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Episode 31

How Forgetting Can Help to Get Out of Your Head in Improv

We are often taught that forgetting is a weakness, especially in improv where details seem really important. It's what we practice all the time!

However, forgetting can be a skill to practice. In this episode, I explore the science behind why our brains are designed to forget, and how we can use this adaptive process to our advantage in our scenes and shows.

Learn how letting go of details can reduce cognitive load, improve listening, and help you get out of your head and out of your own way in a scene. I'll also cover how this also applies to some neurodivergent performers who process information in different ways. You will also discover a practical pre-show exercise to clear your mind so you can be more present and spontaneous in your scenes inspired by Mo Gawdat.

Resources mentioned:

Downloadable content

Download the Free Post-Show Reflection Guide: Sent to your inbox when you subscribe to either newsletter (and added to the footer to each message if you're already subscribed).

Get a booklet with six exercises to help you get reps in challenging scenes called "Exercises to Ruin You"

More resources

Support

Like this content and want it to continue? Support this podcast here with a one-time tip here: StereoForest.com/tip

We love our podcast host Capitvate.fm! Contact me anytime to ask me anything. You can support my shows by signing up with Captivate here: https://www.captivate.fm/signup?ref=yzjiytz

About

This podcast was created, written, and is hosted by Jen deHaan. You can find her bio here.

This episode was and edited and produced by StereoForest.com. Contact StereoForest for information about producing YOUR podcast, website, and more at reasonable rates.

Join the FREE StereoForest newsletter for all podcast and show updates at members.stereoforest.com.

What does neuroinclusive mean? It means that you create a supportive environment inclusive and accommodating of all cognitive types and abilities to learn, write together, or perform. This, just like the word "neurodiversity", includes both neurodivergent and neurotypical individuals. Which is… you, since that covers everyone!

This podcast was made in British Columbia, Canada by StereoForest Podcasts.

Note

I mention surveys and written versions in earlier episodes. I am moving this content to ImprovUpdate.com on a new being-developed website. You can always send me any comments, thoughts, feedback, or contributions using the contact form on this page.



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Transcript

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We've all probably been told that forgetting things is bad.

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In general, and an improv is generally seen as a weakness,

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a failure of our brains.

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But strategically, forgetting an improv

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can actually lead improvisers closer to that goal that many

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of us have of letting go and getting out of our heads.

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So this video shows you the science of why forgetting

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is an important part of using our brains more efficiently.

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And I'll show you some exercises that you

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can do to clear your mind before a show,

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so you can make more use of that brain later on on stage.

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If you've ever felt overwhelmed by trying

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to remember every single detail within a scene,

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or if you feel like your head is just

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too full to be spontaneous, this is the episode for you.

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And you might be wondering, if forgetting is a skill,

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how do you actually practice it?

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And by the end of this episode, I'm

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going to share an exercise that I find useful, something

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that you could do before a performance

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to help you clear your mind and open up your brain for improv.

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Hi, this is your improv brain.

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And I'm your host, Jen DeHaan.

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I'm an improv nerd that has taught improv at a few schools,

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but I just love doing it mostly in the form of improvised

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podcasts these days with my production studio

StereoForest.

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I'm glad you're here.

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And please subscribe wherever you're watching or

listening

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to this show.

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That would mean a lot.

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So all right, let's get back to the improv stuff.

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So the idea that we should remember everything

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that happens in a scene or a show is firmly installed

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into our respective improv spaces.

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We have exercises to remember every detail in a scene,

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and then do that same scene all over again,

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even using the same words if we can.

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And that exercise where you do associated words person

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to person, and you go around the whole class,

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and then you go around again repeating the same words

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and associations in the same order,

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and then do it backwards or something like that.

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I don't know.

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I haven't been in the same room as that exercise

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in a long time.

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Anyways, it's practice.

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It's a good tool.

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These exercises can be useful.

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But it might give the wrong impression

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for how some people might want to continue doing improv

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for the long term.

