Do you sometimes forget things? Fear not!

Some months ago, I was invited to attend a memory enhan-cement seminar at the Polo Club. It was a tough decision to make as it required four hours of my precious time, four hours of my undivided attention, which is a bit difficult as I have a mild case of ADD (attention deficit disorder). It means that I can’t concentrate on one particular subject for a long time and four hours is a long time to sit down and listen to one speaker. But realizing that this seminar was more of a plus for me than a minus, I signed up. I thought that I could leave in midstream, when the attention span could not take it anymore.

I must admit that my memory is not as sharp as it used to be. But I am not worried because experts say that memory is the second thing to go as you get older. So what’s the first? Ummm, gee, I forgot! I’d better get going on the facts on memory before I forget most of them.

Mild memory loss and brain aging are a natural part of getting older. If you forget simple things, do not panic – you are not necessarily developing Alzheimer’s disease. There are lots of people just like you and me who occasionally misplace their keys, forget where they parked their cars, or can’t recall the name of a person they met at their last office party – yes, the one from last night! Fear not. Memory is really tricky and time is its worst enemy, but it can happen even before you hit your 50s. Many people in their 20s or 30s also forget appointments, names or facts… things on the tip of their tongues. The lecturer explained that "shortly after taking in information, memory traces begin to deteriorate. Some things begin to fade right away, other things fade less quickly, and they’re a bunch of different curves with different rates of forgetting, depending on the nature of the material, depending on how important it is to you, depending on your stress level."

It also depends on all of the things that can affect memory such as: 

a) Stress and anxiety

b) ADD (attention deficit disorder)

c) Depression

d) Metabolic diseases such as thyroid gland diseases, diabetes, and lung, liver, or kidney failure

e) Alcoholism

f) Vitamin B-12 deficiency

g) Infections, most notably meningitis and encephalitis, which affect the nerves surrounding the brain

h) Drugs, both prescription and over-the-counter

The good news is that causes of memory loss from any of these conditions are normally reversible. Dr. Stuart Zola PhD, a career research scientist who has dedicated his work to memory function, says that depression and stress are the most common reasons for temporary memory problems.

Memory is the ability to normally recall the facts and events of our lives and this takes place in three stages:

Stage 1: Encoding. This is when you take information in.

Stage 2: Consolidation: This is when the brain takes the information it encodes and processes it so that it gets stored in certain areas of the brain 

Stage 3: Retrieval. When a person recalls stored information in the brain

Use It Or Lose It

No matter how "normal," memory lapses are frustrating.

Experts agree that the best way to keep your brain fit is to keep using it. Dr. Gary Small, author of The Memory Bible: An Innovative Strategy for Keeping your Brain Young, emphasizes four things in his book to slow down aging: mental activity, physical fitness, stress reduction, and a healthy diet. A diet loaded with antioxidants helps protect the brain cells and exercise helps with overall health.

Staying intellectually and socially engaged is probably the most important thing you can do to help extend and maintain your cognitive abilities for a longer time. A perfect example is my father. He is in his early 80s, and is physically and mentally fit. He exercises daily, plays golf twice a week, drives his car, and as chairman of his company, still works seven hours a day. His memory is razor-sharp and if genes are any guarantee of a good memory, then I can rest assured that when my time comes, I will be at the Pearly Gates with my senility intact.

Well, the other half of the equation, my mother, is not doing bad either. Although not as razor-sharp as Daddy (she tends to repeat her stories over and over), she exercises daily in the form of ballroom dancing. She participates in all their dance programs, which means she can still memorize intricate tango steps, jive, shimmy, and other dances that I haven’t heard about. And she still does her own accounting of the week’s household expenses the tedious way as she does not believe in using a calculator. Beat that for an 80-year-old!

Having a good memory is important for those who live dangerously. A friend of mine had two girlfriends aside from his wife. The inevitable happened. He mixed up all their names, interchanged their addresses when sending flowers on Valentine’s Day, and other catastrophic incidents that are just too funny to repeat. Needless to say, he ended up losing all three of them. Today, he is older but wiser. He decided to call all his chicks "honey" and would personally deliver his gifts. 

He gave me some tips to better one’s memory, which not only benefit his lifestyle but also are practical for everyone:

a) To remember a person’s name, repeat it several times after being introduced. 

b) Avoid losing sleep because fatigue can affect memory and focus.

c) Use the same personal identification (PIN) for all your accounts if necessary.

d) Use calendars, clocks, lists and notes (especially noting what gifts he gave to whoever, so as not to buy the same gift twice) and write down daily activities in a planner, so as not to miss an appointment

e) Store easy-to-lose items in the same place each time after using them.

While research shows that up to half of the people over 50 have mild forgetfulness linked to age-associated memory impairment, there are signs when more serious conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease are happening including: forgetting an experience, forgetting how to drive a car or read a clock, forgetting recent events, forgetting having known one particular person, loss of function, confusion or decreasing alertness. Normal forgetfulness includes forgetting parts of an experience, forgetting where you parked your car, forgetting events from the distant past, forgetting a person’s name but remembering it later.

Did that confuse you? As Zola sums it up: "The rule of thumb that’s kind of whimsical in a sense but clinicians often use is, if you are worried about your memory, it’s probably not that serious. But if your friends and relatives are worried about it, then it’s probably more serious."

Maybe you should write that down.