DOWN MEMORY LANE

With reference to the previous post, I can almost hear, “Oh, that’s the kind of thing I would do!” In fact, a friend mentioned this morning when I met her, “Susan,” she said, “I can’t count the number of times I can identify with that situation.”

In this post, I thought I would like to offer re-assurance for those of us who think that because we take the milk carton to the bathroom, instead of the frig, we really are losing it!

About 15 years ago, I attended a seminar on “Your Memory”, in the hope that I would find some answers to my forgetfulness. In many respects the seminar was just what I expected, but from another angle it was quite outstanding. The particular explanation I heard concerning forgetfulness and memory as we get older has stayed with me to this day; and, in my advancing years, given me great comfort.

The speaker likened our brain to the hard disc drive of a computer. When we first begin to use the computer, it is very fast because it is a brand new hard drive with very little on it. The more we use it and the longer we have it, the slower it becomes as we ask the computer to retrieve information from the hard drive. To grant our request, the computer must sort through hundreds and thousands of files and material resident on its hard drive; so it takes a tad longer to get the answer.

So it is with our brain. The older we get, the more difficult it becomes to enunciate and retrieve information from our brain. If it is difficult for a computer to find material in less than one second, can you imagine the pressure on our brains which hold a life time of data – much more than a small computer could ever hold.

So we mumble or grumble, or to be honest, curse and swear because we cannot think of the word we want to use; somebody’s name, or even worse, where we had put something away for safety! Remember, this is all quite normal and not an indication of an underlying serious problem. No, we are not getting senile.

This explanation provided to me by the ‘Memory” seminar all those years ago, has served me very well indeed and I just wanted to pass it along to you as a reminder.