The Art of Making Memories

by Meik Wiking

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Introduction

  Chapter I: Harness the Power of Firsts

  Chapter II: Make It Multisensory

  Chapter III: Invest Attention

  Chapter IV: Create Meaningful Moments

  Chapter V: Use the Emotional Highlighter Pen

  Chapter VI: Capture Peaks and Struggles

  Chapter VII: Use Stories to Stay Ahead of the Forgetting Curve

  Chapter VIII: Outsource Memory

  Conclusion: The Past Has a Bright Future

  Thanks

  About the Author

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  For journal entries, fill-in-the-blank lines, and fill-in-space sections please use your e-reader’s Notes feature.

  Introduction

  To paraphrase one of the greatest philosophers of the twentieth century, Winnie-the-Pooh: you don’t know you are making memories, you just know you are having fun.

  That was what I was doing until this year, when something happened: this year, I turned forty. Now, things are changing.

  Last week, I found a hair right in the middle of my forehead. And we’re not talking about one hair that decided to move to the suburbs of the eyebrows here. No, we’re talking about a hair that wanted to leave civilization behind. Go off grid. Into the wild. The Thoreau of eyebrow hairs. Turning forty means tweezers are your new best friend.

  When you turn forty your language changes; you are now entitled to use the word “nowadays.” You see colors differently: hair is not grey—it is “executive blond.” You find joy in new things, like leaving the oven door open after roasting vegetables to “get the benefit of the heat.”

  But turning forty also means that I have lived half my life, statistically speaking. Life expectancy for men in Denmark is around eighty years and, while I may not believe in life after death, I strongly believe in making the most of life before death.

  So far, that life for me has yielded 40 years, or 480 months, or 14,610 days. Some days pass us by without leaving a trace—and some happy moments stick with us forever. Our lives are not the days that have passed, but the days we will remember forever. That got me thinking: Which of those 14,610 days do I remember? And why? How can I make more of my days more memorable in the future? How can we retrieve happy memories from the past and create happy memories in the present?

  I remember every first kiss—but have trouble remembering anything that happened in March 2007. I remember the first time I tasted a mango—but have no recollection of any meal I had when I was ten years old. I remember the smell of grass in the field we kids would play in—but I struggle to remember the kids’ names.

  So what are memories made of? Why is it that a piece of music, a smell, a taste, can take us back to something we had forgotten? And how can we learn to create happy memories and be better at holding on to them?

  I have asked and tried to answer these questions as a happiness researcher. My job is to study happiness, to understand what makes people happy, to uncover the good life and understand how we can make life better. At the Happiness Research Institute, which is a think tank dedicated to well-being, happiness and quality of life, we explore the causes of happiness and work towards improving the quality of life of people across the world.

  Some days we remember because they were sad. They are part of our human experience, part of our memory and part of what makes us who we are. However, as a happiness researcher, my main interest is in exploring what ingredients produce happy memories.

  Happiness research suggests that people are happier with their lives if they tend to hold a positive, nostalgic view of the past. Nostalgia is a universal and ancient human emotion and, today, academics across the world are studying how it can produce positive feelings, boost our self-esteem and increase our sense of being loved by another. This means that long-term happiness can depend on your ability to form a positive narrative of your life.

  I focused my research on finding out what happy memories are made of. It has been a tricky question to pose. How do you ask strangers about memories without sounding all Hannibal Lecter? “Tell me about your childhood memories, Clarice.”

  I have also asked and tried to answer these questions as an archaeologist venturing into my own past, searching to retrieve lost treasures in the form of happy memories.

  I’ve revisited my childhood home—a home the family sold twenty years ago—to discover how the scent of a place could trigger memories. Thank you to the new owners, who did not slam the door in my face when I asked, “Can I come in and smell your house?”

  With this search for lost treasures comes the understanding that our childhood memories are created, shaped and retrieved in collaboration with our parents. My mother died two decades ago, and with her an entire continent of memories vanished. In that sense, this story is also a search for Atlantis. A quest for memories lost.

  I wanted to retrieve and restore them because our memories are the cornerstones of our identity. They are the glue that allows us to understand and experience being the same person over time. They are our superpower, which allows us to travel in time and sets us free from the limitations of the present moment. They shape who we are and how we act. They influence our mood and help form our dreams for the future.

  1,000 HAPPY MEMORIES

  In 2018, we conducted a massive global study around happy memories at the Happiness Research Institute: the Happy Memory Study.

  “Please describe one of your happy memories,” we asked. We were not searching for any particular memory, so we asked people simply to write down the first happy memory that came to mind.

  I was overwhelmed by the response we got. The Happy Memory Study is, as far as I know, the biggest global collection of happy memories to date.

