Category: psychology

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Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory (HSAM) Is a Rare but Real Condition

The few people who have highly superior autobiographical memory (HSAM) can tell you exactly what happened on any given day, down to the way they felt and at what time. It’s both a superpower and a curse, depending on the circumstances. And to this day, scientists have no idea what contributors make a person have HSAM.

Though they do have some theories.

In 2006, a case study of  Jill Price, referred to by the pseudonym AJ in the study, was published in Neurocase. It described in detail her unusual memory. Price later outed herself as AJ publicly.

In an email, Price explained her ability:

I can take a date, between 1974 and today, and tell you what day it falls on, what I was doing that day and if anything of great importance (i.e.: The Challenger Explosion, Tuesday, January 28, 1986) occurred on that day I can describe that to you as well …Whenever I see a date flash on the television (or anywhere else for that matter) I automatically go back to that day and remember where I was, what I was doing, what day it fell on and on and on and on and on. It is non-stop, uncontrollable and totally exhausting.

And she wasn’t alone. A number of people came forward after the report, saying they had the same ability. Some were tested and found to have HSAM, same as Price.

Photo Credit: Flickr

Currently, only about 60 people worldwide are believed to have HSAM. Scientists are working with them to see if they can learn more about the average person’s memory, as well as how, and why, their super memories operate the way they do.

Something researchers have uncovered is that people with HSAM tend toward obsessiveness with cleaning, collecting and organizing, so there is thinking that perhaps collecting and organizing memories is part of HSAM.

Photo Credit: Pixabay

Also, structural differences in the areas of the brain associated with autobiographical memory creation show up on scans. When asked about particular dates from the past, regular people lose their ability to recall them after about a week. People with HSAM recall details up to a decade and longer.

Something else researchers found was that people with HSAM can recall false memories just as often as regular people. So, their superhuman memories are far from perfect.

Photo Credit: Pexels

So, what does this all mean? Maybe the answer lies in the mysterious part of the brain where we turn short-term memories into long-term memory.

It would be interesting to figure out, although where this could have practical applications for those of us with normal to poor memories remains to be seen.

I kind of like living my life able to forget – at least I don’t remember all my regrets…

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A Study Shows That Tattoos Can Strengthen Our Immune Systems

Even though tattoos are pretty trendy at the moment, they’ve actually been around for over 6,000 years. They’re made to express a person’s thoughts, feelings, and or cultural beliefs. Some get them as a source of strength or healing, while others may get them just for fun.

Whatever your reason, have you ever thought about what tattoos do to your body? Like, for example, how might your immune system react to getting your skin dyed?

Funny you asked…

Christopher Lynn has been studying Samoan tattooing culture “and the impact of the big traditional pieces called pe’a and malu — tatau in general — on the immune system.”

The Samoa study is actually the fourth phase of his research about how tattoos interact with a person’s immune system. He first started with a group of mostly women in Alabama, and he found an interesting outcome.

“What I’d observed among that group suggested that tattooing could help beef up one’s immune response.”

But one study was not enough to gain a solid understanding of how or why. So he explored further, and that led him to Samoa:

“That’s why I traveled in 2018 with fellow anthropologist Michaela Howells to the Samoan Islands. Samoans have a long, continuous history of extensive tattooing. Working with contemporary machine and hand-tap tattooists in American Samoa, we wanted to see if we’d find the same link to enhanced immune response.”

Photo Credit: Unsplash, Allef Vinicius

What happens to your body when you get a tattoo?

Whenever you sit for a tattoo, you are allowing ink-coated needle pricks to penetrate your epidermis. This sends a warning to your immune system that these small “wounds” need healing. Your body responds in two ways. First:

“…getting a new tattoo triggers your immune system to send white blood cells called macrophages to eat invaders and sacrifice themselves to protect against infection.”

It will also send a level of adaptive responses to the area in the form of proteins. These proteins help the skin heal, but they also keep an eye out for this to happen again in the future.

“There are several classes of these proteins — called antibodies or immunoglobulins — and they continue to circulate in the bloodstream, on the lookout lest that same invader is encountered again. They’re at the ready to quickly launch an immune response the next time around.”

It’s like these little antibodies know how addictive tattooing is!