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So cognitive neuroscience is starting

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to challenge this idea that forgetting is bad.

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It neuroscience proposes that forgetting

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is actually a deliberate and adaptive process.

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Our brains intentionally shed irrelevant or

counterproductive

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information.

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Dropping details from your active thoughts

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can actually sharpen your mental process,

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and it can improve how your brain performs.

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It might even impact creativity.

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It certainly impacts listening.

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And most importantly, it can make

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improv a whole lot more fun, because this thing,

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forgetting, is how you can eventually get out of your head

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and out of your own way in a scene.

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That's the goal in improv for so many of us

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to get out of our heads and learning to clear your mind

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by not forcing it to hold on to every single detail

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can dramatically help with that very thing.

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Forcing is the key word here.

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And this concept is important for being an adaptable

player,

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especially in the dynamic and often very chaotic

environment

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of an improv scene.

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Now, there are many different forms

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of forgetting, both intentional forgetting

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and unintentional forgetting.

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Today, we're going to focus entirely

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on intentional forgetting as a good way

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to improve our own performance.

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We're making a choice to do it.

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Side note, in science, this is sometimes called

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transience memory, forgetting, as opposed to persistence

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in memory, if you're looking things up.

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Neurobiologists like Blake Richards and Paul Franklin

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have proposed that forgetting is a useful process in the

brain.

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It's what it uses to navigate information more

efficiently,

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specifically to optimize decision-making

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in dynamic and chaotic environments,

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which might sound familiar, right?

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Their research suggests that our brains are constantly

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evaluating information that we ingest

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and it discards what is no longer useful.

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And I'll put a link in the description and the show

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notes to this research.

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So I've talked about cognitive load in a previous episode,

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the one about our minds going blank.

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And cognitive load is one of the primary ways

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the brain actively and very efficiently manages that load.

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It's like, I don't know, closing tabs on your computer

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browser to make it run faster.

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I don't know, does anyone else have like 400 tabs open?

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I won't go off on a tangent.

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How does this thing apply to the improv?

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So if you consciously try to recall

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every single piece of information in a long scene

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or a whole show, every name, every location,

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every relationship detail, forcing yourself to remember

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and not let anything go, well, probably

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feel pretty difficult for you.

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It can lead to feeling stressed out or anxious.

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It can push you into overthinking in a scene.

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And you might even find yourself trying to make decisions

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with your head instead of going with your gut.

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But here's the key.

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So you aren't actually forgetting the information,

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like forever dropping it out of the brain.

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You're like shifting your focus and prioritizing

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what information you need to keep active right now.

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And that helps you be in the moment and out of your head.

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Because when you discover this thing working naturally,

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you can learn to trust yourself on stage,

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which I think might be the secret to improv

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or maybe at least one of them.

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So how do you do this thing in practice?

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The million dollar question, I think.

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Fundamentally, you want to stop trying so hard and improv.

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It's said simpler than done, right?

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So you want to try to stop holding on to everything

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in a scene and you just hold on to what you need

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when you need it.

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You want that to happen automatically too.

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So how do you do that?

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Well, the opposite of holding on is letting go, right?

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So you might discover that if you just listen hard

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and then let go and trusting yourself,

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you'll stop focusing on trying to remember, right?

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By clearing your head.

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The important details will be there when you need them,

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just like magic, right?

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Your brain will naturally prune the unnecessary stuff

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in the scene and hold on to what matters for the scene.

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That's the goal.

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Like it does in real life outside of the scene,

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when perhaps you could trust yourself more,

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like you could in improv if you do this, right?

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You may have even noticed that the opposite is true.

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Like when you really, really try hard to hold on to a detail,

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that's when your brain has trouble recalling it.

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That's when it actually does forget it unintentionally.

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That effort of yours is what's getting in the way.

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So again, because it's so important, a big part of this,

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trusting yourself, trusting your brain to do

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what it's designed to do.

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So here's a mental exercise that you can practice.

