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Matt Feret (00:02):

Hello everyone. This is Matt Feret, author of the Prepare for Medicare book series, and welcome to another episode of the Matt Feret Show, where I interview insiders and experts To help light a path to a successful retirement.

(00:17):

Come say hello at www.themattferetshow.com for show links, notes, websites referenced, quotable quotes, and the complete show transcript. You can also check out www.prepareformedicare.com and my new site, www.prepareforsocialsecurity.com. Both support the books, Prepare for Medicare, The Insiders Guide to Buying Medicare Insurance and Prepare for Social Security, the Insider's Guide to Maximizing Your Retirement Benefits. Each website has a spot where you can sign up for my monthly newsletter. I cover Medicare, social security, plus wealth, wisdom and wellness topics in or nearing retirement. Rena Yudkowsky is a professional memory coach who spent more than 20 years helping older adults with their memory from working in an Alzheimer's unit in an assisted living facility to training dementia caregivers. She's now founded her own company, Memory Matters. This episode of the Matt Feret Show will give you an insider's guide to brain exercises, memory training, tips to preventing or slowing dementia and much more. Enjoy.

(01:23):

Rena, welcome to the show.

Rena Yudkowsky (01:25):

Thank you so much for having me today.

Matt Feret (01:27):

Tell everybody what you do, how long you've been doing it, and how you help people.

Rena Yudkowsky (01:33):

Okay, great. I am a geriatric social worker and memory coach, and I'm the CEO of memory matters. I teach online memory improvement courses to seniors, and I got into this many, many years ago when I volunteered in nursing homes as a teenager. From there it just started my passion and love for working with seniors. So I ended up being a social worker. I went to school for social work and I lived in America and I was the head of an Alzheimer's unit in an assisted living facility.

(02:04):

Then I got married, I moved to Israel. And so I've been in Israel for 23 years and I've been doing a lot of interesting things in the field here. Never worked full time because I was raising my kids, but I've always been helping either working with people with dementia or helping people improve their memory to prevent dementia.

(02:22):

Again, 20 years ago we didn't talk about preventing dementia, but today there's a lot of amazing, hopeful, empowering research about it, so I'm really, really excited about that and I keep saying I hope that in my lifetime there'll be a cure for dementia.

(02:38):

I've been teaching memory improvement courses live here in Israel over the years in addition to running senior groups and doing all sorts of interesting things, including working for a memory clinic here. Then a couple years ago I decided I want to go online with this because I can reach the whole world instead of just little Israel. I can reach the whole world and help a lot more people. That's been a very fun ride and I've taught my course, the full course, online three times now. I'm actually doing it for the third time. But because of COVID, what ended up happening was I ended up doing webinars for senior groups all over the world. From England to Passaic, New Jersey to Jerusalem, all types of senior groups. Either I reach out to them or they reach out to me.

(03:20):

It's been so much fun because that way I can really just do these either one-time or two-time or three-time webinars and they're practical and fun and people get a lot from them. I'll be sharing some of those tips with you today as well.

Matt Feret (03:32):

Good. You covered a lot of time in there, but I want to stop just a little bit in there. So when you were a teenager, you got early exposure and were influenced by what you saw and what you heard. Is that fair?

Rena Yudkowsky (03:47):

Yeah.

Matt Feret (03:49):

How did you first get into memory coaching? And I don't even mean the current state, but where were you first exposed to this idea that dementia or Alzheimer's wasn't necessarily a death sentence or wasn't necessarily only a pharmaceutical problem to solve? How did you first become exposed to brain training or memory work? How did that evolve from when you were first exposed to it?

Rena Yudkowsky (04:19):

Right. That's a good question. I was the head of an Alzheimer's department in an assisted living facility in America. When you work with Alzheimer's and you watch people deteriorate, it's very sad, obviously, but it also makes you think what makes memory work and what makes it not work? What makes it break down and deteriorate? And is there anything we can do?

(04:45):

In the past 25 years, research has really come a long way in terms of the impact of lifestyle factors on preventing dementia. We used to think 25 years ago that if you had the genes for it, that's it. There was nothing to do. But we know differently now. It's been a process from when I worked with dementia in that Alzheimer's unit till now, just watching the research, reading the books on memory.

(05:12):

I guess what really sparked my passion and curiosity for this is when I did a course here in Israel in Hebrew from a cognitive psychologist, all about memory. That was an 18-hour course and it was just fascinating. It was so fascinating to me to understand a little bit how memory works.

(05:29):

Now, quite frankly, the brain is a very complex computer, the most complex computer there is, and we don't a hundred percent understand it. But to try to understand it, to understand the mechanics, to understand if you do this, you're going to encode that memory better so that you can retrieve it better. There are tools, techniques, there are things we can do to make this easier and better for us. Especially as we age, there's a real fear of getting dementia.

