For those that wear glasses, have you ever looked for your glasses for a while only to discover that you were wearing them all along or enter a room to take something only to forget what you wanted to take?

I think it's common to forget things occasionally.

My friend messaged me last week and said " I need to do something about forgetting stuff" and I said "it happens to everyone" so I decided to write this article.

Forgetfulness is a persistent failure to remember. It results from changes in the brain and can be a normal part of aging or a symptom of another condition or disease.

Source.

Causes of forgetfulness

Forgetfulness can arise from stress, depression, lack of sleep, or thyroid problems. Other causes include side effects from certain medicines, an unhealthy diet or not having enough fluids in your body (dehydration). Taking care of these underlying causes may help resolve your memory problems. Source.

Forgetting things can be attributed to two things:

1) Normal Memory Problems

2) Alzheimer's disease

1) Normal Memory problems

According to health.harvard.edu, healthy people can experience memory loss or memory distortion at any age, It's normal to forget things from time to time, and it's normal to become somewhat more forgetful as you age.

Types of normal memory problems

There are 7 types of normal memory problems

A) Transience: This means forgetting facts or events over time. Memories that are used are less likely to be forgotten, brain scientists refer to this as beneficial because it clears the brain of unused memories, making way for newer, more useful ones. Just like the way we clear some of our phone's memory to make space for other things.

B) Absentmindedness: This occurs because of lack of attention due to distraction. Lack of Focus when doing something doesn't allow the brain to encode the information properly leading to forgetfulness.

C) Blocking: This is the temporary inability to retrieve a memory. The most common example of this is when the answer is at the tip of your tongue but you can't just remember it.

This still happened to me last Monday, I was asked a particular question, I knew the answer but at that moment, I couldn't remember it.

D) Misattribution: This means falsely attributing memories. As we get older, this happens. This is why causes the mixing up of names. With misattribution, you can actually remember the memory but misattribute some details like name or place.

E) Suggestibility: In this type, the suggestion fools the mind into thinking it's a real memory, it might have been information that was learned about an occurrence that stays as the memory of the incident even though you didn't experience those details.

F) Bias: Our memories are mostly filtered by experiences, beliefs, mood, and previous knowledge and this affects how our memories are encoded in the brain.

G) Persistence: this is the persistence of memories. Most people worry they can't forget, these people wish they can forget some of their memories. This is common among people that have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and depression.

2) Alzheimer's disease

Alzheimer's disease is a progressive neurologic disorder that causes the brain to shrink (atrophy) and brain cells to die. Alzheimer's disease is the most common cause of dementia — a continuous decline in thinking, behavioral and social skills that affect a person's ability to function independently.

Memory loss is the key symptom of Alzheimer's disease. Early signs include difficulty remembering recent events or conversations. As the disease progresses, memory impairments worsen and other symptoms develop.

Alzheimer's disease is more common in older people. It occurs in younger people when there's a genetic mutation. Source.

Ways to prevent forgetfulness

These are just common things you can do to prevent forgetfulness

• Eat healthily

• Physical exercise

• Stay socially active

• Sleep right: avoid taking caffeine close to bedtime

• Avoid smoking as it speeds up memory loss

• Be mentally active

• Be socially active

• Write down things you're likely to forget

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Thank you for reading.