to compare the brain and teeth. See, even 50 years ago, many people who reached their 70s would have dentures. It was so common to lose your teeth in your 50s and 60s. And you know, most grandparents had dentures. I mean, dentures was a thing. And these days I can see people, you know, changing their dentures. I mean, there are still people who have dentures, but average person no longer needs denture. Why? It's because people figured out that you can take care of your teeth with daily habits that ensures you will have a set of healthy and beautiful teeth when you get to your 80s. And same applies to your brain. If you don't do anything in your brain, you get the equivalent of cavities in your brain. Your brain, just like your teeth, can potentially fall apart if you don't take care of it. Your car falls apart if you don't take care of it. And if you do certain things every day, you will keep your brain healthy and you will not need a brain denture when you get your 80s.
- [07:26]
Ginny Eric
It's so interesting because you talk about how with all of. With a lot of the other rest of our health concerns, like teeth or like the way that we, you know, the way that our bodies operate. You can see it, you can see your teeth, you can see your teeth deteriorating. You can see your muscles. But you say with your brain, you can't see it it. And I had never really considered it either, Dr. Fatou. So I loved reading this book, the invincible brain. You say, it's strange to me that most people Never intentionally try to improve their memories. People often think memories should just be there working perfectly all the time without any effort. The information just go up to the brain and stay there. And when they. When it doesn't, then they get concerned. So I hadn't really thought about daily habits of working on my brain. So that's why I'm so glad that I read your book. You talk about a man that won the US Memory competition. I didn't even know that this was a thing. And he's a friend of yours, so can you talk about that? I'm trying to find him in my notes. But you'll know.
- [08:35]
Dr. Majid Fatouhi
Nelson Dallas is who, when he was in college, was studying computer science. His grandmother in France died of Alzheimer's disease. And so he became concerned that he may develop it one day, and he decided to improve his memory to prevent that happening to him. And he went a little overboard. He started doing memory games and memory training, two, three hours a day sometimes. And there was a local competition in Miami and he won. And then he said, hey, I'm good at this. And then he did the state competition and he won. And then he did the US Memory championship, and he won. And actually I was there at the event. I was the keynote speaker as a part of this event in New York. And he memorized deck of cards in 50 seconds. Like they give him deck of cards and they go. And then he knows it, and he can memorize 20 decks of cards in a row. Now, the thing is, he was not born a memory champion. He was a computer science person. He was not even in the field of literature, reading books, things like that. He was in numbers and math and physics. So the point is, anybody can improve their memory, and anybody has the potential to have an extraordinary memory. The problem is that people think information should just register. And I don't blame them, because you go to a wedding and, you know, 15 years later, you remember that wedding. Let's say it was your sister's wedding. Or somebody calls to you, you remember it and you didn't try. The reason you remember the wedding is because it was emotional. It meant something to go. Obviously you remember your own wedding really well, because it's not just any. Any day. It's your wedding day. You remember what happened that day, what else you did. Because it's emotional. Our brain is wired in such a way that things are emotional register. We don't have to try to memorize what happened in the wedding. However, when you meet someone like Dr. Majeet Fatouhi, my name is Not a typical name. And you just met me and I would love to see you again. But chances are we're not going to be seeing each other every day. So you will not remember my name five or so now, and that's okay because you know, you meet so many people every day and there is no reason for you to remember everything. Every day you wear different things or eat different things and your brain is not going to remember every lunch you ever had, every dress you award, because it's not, you know, it's not important. Our brain remember things that are important for survival, things that are highly emotional. So people then make the mistake like, you know, why didn't I remember Dr. Fatui's name? Because there's nothing emotional about my name. I'm just one expert among the many other experts they've heard. However, if you want to remember names easily, there is a way to do it. Just like there's a way to play the guitar or cook or learn anything you can learn to improve your memory. Your memory is a skill that can be improved upon. Just like piano lessons or you know, cooking lessons or crocheting or whatever, you know, you can learn it. I hope people stop complaining about their memory and take steps to number one, improve their brain functions as an organ. Do maintenance of their brain. And number two, if they really want to have exceptional memory, make that a priority. You know, many people tell me I want to have memory that's impressive. And I say okay, well give me half an hour a day for three weeks, I'll do that. You will memorize a deck of cards. You'll memorize 100 words forward, backwards, you can do it. And they said, well, don't have half an hour a day for that long. I said, well then it's like saying, why can't I play the guitar? Well, it's not going to come out of nowhere. So you have to practice.
- [12:40]
Ginny Eric
Yeah, I mean there's so much hope there and that you can do a lot. If you go to your website, which I went to check out because you have ideas there of how to memorize the deck of cards. It is wild that Nelson was able to memorize the order of a deck of cards in 45 seconds. He is a five time US memory champion. So I went to your website because you have instructions there. It's Dr. Fatou.com. i'll put it in the show notes. But how you know how to do that? How would you memorize a deck of cards? And you talk about it, make it fun, get, you know, Give it a little bit of a game element to pull those emotions in. And you talk about how these changes, you just said it, you're like, give me 30 minutes a day for three weeks. Like, these changes can be immense. So you talked about a woman named Carol who basically it's like almost like reverse aging the brain where it's like her brain became this many years younger. And these are 12 week programs. This isn't something that takes years. You even say that you can see little hints of anatomical change after two 45 minute training sessions, certainly in just five days. So can you talk, talk about what is changing?
