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How to Improve Memory & Accelerate Learning | Dr. Andrew Huberman

Huberman Lab Clips12:49Added Aug 31, 2026

Dr. Andrew Huberman discusses neuroscience-supported strategies for improving memory and learning, highlighting how exercise-induced arousal, making delibera...

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  1. Sarah's Question

  2. 00:00Hello, Dr. Huberman. My name is Sarah
  3. 00:02and I come from the south of England in
  4. 00:05the UK and I would love to know what
  5. 00:08your top health hacks um from a
  6. 00:12neuroscience perspective were for
  7. 00:15improving your memory. I was wondering
  8. 00:18if you could tell me what the best
  9. 00:20things to try would be.
  10. 00:23Great. Well, thank you Sarah from south
  11. 00:25of England. Just came back from London
  12. 00:27recently. used to get over there a lot
  13. 00:29more uh to the UK. It's a lovely place.
  14. 00:32I won't attempt my British accent, but
  15. 00:34I'm envious of the British accent. It's
  16. 00:36um delightful. Okay. Neuroscience

  17. Neuroscience of Memory

  18. 00:40supported tools for improving memory.
  19. 00:43There is a vast neuroscience literature
  20. 00:45on memory in particular that memories
  21. 00:48are encoded, right? They're first made
  22. 00:50in the structure that we call the
  23. 00:51hippocampus. You actually have two of
  24. 00:52them, hippocampi, one on each side of
  25. 00:54your brain. And then memories once
  26. 00:56they're formed are kind of pushed out.
  27. 00:59They're not really pushed out, but
  28. 01:00they're sent to uh different circuits in
  29. 01:03the neoortex, which is the outer part of
  30. 01:06the brain, the bumpy part of the brain
  31. 01:08that appears wrinkly uh when the skull
  32. 01:10is removed. And what we know about that
  33. 01:13process is that memories change from
  34. 01:17when we first make them to when they're
  35. 01:19first stored to many years later
  36. 01:22depending on whether we rehearse or we
  37. 01:25have to recall in some instances what
  38. 01:28those memories were. meaning a memory
  39. 01:31that you formed in the fifth grade that
  40. 01:33might have been very relevant to your
  41. 01:34life then remembering the the um
  42. 01:37intersection where a good friend not
  43. 01:39your best friend but a good friend uh
  44. 01:40lived and how to navigate there
  45. 01:42important perhaps when you were friends
  46. 01:44with that person in the fifth grade not
  47. 01:46later right so the memory was made it
  48. 01:48was put into your neoortex and elsewhere
  49. 01:51presumably and eventually it just sort
  50. 01:53of dissipates but it's still there and
  51. 01:56the reason I'm giving you this brief
  52. 01:58neuroscience lesson And it's only a tiny
  53. 02:00tiny fraction of what we know about the
  54. 02:01formation and storage of memories is
  55. 02:03because when you're thinking about
  56. 02:04neuroscience supported ways to increase
  57. 02:07your memory, there's really two
  58. 02:08approaches to that. One is about recall
  59. 02:11of things that you very likely will lose
  60. 02:13if you don't continue to practice them.
  61. 02:16The other is about learning new things.
  62. 02:18Okay? And these operate differently in
  63. 02:21terms of how your brain is able to
  64. 02:24remember additional things going
  65. 02:27forward. In other words, you need to
  66. 02:28practice both forms of memory. That is
  67. 02:32recalling previous memories to keep them
  68. 02:35available to you as well as learning new
  69. 02:38things in order to keep the whole memory
  70. 02:40system vital and able to continue to
  71. 02:43both remember things like names, which
  72. 02:44people often are upset that they start
  73. 02:47forgetting as they get older. That they
  74. 02:48see that as a warning sign that they
  75. 02:50might be developing dementia or
  76. 02:52something of that sort, which it isn't
  77. 02:53necessarily, I should point out. and
  78. 02:56their ability to continue to learn new
  79. 02:57things. So, we can break this down into
  80. 03:01either a 4-hour podcast or a brief
  81. 03:03answer. And I'm going to try and provide
  82. 03:04a brief but sufficient for now answer
  83. 03:06for you and anyone else interested in
  84. 03:08this issue.
  85. 03:10If you are interested in forming new
  86. 03:13memories, the most important pieces of
  87. 03:16the formula are the following. And this
  88. 03:17is very well supported in the
  89. 03:19neuroscience literature. You must be
  90. 03:21focused at the time of encoding. at the
  91. 03:24time when you're trying to learn the
  92. 03:25thing. Okay, that means you also have to
  93. 03:28be alert. There's no focus without
  94. 03:30alertness. That also means getting good
  95. 03:33sleep. That also means exercise. And