How is the level of antibodies and white blood cells measured to understand the immune systems reaction?

Photo Credit: Unsplash, Joel Muniz

“This adaptive capacity of the immune system means that we could measure immunoglobulins in saliva as approximations of previous stress caused by tattooing.”

During the study, Lynn and anthropologist Michaela Howells sampled 25 tattoo recipients, both Samoan and non-Samoan tourists to the island.

“We collected saliva at the start and end of each tattoo session, controlling for the tattoo duration. We also measured recipients’ weight, height and fat density to account for health. From the saliva samples, we extracted the antibody immunoglobulin A, as well as the stress hormone cortisol and inflammatory marker C-reactive protein. Immunoglobulin A is considered a frontline immune defense and provides important protections against frequent pathogens like those of the common cold.”

They determined that immunoglobulin A remained higher in the bloodstream even after a tattoo fully healed. Also, if one of the recipients received a larger tattoo, leaving them under the needle longer, the saliva produced more immunoglobulin A than those who experienced smaller tattoos

It seems that getting a tattoo for the first time primed the recipient’s bodies. Meaning, it ramped up their immune system to fight back in case there is a next time. Even if they chose not to get additional tattoos, their immune systems were still heightened in case they get sick. It’s the body’s way of preparing for future ailments due to body stress.

“Stress’s bad rap comes from chronic forms that really do undermine immune response and health. But a little bit is actually good for you and prepares your body to fight off germs. Regular exercise provides immune function benefits through repetition, not necessarily single visits to the gym. We think this is similar to how each tattoo seems to prepare the body for vigilance.”

Even though these findings sparked more interest on what tattoo can do to keep you “healthier,” you may want to wait before going out and covering your body in ink. Lynn is still exploring the ramifications.

“Our Samoan findings supported the results of my first study in Alabama. But of course correlation does not imply causation. Enhanced immune response is correlated with more tattoo experience, but maybe healthier people heal easily from tattooing and like to get them more. How could we find out if getting tattoos could actually make a person healthier?”

I guess we’ll have to wait and see!

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When Is the Best Time of Day to Exercise?

What time of day do you like to exercise? Would you change your mind if science suggested one of those were a better time?

Maybe, maybe not (for me). But if you’re curious, here are a few things to consider.

Photo Credit: Unsplash, Sam Knight

What does the early bird get?

So, morning or evening? Well, it gets a bit complicated.

Throughout the health and wellness community, there are people who swear by “fasted training” for losing weight; the idea is that working out on an empty stomach burns fat to melt away the pounds. Fasted training is often done in the morning, before breakfast.

But studies have been mixed. “Fed training,” when you eat before a workout, has been shown to help spark your body’s energy so that you can have a strong workout.

So which is better?

Well, the evidence says that it depends on your personal body composition, so you need to decide what works. Also, more important than either fed or fasted training is consistency. We all know there are tons of reasons in life why you might skip the gym – and that’s a major pro to getting your workout out of the way in the morning.

Photo Credit: Unsplash, Scott Webb

But evening workouts also have their perks…

Throughout the day, your body warms up, making your evening workout better. Also, your muscles cells contain biological clocks that abide by your circadian rhythms, which are regulated by your larger internal clock and sleeping regimes. What that means is that “…muscle cells are more efficient during an organism’s normal waking hours.”

So if you are into strength training and weight lifting, evening hours could be your best bet, as your muscles are at optimal efficiency and maintain higher levels of testosterone. Not to mention that later workouts have been shown to increase focus and energy.

Back to the question: which is better?

Well, sorry to do this to you, but it depends on the person. Perhaps the most important factor to consider is consistency, if you’re working toward weight loss goals. But if you’re looking for other types of gains, then you should consider muscle fatigue, sleep, and your schedule larger. If you ever see a trainer at the gym, they can give you a bit more advice specific to your body composition and goals.

But as long as you’re doing exercise, you are on your way!

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How Did Billie Eilish Stand on the Ceiling During Her ‘Saturday Night Live’ Performance?

If you’re familiar with Billie Eilish, you know she pushes interesting boundaries.