- [13:53]
Dr. Majid Fatouhi
Yes. I find that incredible to see studies such as the MRI research that shows even two 45 minute sessions of learning grammar can increase the brain volume in small amounts. But anatomical change, like your brain, I mean, when you look at the brain, MRIs before and after, you see little dots. And of course, if you study a language for three months, let's say three hours a day for three months, then that part of brain grows so much that if you put before and after pictures, you can see which brain was the brain that studied. So our brain is like a muscle and when you challenge it, it grows. You have new neurons, you have new synapses, you have new blood vessels. The volume of the brain literally increases when you do brain training. And it doesn't matter what brain training. You could become a memory champion. You could take classes to do mahjong, or you could work on your sudoku skills, or do all sorts of brain games, memory thing, whatever you do challenges the parts of the brain for those functions. There's a part of the brain called the cortex, which is the outer layer. It's like a blanket that covers all other brain areas. There's a part of brain called the hippocampus, which is the size of your thumb. One on the right, one on the left. The cortex and hippocampus are the seat of your cognitive abilities. This is where your cognitive abilities, reading, writing, typing, doing your taxes, arguing with your spouse, teaching your kids, this is where all those things come from. Now, cortex and hippocampus have the highest degree of malleability. They can change. See the part of the brain for breathing or heart rate deep in the brain doesn't change that much. Whether you're 40 or 20 or 80, that part is just in charge of your breathing, in charge of your heart rate. No matter what you do, it's not going to change. However, this outer part of the brain, which is for cognitive abilities, and this memory part of the brain for learning new things have high degree of malleability. They can change a lot. They can change a lot through the five pillars of brain health, which are exercise, sleep, nutrition, stress reduction, and brain training. So far, we've been talking about brain training as one way that you can literally grow and make your brain stronger. Brain. I think it's important that we focus on childhood education, because when you help kids develop a stronger brain, you are helping them to form a foundation for the future of their brains. As I mentioned to you, my interest about the brain began when I was a kid. I remember my father telling me about a young girl who was born without arms. And out of necessity, she had learned to hold a paintbrush between her toes and could make the most beautiful paintings. And she had also learned how to open doors and even cook and get around the house, always just lifting her foot and just grabbing things and. And, you know, you and I can't do those things with our toes, but if we have to, we can develop and expand that part of brain that controls our toes and make that part of our brain so much bigger and, you know, do more things with our toes. So our brain has a lot of capacity. And I think it's best that we help kids build strong foundations for their brains, learn a lot, and have strong foundation so they have a better brain when they get older.
- [17:42]
Podcast Host / Sponsor Announcer
Yes.
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Ginny Eric
You say creating a robust brain will make it more resilient to any damage that can happen with aging. So talking about kids, and this is one of the things that actually comes up a lot in the book, and we're talking about brain training, and, you know, could you memorize a deck of cards? And a lot of times we think of just kind of like the classroom type learning. But you talk in the book a lot about movement. So the book is called the Invincible Brain. And you say juggling. Juggling is something that would improve your brain, the way that your brain functions.
- [18:13]
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- [21:40]
Ginny Eric
You talked about that there's all sorts of different kinds of intelligence. One of your pet peeves is when people think other people aren't smart, that the other. That the other folks are less intelligent than they are. So you talk about the quarterback like the intelligence of a quarterback to be able to throw the ball to the exact distance to the exact person. You're like the professor who's teaching chemistry might not have that skill. So you're talking about that. You talk about your own own life where you're ballroom dancing and you did a Dancing with the Stars fundraiser. So a lot of parents listen in a lot of kids. Can you talk about the connection between movement and and brain health?
- [22:21]
Dr. Majid Fatouhi
For some reason, movement is one of the best ways you can improve your brain functions. It wouldn't make sense. Like why moving my body will improve my brain functions. And the link has to do with the blood flow. When you move your body, you move your muscles, you increase your heart rate, you increase blood flow to the brain. Now here's an interesting thing. When you move your body, you also increase levels of a protein called bdnf, Brain Drive Neurotrophic factor. You can think of BDNF as like a fertilizer for the brain. It has a lot of neuroprotective properties for the brain. And the BDNF that goes in the brain is actually generated in the muscle. So when you exercise, when you move your body, then you have more BDNF generated in your muscles and which then go to the brain and help with the brain functions. The other thing that happens is that when you move your body, you increase the number of mitochondria. Mitochondria are this little small generated producing factories inside every cell. So every cell in your body, your skin, your eyes, your heart, everywhere, they need fuel, they need gas to do the things they do. And you can't just pump gas into the cells. Obviously the cells have a way of generating ATP from the food you eat. And, and that ATP is generated inside these organelles, inside this factory. It's called mitochondria. Now, for some reason, again, it's so interesting that the way the system is set up, when you move your body, when you exercise, you increase the number of mitochondria everywhere. Not only your muscles in your brain, your heart and your skin, everywhere. And when your brain cells have more fuel, they function better. Now when you exercise, you also reduce inflammation in the brain. You also grow the size of the brain. I can talk for two hours about the benefits of moving your body and exercise for brain health. I think that exercise, moving your body intentionally is the fountain of youth, is the most important thing for keeping your brain strong. Whether you're a kid with ADHD or whether you're a college student with busy schedule, whether you're a mom who has like 50 things to take care of and whether your grandparents that you want to stay sharp. Exercise is a no brainer. You got to do it.