  96. Exercise and Brain Alertness

  97. 03:36this is a point about exercise and brain
  98. 03:38longevity that most people miss, which
  99. 03:39is that many, not all, but many of the
  100. 03:42benefits of exercise on brain health and
  101. 03:46memory are because of the pro-arousal
  102. 03:48effects of exercise. Meaning, if you do
  103. 03:51a 30-minute jog or brisk walk even, or
  104. 03:54you do a moderate to highintensity
  105. 03:56resistance training session, or you hop
  106. 03:59on a uh like an one of those uh aine
  107. 04:02bikes with a with a fan, which you'll
  108. 04:04quickly learn is not designed to cool
  109. 04:05you off, but rather to provide
  110. 04:06resistance, and you warm up for a
  111. 04:08minute, and then you sprint hard for a
  112. 04:09minute or half a minute and then, you
  113. 04:11know, pedal easy for a minute and then
  114. 04:13go 30 seconds again. That sort of thing
  115. 04:14will get your heart rate up, up. There
  116. 04:16is now a vast literature showing that
  117. 04:19all those forms of exercise and others
  118. 04:21as well, even things as mellow as Tai
  119. 04:23Chi, which turns out to be pretty
  120. 04:24difficult. I tried it recently. It's not
  121. 04:26that easy to do correctly. Tai Chi, a
  122. 04:29yoga class, all forms of exercise
  123. 04:31because they raise your levels of
  124. 04:33autonomic arousal and alertness. And
  125. 04:35they get these again the catakolamines
  126. 04:38is a repeating theme, the dopamine,
  127. 04:39epinephrine, norepinephrine, and
  128. 04:40circulating. Yes, they increase things
  129. 04:42like brain derived neutrophic factor
  130. 04:43etc. They set you up to learn better in
  131. 04:47part because of the chemicals and their
  132. 04:50ability to make your brain connections
  133. 04:53more plastic. But the biggest effect of
  134. 04:56exercise is the proarousal effect. Put
  135. 05:00differently, it increases alertness
  136. 05:01which allows you to focus better which
  137. 05:04is the first real step in triggering
  138. 05:06learning and neuroplasticity. So this is
  139. 05:08a very important point for people to
  140. 05:10understand because people want to hear
  141. 05:12ah you know um it's this form of
  142. 05:14exercise or that form of exercise. It's
  143. 05:16the form of exercise that gives you a
  144. 05:18boost in alertness. Sure BDNF and there
  145. 05:21are other things too. IGF-1. I mean, I
  146. 05:22could make a list of 50 chemicals that
  147. 05:24exercise increases that facilitate
  148. 05:26neuroplasticity. But the most potent
  149. 05:28effects are by virtue of the fact that
  150. 05:31exercise increases arousal, which then
  151. 05:33allows you to focus better in the
  152. 05:35following one to six hours. What do you
  153. 05:39do in those 1 to six hours is really the
  154. 05:42key to actually learning something that
  155. 05:44benefits your memory. Just being more
  156. 05:46alert but not focused on anything
  157. 05:48specific is not going to help your
  158. 05:51memory specifically. Okay? It might
  159. 05:53facilitate brain health. So the exercise
  160. 05:56thing is the first domino that needs to
  161. 05:58fall. But if you can be alert and really
  162. 06:00focused on any kind of learning without
  163. 06:03doing exercise first, yes, you should
  164. 06:05still exercise for other reasons. But
  165. 06:07there's nothing special about exercise
  166. 06:09in terms of neuroplasticity of learning
  167. 06:10other things except this arousal effect.
  168. 06:13Okay. Alertness allows you to be
  169. 06:15focused. When you're focused, the