(05:52):

If any of us have watched our parents or grandparents age with dementia, we're like, "We want to do this differently. What can we do differently?"

(06:02):

Thankfully, today, we know that there are so many things we can do differently. I'm not blaming anyone, God forbid, that has dementia, but there's information and knowledge that we have today that we didn't have years ago that we know can help us age more gracefully or age more healthfully, I should say.

Matt Feret (06:19):

You said lifestyle changes or lifestyle choices. Before we get into the actual coaching piece and the brain exercising, what type of lifestyle choices do you mean?

Rena Yudkowsky (06:30):

We're talking about diet, exercise, social stimulation, cognitive stimulation. Included in that is not only what we eat, where we eat, how we eat, with whom we eat. Things like sleep. Sleep, we take it for granted. Do not take it for granted. Sleep is such a huge impact on our brains, on our cognitive abilities. Hormones, supplements, vitamins. We know vitamin B. People that have cognitive issues often have a vitamin B deficiency. That's relatively easy to fix.

(07:07):

Even sleep. A lot of older people have sleep issues. It's so, so important to our brain and there is a lot of stuff out there now that could help us with sleep. And I'm not talking about the drugs because the drugs actually could impair memory. I'm talking about other natural things we know that help us sleep. Even just exercise, if you exercise during the day, you can sleep better at night.

(07:28):

Now, exercise is huge. Exercise is probably the number one best thing you could do, right this second for your brain at any age. I don't care if you're 40 or 95, if you can do some jumping jacks or go walking around the block, that is going to be the best thing for your brain because it helps create BDNF, which is the protein in your brain that stands for brain derived neurotrophic factor. That's going to grow new brain cells.

(07:54):

I actually just saw a study, which is really cool, that said if you walk six to nine miles a week, you can lower your risk of getting dementia by 50%. Walking. I'm not even talking jogging. I'm not talking doing anything crazy. Yes, strength training is important also, but walking between six and nine miles a week, which if you break that up, that's not so much. If you break that up over seven days, cuts your risk of getting dementia by 50%. Pretty powerful.

Matt Feret (08:25):

That's very powerful.

Rena Yudkowsky (08:27):

So our brain really needs exercise. If there's one thing you want to do for your brain today, it's get moving.

Matt Feret (08:34):

That makes sense. When you've worked with patients before, and again, pre the coaching piece, I promise we're going to get to that. You've worked with these dementia and Alzheimer's patients over the last 20, 25 years, did you see any success stories while you were trying things or while you were around people trying things? You got a control group that wasn't doing anything and then some tests? I'm sure people who were walking and eating the mind diet before it was called that or the dash diet or whatever healthy diet they're eating. Have you seen any of these success stories over the years that you can point to?

Rena Yudkowsky (09:16):

Yes. I'm going to talk about my own private stuff rather than, there's a lot of research out there. I'm also not a researcher, but I could just tell you from my own experience, not necessarily with the people with dementia, because when I worked in institutions of people with dementia, it was more, they were further along. I can't say I saw someone from going from having dementia to not having dementia. No, there is no cure yet. But I've seen some powerful things in terms of my own work over the past few years with memory manners and my courses.

(09:52):

For example, one lady called me and said she had a concussion from a car accident when she was 25. She was now 65. This was a few years ago. She had that history, which she actually ended up working and being very productive for many years, even though she had that TBI, traumatic brain injury, in her background. Then in her future, she had her mother who had Alzheimer's. So she's 65, she has a history of a brain injury, she has a future of a mother with Alzheimer's. She was scared stiff. She was like, "What can I do to have a better memory and to make sure I don't end up like this or end up deteriorating fast?"

(10:36):

So we talked and I convinced her to do my course and I said, I really think this is going to help you. I'm not saying this to promote my course. I'm saying in general about what we could do to help our memory. She was a great student and the course is a lot of information and she took it all in. Part of what I was dealing with her, obviously, was the fear. I wanted to build her confidence in believing in herself to be able to repair her memory and to keep it strong for the future. By the end of the course, she was just a different person. She was not talking about fear. She was like, "I got this, now I have the techniques to keep sharper longer."

(11:10):

So she was not living in a state of fear of getting dementia. She had been living in the past and the future and not in the present at all. But now she had the tools and tips just to navigate her life and she wasn't living in fear.

(11:23):

This is true of all parts of life, but also in memory. When we live in fear, we're not living out of a place of strength. So if every time I can't remember where I put my keys, I go, "Oh my gosh, I'm getting dementia." What ends up happening? It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. We live in fear, we live in panic state every time we forget one little thing, when really a couple easy techniques are like, "I got this, I can take a deep breath and it will come to me." That's a very different script than, "What's wrong with me? I'm such an idiot. I'm getting dementia."

