Monday, December 17, 2012

Why do we forget



All of us have probably found ourselves in a situation when remember too late about our friend’s birthday. We may also have forgotten (not once) about exact time of a meeting or to pay some of our bills. It also sometimes happens when a name of a person we meet at a party just gets stuck somewhere in our subconscious mind or we do not remember how a certain object is called. We often try to excuse ourselves for that blaming those things on hard work, absence of sleep and rest and also stress. I could go on and on, but let us better look at why all of these things happen. I do not mean to give you all possible scientific answers, but just a few ideas for you to chew on. The above mentioned excuses are often true, but there are also other factors causing us to forget. Here are a few of those:

High blood pressure

High blood pressure or hypertension is not disease that only elderly people have. Quite often this acute problem is called trouble of modern times. There has been done a research in USA where 30 thousand participants were tested on the causes of memory loss. The results show that those who suffer from high blood pressure experience a lot of memory problems and their abilities to remember decrease as the time goes by. If you have a high blood pressure you should take care of your diet, lose weight, do exercises and not ignore sound advice that your doctor gives you. 

Long trips by plane

Long trips by plane, that last longer than 4 hours can have a direct impact on your forgetting. And if you fly regularly the consequences can be even more serious. A lot of people start complaining about their memory after long flying. It can be caused by tiredness, change of time zones and also stress. 

Lack of vitamin B12

Do you lack vitamin B12? Doctors say that it is essential to keep our neurological function. Lack of vitamin B12 can cause long term changes in cognitive abilities, memory loss, dementia and other health problems connected with forgetting. 

Menopause

According to scientific research (done in US) around fifty percent of ladies at the start of menopause also start experiencing memory problems. The scientists found the connection between the fever and memory gaps. The more ladies suffer from fever, the poorer their memory becomes. There could be other explanations for that, but connection between menopause and memory loss does exist. 

Problems with thyroid

If you suffer from hypothyreosis you can become more forgetful. You may experience weakness, tiredness and memory problems under this condition. This disease is more common for women than men over 40 years of age. 

Pregnancy

It appears that pregnancy can also influence your memory. Quite often it can be difficult to remember even the telephone numbers of those who are close. This is not a prevailing tendency, but increase in memory loss during pregnancy period has been observed. 

Alcohol

Too big amount of alcohol may injure that part of our brains that is responsible for ‘recording’ of memories. Therefore, a healthy way of life is the best way to keep your memory running properly.

Watching pornography

A recent study shows that watching online pornography can cause severe memory problems. This fact needs to be investigated more thoroughly, but as intensive sexual images do impact on our brains this addiction maybe a very serious threat for our memories (mostly men).

Ok, these are some of the things that cause both men and women to forget. Some of them may apply only to one sex, while others fit for all. Let us be aware of these facts and take care of our memories. Good luck in doing so!