Shade Zahrai

So I didn't even tell my husband.

I started doing research to find a neurologist to try and help me figure out what's going on with my brain.

And then as I was doing that, I was going down this rabbit hole and then looking at all these other things.

And then like my shoulder pain suddenly became confirmation that, oh my gosh, the bacteria is in my shoulder, as we do, the worries.

But then I also reminded myself of neuroplasticity.

and the fact that sometimes we just have a lot going on and maybe i'm just cognitively and emotionally exhausted and so my brain which is trying to keep me safe goes well you know what remembering things is not so important to your survival right now so i'm not going to prioritize that so i thought what if i tried a little mini experiment on myself what if i set myself a memory game where every time i met someone new

At the cafe, in the street, the Uber driver, the client, I asked them their name at the beginning, and then I repeated it back to them.

And then I made an effort to try and remember it.

And then at the end of the conversation, without looking at my notes, I would say their name again.

And I found that the more I did this, okay, the first few times it was really difficult, but the more I did this, the easier it became.

Now, not only that, now the weirdest thing, so this is like years later, I still like to ask people their names.

And then I get to the end of the conversation and I don't remember their name, but then a name will pop into my mind and I'll say,

Was your name Richard?

Yeah, it was Richard.

The name is being served to me by my brain because I've determined that that is important to me and how we're wired is that we magnify what we deem is important.

And so something has happened within me, within my brain, my mind, the interactions between the two, where it is determined that people's names are important to me and it will serve up that information to me.

And that is weird.

To be honest, like when I'm getting off a plane and I've asked the air hostess what her name was once at the beginning and I'm getting off and I'm like, bye, Jack.

I remembered her name.

I didn't even know where that came from.