  We received more than a thousand answers from all over the world. Responses came from seventy-five countries, from Belgium, Brazil and Botswana to Norway, Nepal and New Zealand. Happy memories were pouring in.

  Happy memories from different corners of the planet, from different generations, from different genders, from people who were sad and from people who were high on life. However, despite the diversity in sources, I could relate to every happy memory. I understood why each moment was a happy memory for that person. We might be Danish, Korean or South African, but we are first and foremost human.

  When we took a closer look at the happy memories, patterns started to emerge in the stories. People were remembering experiences that were novel, meaningful, emotional and engaged the senses.

  For instance, 23 percent of the memories were novel or extraordinary experiences such as visiting a country for the first time; 37 percent were meaningful experiences such as weddings and births; and 62 percent involved several of our senses: for example, one woman saw, smelled and tasted the poblano peppers which her mother used to roast on the stove when she was a child.

  We also asked people why they thought they were remembering a particular memory and 7 percent mentioned that they had now been turned into stories or outsourced in mementos, diaries and photographs.

  Note: One memory can tick several boxes.

  Joel Sharpe/Getty Images

  We received memories about the big days in people’s lives: stories of wedding days and their daughter’s first steps.

  We received memories about the simple things: stories of the feeling of the sun against their skin, eating cheese-and-pickle sandwiches while watching soccer with their dad or waking up next to the one they love.

  We received memories about the adventures in life: stories of dogsledding, traveling alone to Italy or moving to Amsterdam.

  And memories about the cra
zy times: stories of haystack-jumping, orange-shooting cannons or trying to open a bottle of wine with a sports shoe on a frozen lake.

  Roman Makhmutov/Getty Images

  And memories about the victories: stories of the exams they passed, the time they won the soccer game against all odds or when they dared take the mic on stage and share what they had written.

  Some memories were about the everyday: stories of watching the sun shine through the window, walking into a bookshop or spending the afternoon with their mum eating cake and watching Keeping Up Appearances (a British sitcom in which the snob Hyacinth Bucket attempts to convince the world that her surname is pronounced “Bouquet’).

  And other memories were of connecting with nature: stories of swimming in a lake in Switzerland at midnight under the moon and the stars, walking in the Norwegian wilderness or looking out over Big Sur with no one to answer to—just them and the Pacific Ocean.

  Many of the memories were of the fun times: stories about water-balloon battles, snowball fights or skating on smooth ice in an empty ice rink.

  And memories about the times people were there for us: a hug from a loved one at just the right time, or the colleagues who decorated our work space because they knew we were going through a tough time.

  All these memories are small pieces of the puzzle and add up to show what happy moments are made of, what ingredients go into happy memories and why we remember what we remember. We will look at each of these ingredients in the chapters to come.

  Di Studio/Shutterstock

  THE MEMORY MANIFESTO

  8 INGREDIENTS FOR HAPPY MEMORIES

  Harness the power of firsts. Seek out novel experiences and make days extraordinary.

  Make it multisensory. Go beyond sight. Memories can also have sounds, scents, touch and tastes.

  Invest attention. Treat your happy moments like you would your date. Pay attention to them!

  Create meaningful moments. Make meaningful moments memorable moments.

  Use the emotional highlighter pen. Get the blood flowing.

  Capture peaks and struggles. Milestones are memorable, but the struggle to reach one is unforgettable.

  Use stories to stay ahead of the forgetting curve. Share stories. Do you remember the time we . . . ?

  Outsource memory. Write, photograph, record, collect. Be Marie Kondo’s archenemy.

  MOOD MANIPULATION

  One aspect of the Happy Memory Study we did at the Happiness Research Institute was to explore whether we could impact people’s momentary happiness by getting them to think of a happy memory.

  We asked people to imagine a ladder with steps numbered from zero at the bottom to ten at the top. “Suppose we say that the top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you and the bottom of the ladder represents the worst possible life for you. On which step of the ladder do you feel you personally stand at this time?” This is a question that captures a person’s satisfaction with life, their overall happiness—a long-term happiness, where it takes more to improve the level of satisfaction. It is also the question that is used in the World Happiness Report.

  We also asked people, “To what extent do you feel happy right now, where zero means extremely unhappy and ten means extremely happy?” This is a question which allows for influences such as what day of the week it is, what the weather’s like, current events—or perhaps thoughts about the past.

  What we found was a small but significant correlation between the number of words the participants had used to describe their happy memory and their happiness right now. The more words people used going down the lane of happy memories, the happier they were in the moment. We cannot be sure that they were happier because they were thinking of a happy memory—it could also be the other way around. If you are in a good mood, you might be more likely to spend more time answering silly questions from scientists—but it is an area with potential for further research.