I’m not talking about sexual boundaries like Madonna or Lady Gaga, but more troubled, mysterious kinds of boundaries. And she was only 14 in 2015 when her first single, “Ocean Eyes,” dropped!

With her funky personal style and darkly twisted music, she’s become a phenomenon over the last three years. And honestly, there is no end in sight.

You may have caught her appearance on the opening episode of the new Saturday Night Live season, giving excellent performances of “Bad Boy” and “I Love You” (accompanied by her brother Finneas).

Did you miss her “Bad Boy?” performance? Well, she channeled Lionel Richie’s “Dancing on the Ceiling” and the audience went nuts.

Here’s a snippet to explain:

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we on the walls n shit ? @nbcsnl

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How did she do it?

She must be a witch or something.

Not quite. Cinematic trickery was used to make it appear she could walk on walls.

Here’s how it was done! Justin Theroux, who was in the audience videoed his perspective.

See how the stage moves, allowing Billie to walk the wall?

The camera remained fastened on the initial plane while the stage itself spun. The TV audience wasn’t privy to the behind-the-scenes view, but the in house audience was.

Here’s the full performance to gawk over!

Pretty neat and very appropriate for this particular musical genius.

If you’re dying for more Billie Eilish, look her up—you won’t regret it!

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Studies Show That Having a Dog Helps People Have Longer and Better Lives

I’m sure that this won’t be news to some of you.

Dogs and people go together like peanut butter and jelly. Of course, your dog will eat your peanut butter and jelly when you’re not looking, but I digress.

Dogs make us crazy happy, and a recent study gives us even more reason to bring these fuzz balls into our homes. Turns out, dogs help their owners live longer.

Published in the American Heart Association journal Circulation, the study looked at cardiovascular research from between 1950 and 2019 for evidence that dogs decrease the risk of heart disease in owners.

Photo Credit: Needpix

Well, they found it in droves. People who had survived heart attacks were less likely to have another heart related event and were also less likely to ultimately die from cardiovascular disease if they owned a dog. In fact, owning a dog was shown to boost heart health.

But researchers found it wasn’t just heart conditions dogs improved. The data from millions of patients over all those years of study also showed owning dogs lowered the rates of death from any cause. The study stated that dogs decreased the risk of dying by anything by 24 percent.

Health aside, according to a different 2019 study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, dogs can also be credited to improving your overall quality of life.

Which is good, because if you’re going to live longer, you want a high quality life.

Photo Credit: Pxhere

Even participants who suffered from chronic pain reported more socialization and lowered rates of depression and anxiety.

Dogs are also shown to help people manage emotional and mental health, says a 2016 study published in the journal BMC Psychiatry. When participants mapped out their social structures, dogs consistently were placed as most central to their social lives.

Another 2019 study, this one published in the journal Aging and Mental Health, showed that older people received mental health benefits when they owned dogs. Having a pet around gave them purpose and decreased feelings of loneliness.

Photo Credit: Max Pixel

Another segment of society benefitting from dog ownership is youths experiencing homelessness. The animals create a barrier to getting into shelters, but the yong people studied reported feeling more loved than those who didn’t have dogs, according to a 2015 report in Child Psychiatry and Human Development.

What about people who cannot responsibly take care of dogs in their current environment or situation? All is okay. Current Opinion in Psychiatry research from 2015 tells us that even interacting with someone else’s dogs or volunteering to take care of other dogs can be hugely beneficial.

So, the science is in: dog love is a health tonic.

Take a dog for a walk, scratch his ears, rub her tummy and soak up all the healthy goodness for a longer and happier fur-filled life.

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Here’s the Truth Behind Why You Stop Feeling Tired the Moment You Crawl into Bed

Does this sound familiar?

You’re exhausted all day long. There’s isn’t enough coffee in the world to prop your eyelids up during your commute, at your desk, your kid’s soccer game, but suddenly, when you’re in your pajamas, teeth brushed, and between your nice, clean sheets, you can’t sleep.

According to TIME, you’re not alone – many people have trouble falling asleep in their own beds, thanks to a phenomenon called conditional arousal.