(11:54):

The way you talk to yourself really impacts how you function and how your memory functions. We know that mindfulness and calm and there's so many things that help our minds and help our memories and help our cognitive abilities. But really it starts with self-talk, how we talk to ourself about our memories and about aging. That's very powerful. So with this student that I was telling you, I saw a very powerful transformation. She really went from a lot of fear to a lot of confidence. I haven't seen her in a while, but I'm sure that she is doing well because she has a lot of the techniques and tips she needs.

Matt Feret (12:29):

How do you think about when you get scared, when you walk into that room, more often than you think you have before that negative self-talk is, "Oh man, this isn't good. I'm not as sharp as I used to be. This is a little scary." When does that start to happen generally? How should we think about that? Should we think of it as a normal part of aging? When does it become something that you should really pay attention to and think about?

Rena Yudkowsky (12:59):

There is not an age, there is not a specific age that everyone experiences this. I've had people in their early 50s call me and say, I'm worried about my memory. I've had people, they're 75 and they're just starting to be concerned about their memory. So there is not a day or an age that is specific to this. There are definitely... Look, when I meet young people on the street and I tell them what I do, they all say, "I need this." Even 35-year-olds. So there isn't a specific time where it happens to people. I think I could tell you what I hear.

(13:30):

I hear people in their 50s start to be worried about what's going on. Again, 50s is not old, that's young. But they're starting to either get more ADD-like symptoms or they're those, what you said before you, they're walking into the room and not knowing what they come for.

(13:48):

That could happen at any age, but what's coming my way is people in their 50s that are starting to be concerned about it. Yes, oftentimes I have a conversation about their concerns and I give them some guidelines, "How do you know what's normal versus abnormal?"

(14:04):

Here's the bottom line. The bottom line is if you are functioning independently and well and it's not interfering with your daily functioning, then you're good. It's normal to misplace your keys and sometimes even forget whether you locked your door once in a while. But if it's happening so much that you can't function independently or you can't make the appointment on time because you can't find your keys to get out the door. If it's happening so much that it's so pervasive that it's interfering with your daily functioning, then it's time to go to a memory clinic, at least your doctor or gerontologist or geriatric doctor or a neuropsychiatrist.

(14:40):

There's all sorts of professionals that could help. That's it. It's normal to misplace your keys sometime, once in a while. It's not normal to pick up your keys and say, "I don't know what to do with these." Or another example, it is normal to drive down the highway, and we're sort of daydreaming so we miss our exit. Again, once in a while. But if you drive down the highway and you're not sure which exit to take, that's more alarming.

(15:10):

Another example would be, "I remember that I went to a wedding last week, but I can't remember what I wore, so I'm forgetting part of an experience, but not the whole experience." So it's normal to forget part of an experience, but if you forgot that you went to the wedding at all last week, that would be abnormal because you forgot the whole experience.

(15:32):

Another example, usually normal forgetting it comes back to you. It might take a minute, it might take an hour, it might take a day, but usually the thought or the memory comes back to you. With people with more severe cognitive deficits, it doesn't come back to them. So what's important to know is if you are very concerned about yourself or loved one, go check it out. It's always better to know that there's nothing wrong or there is something wrong.

(16:00):

The other important thing to know is don't assume you have dementia just because you forgot something, even if it was important. You might not have dementia. You might have dehydration, you might have a drug interaction, your drugs might be contraindicated, you might have sleep apnea, it causes memory loss. There's so many different physical conditions that... infections could cause it. So don't assume you have dementia. Go check it out.

(16:27):

It's always better to know whether it is something serious or it's not. And if it's dehydration, that is easily fixable. If it's depression, oftentimes depression, masks as dementia. Depression is treatable. So there's a lot of factors that you want to check out if you're having memory issues and don't assume it's dementia. There is something called MCI, mild cognitive impairment. That's somewhere between normal and abnormal. Some of the mild cognitive impairment people go on to develop dementia, but not always.

(16:58):

So again, it's important to get a right diagnosis. And I do encourage people that are worried or concerned to go to either a memory specialist or a memory doctor or a memory clinic of some sort to get assessed, because if you are dealing with dementia, then there's also certain things you want to know. The drugs really are not great. The drugs we have right now are not great, but the doctors use them. Sometimes it slows down the progression. But there's other things you might want to know about, services, resources, exercises. Even if someone has dementia, exercise is so amazing and you must be exercising at any point.

Matt Feret (17:36):

How new or emerging are these memory care units or specialists? And do they give a holistic view as you're describing, or do they start with the wrong thing, the right thing? What's the healthcare situation around this memory loss or beginning to think about whether or not there's some memory loss?

Rena Yudkowsky (17:59):

It really depends who you go to and where you are because there's all different types of doctors and approaches. I really like to watch the cutting edge people, the progressive ones, because to me that's exciting. People like Dr. Dale Bredesen is very cutting edge. He wrote a book called The End to Alzheimer's. His protocol is not easy to do, but he's had some stunning results with even reversing dementia. So those are the people I like to watch and study.

