Memory is a key to day-to-day functioning, yet very few people understand how it works. To get a better understanding of memory, we need to understand how the brain stores information. No one single area stores memories. Memories are scattered over various regions of the brain. For example, you may store the name of a person you just met several moments ago in your recent memory right along side what you had for breakfast this morning.


Think of your brain as an area containing various “storage units.” Each time you collect a bit of information, your brain decides how to categorize it and then what bin to drop it into. Your brain also has a different “storage unit” for long-term items, such as knowledge acquired years ago or memories of childhood. It also has a different “storage unit” for short-term facts–information that you need at the moment don’t need to access or a regular basis. The next time you go looking for those facts, your brain then at least has an idea of what bin it placed it in.

Why do we become forgetful as we get older? At an early age you begin to lose brain cells–as early as your 20s. Your body starts to manufacture less of certain chemicals that are essential to the ideal functioning of your memory. There are many functions that go into retrieving memories. You’ll really appreciate the human brain when you realize everything that goes into retrieving information. As an example, let’s say you misplace your keys. This may seem to be a single step, but it’s actually a series of smaller steps. First your brain retrieves the name of the object, in this case the keys, and then its shape, function and other physical qualities associated with it. In other words, your brain is reconstructing the entire image of the keys from various areas or “storage units” of the brain.

Experts say there are three reasons that explain why you can’t remember where you left it. First, you may not have clearly registered, or taken notice, of where you laid the keys down. Secondly, if you did register it in your brain, you failed to retain it. Finally, you may have registered and retained where that important paper is, but you aren’t able to retrieve it.

Forgetting may be as simple as failing to encode the action properly. If you are distracted at the moment the encoding process would have been taken place the memory may not be there to retrieve. You can see why we so easily lose keys and forget appointments. If you want to improve your memory, make an extra effort at going through all three stages of the memory process.

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