Understanding the Keys to Memory

Some days you feel like all systems are firing and you feel sharp- with every piece of information at your fingertips. Other days, when you haven’t had enough sleep or are feeling stressed or overwhelmed, you can’t remember what you had for breakfast that morning.

That’s all common in normal memory and aging. But when the days of forgetfulness begin to outweigh the days when you feel like you could win at Jeopardy, then it may be time to check with your physician to discuss your concerns.

How is Memory Defined?

Memory loss isn’t a simple thing, and there are many factors at work when considering the process of memory loss. There are four different types of memory: Sensory, short-term, working and long-term memory.

Short-Term Memory

Short-term memory loss is one of the first symptoms of cognitive decline. You might recall your loved one asking the same question multiple times in the course of a day or a couple of days.

This is commonly described as the inability to recall information that was just recently given to you. The amount of time concerning ‘short-term’ can be from a couple of seconds, up to a few days.

Long-Term Memory

Long-term memory is usually visible in Alzheimer’s patients and in other advanced dementia later on in diagnosis. These memories are from a few weeks to early memories from life. The process of memory moves from sensory to short-term to long-term.?

Working Memory

Working memory is kind of like a workbench, where your brain is dealing with a finite number of things at once, sorting out what to keep and send to long-term memory, what can be left in short-term, and what can be discarded all together. It’s part of the attention system.?

It’s said we can keep about 7 things in our working memory at a time- that’s one of the reasons phone numbers started out as seven digits. However, we’ve also figured out ways to expand that number, such as chunking information into pieces- phone numbers now have an area code (one chunk), a locator (the first three digits) and your identifier (the last four digits), but from your memory’s point of view, this is only three pieces of information- three chunks of data.

Read the rest of the story here:?bit.ly/3OxW1rC

Have you ever felt stressed about your memory? Let me know in the comments.