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Ginny Eric
Can you talk about in particular the power of racket sports?
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Dr. Majid Fatouhi
It seems that racket sports are one notch better than like walking or running. The idea is that when you play racket sports, I play tennis myself. Is that you not only exercising, you are constantly thinking the ball is coming in, I'm gonna go there. It's about strategy. I'm gonna throw the ball just there and not there. And also throwing the ball there and not there is learning. You learn and you practice and you're using your, your brain to do precisions. See, I also swim, I also run, I also bike a lot. And those are more static because when I'm biking, I just need to look around that I don't hit anyone. But I'm just biking. I'm not doing a strategic thinking when I'm swimming, I just swim. I just enjoy the silence. I have the sort of me time I have that I'm just enjoying myself and I just think about things and resolve things in my head. But when I play tennis, I can't think about things. I need to see where I'm going to hit the ball and I'm going to throw the ball and how I'm going to be prepared for the next ball. Racket sports are a combination of brain training and physical body training.
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Ginny Eric
Yeah, yeah. And there are really a lot of things that are similar. Juggling would be similar. Ballroom dancing would be similar. The quarterback on the football team would be similar. All of these sports, it's like. And these activities, it's movement plus thinking, which is a lot of what kids like to do. They like to do things like that.
- [26:30]
Dr. Majid Fatouhi
But one thing you mentioned that I'd like to elaborate on is a different forms of intelligence. And that's extremely important for children. Unfortunately, we have these things called the IQ tests, which they do disservice to kids and educators because the assumption is that if you do well on these IQ tests, are you smart? And if you don't do well on them, well, sorry, you're a nice person, but you're not smart. And that's a huge mistake. Who is there to say that math, physics, logic and processing speed are intelligence? But having the ability to play the piano well, having the ability to be able to connect to people emotionally, being able to make these beautiful paintings are not intelligence? I mean, that's criminal. How could you say someone who can make a beautiful masterpiece of an art or be a, you know, a star pianist are not intelligent? That's insulting. And I think that needs to stop. But until that stops, which is not going to be anytime soon, parents need to appreciate that they're smart in their own ways. Many parents think that their neighbor, the cousin, the in laws may be smarter in some ways than they are. Or they may think that are more stupid in some ways that why can't they do this right? Like what's the difficult about that they need to have humility, that they have a package of innate talents. And that innate talents they have is different than the innate talents of their neighbor or coworker. And they also have to appreciate that they can also acquire any talents. So for example, a person may have an innate talent for connecting with people. Like you seem like a person who can connect with someone and that's a great talent. But this is not to say that you can't be a pianist or it's not to say that you can't be an opera singer. You can do anything you want because everything comes from cortex, hippocampus. And the cortex and hippocampus have the ability to be modified. The accordance and the campus are biological tissues. They don't care if it's the front or the back or the corner, whichever you challenge, then that part of the brain grows. You may have heard of the 10,000 hour practice. Like, if you practice 10,000 hours, you can be good at anything. It's because the brain, the cortex, is a biological tissue. Each part of it can grow and expand. Each part of it, and which part grows and expands has to do with what you practice more. And so parents need to have humility when they see that other people make gross mistakes and people don't do the right thing. They need to realize that they're born with a different package of innate talents. And maybe they're not at their peak. And they probably can do many things that, you know, the person criticizing them would not be able to do. And neither should they feel intimidated by Nelson Delos. Who can memorize a deck of cards in 50 seconds? I think any person can memorize deck of cards easily. It's easy. It's a piece of cake. It just takes time. And like, it takes me now I know two hours to do it if I have a deck of cards. But I know that if I just spend three hours a day for a month, I can bring it down to maybe 20 minutes. I don't know if I can bring it down to 50 seconds. But it's not that big a deal. I mean, listen, we all type. Imagine a world where memorization was a part of a curriculum. Like, now typing is a part of curriculum. Just think of typing. It's not easy. I mean, look, you put your fingers. You don't look at letters and just boom, it goes. That's pretty impressive. That's pretty impressive that you do that. And you can do it 50 words per minute. That's a lot of words. So in the same way, if you spend that many hours practicing memory, you'll be like you would memorizing things left and right. That's what people need. That's what people need to appreciate. Your brain has the capacity to grow, to expand at any age. Don't. You can't do this. Don't be too impressed by other people. You can do it too.
- [30:48]
Ginny Eric
It's such an encouraging book. It really is. It's called the Invincible Brain. And I am currently, I'm doing a piano competition for the first time since I was a teenager. And it's in February, so it's just right before your book comes out. And I have to remember, memorize this song. And I haven't memorized since I was a kid. You know, when you're a kid, you kind of Just pick it up. And I was starting to think, my gosh, maybe I can't memorize this song until I read your book. And then I was like, no, I've got the capacity to do it. My brain is growing. I can't see it. And it really has shifted my perspective to the point where the song that I'm doing is four pages. And I'm like, well, next year I want to do the song that's nine pages. I think I can do it. It's very encouraging what you've written in this book, Dr. Fatu. You write there's 30 types of intelligence. So this is very important for parents to read because you're, you know, you have got these different kids and they have different types of intelligences. And then you say, you are smarter than you think you are. It's about mindset.
