This Is Your Brain With Dr. Phil Stieg
Aug 8, 2026 · 1 min · 1 segments
Can't remember the fourth item on your grocery list? Nelson Dellis, a professional "memory athlete," can remember 100 things or more (though he still may forget the butter). Hear how Dellis learned…
On the next episode of This is Your Brain with Dr. Phil Stieg, how to remember anything.
In general, it's really always the same approach when you're memorizing anything.
It's how can I visualize or see the information in my mind in the form of a very memorable picture? How can I link that information to stuff that's already firmly planted in my brain? And that's a crucial step because that's how we can reliably recall things.
There's so many times when you have things in your memory, it's just you can't get it out, or you get it out later at the wrong time, or it's on the tip of your tongue.
What you do with that after you've visualized it and stored it in your mind, that depends on how long you want to keep the information.
Our brains are designed to forget things, unfortunately.
Not everything, but most things.
Because you can imagine if we remembered absolutely everything, how overwhelming that would be, and how useless most of the stuff in there would be.
Five-time U.S. memory champion Nelson Delis on the next This Is Your Brain.
Read the full transcript.
Create an account to read the whole episode, search across every transcript, and follow the shows you care about.
On the next episode of This is Your Brain with Dr. Phil Stieg, how to remember anything.
In general, it's really always the same approach when you're memorizing anything.
It's how can I visualize or see the information in my mind in the form of a very memorable picture? How can I link that information to stuff that's already firmly planted in my brain? And that's a crucial step because that's how we can reliably recall things.
There's so many times when you have things in your memory, it's just you can't get it out, or you get it out later at the wrong time, or it's on the tip of your tongue.
What you do with that after you've visualized it and stored it in your mind, that depends on how long you want to keep the information.
Our brains are designed to forget things, unfortunately.
Not everything, but most things.
Because you can imagine if we remembered absolutely everything, how overwhelming that would be, and how useless most of the stuff in there would be.
Five-time U.S. memory champion Nelson Delis on the next This Is Your Brain.