(18:33):

Not everyone's practicing that, to be honest. He's training people, he's training coaches to work with people with dementia, but that is not the mainstream practice from what I understand right now. So I can't answer. It really depends where you are and who you go to. If you go to a psychiatrist, they're probably going to give you a pill. That's all they have to give you.

(18:54):

Some of the doctors in the anti-aging functional medicine world are really looking at a much broader approach, really taking into account lifestyle factors. And I think it's trickling down to the other doctors as well. Like with everything, it takes time to get the progressive stuff going, but I think all the doctors are understanding that diet and exercise are playing a role.

(19:20):

I just want to say one more thing. I do feel like they're not coaching people through it enough. I think people, especially seniors, we need so much handholding and so much coaching to do those lifestyle changes. If you're used to eating the sad diet, the standard American diet of potato chips and french fries with your big hamburger every day, it is going to be hard to get rid of fast food and totally change your life over to something much, much healthier for your brain. So to answer your question, I think in the healthcare world, we're going to need a lot more support and handholding for the seniors.

(19:59):

There are health coaches and nutritional coaches out there that are doing it. For example, I'm working with an anti-aging clinic. They have a lot of pieces. They have me as a memory coach, they have a nutritional coach and they have a nurse and the doctor. It's like a team. It's a team approach and an exercise, a personal trainer. So it's a team approach, and that's really what we need. But I don't think that's your typical thing going on.

Matt Feret (20:25):

No, the typical is you go where your doctor suggests you go, or you open up your provider directory and you pick a name somewhere close to you from your insurance directory. So let's say I have to do that, you just mentioned that team of people, if I'm interviewing doctors or clinics, what should I keep in my brain as to, "Okay, these people are doing a holistic approach." Should I look out for those things or that type of team approach if I'm looking for a care plan or a group of people to help, not only diagnose, but maybe help me work through it?

Rena Yudkowsky (21:04):

Yes, absolutely. And anyone doing the anti-aging functional medicine stuff, like Dr. Bredesen, is going to be doing that. There's also Dr. Daniel Amen and his whole approach of where he scans the brain, sees what's going on, and then puts people on a diet, exercise, a whole program, cognitive exercises. Dr. Amen also has clinics around America. His book is called The Brain Warrior's Way, another book is called Memory Rescue. He has a bunch of books out. He's also from that field of people that are doing really, really good work.

(21:36):

So yeah, I would look for someone doing a holistic approach. I would look for a program or center that has coaching along with it. Even the fact that there's someone who's going to help me coach me through it, I would definitely look for that because I don't think people can do all this on their own.

(21:54):

When you get a diagnosis of anything, whether it's dementia or mild cognitive impairment or you're okay but you need to live healthier, "Where do I start? I don't know where to start with that." There's so many factors that go into changing our lifestyle to live more health healthfully. But the good news is that it's really, really worth it because the effects of not just our body, but our brain could be so much sharper and we can age so much more healthfully if we make those changes. It's very exciting research. There are a lot of neurologists out there doing it, but I would definitely look for a team approach. I would definitely look for coaches.

Matt Feret (22:32):

Thank you. So let's get into your coaching and your training piece. You mentioned at the beginning of the show how you came out and how long you've been doing it. But tell me a little bit more about that journey. You mentioned COVID, but what spurred you to go, "You know what, I can take this literally worldwide, thanks to the internet." Talk to me about how you got that piece started and what the response was, how you've tweaked it and where you are today.

Rena Yudkowsky (22:57):

Yeah, amazing. I was teaching this course, my full course is 21 hours, and it's everything you want to know about memory. It's all the techniques on names, numbers, lists of items. I start with how memory works, and we do some practice exercises before those techniques. Everything's very interactive and geared for seniors and fun and talk about how to remember directions and a little bit about languages. I really touch on everything.

(23:27):

Then I go into lifestyle factors where we do all the research and I bring in a doctor to speak, an anti-aging doctor, and a personal trainer. So it's a very robust course.

(23:36):

I was teaching this course live here in Israel for another organization, but we were just getting in a few people each time and I was like, I know this could help so many more people if I put this online because online courses became very, very popular and online you can reach so many more people and build an audience. I knew nothing about social media three and a half years ago, absolutely nothing. I didn't even know how to get onto Facebook.

Matt Feret (24:02):

I stayed away from it for forever until I wrote that first book and I was like, "Okay, I guess I have to go do this now." But no, I'm with you. I was able to kind of keep it at bay for a bit.

Rena Yudkowsky (24:13):

But then I decided this is the way to go. You'd be amazed how many seniors are on Facebook. I couldn't believe it myself. So I actually have a Facebook group now called Memory Matters, Tips and Tricks for Midlifers and Seniors. And we have almost a thousand people from all over the world. I try to post in there almost every day, either a tip, an article, something funny about memory and aging, or I ask for people's experiences. That I've really been building up, and that's been great. I'm on LinkedIn, I'm on Instagram and TikTok.