- [31:54]
Dr. Majid Fatouhi
So can you example, like, if you said you couldn't do, you would have not tried it. Now that you tried it, you're going to challenge your brain. And remember, when you challenge your brain, those parts are going to be stretched. You know how you do weights and they say, no pain, no gain in bodybuilding. And so when you're frustrated, when you keep reading something four or five times and keep forgetting and you go back to it, that frustration is when a new synapses are formed. So that frustration, that experience is the moment where you're expanding the connections in your brain. You create a new synapses and you're increasing connections with different parts of the brain. Now we have to take. We have to be realistic. A kid can learn things almost effortlessly. And when you're, you know, your 30s or 40s, you need to put more effort, but the more effort you put into it, the easier it will become. And. And you have to have that attitude that, you know, I'm gonna do four pages this year and nine pages next year.
- [32:56]
Ginny Eric
Yes, it totally changed my whole mindset because I was doubting if it was even a possibility. And then I read her book and I was like, oh, these changes are going to occur over a period of time and I can get better at it. So can you talk about the mindset piece then? Because you say mindset alone can grow your brain. You talk about optimism. And in fact, you have this questionnaire that you do in the book, the Invincible Brain. And one of the questions is, are you happy? How does that all relate to the brain health?
- [33:27]
Dr. Majid Fatouhi
I think that people need to appreciate the importance of having a sense of purpose. I think the first step is to have a growth Mindset, the growth mindset is what you just said, which is, I can do this. And the moment you say I can do this, it's not whether or not it's going to happen, is how long it's going to take to happen. And you have to be patient because every time you're practicing, you're helping your brain. So you should be. It's like when you go skiing and keep falling, but if you don't go through the process, you won't be able to ski. You can't stay, you can't go to a ski slope and just start skiing. You need to fall and then realize, oh, I had to do this, I had to do that. So growth mindset is the important thing, but the mindset of having a sense of purpose in life seems to be also very important. You need to define what you feel passionate about. What is it that you find meaningful in your life like for you? It's important to explain to people that outdoor learning is just as important, if not more important, than sitting in a classroom and learning. There's so much to learn on the outside. It's so important to let people find their things they're interested in. Let them have open space so they can explore what they find interesting on their own, and don't force things on them that they may or may not find naturally interesting. So this is what you find, you know, passionate about. This is. This is the purpose in life. And you set up a podcast, you educate the world, and you are new element when you do that. You may not be an element to talk about politics or global warming or the weather, which is fine. Somebody else is passionate about those things we all like. I feel passionate to talk about the brain and helping people change their mind about aging. I love hearing what you just said that you decided, hey, I'm going to do this. And so you changing your attitude, it gives me a lot of gratitude. It just makes me feel good that I spent a year writing that book. I feel good about myself even better after I heard this. And if you don't know what your sense of purpose is in life, you can find it. We all have something deep inside that we care about. Now. It may not be in the surface because we have a job, we have to come home, we have to take care of the kids, we have to deal with a husband or a wife, we have to deal with in laws, we have to deal with the bills. And we are just so busy doing things we don't appreciate that there are things that really are meaningful to Us, and we would love to do more of those things. Like, a person may be spiritual and they would love to go to church and pray as a group. Or a person may feel passionate about politics, they would love to go to a political party and participate in election, for example. So if you don't have it, I have a series of questions in the book that can help you find it. For example, one question is, what would you do as a job if people didn't pay you? Let's say, you know, there's no payment you can do. You can have any job, but there's no payment. What would you do, the thing that you would do? Like, I would do what I'm doing. I would still go around giving lectures, doing podcasts, writing books, teaching at school, things like that. So that's one way to find out what you would find. And it's okay if you have a job, let's say you're a secretary or you are a professor or you're whatever you are, that what you do is just a paycheck. You can still find balance in your life and spend a few hours a week on the things that give meaning to your life, the things that you feel passionate. And ideally, you can try to find a job that's closer to your passion. For example, many of my brain coaches loved helping people. They just loved it genuinely. And so they worked for me. They got paid, but they also did what they found interesting. They were helping people and they getting paid. You know, you may, you find this. And another thing is what would you want people to say after you pass away in your eulogy, in memorial service for you? What would you want? What do you want people to say about you? That's a very important thing because it tells you your core values. Like, I want to be recognized as the guy who was the best doctor, best father, and actually help to change the world. In some ways, that's what I want people to say about me. But another person may want people to say that he was a very good Christian. He helped God by, he helped everybody to be in line with God. He was a very spiritual man. Like, I, I mean, I believe in God, but I'm not necessarily going to church or to practice a specific religion regularly. And, and I would not be caring that much if somebody says that about me or not. So this is how you can find what matters to you. And so once you do these things, all of a sudden a picture emerge, A picture emerges as to what you like. And there, there you have it. You have your sense of purpose in life. And studies have shown that when people have a sense of purpose in life, they have more dendritic spines, they have more connections and in different parts of the brain, especially in the hippocampus. So finding a sense of purpose without exercise, without changing diet, without anything else can grow the part of brain for learning and memory.
