Your mind suddenly goes a little blank and blurry, you begin to blink faster, trying to remember that name, or that item, or the reason why you walked into that particular room.
You begin to wonder if that’s a sign of the onset of Alzheimer’s. Well, you’re not alone, the majority of the aging population, and all age groups for that matter, worry that they’re beginning to lose their memory. Certain things that they should be remembering are beginning to escape them.
But fret not, not yet anyways. Some experts are blaming this forgetfulness because of the faster pace of life that we currently live in. This endless multitasking and information overload may finally be taking its toll. But based on severity, your memory loss may just be a warning sign that your brain is actually beginning to flicker out.
But, But You Can’t Remember Names… Sometimes
That’s completely normal in the aging process if you’re not able to remember the name of an acquaintance, an event which you’ve previously attended, or you forget the item at the store that you need to pick up.
But a potential warning signal may be if you’re not able to remember the names of close family members, or relatives, their birthdays or phone numbers, which can potentially be the setting in of Alzheimer’s.
Your Memory Capacity Shrinks With Age
This decline in remembering is pretty much normal as well. There’s research which indicates that memory is at it’s peak and reaches its absolute plateau when an individual is around 25 years old.
Then, the capacity of the brain’s memory slowly begins to decline from there. Beyond that, it naturally becomes more difficult to hold on to thoughts, especially when it comes to short-term memory, attempting to recall that thought you’ve held just a few minutes ago.
More Repetition And Repeating Is Required
Repeating something over and over again, just to remember something is associated with the normal aging process as well. You’re experiencing more difficulty than in the past when it comes to free recall.
You now need reminders by writing them down, such as on post-it notes on the fridge. When it comes to normal aging, these reminders will always help, but these cues become less effective when Alzheimer’s sets in.
Dude, I Can’t Remember Where I Parked My Car
This can happen at times to anyone, it’s extremely embarrassing, but it’s a normal state of the aging process. The key being that you’re able to remember that you actually forgot where you parked your car.
That means your meta-memory is still active, and is working properly. With Alzheimer’s, what happens is that you begin to lose this “meta-memory” capacity.
It may be reassuring to you that “misplacing your car keys” is relatively normal, and part of the aging process. The real question and concern is how often this occurs.
So what needs to be determined is what the real state of your brain is when compared with your age. For instance, if you’re 32 years old and you misplace your car keys 3 times a day, that’s obviously not a good sign.
Some contribute this to “cyber overloading” as the cause of these memory problems occurring at an earlier age. If this is the case, there are ways on how you can reverse this interference.
How Busy Are You When Multitasking
This appears to be the biggest concern of our busy lifestyles. Multitasking is often described essentially as task switching. Attempting to juggle multiple things at once which often impedes the speed, efficiency, quality, and the accuracy of your work, which usually effects others as well.
It’s biggest impact, however, making it more detrimental is the increasing productivity requirements which are forced on our shrinking memory capacities as we age.
This because we’re not able to hold as much information as we once did in our brains, but are required to do more, or switch tasks on the run. So what’s recommended is trying to cut down on your multitasking or doing them a lot more efficiently.
Are Digital Devices The Culprit For Your Overload?
The more that you continuously cram information into your brain, the more interference and confusion that you create. So it’s better to just give your aging brain and your blurry eyesight a bit of a break.
Begin by better choosing what you decide to force or introduce into your mind. Just because there happens to be that easy to click link to get more information, does that new information really add to or does it confuse your objective instead.
Take a few seconds to just evaluate whether that new and tantalizing information source that you found is really that relevant to what you’re doing or looking for.
If you give it a try, if you try to limit your multitasking as well as the information overload that you’re currently absorbing, see if that makes a difference to your memory processing, and if it doesn’t suddenly make you feel a little younger and a bit more alert.