Why We Seniors Don’t Remember Things

By Shlomo Maital

      Neuropsychology has shown that short-term memory lasts 15 to 30 seconds, after which it either has to be encoded as a long-term memory or it decays.

        This is one of the 72 facts New York Times editor have inflicted on us, as part of their year-end roundup. 

        I find this one really helpful, in understanding why we seniors have trouble remembering things that happened very recently.  A neurologist friend explained it to me as well.

        A memory is not a memory until it is truly saved on our ‘hard disk’.   Old memories are there for good – because we actually ‘reload’ them, reflect on them, and then, resave them.  (By the way – we also change them somewhat.)

         But new things —  what we had for lunch yesterday – are not truly memories.  We simply do not encode it as a long-term memory.  It is not memorable, important or worth saving.  I think our senior brains are simply economizing on disk space.   Even a  $3,000 Dell laptop has only one terabyte or so of storage on its hard disk.   We have a lifetime of memories on our long-term memory ‘hard disk’.  Isn’t it natural that our brains start to economize?  With your laptop,  you can always buy more hard-disk storage, or dump stuff on the cloud.  But not so with our brains.

         So, what do you do, as a senior, when you need to remember things that happened recently?

        Here is my suggestion.  It works pretty well.  

        If you forget a short-term memory —   don’t panic.  If you worry about it, it fogs the brain.  Help your brain out.  Frame a question.  What was the name of the famous actor in the movie I saw last night, Meet Joe Black? (About the Angel of Death who visits Earth to learn why people fear death – meets a pretty girl —  and chooses to stay on).     

        Ummm.   So, tell your brain.  Brain, hello!  I want you to remember who starred in Meet Joe Black.  You know it. I know you do. It’s in there.  Somewhere.  Take your time. No rush.  When you’re ready, tell me.  I really do want to recall it.

         Later, I find, my brain will toss me the answer – but I have to really listen carefully.  And the answer comes at surprising and unexpected times.    My brain is digging around looking for ‘temp storage’,  places where unimportant stuff is stored, not where long term memory is stored.  But if you worry about it, if you let anxiety fog your mind – you’ll never remember.

       The answer? It’s Brad Pitt.  The young 1998 Brad Pitt.  Fire the casting director.  Would you believe the super-handsome young Brad Pitt is the Angel of Death?

       Thanks brain!   I knew you knew it.

        Remember this. No, it is NOT dementia.  It is just how things are in senior brains.  Make a note, tell your brain you want to recall it – chances are, your brain will come through.  Because your brain and mine are incredibly amazing gifts from God.