- [39:02]
Ginny Eric
I would have never known that, Dr. Fatou Like, I don't think that the average person would connect purpose with brain health. You talk about the purpose. You talk about the growth mindset. You also talk about being optimistic, having a positive attitude. You wrote people who have a positive attitude and beliefs about aging are less likely to convert from mild cognitive impairment to Alzheimer's. And there's a huge difference here. Individuals with an optimistic attitude toward aging had a 30.2% greater likelihood of recovering from mild cognitive impairment to normal than those with negative beliefs about aging. Those with more positive beliefs recover more quickly.
- [39:45]
Podcast Host / Sponsor Announcer
This episode is sponsored by Better Help. February can make it feel like everyone else has it all figured out when it comes to love. The flowers, the candy, the big gestures. It can quietly whisper that if your relationship isn't perfect or if you're still single or still figuring things out, then somehow you're behind. But here's the truth. Most of us are still figuring it out. Married. Dating. Single. All of us. We certainly are after 22 years of marriage. And therapy can be a helpful place to slow down, take the pressure off, and honestly ask what feels heavy right now? What do I actually want? What might be weighing my relationships down more than I realize? Whether you're working on things individually or as a couple, therapy can help identify what's getting in the way and help remove some of those blockers so things can feel lighter again. That's one reason I appreciate better help. Their therapists are fully licensed in the US and follow a strict code of conduct. They also make getting started simple. You by matching you with a therapist based on a short questionnaire and if it's not the right fit, you can switch anytime. BetterHelp has over 30,000 therapists that have served more than 6 million people worldwide with an average of 4.9 out of 5 ratings across over 1.7 million reviews. You don't have to have it all figured out to take the next step. Sign up and get 10% off@betterhelp.com 1000 hours that's B E T T E R H E L P.com 1000 hours the New Year always makes me want to reset our spaces. Not perfectly, but intentionally. I want our home to support our routines again instead of working against them. And that's where Wayfair has been such a help. Wayfair really is a one stop shop for everything your home needs, from bedding and bath basics to storage to those little decor touches that make a space feel finished. Whether you're refreshing kids rooms, organizing your kitchen for easier weeknight dinners, or rethinking a work from home setup, it's all there. One of my favorite updates this season has actually been for our podcast studio. We get so many books sent from guests and they were stacking up everywhere. We ordered new shelving from Wayfair and it completely changed the space. Clean line, simple style, and finally a place for all those books to live. It looks great, it's functional and honestly, it just makes the room feel calmer and more put together. That's what I love about Wayfair. The selection is huge. The styles are easy to browse, and you can find pieces that work for your home in your budget without overthinking it. Get organized, refreshed, and back on track this year. For way less, head to Wayfair.com right now to shop all things home. That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R.com Wayfair Every style, every home.
- [42:08]
Ginny Eric
So you learn in the book, you say, keep growing your bl. Your brain. You learn in the book that there's lots of ways to keep growing your brain and to contribute to that brain health that you might not have considered otherwise. I love this part about making things a game. Basically sort of inserting emotion into it, because you talk about how you remember things. Like you talked about the wedding at the beginning. You remember better if there is emotion attached. So an example of that would be people say I can't remember names. And a lot of people say that. You say 90% of the people will raise their hands. I read a book a couple years ago called Improv Wisdom, I think is
- [42:49]
Podcast Host / Sponsor Announcer
what it was called.
- [42:50]
Ginny Eric
And the Woman who Is an Improv Comedian is a fantastic book. And she challenged herself to learn people's names and she got better at it. It was, it was a part of what she did for her job and her improv career. And so she challenged people in her book like, you can get better at it, but you gave this idea of like pretending like you're going to give up, get a prize at the end. Can you talk about how memory is, is this emotional thing? And so if you're trying to improve your memory, you can try and add emotion to the experience.