  170. The Power of Making Errors

  171. 06:17neuroscience tells us that you have to
  172. 06:19make errors. You have to make errors.
  173. 06:21Whether or not you're trying to learn
  174. 06:22dance, you're trying to learn uh do a
  175. 06:23cross word puzzle, you're trying to get
  176. 06:25better at chess, you're trying to learn
  177. 06:27um how to code, you're trying to learn
  178. 06:29um how to be different in certain social
  179. 06:31interactions, whatever it is you're
  180. 06:33trying to learn or a physical skill, you
  181. 06:35have to push yourself past the limits of
  182. 06:37your abilities. Why? Well, put simply,
  183. 06:40if your nervous system can carry out
  184. 06:43something that you're trying to do,
  185. 06:44there is absolutely no reason for it to
  186. 06:46change. Period. End of story. You have
  187. 06:48to make errors through deliberate
  188. 06:52effort to do things correctly, right?
  189. 06:54You can't just do throwaway errors.
  190. 06:55Like, you can't go just, this is
  191. 06:57obvious, but just for sake of uh
  192. 06:58example, you can't go out to the tennis
  193. 07:00court and intentionally miss a bunch of
  194. 07:02of serves and get better at serving.
  195. 07:05That's obvious, right? What you have to
  196. 07:06do is serve to the best of your ability.
  197. 07:08serve to the best of your ability. And
  198. 07:09when you fail, when you screw up, that
  199. 07:12sends a signal through a very
  200. 07:14interesting set of circuits that's
  201. 07:15relayed through your mini brain, as they
  202. 07:17call your cerebellum in the back, that
  203. 07:18then carries the error signal forward,
  204. 07:20and then the rest of your brain has to
  205. 07:22reshape itself. And here's a critical
  206. 07:24point. The reshaping occurs during deep
  207. 07:27rest, in particular, sleep. Both
  208. 07:29slowwave deep sleep and rapid eye
  209. 07:31movement sleep, which we talked about
  210. 07:32earlier in this episode. Both are
  211. 07:33crucial. Some people need six hours of
  212. 07:35sleep a night, some seven, some eight,
  213. 07:36some nine. Okay, do your best to get
  214. 07:39what you need consistently. So you need
  215. 07:41that sleep in the ne ideally the night
  216. 07:43after you try and learn something or
  217. 07:45every night. Please see previous
  218. 07:47question about the problems with
  219. 07:48overoptimization. I don't want anyone to
  220. 07:49take these things as rule of law. If you
  221. 07:51don't sleep well for a night or two,
  222. 07:52it's not like your learning is
  223. 07:54completely nuked, but you don't want to
  224. 07:55do that consistently. The deep rest
  225. 07:57piece is critical. But then there's
  226. 07:59another one. There's a really impressive
  227. 08:02literature that shows and this is backed
  228. 08:04by neuroscience. Okay, so brain imaging,
  229. 08:07it's backed by performance, which is
  230. 08:08perhaps the most important thing,
  231. 08:09people's ability to learn new
  232. 08:12information. And remember the other
  233. 08:13important aspect of memory to call back
  234. 08:17memories of things from the past and
  235. 08:19it's self- testing. This is the most