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Basically, it happens because you’ve inadvertently trained your body to associate your bed with being awake, as opposed to being used for sleep. We don’t get in bed when we’re tired, we get in bed an hour before we want to be asleep and then binge a couple of Netflix episodes, scroll through our social media, read a few chapters, have a snack, etc – and that tells our brain that the next time we get into bed, we won’t be going to sleep right away.

So, it holds off on the good chemicals.

Conditional arousal is a cycle, something you’ve made a habit, which means you can’t really break it in one night. To fix it, you basically have to stop doing anything that isn’t sleeping in your bed, and you’ll need to give it time.

Photo Credit: iStock

This is also the reason that sleep experts advise you get up and go into another room if you’re struggling with a bout of anxiety and/or insomnia that keeps you tossing and turning. If you stay in bed, your brain will begin to associate your mattress and pillows with flopping and frustration as opposed to a peaceful night’s sleep.

Like any habit, you’ll need to establish a new routine, and then stick to it for as long as it takes to erase the previous one from your brain.

If it doesn’t work, or you suffer from clinical insomnia or anxiety or other conditions that can make falling asleep difficult, you might want to consult a medical professional in order to get the sleep you need.

But if you’re just guilty of climbing into bed to wind down, try doing that part of your routine in another room and saving your mattress for when you’re actually ready to catch some zzz’s.

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Being Forgetful Might Be a Good Thing for Your Brain

I forget a whole lot of stuff. It’s gotten much worse as I age (and since my pregnancies and having kids – sleep deprivation is no joke!), so I’m quite happy to hear that maybe I haven’t become addled by middle age after all.

Now, let’s just say this: the science says that forgetting small details might mean your brain is functioning well, separating important things from the noise, but forgetting large things should still be considered a major problem.

Onward.

Recent research from the University of Toronto, published in Neuron, finds that the growth of new neurons in the hippocampus (where we think memories are stored) is formatted to make room for new and important information. In the process, that growth allows you to jettison useless knowledge.

Professor Blake Richards, lead author on the study, explains further.

“We always idealize the person who can smash a trivia game, but the point of memory is not being able to remember who won the Stanley Cup in 1972.”

The point of memory, of course, is to increase your intelligence and your ability to assess your circumstances and make educated decisions – and in order to do that, some things need to be forgotten.

The study is supported by 2007 research that used MRI scans to monitor the brains of 20 healthy adults taking a memory test. The results claimed people were better at remembering conflicting information, as opposed to easy or repetitive knowledge.

“The process of forgetting serves a functional purpose,” verified Michael Anderson, one of the researchers on the 2007 study. “What these guys have done is clearly establish the neurobiological basis for this process.”

Researchers agree that there are several benefits to being able to forget some things. First, certain information, like old phone numbers and passwords, is worthless. Second, we can generalize or combine certain memories to no detriment.

In one super interesting experiment with mice, scientists had the rodents find the exit to a maze, then on a future try, changed its location.

The mice who were drugged to forget the former location of the exit found the new one much faster.

Huh.

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Toby? Tom? Tim? Oooh, Andrew. Sorry.

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I’m not sure if this is why I can never remember the names of people I’ve just met (or met long ago), but hey. I’m going to go ahead and blame it on my brain trying to be smarter and stronger, and not on my general lack of interest.

Don’t try to stop me.

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Research Says You’re Worse at Picking Good Photos of Yourself Than a Stranger Is

Taking a good selfie may seem simple, until you actually try to do it. Often, you’ll wind up taking approximately 5,000 photos before you see one that’s cute enough to post.

But who deems a photo “cute enough”? Beauty is subjective, and according to one study, you’re not the best person to judge which photos of yourself are the best.

In 2017, researchers in Australia had 102 students rank photos of themselves by their attractiveness, trustworthiness, dominance, confidence, and competence. The participants rated each photo from one to 10 in each category. Then 160 strangers did the same thing for each picture.

Photo Credit: iStock

Surprisingly, the students’ favorite photos did not rank as well with strangers as the others. This was the opposite of what the researchers had predicted.

“This result is contrary to the prediction based on self-presentation literature, that participants would select more flattering images of themselves,” they wrote.

So, it might be a good idea to seek out a second opinion before you pick which selfie to post — at least when looking attractive to other people is the goal, such as on dating apps.

