We’ve all done it before – purposefully charged into a room only to get there and forget why we came. Or left the house in a hurry only to realize we’ve forgot to bring our keys out to the car and we don’t know where we left them. Being forgetful affects us all to a certain degree and what we remember – or choose to remember – can ultimately be up to us to decide.
Memory loss is a common problem. While most often associated with older individuals, forgetfulness and short-term memory problems are everyday occurrences for the majority of the population.
“Perhaps the most common reason for why we are not able to remember is because we are not paying attention,” says Dr. Peter Graf, psychology professor at the University of British Columbia. “We are most frequently unable to remember events and experiences, not because we forgot those events and experiences, but because we never learned them in the first place – 75 per cent of ‘memory loss’ is due to encoding failures!”
Occasional memory loss, like forgetting a friend’s phone number or misplacing items around the house, easily becomes a common circumstance for our busy population.
“In order for events and experiences to be remembered, we need to encode them properly, meaning, we need to consider, examine, explore and reflect on these events and experiences; connect them to other events and experiences already in memory; and identify differences between the current experience-to-be-remembered compared to similar previous experiences,” Graf explains. “This is hard work, and for this reason, most of the time we don’t make the required effort.”
Memory loss can also occur for a variety of reasons that are a result of our health, environment or lifestyle. Our memories can be affected by our quantity and quality of sleep. Feeling fatigued can cause interruptions in the way in which we interpret and process information, leaving our minds struggling to recall everyday events or important details.
In the same way that sleep effects our ability to remember, so does depression or anxiety. These stresses make it difficult to focus, clouding our minds from concentrat- ing on new information or referring to past events. A distracted mind will have difficulty recalling what it has previously learned.
Several medications, drug use or excessive alcohol have all been linked to loss of memory. Being aware of such risks and altering our actions can prevent our mind from failing us.
More serious memory loss can result from suffering a head injury or stroke. In these cases, the brain may actually be injured, and not just distracted, leading to short- or long- term memory loss that often gets gradually better with time and treatment.
Contrary to what most might be led to believe, significant memory loss is not an inevitable part of aging.
Just as the aging process causes many parts of our bodies to slow down, our minds aren’t as quick as they used to be either. This doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re more forgetful as we age – it can just take longer to learn or recall the information that used to come to us quickly.
Additionally, older individuals often don’t put as much emphasize on exercising their mind. Our bodies can fail us without regular activity and the same can be said for our brains. A healthy mind is important as we age and keeping it engaged is essential for preventing age-related memory loss.
“The memory loss that is occurring in later life is also due to attentional problems,” notes Graf. “One reason for this is that the ability to pay attention and to keep paying attention seems to decline as we age. Moreover, as we get older, a greater proportion of the available attention is used for paying attention to safety related issues.”
Graf also says that our changing interests as we age can also effect what we remember. “Eighty-year olds are not motivated to learn the same things as a 20-year old,” he says. It’s no surprise that our minds have more trouble remembering as we age but it doesn’t mean it’s unavoidable.
“Not everyone experiences the same degree of age-associated cognitive decline, and part of the reason for this is genetic,” says Graf. “Age-associated memory decline is also less pronounced in people who are healthy (physically and emotionally), free of pain, socially active and physically fit. Finally, there is increasing evidence that age-associated memory declines can be reduced (not avoided, but minimized), by engaging in lifelong learning.”
For some, memory loss is part of a bigger problem than simply a lack of attention or motivation. Memory problems can occur as a result of Alzheimer’s disease or other dementia, and if caught early enough, can be handled with care so that patients are provided with the support they need. If you or someone you know is concerned with their ability to remember, consulting with a doctor as early as possible will help provide the best care during a difficult time.
If your memory loss is affecting your ability to perform every day tasks or strains your relationships, it may be more than everyday aging or a cluttered mind. While being forgetful can be frustrating, it’s not usually worth worrying about. Acknowledging its effect on your everyday life and making a conscious effort to change can often be enough to elevate your ability to remember. Graf suggests it’s as easy as turning off our technology and tuning into the world around us. We don’t remember phone numbers because we don’t bother to learn them, we miss important dates because we’ve programmed them into our computers, we forget people’s names because we were more concerned with the online world than the one in front of us.
“This problem is worse today than ever, because we are all so proud of being multi-taskers, trying to do loads of things all at the same time and as a consequence, we don’t really listen to what others tell us, don’t pay attention to the world around us...and of course we can’t remember,” says Graf.
By simply making a conscious effort to pay attention to the people, places and details in our everyday life, we are improving our ability to remember. An active mind will forget less.
So then the answer for those of us who are just forgetful? “Keep learning, keep paying attention,” says Graf. “Become more mindful and more focused on the significance of the present moment.”
If it’s more than just forgetting a familiar face, treating memory loss can be as easy as treating the root cause of our ability to not remember. If certain activities are the culprit, speaking to a doctor about altering your medication or cutting back on alcohol use may be enough to improve your memory. Treating depression or sleep deprivation will also allow your mind to focus on all that you learn in a day.
Unfortunately, as Graf points out, if memory loss is occurring as a result of stroke, disease or dementia, there is little that can be done to treat it. The ability to encode events and experiences and consolidate memories may be affected and is sadly untreatable.
Remember when you said you’d pick up milk on your way home? Or that you already made plans to entertain the in-laws on the long weekend? It’s probable that you forgot because you didn’t fully process the information in the first place. Your bad memory may be a result of a distracted or disinterested mind. So don’t forget to pay attention, it just might make you remember not to forget.