  236. Self-Testing Protocol for Plasticity

  237. 08:22overlooked powerful protocol for
  238. 08:24neuroplasticity. In fact, I covered a
  239. 08:26bunch of studies on this in the how to
  240. 08:27study and learn episode of the podcast.
  241. 08:29I'm guessing a bunch of students watch
  242. 08:31that podcast. Very popular episode. Um,
  243. 08:33and I'm guessing a lot of non-
  244. 08:34studentents probably didn't because the
  245. 08:35word study probably sounded like if
  246. 08:37you're not in school, this wouldn't be
  247. 08:38relevant. But it's highly re relevant.
  248. 08:40And here are the the key takeaways.
  249. 08:41People were given a passage of
  250. 08:43information to read and they could
  251. 08:44either do it once, twice, three times,
  252. 08:45or four times. This has been done with
  253. 08:48multiple uh iterations in different
  254. 08:50studies. Some studies included taking
  255. 08:52notes. Some studies included
  256. 08:54highlighting. You know, all the
  257. 08:55different ways that people study
  258. 08:56information to try and learn. By far the
  259. 09:00most impactful thing for forming stable
  260. 09:03memories over time or calling back old
  261. 09:05memories to keep this memory system
  262. 09:07thriving was self- testing. That self-
  263. 09:10testing can take the form of just, hm,
  264. 09:12can I do a mental walk back to my
  265. 09:14friend's house from the fifth grade?
  266. 09:15Now, you have to ask yourself, is this
  267. 09:17relevant information for your life now?
  268. 09:20Well, perhaps not, but maybe you're just
  269. 09:22testing your memory system, right? And
  270. 09:24here's the key. Errors should be
  271. 09:27expected and embraced. Whether you're
  272. 09:29trying to learn some new information
  273. 09:30from two days ago, whether you're trying
  274. 09:32to remember information from uh three
  275. 09:35years ago or 30 years ago, when you
  276. 09:38can't remember, that's your nervous
  277. 09:40system's cue that it's going to need to
  278. 09:41draw it out of those circuits which are
  279. 09:43now in your neoortex. It's deep within
  280. 09:45your memory. Although it's a bit of a
  281. 09:46misnomer because your hippocampus sits
  282. 09:48deeper to your cortex, but anyway,
  283. 09:50that's a nerdy side point. It's
  284. 09:52distributed out there and you need to
  285. 09:53call it back. And the only way to really
  286. 09:55call back those memories in a way that
  287. 09:57they're going to stay with you going
  288. 09:59forward to keep your memory and keep
  289. 10:01these circuits going that allow you to
  290. 10:03continue to form new memories keep this
  291. 10:05whole system robust is to make errors
  292. 10:08where you go I can't remember what came
  293. 10:11after three
  294. 10:13in well question one of the hubman lab
  295. 10:16podcast Q&A like right now what was that
  296. 10:18third thing? So you have to test
  297. 10:19yourself. Now, if you go right back and
  298. 10:21you just get the information, that's not
  299. 10:23going to help you much. That's just like
  300. 10:24reading it again or hearing it again or
  301. 10:26highlighting it, it's not going to help
  302. 10:27you that much. You have to remember what
  303. 10:30you can remember. And then you have to
  304. 10:31hit the point of I can't remember that.
  305. 10:34Darn it. That friction point, that tip
  306. 10:36of the tongue phenomenon or like I can't
  307. 10:37remember that person's name. Great.
  308. 10:39Those memories are now resurfacing. If
  309. 10:40you wait some period of time, typically
  310. 10:42they come back. If you have to go look
  311. 10:43them up later, great. You won't forget
  312. 10:45them as readily as if, of course, you
  313. 10:47didn't go look them up. The point here
  314. 10:49is that all of learning is
  315. 10:51anti-forgetting. It almost sounds like a
  316. 10:53giant duh when you hear it, but all of
  317. 10:56learning and memory is anti-forgetting.
  318. 10:58And we need to push both the learning,
  319. 11:00right? Alertness, focus, trigger that
  320. 11:02plasticity. Deep rest and sleep allow
  321. 11:05the plasticity to actually occur. The
  322. 11:07physical reshaping of circuitry that's
  323. 11:09going to carry those memories. But then
  324. 11:11we have to consolidate that over time.
  325. 11:13We have to recall it. Okay? and self-
  326. 11:16testing with errors, pushing ourselves
  327. 11:18to the point where we can't remember
  328. 11:19something and then looking it up and
  329. 11:21reconsolidating it. That's the key.

  330. Using ChatGPT for Memory Testing

  331. 11:23That's what the neuroscience literature
  332. 11:25says. That's what the psychological
  333. 11:27literature says. And there's just so
  334. 11:29much data to support this. So Sarah, my
  335. 11:33suggestion would be test yourself on
  336. 11:35things that you're interested in
  337. 11:36learning regardless of whether the
  338. 11:39learning occurred recently or it's from
  339. 11:41the the past. Both forms of of testing
  340. 11:43yourself. And again, this can just be
  341. 11:45done mentally on a walk. You could write
  342. 11:46down questions for yourself. Most people
  343. 11:48won't do that. These days, I'll use chat
  344. 11:50GPT to test myself on material either
  345. 11:52from a podcast or even some material
  346. 11:55that I learned long ago and I'll sort of
  347. 11:57say design a basic test at the level of
  348. 11:59kind of second year graduate school at I
  349. 12:01don't know for me it was you know
  350. 12:04graduate school neuroscience and you
  351. 12:05know in synaptic transmission. I of
  352. 12:07course remember that stuff but they're
  353. 12:08little details that over time if you
  354. 12:09don't practice can Wayne and of course
  355. 12:11I'm learning new things all the time.
  356. 12:13And in order to put those to memory to
  357. 12:15really consolidate those, I'll use chat
  358. 12:17GBT to generate a test for myself. And
  359. 12:20it is really good because I can say, you
  360. 12:23know what, that was too easy. Make it
  361. 12:24harder. Okay, so there's a lot more to
  362. 12:26say about that. Um, I suggest listening
  363. 12:28to the how to study and learn episode if
  364. 12:29you'd like to go deeper into that. We've
  365. 12:31done a number of episodes on memory,
  366. 12:32including working memory elsewhere, but
  367. 12:34the general themes here are consistent
  368. 12:37across all forms of memory, all ages,
  369. 12:39and all forms of learning.
  370. 12:46[music]