- [43:25]
Dr. Majid Fatouhi
Yes, As I mentioned earlier, we remember things that are emotional. Our brain is set up to register and consolidate things that are highly emotional because those things are often associated with better survival. If you're a deer walking around in the woods and near a lake and you see some tigers in that lake, you're going to remember that and not go there again. Because as an emotional response and say, hey, I, I can hear my heart rate racing, my heart racing. I'm not going to go there again. And so you can cheat the system and make things that are not emotional emotional. And that will be helpful for remembering names. When you see someone, tell yourself before you meet them, before you shake hands with them, that somebody's going to give you $10,000 if you can go outside and give that person's name. So if you memorize someone's name, you get $10,000. Now are you going to not remember that person's name? I don't think so. Anyone who's get $10,000, a stack of hundred dollar bills to remember Genie, they will remember Genie. They will not come out. Say, was it Jane Gene? No, it was Genie. And so when you meet someone, the only thing you do to make it emotional is to look at their eyes. See, you need to look at their eyes and have a connection. Once you look at someone's face and you're also looking around, you're really not bringing your attention to that person in front of you. But when you lock eye to eye, you connect with them at an emotional level. So you ask them to tell you their name and they give you their name and you repeat it. Now your name is easy. Let's pick up, you know, Frederica, you know, and, and so Frederica, you say Frederica and you're mindful of the $10,000 you're going to get. And so you're going to repeat, say, nice meeting you, Frederica. You need to say it. You need to let your jaw go through the motion of actually pronouncing the name. A lot of times people, especially with my name, Majid Fatouhi is not exactly a common name or easily. So I like it that somebody who meets me says, I'm sorry, can you spell your name for me? Or is it Majid or Majid or Majid? And, and I love it because they are making an effort to memorize my name and they're using my trick, they're repeating my name, which by repeating is reinforcing the parts of the brain for memorizing names. So I Say it's Majid, they repeat it, and they say my name Majeet during the conversation. So they're using my techniques like they're using the technique of memorize, establishing connection with someone. And they're repeating their name. And if the name is not easy making a point, they got it right. Many people hear someone's name and they're not sure exactly how spelled. So is it Gene, Joan, Jeanette, Joanne, Jan, Jeannie, Jeanette. And so next time they see that person, they say it was G something. And because they're not sure, they mess it up. And I don't know why is it that if you remember someone's name incorrectly, it becomes more difficult to then correct it later. So if you meet someone, anything, their name is John or Jeanette and it's genie. You're not sure, next time you meet them, they say genie. You still have problem when you see them a third or fourth time. Because I think you got to get it right correctly the first time you have to put it correct thing in a file. And then the other thing you need to do is that after the conversation ends, you need to ask yourself, what is this person's name? It's possible that because you're in a social gathering, there are so many things going on around you and there are other people involved and you've talked with other people, you may forget that this person's name was Jeanne. You just forget and you have no clue. I mean, you know that you repeated it five minutes earlier, but it's not there. It's not there. And this is where you need to be brave. You need to say, please tell me your name one more time. What I do is let's say the conversation has ended and I don't know what their name is. And it doesn't happen often because I'm. I've become very good at it. Now I. The first five, 10 seconds, I make sure I consolidate the memory in my head. I repeat it, I know I got it, and I use the name through a conversation. So throughout the conversation, I'm reinforcing it. But let's say I have forgotten the name. And I say to them, do you know my name? With a smile. And nobody ever remembers my name. I don't expect them either. So I laugh. I said my name is machine. Tell me your name again. And they actually feel good because they don't remember names. And again, there's nothing inherent about me being magid. I could be Ricardo, I could be David, I could be anybody. There's nothing about Me, that makes me migid. So this is a trick you use. You see someone, you decide that you're going to remember their name for sure. Not almost 1,000% sure, because you're going to get $10,000. When you see them, you look at their eyes, you ask their name. When they give you the name, you repeat it throughout the conversation. Repeat it. And if you can't remember at the end, you ask them one last time because you need to get the name, give it to somebody outside in order to get your money. And like you said, and like you said, it's a game. You're having fun with it.
- [49:01]
Podcast Host / Sponsor Announcer
Yeah.
- [49:01]
Dr. Majid Fatouhi
And you get better at it. Initially, you know, a lot of people say, I'm not good with names. They don't even try. Yeah, they don't even try because I'm, they are not. I'm not good with names. And two minutes in the conversation they don't remember names. And they tell themselves, see, I'm not good with names. And that is self fulfilling prophecy. And you need to change that conversation in your head. You need to say, I can do anything. I have a brain that can learn anything. I can learn physics, I can learn math, I could think logic, philosophy. I mean my brain has the capacity to learn anything. You could be astronaut, you could be a surgeon. I mean you could be, you have to decide what it is you want to be and. But whatever you choose to do 10 hours of it and you get good at it.
- [49:47]
Ginny Eric
What an encouraging book you wrote. My favorite mantra is, if I really want something, I always get it. And so this is a great tool to use. And I think the self fulfilling prophecy is interesting too because you say, okay, people are like, I'm not good at names. And you brought up a couple of scenarios that probably everyone is familiar with, which is like, I lost my car keys or my wallet, can't find it. I don't remember where I parked, where's the, where did I put that? Why did I come in this room? You know, and so then people start to catastrophize and they're like, my memory is going. And you say not to do that. Learn to quiet your inner voice that says your memory is going. And instead practice, you say, you can make things funny and memorable. The book has all sorts of ideas and your website does too, of you know, how to memorize a credit card number, how to memorize a list of 20 things. And you say, these are things that people that are living in resident homes, in retirement homes. So they're in retirement Homes, they're doing it so you can do it, too.