  Also, something interesting came to light. I know these are divided times and I would hate to throw fuel on these divisions, but I feel it is my obligation as a scientist to report the truth. As I went through people’s memories I could not help but notice that seventeen people mentioned their dog and only two people mentioned their cat. So, what does this mean? Well, one theory that can explain it is prevalence. If more people have dogs than cats, then dogs are more likely to have a part in happy memories. A second theory is that dogs are simply pawesome. Who’s a good theory? You’re a good theory!

  Claire Tregunna

  Maskot/Getty Images

  EPISODIC MEMORY

  One question we ask is “What did you have for dinner last night?” Try traveling back in time to last night. What did you eat? Where were you, and who were you with? What did you have to drink? Did you prepare the food, and what did you do with the dirty dishes?

  Now tell me the answers to the following questions: What is the capital of Cambodia? Which is the tallest mountain in the world? Who was British Prime Minister at the end of the Second World War?

  The retrieval of information about dinner last night is very different from the retrieval of information about Winston Churchill. It is the difference between remembering and knowing. It is our autobiographical or episodic memory, as opposed to our semantic memory.

  When talking about memory, we need to make the distinction between these two types of memory. Semantic memory is the ability to remember that the capital of France is Paris. Episodic memory is your ability to remember your trip to Paris. This distinction was first made by Endel Tulving, psychologist and cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Toronto, in 1972. Straight into your semantic memory storage facility—see what I did there?

  When you retrieve memories from your episodic memory it involves you traveling back in time and re-experiencing them. When you access your memory to find out who was Prime Minister in Britain at the end of the Second World War it is a very different experience. You probably have no idea of when and where you gained that knowledge. It is just something you know. It is impersonal. The memory contains no taste, no smell, no sound. It is lacking the sensory richness your memory of last night’s dinner may hold.

  Episodic memory covers the personal, unique and concrete experiences we can retrieve from our own past. Semantic memory is timeless knowledge that we share with the world about the world.

  In addition, episodic memory can be seen as a sixth sense—a sense for the past. It is our ability to travel in time. No need for a DeLorean at 88mph, Marty McFly!

  For Tulving, it was the time travel—the sense of re-experiencing an event—that was the defining element of episodic memory. Your episodic memory is also often represented in short time slices of an experience with a perspective—your point of view—lined up roughly in order of occurrence. You panfried the fish, the radio was playing Nat King Cole, you sipped your glass of wine, it was cold and dry, you burned your finger on the pan, cursed out loud, your spouse said, “What’s happened?” from the other room. “Nothing,” you said. “Dinner’s ready!” You took the vegetables out of the oven. Left the oven door open, felt the heat, smiled and sat down.

  Your episodic memory is very complex and develops later in childhood than your semantic memory. You learn facts about the world before you can remember your own personal experiences in the world. Both memory systems are part of your long-term memory; the third type identified by Tulving is procedural memory. (In addition to these types of long-term memory, there is also short-term memory.) However, while semantic and episodic memory are explicit, procedural memory is implicit. It allows you to perform commonly learned tasks without thinking about them. It is how you remember to ride a bike, brush your teeth, do the dishes, sign your name or walk like an Egyptian when The Bangles play. In this book, we will focus on episodic memory. If you want to remember how to dance the Macarena or memorize pi to ten thousand decimals, you’re on your own.

  HAPPY MEMORIES ARE GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH

  Because of my work, I oft
en speak with people who are or have been living with depression.

  One of the common factors among them is that when they are at their lowest, they are not only unable to feel any level of joy but are also unable to remember any point in time where they had experienced joy. As well as being unable to retrieve any happy memories, people who suffer from depression also tend to ruminate on negative events.

  Fortunately, research is being done to help people struggling with depression. Dr. Tim Dalgleish, a clinical psychologist at the University of Cambridge, helps those with depression by employing the method of loci (which uses visualization and spatial memory) to help them summon happy memories more easily. In one study, Dr. Dalgleish and his colleagues worked with forty-two people with depression and helped them generate fifteen happy memories to fall back on when they were feeling low.

  This requires some effort, as depression impairs the ability to retrieve positive memories. Some participants would respond, “I don’t have fifteen positive memories,” so the researchers worked with them to flesh out and make the memories more vivid, with richer sensory details of smells, colors and sounds. The next step was to place the fifteen memories in familiar homes, or along routes, using the loci method. A control group underwent a different form of training in which they were encouraged to form the memories into meaningful sets, or chunks, and rehearse them—a strategy which is often used in preparation for exams.

  Both groups managed to improve their memory recollection to near-optimal levels after one week of training. However, one week later, the researchers phoned the participants without warning and gave them a recall test. Only the participants who had used the loci method maintained the ability to recollect the happy memories.