Photo Credit: iStock

But why, exactly, are people so bad at picking good photos of themselves? You’d think we’d be better at it because we know our own faces better than anyone else.

Well, that also means we’re more biased than other people.

We may see ourselves as hotter and more trustworthy, for example. Moreover, you see yourself in a specific way before you even glance at a photo, and you’re typically looking for a photo that matches up with what’s in your head. Strangers have no such biases.

So in this case, maybe don’t go with your gut.

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10 Interesting Facts for You to Take a Look At

This is a fast-paced world where it can be hard to get any free time and learn new information.

But you should always make time for our fact sets! They’re filled with fascinating information that will stick in your head long after you’re done reading them.

Here are 10 such facts for you!

1. That’s a relief.

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2. Women are strong.

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3. What a great idea.

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4. That’s the backstory.

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5. Time for a name change.

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6. Take me down to Octopus City.

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7. Ugh, that’s not good.

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8. Another reason not to like Mondays.

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9. Get to the Hummer!

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10. Everybody needs to take notice of this.

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We hope you enjoyed those 10 facts!

Follow THIS LINK to explore a whole lot more.

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15 People Share Their Inexplicable Memories from Childhood

I have some odd childhood memories that I’ve never been able to explain. I’ve also never been able to shake them from my mind for one reason or another, and they are weird.

Do you have odd memories like that? Ones you can’t seem to get rid of from your past?

AskReddit users shared their weird, unexplainable memories from childhood.

Share your own in the comments!

1. A repressed memory?

“Every year at our cabin I have a dream I fall into the lake. Was told later that I fell in when I was younger. I never have this dream at home. Idk if the repressed memory is trying to tell me not to go on the water or just don’t be stupid and fall face first.”

2. No one believes me.

“When I was 10 or 11, I woke up very early in the morning to someone driving down our long driveway. It was dark outside, but I just barely peeped out my window to watch a man look into all of our car windows, survey our flower beds, and finally peer into my bedroom window. I played asleep and when I looked out the window again, he was driving backwards out of our driveway.

In the morning, I mentioned what I saw to everyone, but no one acknowledged hearing or seeing anything, despite the man’s headlights being very bright, maybe even switched to brights, and he slammed his car doors very loudly. But I can remember how scary it was having his face pressed against the window above my head and praying he didn’t try the lock. No one believes me to this day. I swear it was not a dream.”

3. Who was this kid?

“When I was a kid I had a classmate over who claimed he was a vampire. I didn’t believe him. I told him if his eyes glow in the dark that would prove he was a vampire.

We went into the bathroom and I turned off the light. His eyes were glowing. It scared the crap out of me. I opened the door, ran outside, jumped on my bike and got as far away from my house as I thought I could.

When I eventually came back home the classmate was gone and my dad was pissed that I abandoned my friend.”

4. Sounds kinda fishy.

“Breathing underwater. Turns out a lot of people have memories of being able to do something similar. Still haven’t gotten an explanation.”

5. My jaw dropped…

“My family and I were driving out of Bellows, a campsite/beach for military families in Hawai’i. I lazily gaze out the window and something catches my eye. About 30 feet away in a clearing before a metal gate leading into the forest was a massive bird. Like 8 feet tall massive. It had a long neck, brown feathers, and very thick long legs.

My jaw dropped and I was still processing what I had seen when my dad said, “What the hell was that?” Turns out he had seen it too, and we both described it identically. No one else saw it, and by the time our brains had caught up with our eyes it was too late to turn around.

I will always regret not turning around. When we returned later in the day there was nothing there. When we asked a guard about it he laughed at us. I scoured the internet afterward, and it looked like nothing I could find. At least, nothing that isn’t extinct- it looked amazingly similar to one of the larger species of moa… but those lived in New Zealand thousands of miles away and died out hundreds of years ago.

This happened back in 2009 and to this day I wonder whether I saw a Lazarus species.”

6. The same dream.

“My sister and I apparently both had the same dream one night, a scary one. We were staying in this villa where we had to share a room and we both woke up suddenly. The window was open, when it hadn’t been before. I realised she was awake as well and told her I’d had a bad dream, and as I started to describe it, she started talking along with me, describing the same dream.