(24:48):

Basically, I went to put my course online, but in the process, COVID happened. So all the senior groups closed their doors and needed programming online all over the world. That was really fun for me because I was able to reach groups of people. So instead of just doing one-on-one coaching, which I also like. I like doing one-on-one memory coaching. But I really like being able to help a lot of people at once. That is exciting to me.

(25:13):

I actually developed, slowly over time, as people hired me to do these webinars, I came up with eight different standalone webinars. The first one that everyone loves is called What did I Come to the Fridge For? That's four techniques to improve focus on memory. It's so much fun to do that because people love it, because the techniques really work, and I'll share some of those with you if you want.

(25:35):

Then I developed more. Four tips to prevent dementia and train your brain, which is all about brain exercises and which brain exercises are good for which part of the brain, which is a fun topic to talk about. Everything I do is interactive and I've been able to really get all over the world to senior groups and senior organizations.

(25:53):

Then from that, I get them onto my email list and people can follow me. I do a lot of free stuff. I do free Facebook Lives, I do free webinars, I do a lot of free stuff. And then I launch my courses. I launch my membership, which is called Remembership. It's Remembership and that's automated. That's for people that don't want to come on live every week with me. They don't have so much time, they want to do it on their own time, so I made short videos and brain exercises that they can do at their own time, which has been very popular, that Remembership. That's like a small way that I can help people.

(26:24):

Then I have my monthly brain exercise program, which is called Monday Memory Motivation, and that's once a month. You hop on live with me and we do brain exercises together. It's super fun and just very easy. And that's very, very low cost. So I've sort of created different offers for different people, people that have time, people that don't have time, people that have money, people that don't have money, trying to help people in different ways.

(26:47):

That's where I am today. I've really created these programs. My email list has grown. I do a lot of Facebook lives, either in my group with professionals or I hop into other people's groups, and then I try to send that out to my email list just to give a lot of free content and valuable content to people. So it's been a lot of fun.

(27:04):

For people that are not appropriate for my groups, I'll do one-on-one coaching. I've worked with young people, people in their 20s that had cognitive issues and I couldn't put them in my groups. I've done one-on-one coaching with them. Or people with dementia, if they have a diagnosis. My course, it's just too much information. So then I'll work one-on-one and make it very custom tailored to what they need.

(27:26):

There's a lot of ways I can help people with their memory. And I feel very passionate that there is so much you can do to improve your memory. You don't have to say, "I'm old and I can't remember anything." The last person who said that to me got really challenged. I was speaking to a group of quite elderly people. They were Holocaust survivors, so that means they're in their upper 80s or 90s. I was teaching a technique to remember a list of 20 words. Most people don't have an easy time remembering 20 words. So I was teaching a technique...

Matt Feret (27:55):

No, I can't do that. I think I stopped at six or five now. Because I test myself every once in a while. When you're writing something down, you're like, "Na, na, na, na, na." What is it? You get to 20?

Rena Yudkowsky (28:07):

Yes, I was teaching that technique and one of the ladies said, "Ah, I'm too old for this." There was a group of 15 people in the room, and I turned to the gentleman at the other table, and they're just as old as that woman. I turned to one man, I said, "Well, do you feel that way?" And he's like, "No, I absolutely am not too old to remember this." He was probably 88 or 90 or something. And I was like, "Okay, good. Then this technique is for you. Let's go ahead."

(28:36):

So if people feel they're too old to remember things, then guess what they are. Because whether you believe you can or you believe you can't, you're right. So if you believe you can remember 20 words, then guess what? I can teach you how to do it. But if you start off the conversation saying, "I cannot do this," then you cannot do it until I convince you differently.

Matt Feret (28:57):

That's a very powerful statement. You mentioned the word fun a bunch in the last couple of minutes. Exercise doesn't sound like fun. Eating lean fish and legumes and salad all day, it doesn't sound like much fun either. But your courses, you seem to be putting some fun stuff in there. So is this work or is this kind of fun and pleasurable for most people?

Rena Yudkowsky (29:23):

I find it super fun, entertaining, inspiring, and it works. I do not lecture. I teach, and then we practice everything. So when I teach the techniques, remember names, I then put everyone into breakout rooms on Zoom and we practice. So everything's about practicing it out. That's how we make it fun. We practice with each other. It also becomes a social group. The people that join me for a 14-session course, we spend a lot of time together, even if it's on Zoom and we get to know each other. The ladies or men, whoever's joining, they get to become friends. So yeah, it's fun in a lot of ways, especially during COVID when I was doing this and they were all stuck in their houses. This was an amazing source of social stimulation as well as cognitive stimulation, which everyone needed.