- [50:52]
Dr. Majid Fatouhi
One thing I never forget, and I really mean this. It must have been 2015 or 14. I was invited to give a lecture at a retirement community. So I went in there and the average age was 80. I'm telling you, it was. It was all beautiful. 90% ladies were sitting there, some with the walker, some with canes, all sitting. There was no young person in the audience. And I talked. This was not a memory unit. This was not Alzheimer's unit. It was a retirement unit. And everybody was older, but it was not an Alzheimer's unit. So it was average 80 something old. I said, I'm going to do these things and we're going to memorize these things together. Are you up for it? And everybody said, yes. The program was. I gave a talk for an hour, and I spent an hour on memory training. So I had given my talk about how exercise, good for you. You need to move your body, you need to sleep well, all that stuff, we've done that. We had a little short break and then we did the memory training. So I said, listen, I want you to remember these four things. Oh, I made a list. I just made them call out some random words. Newspaper, telephone, cinema, cigarette, umbrella, whatever. So I wrote them down. It was not a prepaid list. They just gave me the wrist randomly. We made a story with the first four things. That's a newspaper, diamond, bicycle. So you think of a newspaper, and then you find a big diamond the size of a basketball. And you put this around it and you think this is something important. And then you get on a bike and then you go. So you visualize the newspaper. You hear the crickling of newspaper. This diamond is the size of a ball, obviously, is memorable. And then you wrap the newspaper around this huge piece of diamond, and you can hear the sound of newspaper, and you can feel touching the diamond. And then you sit on a bike and you can feel the bike. And you're going to put this on your arm and you're trying to maintain biking without dropping this huge diamond. And how are you going to forget that? So what were the three things? You know, there's a newspaper and diamond and newspaper and the bicycle. And then I made, you know, I go, so, okay, we're gonna memorize this and put it in this corner. Tell me again. So everybody said it. I said, no, give it to me backwards. It was so cute. These all little ladies in union say, you know, bicycle, diamond, you know, newspaper. And it's okay, we're park this here. Now I'm gonna go to this corner. And then, you know, there would, listen, there's an umbrella, you know, whatever. And then we made a story there. I said, give me the story here. I spent five minutes back for backwards. I said, okay, what was the first thing there? Remember the first three things? Four things. And they did four things and the four things. And then at every step I went forward and backward, forward, backward. An hour later, the whole, I think there was a hundred of them. I never forget the scene. And actually I recorded it. I said, let me record it. And when the whole hundred people did this, I recorded it as they did it. Memorize the 20 words forward and backwards during an hour. And so I never forget that day. And it makes a point that even if you're in the 80s, don't say, I can't do this.
- [54:06]
Ginny Eric
That's right, that's right. And that's the, the book. It just gives you this, this foundation to go off of that. I think that in the past I wouldn't have considered even trying something like that and certainly wouldn't have connected it to brain growth and the function of the brain. There's this really powerful picture in the book where you show the brain of a 20 year old and you say like, you've held these brains. You actually talked about one where it was so brittle, you were like, the things would snap. So I mean, I've never held a brain, I've never even seen a brain. So you're talking about like the actual physical structure of it. And it's very encouraging because you're like, oh my goodness, I can actually change this. So you've got the 20 year old brain that's healthy and then the 80 year old brain that's healthy. And you say, yeah, it's slightly smaller. But the 80 year old brain with Alzheimer's looks remarkably different with all the ridges and things. So it's just a tremendous book for, for reminding yourself or teaching yourself for the first time that you have a lot of control here. You're not just bound by your genetics. It's called the invincible brain. There's a lot of moms that listen. And so I want to hit two last things, menopause and concussions. So for the parents that are listening, menopause comes up and maybe women think they're losing their mind. And also we're deciding about sports. So what should we know for that?
- [55:30]
Dr. Majid Fatouhi
Menopause can affect memory. Women who are experiencing menopause and forgetting things, they're not exaggerating. They are forgetting things. You know, they may send an email and next day they have no clue that they sent that email. They genuinely have no idea they did that. The reason it happens is because the hormonal levels fluctuate and it's the fluctuation of the hormone levels that cause problems with the brain. When this fluctuation settle and a person ends that period of menopause, people's memory goes back to what it used to be. So the same thing during menstrual cycle. Some women during menstrual cycle really experience memory problems. They're moody and they may not think clearly and their performance and cognitive tests may not be optimal during their menstrual cycle when the hormone levels are changing. The good news is that this is not brain damage. This is not beginning of the Alzheimer's disease. When the hormones settle and menopause ends, their memory improves. And they need to do the five pillars of brain health during that period because all those things improve brain functions. One of the things that happens during menopause is increased vascular problems. Women who experience menopause are more likely to have sleep apnea, they're more likely to have high blood pressure, they're more likely to have strokes. And so those vascular problems affect the brain functions in of themselves. And exercising, meditating, doing biofeedback, all of those things can help to improve brain vitality.
- [57:11]
Ginny Eric
Okay, so there we go. You're not on a downward cognitive slide. You are experiencing a transition. Important thing to know, talk about concussions, because it is a youth sports culture is very strong. So what should parents know?