In it, this black creature that looked like a bull, only it had shiny, scaly, plastic looking skin, was standing in the open window with this weird mechanical device, and it somehow fired a projectile at the lamp in the room, which started rocking back and forth. Neither of us wanted to get up and close the window in case the thing was actually out there, so we called for our mum and she closed it, reassured us in typical mum fashion, etc. For months we would talk about that incident and we could never figure out how we both managed to have the same exact dream at the same time.”

7. “On the brink of extinction”

“My mother walked into my room, waking me up to tell me that most of the world’s population was dead. I spent the rest of the day as normal, eating breakfast, going shopping with her, going to a playground, then eating dinner (albeit, acting quite nervous throughout). The next day, she tried to make it clear that what started the previous morning wasn’t true. I asked her if she remembered, but she told me she didn’t.

I’m certain it wasn’t a dream, because I recalled the rest of what happened the previous day to her, only to be met by her confirmation that everything I remembered was correct, right down to how shaky I was and how upset I seemed. All except for the part that humanity was on the brink of extinction.”

8. Peter Pan to the rescue.

“I used to have nightmares. My dad put up a poster of Peter Pan in my room and told me that when I went to sleep, Peter would fly out of the poster and chase all of the monsters away. I never had another bad dream.”

9. Was it real?

“I was like 3-5 years old when this happened. I woke one night while camping in a cabin, and I saw a cat tail dangle from this lamp. It’d sink down, and then disappear back up into the lampshade. It also started calling for me, going like “whoo hoo!”. Unnerved the hell out of little me… I can’t remember if I just never checked to see if there was anything there, or that I did check and there was nothing there. I chalk it up to just being so tired I was hallucinating.”

10. It was so surreal.

“The whole neighborhood thought I was kidnapped. I don’t really know why and what the actual fuck is the thought process of how they think that happened but apparently the people are frantically searching me. What I remembered is that my elder cousin and her husband took me to an internet cafe to let me watch them pick their wedding outfits.

When we returned, everyone was shocked, my brother smiles because he knew I was in trouble, my mom was crying, and my dad slapped the shit out of me. It was so surreal.”

11. A lightning strike.

“I remember being at a playground with my family and seeing lightning strike right in front of me. Didn’t hear any thunder, no one else saw it, but I remember seeing it pretty vividly. Not sure if there’s something that can go on in your brain that would cause something like that to happen, but I remember pleading with my mom to believe that I had just seen a lightning bolt strike right in front of me, and she just ignored me.”

12. Good golly, Miss Molly.

“When I was six, I had a girlfriend named Molly. I moved away the next year and never saw her again. For the next 40 years, one of my earliest and most vivid memories was me watching a six year old redhead girl running away from me, up towards her house, yelling, “Mommy, mommy, Jonathan kissed me!”, and her mother’s voice coming back, “We’ll, that must mean he really likes you.”

A few years ago, I’d had a little sangria and decided to see if Molly was on Facebook (I know, I know). There she was! Right name, right age, right hometown, lovely red hair. I PM’ed her asking if she was the right red headed girl. She wrote back that she was definitely the right Molly (and was happy to hear from me) but she’d only started dyeing her hair red after college. Memory’s a trip, man.”

13. That shifty little bastard.

“I remember, very vividly, seeing a leprechaun in the hallway of my house. It freaked me out so bad that I woke my mom up yelling “someone’s in the house!” We walked from room to room with kitchen knives looking for the leprechaun, but never found that shifty little bastard.”

14. You just did that.

“When I was about four or five, I was in the foyer by my front door when I saw my father come in the house, put down his briefcase, and then walk to my mother to give her a kiss on the cheek. Then the front door opened again; it was my father (again). I looked next to me where I had seen him put his briefcase; it was gone.

I looked back at him, scared, and said, “you just did that.”

I have never hallucinated in the more than 25 years since this happened, and nothing like it has ever happened since.”

15. Is Mom lying?

“I’m like 95% sure I sort of got hit by a car when crossing the street with my mom. There was a red light and we didn’t cross at a crosswalk. A car inched forward and I remember falling onto the hood? But I was fine. I used to literally get flashbacks. For years. But my mom swears it never happened. I think she’s lying.”

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