(30:11):

So yeah, it's fun because I make it fun. I don't teach any techniques that don't work for me. If it's too hard for me, I don't teach it. That's also a difference between me and some of the other memory teachers. If you go on YouTube, you can find people that teach about memory, but most of them are memory champions and they think you need to remember 200 numbers after pi. 70-year-olds don't need to remember that. They need to remember whether they took their medicine, locked their door, and turned off their stove.

Matt Feret (30:39):

Does anyone need to know 200 numbers...

Rena Yudkowsky (30:42):

I don't know.

Matt Feret (30:45):

3.14. Okay, that's it. So you said you were going to maybe give us some tips, get a little free preview here. So I'm going to take you up on that.

Rena Yudkowsky (30:55):

Yes.

Matt Feret (30:57):

Yeah, go.

Rena Yudkowsky (30:59):

Okay. In my webinar, What Did I Come To The Fridge For, which I mentioned and everyone loves that title because it happens to all of us, I actually talk about four techniques to improve focus and memory. I'm going to share with you two now.

(31:11):

Number one is stop multitasking. Okay? You have 12 windows open on your computer and you go click and you click back to one and back to, and what does that do to your brain? You keep switching your brain from one task to another. So we're losing precious fractions of seconds by doing that. We multitask when we try to talk on the phone and drive. It's extremely dangerous to do that because our brain cannot actually do those two things well at once, which is why there's a huge fine for talking on the phone while driving. I go into this more, I explain the whole thing more, but the bottom line is that multitasking trips up the brain. So we all were sort of raised to think, "Well, if I could do a lot of things at once, I'll be more productive." We all think that.

Matt Feret (31:59):

We think we're exercising our brains and stretching it by doing multiple things at once or at least downshifting and upshifting all the time. That's not true?

Rena Yudkowsky (32:07):

No. So it's train the brain, but don't strain the brain. Train the brain, but don't strain the brain. When we do that multitasking, going from one thing to another, to another, to another, we are tripping up our brain. We are making our brain going too many directions at once and it stresses us out. I don't feel calm when I'm trying to talk to a kid, make supper and listen to the radio all at once. And those are three easy examples.

(32:36):

I can't even write a work email and talk to a kid at the same time. And my kids know that. My kids know that if they want my attention, they need to wait till I stop writing the email. Or they need to say, "Oh my gosh, Ma, it's so important. Stop writing the email." I cannot concentrate on two things at once. What's going to end up happening? I'm going to end up writing the wrong thing in that email.

(32:55):

That's what happens. We make mistakes. They did research in the workplace where they found that people that multitask may double the amount of mistakes. Cell phone talkers, when they're driving, they are half a second slower to step on the brakes. Half a second is a big difference when we're talking about a crash. We are tripping up our brains.

(33:15):

This is where mindfulness comes in. The antidote to multitasking is single-tasking and mindfulness. If I tell you something while you're writing an email, then you're going to say later, "Oh, I don't remember you saying that." You don't remember me saying it because it didn't even go in. It did not even get encoded into your brain because you were writing an email. So you think you could do two things at once, but you can't, actually.

(33:37):

That's why we don't remember when things happen. We don't remember where we put things. We don't remember why we opened the fridge. Because where was my brain? My brain was in Honolulu. I went to the fridge to get something, but from when I had the thought, I need the milk from the fridge till I got to the fridge, my brain... all over the place. So I get to the fridge and I go, "Now what did I come for?" I distracted myself with my own box, my internal distractions.

(34:00):

Now it could be external distractions. It could be your phone rang, it could be your Facebook pinged then you went to look at it. The very easy solution to this is keep yourself focused on one task at a time. So when I have the thought, I need milk from the fridge, as I walk to the fridge, I say out loud, "Milk, milk, milk, milk, milk."

(34:20):

It sounds so silly, but that is the answer. That's the solution. You don't allow yourself to go in so many directions at once. Because we live in such a distracted world by so many different technological devices and social media that we have got all gotten so ADD and it has become so much more difficult to focus. Oftentimes, we blame it on our memory, but it's really focus. So when you can't remember where you put your keys, I'm going to bet that you did not even pay attention to where you put your keys in the first place. So it's not memory, it's a lack of focus and attention.

Matt Feret (35:00):

Sounds like it's a lot of it's being deliberate with your thoughts and your Actions.

Rena Yudkowsky (35:06):

Exactly. And that's mindfulness. If you pay attention to what you're eating, you're going to remember what you ate. If I pay attention to who's talking to me, I'm going to remember what they said to me. But if I'm trying to do something else while someone's talking to me, I may not remember what they said to me later. It's not a memory issue, it's an attention and focus thing. So stop multitasking.