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Think of it like a mental cue that you're giving yourself.

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So say you're in a scene and you or your scene partner

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have introduced some idea or some premise

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that is clearly just not serving the scene.

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It's not landing, it's confusing,

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it's just some dead end, whatever.

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Instead of trying to force it or fix it,

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you can consciously choose to let that part of the scene go.

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So from this exercise, you can learn to notice

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when something isn't needed.

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It might be a gut feeling, and then you make

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a deliberate mental release of that information.

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That's the letting go.

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If it might help you, you could even use a visual technique.

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Imagine that detail, putting it in a box,

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put it on a shelf, wherever the scene is taking place.

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Now this information is not being destroyed from

existence.

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You're just putting it away so you can focus

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on the scene, what's right in front of you.

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And the key here is to deliberately choose to release it

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from your active working memory for this exercise.

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When you practice this, you might start seeing

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some of the benefits.

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It might help you let go of trying to write the scene

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or force an idea into the scene,

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or it might let you reduce some controlling tendencies.

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It might reduce the burden on your working memory,

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which frees up mental resources for those offers

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or natural responses.

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And if you want, later on, when you have let this piece go,

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can you still recall it?

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Just ask yourself that question at some point.

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Could you have done a callback if you needed to?

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That part that was wiped out, you might discover,

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it's not really gone.

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And that step, noticing that,

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can help you build trust in yourself.

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So the reason I noticed this is the very first time

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I found myself letting go and improv

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was the first time I also started trusting my brain.

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So I gave up before a memorizing style exercise

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because I was being stubborn

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and I was frustrated with this exercise.

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It wasn't great.

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But I noticed in doing this exercise

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that my brain kicked up in this way.

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I didn't try to remember the details of the exercise,

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what the rules were.

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I just decided to roll with it and see what happened.

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And I was stubborn about those complex rules.

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And in doing that, I accidentally learned to trust myself

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because it worked anyways.

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My brain gave me the rules of the exercises

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and all the details I needed when I needed them in the scene.

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I didn't think I could do that, but it was there.

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And then I could listen to the scene so much better.

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It helped with all that.

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I just let go.

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So at that point, I could then work on

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just letting go and improv.

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Right after that exercise sort of gave me that trust.

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I knew I didn't need to force a memory.

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It would arrive when I needed it.

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And I wanna also express

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that there are absolutely exceptions to this.

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There's always exceptions in improv.

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And that's the human brain.

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Humans have evolved this ability

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to be able to adapt in chaos.

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So using it in improv can give you

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some of the similar benefits.

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Now, why is this all potentially even more important

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for neurodivergent improvisers?

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Well, for some of us, particularly autistic

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and ADHD performers,

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our brains don't experience neural pruning

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the same way as other brains do when they're being

developed.

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So neural pruning is the scientific term

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for a clearing out process of our brain wiring.

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Brain imaging has confirmed this.

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So this isn't a theory.

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So certain areas of the brain of some autistic people

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can be under-pruned and that can contribute

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to sensory overload.

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The brains of some people with ADHD

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can be over-pruned in certain areas

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which can lead to executive function issues.

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So executive function and sensory issues

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can absolutely impact how some neurodivergent

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performers process information during a scene.

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So we might need to consciously learn

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how to filter out certain pieces of information

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or distractions that we're naturally taking in.

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Of course, these things can also help us

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in different contexts,

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but in this part of the scene, they can prove difficult.

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So the key here is to test different things out,

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reflect on how they go,

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and sort out what happens for you.

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So you can keep or adjust what's working.

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So I have some exercises that I will discuss

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to help with this sort of thing coming up

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in the next episode for all forms

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of all neuro types of improvisers.

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I'm also gonna put it in a PDF that I'm currently writing.

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So make sure you're subscribed to be able

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to grab that resource.

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But for neurodivergence like us,

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making forgetting more efficient,

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practicing doing these things,

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or even doing just cognitive offloading before

performance

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is important for everyone.

