Memory lapses are very scary, especially if you are a little older. No longer remembering where you left your car in a very crowded parking lot, having the title of a song on the tip of your tongue, looking desperately for the cell phone left who knows where in the house. These are small gestures that we have all experienced, but that shouldn’t worry us: a bit of forgetfulness, actually, is good.
Researchers’ studies
In recent years, scientific research has studied the issue of memory lapses extensively, starting from the common ones we experience every day up to serious medical diseases such as senile dementia or Alzheimer’s – for which, among other things, a possible cure could come from an unexpected drug. One of these luminaries is Scott Smallprofessor of neurology and psychiatry and director of Columbia University’s Alzheimer’s Research Center in New York.
As he tells Focus In an online article, Small has over the years studied the brain and delved into what happens to it when we forget something. He is the one who explains that forgetting the little things is actually good for our brains: in his new essay Forgetting: The benefits of not remembering (In Italian Forget: The benefits of not remembering) says that the removal of memories is not just something that happens to the brain without being able to do anything about it, which it must passively undergo. Indeed, it is an active action, which the body does so that it is not submerged all in all useless information, because remembering the name of an actor on the fly is not exactly essential to our survival.
«The ability to forget what is not essential helps the brain to think better, to give itself some feedback priority, to make faster and better decisions, and also to be more creative. In conclusion, normal forgetfulness, in balance with an adequate memory, gives us a more flexible mind “, explains the expert, as reported on Focus.
How to help our brain
When Small’s latest work was published, some interesting articles on the benefits of forgetting also appeared in the online journal of the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University. In an interview it is Small himself who gives some Advice for how to help the brain leave the most painful memories behind.
The first method is to research the interaction and the sociability: two factors that seem to calm the part of the brain that stores too many emotional memories. This is one of the reasons why the absence of human contact has raised so much concern during the COVID-19 pandemic. Another way to help the brain actively forget, Small says, is to decide consciously to let go of past resentments, grudges and disappointments. The more we dwell on a painful memory or ruminate on the events surrounding it, the stronger the neuronal connections around the memory become.
And just as there are methods of forgetting, there are also methods of remembering information that we think is important but that we fear it will slip away. Technology also helps us: for example, there is a bag that helps us not to forget anything at home.