(35:28):

Now, people say to me, I'm too busy, I have too much to do. And the answer to that is, in the long run, you are going to get more done if you do one thing at a time rather than multitask. But for some people it's very, very hard. Now, I also say, I understand there are times in your life where you have to multitask. If you're taking care of kids or grandchildren, it's very hard to single-task. But what I tell people is, in the areas in your life where you can stop multitasking, do, because you'll feel an improvement in your memory. There are still areas where you have to multitask. Times or places, yes. But whenever you can stop multitasking, you're going to feel more centered, you're going to feel more calm. And here's another interesting statistic. Multitasking temporarily lowers your IQ by 15 points. Temporarily lowers your IQ by 15 points. That's another reason you don't want to be multitasking.

Matt Feret (36:20):

Oh no, I need all the help I can get in that department. Thank you.

Rena Yudkowsky (36:28):

That's the first one. I have another.

Matt Feret (36:32):

Yeah, I was going to say, that was the first one. We're getting the second one, right?

Rena Yudkowsky (36:33):

Yeah. The second one is extremely practical and helpful. This is just going to help you with everything, and it's to use your senses. We have five senses. Seeing, smelling, hearing, tasting, touching. Use as many senses as you can to encode a memory. Encode means to get it from short-term memory to long-term memory. If it's encoded properly, it's like putting a piece of paper in the right file. If it's in the right file, you'll be able to get it out. So when we want a memory in the right file, we can recall it when we want. How do we get it in the right file? We have to encode it properly. We do that by using our senses.

(37:08):

Example, I want to remember that I locked the door. What happens? We're on our phone, we walk out, we shut the door, maybe we use a key, we turn it, we walk away. 10 minutes later, an hour later, I have no recollection whether I locked my door. First of all, you're not on your phone anymore because you're not multitasking. Then you're going to feel the key in your hand. Is it cold? Is it hot? Look at it. Is it round? Is it square? What color is the key tag or the key chain? And then when I turn the lock, I'm going to hear the click of the lock. I'm going to hear myself slam the door. So I'm using my eyes, my ears. Smell and taste don't apply to this example. There are other examples where it does.

Matt Feret (37:47):

You could, but then you'd be licking a key.

Rena Yudkowsky (37:50):

You don't want to be licking keys. There's a lot of germs. And after you lock the door, you say out loud, "I have now locked the door." Then later, when you say, "Did I lock my door?" You say, "Yes. I remember feeling the key. I remember watching my hand turn the lock. I remember hearing the door slam, and I remember hearing out loud. 'I've now locked my door.'"

(38:12):

Now, it sounds tedious the way I just said it, but it takes two seconds to do all that. Two seconds of attention equals you will recall it later,

Matt Feret (38:21):

And you have to say it out loud. You can't just say it in here, in the brain.

Rena Yudkowsky (38:24):

Say it out loud so your ear hears you saying it. It's an auditory processing thing. And you don't have to worry about talking out loud because everyone talks to the air these days with all the bluetooths and EarPods. You don't have to worry about talking out loud anymore.

Matt Feret (38:38):

That's true. I didn't think about that. I thought, well, that might be a little weird. I'm like, "Who's going to be at my front door hearing me mutter it myself?"

Rena Yudkowsky (38:46):

Right. But the senses stimulate the brain. It turns the brain on. And the more senses used to encode the memory, the better you remember it. So if you use one sense to remember it, you'll have about a 10% chance of remembering it. If you use four senses, you have up to a 97% chance of remembering it. That's huge. That's a huge difference. And all you have to do is talk out loud, watch your hand, listen for the clicks or the sounds, whatever the example is. That was just one example.

(39:12):

In my webinar, I also do the example of turning off the stove, taking your medication, where you put things and where you parked your car. We can use this for all these different examples that come up where it's really about focus. People will tell you they can't remember, but they didn't even pay attention in the first place.

Matt Feret (39:34):

Two very good tips. I'm sure many, many more, and all those hours of the course and of coaching and training.

(39:40):

This has been fascinating. I think I asked this in a different way earlier, but I normally do at the end of shows, which is when should people start thinking about improving their memory? You mentioned if someone has full-blown Alzheimer's, it may not be the time to start brain coaching at that point. But when should people, they think about preventive maintenance, preventive healthcare, when's a good idea to start this stuff? When you're in your 20s? If I've gotten a diagnosis of, or a loved one, if I'm a caregiver, if they've got a diagnosis of dementia or early onset Alzheimer's or something like that, when should I start looking around this stuff around the coaching, around the one-on-one, around the courses?

Rena Yudkowsky (40:28):

So the minute you are worried about your memory, something happens and you're like, "Oh no, I don't know if this is normal," that is for sure a good time. But even before that, because what are we talking about? It's like asking when's a good time to exercise? Well, when you're one? I mean, our bodies need to exercise and our brains need to exercise. When we're younger, we get it because we're learning and we do a lot of brain stimulating activities just in our natural life.