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But it might be a little bit more important

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for some of us to figure out and work on.

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So how do we practice this cognitive offloading?

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This brings us back to the question

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from the beginning of the episode.

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How do you actually practice the skill

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of forgetting or emptying your head?

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So more of it is accessible while you do scenes.

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How do you actively practice this?

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I'll give you one example of something

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you could try in just a second.

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But first, if you found any of this interesting or useful,

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I'd love it if you shared it with improvisers

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that you know or other performers.

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I'm just one tiny resource on the internet.

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It's hard to get the word out.

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So I'd really appreciate it if you shared it

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with just one other person.

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And subscribe to this wherever you're watching

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or listening to the show.

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Hit up the comments with tips or techniques of your own

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that you find useful in your practice.

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So here's a simple exercise adapted

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from the author Mo Gouda at iFound,

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pretty useful to clear the brain before performing.

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And it's also useful just in general

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when ruminating gets really bad.

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So set your phone alarm for about 25 minutes

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and then place it face down

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and make sure that you won't have any other distractions

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in the space.

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Keep some paper and something to write beside you,

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just in case anything genuinely important comes up

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during this exercise that you might wanna remember later

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and that's so you can just let it go

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after you write it down.

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Now just listen to the thoughts that come up in your brain.

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Your brain might offer you some doom

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or it might say things that you should worry about.

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For example, it might say I'm gonna ruin this show

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or I'm gonna be awkward in this improv class tonight.

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That is coming from a place of truth.

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I'm awkward every single day.

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But your job in this is to reply to that thought

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with as much calm as you can muster.

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You can say, we don't know that.

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What else have you got?

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Your brain might offer something else.

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We need to clean the litter box.

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And you can say, okay, fine, I'll write that down.

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You got any more brain?

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Write it down, release the thought,

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keep listening as the thoughts continue.

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Now an important part of this exercise,

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a rule if you will, is that your brain

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cannot say the same thing twice.

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If it repeats itself with the,

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hey, we're gonna need to clean the litter box,

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you can say, yep, you already said that buddy,

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something different please.

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Gouda suggests that this process encourages the brain

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to use different pathways.

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If you experience a lot of mental chatter or rumination,

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this can be very helpful to sort of like rein it in.

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Your brain feels heard.

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And because of this, it can be really helpful

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for clearing your thoughts in addition

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to other possible benefits

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like that stress and anxiety stuff.

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And you might even get some really good,

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brand new ideas replacing the ones

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that you just cleared out.

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You might wanna try this out,

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disconnected from a performance of yours

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to see how it works for you in general.

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And if you're concerned,

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do run it by trusted professional first.

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But if this exercise is for you,

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you could work it into your pre-performance routine

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like the morning of a show day

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or maybe just minutes before it leads to one, right?

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Whatever works for you.

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This exercise is a lot like a brain dump

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or a cognitive offloading,

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which is a common therapeutic technique.

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It can improve your mental space

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by getting all those to-do lists of worries

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out of your active memory

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and onto a piece of paper where they're safely stored

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so you can open up your brain to other things

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like the show.

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It's a very similar to a good backed up to-do app list,

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which I swear by,

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but that's for a different episode on a different show.

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So we're all different.

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And we can have very different reactions

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to certain techniques,

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but for some, this might be a useful way

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to practice the art of forgetting.

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So thanks for tuning in.

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I'll be here next Monday for another episode

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that includes six improv exercise

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that you will seriously hate.

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So subscribe for that one.

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You won't wanna miss it.

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Bye for now.

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(upbeat music)

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You have been listening to "Your Improv Brain"

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as StereoForest production.

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This show is created and is written, edited,

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and produced by Jen deHaan of StereoForest.com.

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You can find show information, show notes, transcripts,

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and contact information at the show's page

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at stereoforest.com/improvbrain.

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Thanks for listening.

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Discussions about how our brains work when learning and performing improv.

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