- [57:28]
Dr. Majid Fatouhi
A concussion during sport should not cause permanent problems. Unless there was like a huge concussion, a person had a bleed in their brain. Young people's brain are more malleable than older adults. I mean, we can't deny that a brain has the system for healing. Our brain comes with a healing kit. When something happens to our brain, we have a healing mechanism in place that comes into the scene when something like concussion happens. There's some inflammation, there's some blood flow issues like this called things called microbleeds, tiny little needles, the tip of a needle size spot dots where blood vessels are damaged. And there's a twisting motion that causes injury to the fiber. Bundles are ropes that go from one side to our brain to the other side. They're twisted and are twisting, can cause little injury in these delicate ropes that go from one side to the other. But the brain has a healing mechanism, one of his bdnf. And so when an injury happens, somehow Our brain has this mechanism to call in the rescue team. It's amazing how it works. How does the rescue team know to come to the scene when the concussion causes problems? But it does. And so if you don't do anything, the brain will heal spontaneously because we have bdnf, we have, you know, other proteins, we have blood flow and, you know, the brain clears and is as good as new. I always told my patients at concussion that I want you have 100 recovery, not 99. A lot of people think, oh, I had a concussion when I was a kid. Did it affect my brain now? Is that why I have ADHD now? Average concussion that students at least experience during high school sports should not cause any long term injury if it's one or two. If you have 100 or a thousand concussions, that's a different story. I think that if you have persistent symptoms three months later or nine months later, you are among a small group of patients who have a condition called persistent post concussion syndrome. The injury in your brain has been more than what the healing crew usually takes care of. And the 12 week program that we had was extremely successful for athletes with post concussion syndrome. More than 80% of patients improved their cognitive performance. And the 12 week program is intensive, comprehensive program that combines those five pillars of brain health. And we have brain coaches who would then monitor patients. It's like going to a gym. You have a coach and brain coaches who helped athletes recover from concussion.
- [60:15]
Ginny Eric
All right, this is fantastic. Dr. Fatou has done so much, taught thousands of students all about the brain at Harvard medical school and Johns Hopkins University, taking care of thousands of patients with memory loss, adhd, concussion, mild cognitive impairment, Alzheimer's disease, and other neurological conditions. Shut down your practice in 2023 so that you could write incredible book, the Invisible brain. And you have an app that's coming out. So could you tell us about your app? You also have a really impressive family. Your brother is also a doctor, teaches psychology at the University of Pittsburgh. Your daughters have written their own books. What a family. Dr. Fatui. So tell us real quick about your app. Should we read your daughter's books too?
- [60:58]
Dr. Majid Fatouhi
Yeah, I have two daughters. My older daughter, who is in college premed, became interested in concussion. So during COVID when schools were closed, she started an organization to educate kids about concussion prevention and she started writing a book. So her book is the brain that recovers, talking about prevention and treatment of concussion. Yeah, when I search my name, her book comes up first. And then my younger daughter became interested in Africa and wrote a Book the Thrill of a New Africa. She actually gave a TED Talk. My younger kid gave a TED Talk in Philippines about progress in Africa. I'm so proud of them. My brother Leo is at University of Pittsburgh and his job is to help students become successful and increase their performance and more of them stay and few of them have to have less dropout from college. So I feel very blessed to have such a wonderful family.
- [62:01]
Ginny Eric
Yes, yes.
- [62:01]
Dr. Majid Fatouhi
And then the app is available. The app has a lot of information we just talked about and helps people to do what I call brain health calculator. I have a questionnaire where people do a brain health calculator and they can see an odometer where their brain functions fall. I think it's very reassuring for someone to do the brain fitness calculator and see that there are 90%, which means they may worry about things, but they're in good shape or maybe they're in 10 percentile, which means they have work to do.
- [62:35]
Ginny Eric
Yeah.
- [62:36]
Podcast Host / Sponsor Announcer
Yeah.
- [62:36]
Dr. Majid Fatouhi
So I think, you know, the app is helpful. I also have an online course which is incorporated and all of them are available on my website. Dr. Fatih.com.
- [62:45]
Ginny Eric
yeah, I'll put the link in the show notes. What an honor. It's a fantastic book. So glad I read it. It's already changing my life. We always end our show with the same questions. What's a favorite memory from your childhood? That was outside.
- [62:57]
Dr. Majid Fatouhi
I never forget one day when I was sitting outside with my father when I was maybe seven years old. It was a spring day. We're sitting outside and just I was playing with soil and my father was planting something. We're just sitting there, just. I was playing and he was doing his thing. I was thinking just, you know, with the soil in my hand. I still remember that day like the soil was wet. It was a little cool outside. The sun was shining. And then he said, out of this conversation, said, every person is the architect of his own life. And. And as a kid, I was thinking, you mean I built my own life? Like, I'm responsible for the kind of life I'll have. Interesting. And. And that really hit me as a kid, I used to think that you just do what you do and life happens. You don't build your life. You don't create your life. Your life is sort of one day to the next. And that was a profound effect on me to realize that it's not default what happens to you. You are the architect of your life. And I think this advantage of being outside and not structured environment where a spontaneous conversation can happen. That could be lifechanging.
- [64:13]
Ginny Eric
Yeah.
- [64:13]
Dr. Majid Fatouhi
Yeah.
- [64:14]
Ginny Eric
I love that. And you also talked about how he told you everyone that you've ever heard of that has done something exceptional like a Thomas Edison or something like that, like they all just started as normal kids. And so there's a lot in there about growth. Mindset. What an honor. Huge congrats on this brand new book. It is phenomenal. Make sure you go pre order it. If you're listening, go pre order it. It's great to read with your family. The invincible, sensible brain. The clinically proven plan to age, proof your brain and stay sharp for life. Dr. Fatui, thank you for being here.
- [64:45]
Dr. Majid Fatouhi
Thank you so much. Listen, you read my book more carefully than has ever done so far. Thanks again.