(40:54):

But then as we get older, and again, there isn't a specific age, but definitely when people retire, we see people lower a lot of what they're doing. Some people retire and start doing nothing, which is terrible for the brain. Some people then have a healthy retirement and they start doing all the things that they didn't get to do their whole life and that's amazing.

(41:17):

But really, as soon as you get to worry about your memory, anything that happens that you're worried, definitely reach out to me or someone in charge of memory, and that's a good time. But if you have the time and energy to... Really, the bottom line is you want to be exercising physically, living a healthy lifestyle, sleeping well, and doing things for your brain that are good for your brain. That applies to any age. It's using your brain properly. We say use it or lose it. It's doing the things that are healthy for your brain. It's brain exercises, it's learning.

(41:53):

New learning is the bottom line. You want to always be learning something new. So I don't care if you're 35 or 85, you want to be learning something new every day. With the internet and everything on the internet, there's so much opportunity. You could learn a language. Languages are amazing for the brain. You could learn to play an instrument. Music and language are two things that are extremely good for the brain to learn. It makes new connections in the brain, and that's what we want to do. As we age. We want to be making new connections in the brain and creating new brain cells, which is called neurogenesis, which we now know is very possible, and it happens all the time.

(42:28):

When we exercise, like I said before, we're creating BDNF, we're creating new brain cells. It's the growth factor for our brains. So it's like pouring water on a plant. When you pour water on a plant, it grows. When you exercise, your brain grows. Just think of it like that.

(42:41):

You want to be doing exercise at every age so that your brain is growing at every age, but even more so when we get older and there is certain deterioration that happens to the hippocampus, which is what's in charge of memory and learning, we don't want our hippocampus shrinking. So we want to be exercising, we want to be eating healthy, antioxidants, and we want to be using our brain well. It's just finding the things that you enjoy that are fun and that challenge your brain and stimulate your brain.

Matt Feret (43:12):

Thank you so much. I know we could talk for a really long time about this, but what questions or topics did I not ask about or cover that I should have?

Rena Yudkowsky (43:25):

Okay, let's think. I have lots of hours of information. We can share. Something important that you didn't cover.

(43:40):

Well I'll say this one. People often ask me about brain exercises. They say, "Should we do Sudoku? Should we do crossword puzzles? Should we do online brain training?" That's a typical question I get, so I'm going to share the answer, which is, all those are good for your brain. They're good for part of your brain. So it's like saying, "Should I lift? Should I do bicep curls or tricep curls or planks?" All of the above, right? Because when you do Sudoku, it works one part of your brain. When you do crossword puzzles, it works a different part of your brain. And when you do online brain training, in a lot of ways it's great, but you're sitting in front of a computer and that is not good for your body.

(44:24):

Each has its own benefits, its own pros and cons. And what we want to do is a holistic approach. We want to do some Sudoku and some crossword puzzles and some online, but really we want to be with people. It is very important to be socially active, especially after the past three years of corona. Coming out of corona, so many people are complaining about cognitive decline, and it's a lot due to the social isolation that ended up happening. And we can talk about that, whatever. It doesn't matter. What we did in the past is the past.

(45:02):

But I can tell you, I've come across so many seniors that have suffered so terribly because of the social isolation, and we need to repair that. We underestimate the effect and the impact of community support and being with people. It's good for our brains to be with other people. So when you talk about brain training and different games, games are great, but I want you to be with people. I want you to be playing games with other people, whether it's table tennis, which is a game, you're with people and you're moving your body. Win, win, win. Or dancing. If you're dancing with other people, you are moving your body. It's fun and you're with other people. Anything that is with real, live people in person is going to be better than anything you do online.

Matt Feret (45:54):

Thank you so much. Tell everybody how we can find you on the internet.

Rena Yudkowsky (45:55):

Sure. Thank you. I have a website. It's my name, renayudkowsky.com. I have a Facebook group for those of you that are on Facebook, and that's a lot of fun. I put all sorts of fun things in there. Facebook group called Memory Matters, Tips and Tricks for Midlifers and Seniors. I have a YouTube channel they can just look up, I think it's Rena and Memory Matters and I have lots of free videos on there. I'm on LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok under Rena Yudkowsky or Memory Matters. Type in those things, you'll find me. And if you have any questions, if people have questions about their memory or concerns, feel free to reach out to me. I'm happy to answer you or have a conversation with you about your memory concerns. My email is rena@renayudkowsky.com.

Matt Feret (46:36):

And of course, I'll list all of those on the Matt Feret show homepage too, so you don't have to remember it and hit rewind on your podcast player a hundred times, just head to the website.

(46:46):

Rena, this has been really, really interesting. Thank you so much for spending time with us.

Rena Yudkowsky (46:51):

Thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure.

Matt Feret (46:53):

Thanks, Rena. Make sure to hit The Matt Feret Show website for links and show notes. Until next time, to your wealth, wisdom, and wellness, I'm Matt Feret, and thanks for tuning in.

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