Dr. Alan Castel

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1,246 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2026 last heard 13 Jul

Dr. Alan Castel’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Huberman Lab · How to Improve Your Memory & Cognitive Function at Any Age | Dr. Alan Castel · 13 Jul 2026 podcast

So something else has to be going on.

And it could be, some people say it's having a sense of purpose, could be having social connections.

We know that's incredibly important.

I think we do have a certain amount of control over it.

And some of it might be based on physical exercise and sleep.

So I know things you've talked about before.

And some of it is having kind of a positive attitude about aging.

That if you feel like, some people say, well, it's all genetic.

So what do I have to do?

If you go on a walk, some really good research shows that walking three or four times a week can enhance hippocampal function, the part of the brain that's very involved in declarative memory.

And that part of the brain, having turned 50 recently, tends to decline by about 1% to 2% a year in terms of volume.

So this is kind of physical shrinkage of the brain.

But in the walking group, the group that was randomly assigned to walk three, four times a week for 40 minutes, compared to a stretching group who's still engaging in exercise, but not cardiovascular exercise, the walking group, their hippocampus actually increased in volume by 1%.

So you're changing the brain, but you're also changing the behavior.

Their memory was much better a year later.

So I think if you saw a doctor and said, I'm having some memory problems, what can I do?

Most people are looking for a pill or

Sometimes it's eat this or do that, but I think physical exercise can be so important.

And it probably, the mechanism we don't know exactly, but it probably trickles down to things like improvements in sleep as well.

If you're getting exercise maybe earlier in the day, you're gonna have better mood, you're gonna sleep better.

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