How To Prevent Dementia | Lisa Genova
10% Happier with Dan Harris
10% Media, LLC
4.6 • 12.9K Ratings
🗓️ 30 October 2023
⏱️ 68 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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Understanding the difference between 'normal' forgetfulness and actual memory loss, practical ways to stave off Alzheimer's disease, and meditation's role in brain health.
Lisa Genova has a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Harvard University. She is the New York Times bestselling author of several novels including Still Alice—which was adapted into a film starring Julianne Moore who won the 2015 Best Actress Oscar for her role as Alice Howland, Love Anthony, and Every Note Played. Her first work of nonfiction is Remember: The Science of Memory and the Art of Forgetting. Genova's first TED talk, What You Can Do To Prevent Alzheimer's has been viewed over eight million times and her most recent TED talk, How Memory Works--and Why Forgetting is Totally OK was the sixth most watched TED talk of 2021.
In this episode we talk about:
- The difference between 'normal' forgetting and actual memory loss
- The difference between dementia and Alzheimer's disease
- Meditation's role in brain health
- What the Memory Paradox is
- The best foods and types of exercise for staving off Alzheimer's
- The three things happening in your brain while you sleep that are helpful for memory
- Why brain games (like crossword puzzles and sudoku) don't actually improve memory
- The first necessary ingredient for creating a memory
- How memories are formed
- And the relationship between memories and music
Related Episodes:
Ten Percent Happier Podcast Sleep Series
Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/lisa-genova
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's the 10% happier podcast, I'm your host, Dan Harris. |
| 0:20.5 | Hello my fellow suffering beings, every once in a while I'll be rushing around the house |
| 0:24.3 | checking things off my to-do list and I'll stop short and think to myself, what am I |
| 0:29.0 | doing again? |
| 0:30.0 | Why am I in this particular room? |
| 0:31.9 | What mission was I on that propelled me in this direction? |
| 0:35.3 | And for the life of me, I will not be able to remember. |
| 0:38.4 | In moments like this, I sometimes worry, is this early onset Alzheimer's? |
| 0:42.9 | Same for when I run into somebody who I haven't seen in a minute and I can't remember |
| 0:46.3 | their name or when I try to bring to mind a word I've been searching for and I can't |
| 0:50.9 | do it. |
| 0:51.9 | In these moments, I tell myself a story about how I've got dementia in my family and |
| 0:55.3 | these kinds of things have been happening to me more frequently as I enter my fifties |
| 0:59.3 | and down the toilet I go. |
| 1:02.3 | I suspect some of this might sound familiar to you no matter what age you're at and I |
| 1:05.9 | suspect you will find the conversation you are about to hear, extremely reassuring. |
| 1:11.5 | Many of the things you might suspect to be symptoms of early onset dementia are in fact |
| 1:15.9 | totally normal and even if you have dementia in your family, there really are things you |
| 1:20.1 | can do to prevent it for yourself. |
| 1:23.3 | My guest today is Lisa Genova. |
| 1:25.0 | She's got a PhD in neuroscience from Harvard. |
| 1:27.2 | She's the New York Times bestselling author of several novels, including Still Alice about |
... |
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