There was an article in Newsweek magazine sometime ago about an elderly man who was moving into his new apartment somewhere in Norway when he went out to eat and forgot to write his new address. He has been looking for his apartment for a month and staying in a hotel. “This is embarrassing” is all he could say,“ but I can’t remember the way back to my new home.”
This story may be an extreme case and we may not even believe it but let’s admit, we all have a tendency to forget things one way or another—some more than others. For many people, memory loss only becomes apparent once they hit the age of 40. Some even earlier. It becomes increasingly harder for them to recall dates and faces or even something as basic as what they had for dinner the night before.
A few years ago, a friend of mine in his late 60s was gushing about this wonderful product that had gingko biloba extract. He said it was good to keep one’s memory sharp. I got excited because lately my memory bulbs seemed to be flickering and needed some boosting. When I asked for the name of the product, he couldn’t remember no matter how hard he tried to recall. We looked at each other and burst out laughing at the irony.
Another friend who saw a very humorous FB post commented: “It was funny, yes, but I’m so senile, I forgot to laugh.”
These are as we say LOL moments, but the loss of one’s memory is nothing to laugh about. Our memory is bound to be more and more unreliable as we grow older.
There are a number of reasons why aging affects our ability to retain and retrieve memories. As we age, we start to lose neurons a few at a time, which can affect the activity of brain chemicals called neurotransmitters and their receptors. The hippocampus, especially, is vulnerable to deterioration brought about by age. Additionally, there is a relative decreased blood flow to the brain and, hence, less efficiency in the processing of nutrients that enhance brain activity.
Still, majority of the brain’s functions is largely unaffected by normal aging, and while memory does decline with age, this does have some valid qualifications. First of all, not all of our memories fade. It may be true that some information becomes harder to recall, but many of our other memories remain just as easily accessible. We see no or very little decline in our procedural memory that allows us to remember our ability to accomplish habitual tasks or skill to play a certain sport.
And contrary to popular belief, as long as we undergo healthy aging, we will not experience a drastic loss of memory. Memory decline happens so gradually we may not even be aware of it. Besides, much of what we think is forgetfulness may simply be a slowing down in our ability to acquire, store and retrieve information. Not a loss.
Apart from age, memory in older people can be affected by a number of conditions and lifestyle factors. How we store information is determined by how alert we are at the time we receive it, how relevant or interesting the information is to us, how organized or detailed it is, and the physical and mental context in which we learn and later remember the information.
Our physical state can also affect our memory and other mental abilities, and these include lack of sleep, fatigue, anxiety and stress. In the elderly, especially, persistent depression may actually cause a loss of neurons in brain areas responsible for memory, making them less able to concentrate and process information.
Illness is another factor, from something as minor as a cold or flu to something as major as diabetes or heart disease. Many older people take medications or a combination of drugs, and these can block or interfere with neurotransmitters essential for memory, as can excessive intake of alcohol and abuse of drugs.
Even if we experience memory loss as we age, keep in mind that the brain is quite capable of producing new brain cells at any age, and there are many things older people can do not only to maintain a healthy memory but acquire new information to retain as well.
To compensate for memory loss, there are a few things we can do such as eating a well balanced diet and taking food supplements formulated to boost the brain. Regular exercise is said to get more oxygen, glucose and nutrients to the brain. And most of all get enough sleep so we don’t wake up tired and unable to concentrate during the day.
Older people must continue trying to learn new things and exercising their brain. We need to make our mental abilities work as much as possible to lower the risk of mental decline in our old age. Get a new hobby, learn a foreign language, or just work a daily crossword or number puzzle like Sudoku—anything to keep the mind challenged and busy.
In addition, we need to develop and maintain relationships in our life. Whether we do it in person or virtually, social interaction is said to promote mental activity that helps our brain function. Simply talking and being with other people can help keep us sharp and alert.
It is but natural that we notice changes in memory as we grow older, but most of us don’t experience memory loss that interferes with our ability to live a normal life. Although older people often worry about getting “senile” when they cannot remember an old classmate’s name or where they put down their car key, most of them can improve memory with training and practice.
Aging and memory loss do not go exclusively hand-in-hand. If you believe that you have a hard time remembering some things just because you are getting old— don’t. This may be the very reason that’s keeping you from even trying to remember. To a large extent, keeping a healthy memory is all in your mind!
While we still have the ability and faculty to remember, let us mine our memories for golden nuggets although there are painful memories we would rather forget. We can nurture our inner selves with memories. In fact, my wife and I spend our quiet moments reminiscing about the sweet moments we spent together in the past. She loves to tell me anecdotes from her childhood days, which are still so vivid in her mind.
Conjuring our memories can help sustain our inner selves especially during our low days during this long pandemic. As one writer says: “The soul thrives on remembering. Feed it memories and it comes alive.”
In an accelerated reality when we feel overwhelmed by technology and a sense that life is too complex, our memories can be a way to seek out simpler experiences that offer nostalgia and remind us of a more trustworthy time.
In my solitary moments, I call to mind the times when my brother Caloy used to visit me at my boardinghouse and treat me to snacks while I showed him some of my latest sophomoric poems. I remember also the night he took me to Los Indios Bravos in Ermita and arranged for me to recite a few of them at the club in the presence of his prominent writer-friends. Of course, everyone was polite enough to applaud, but it was an unforgettable experience, seeing him feeling proud about his young trying-hard-to-be-a-poet brother.
Our senses can be good memory triggers that help exercise the muscles of remembering. For example, listening to the song “In My Life” by the Beatles brings back images of a cafeteria where I was when I heard it first played on a jukebox. I can even smell the greasy food being served then. In the same way that the French writer Marcel Proust was able to compose a long novel through his recollection of the past triggered by his sensations, the taste of authentic pancit luglog transports me back to a small panciteria in old Cubao where my wife, then just a girlfriend, and I used to dine after watching a movie at Coronet or New Frontier theater. In my mind’s eye, I can even now still clearly see the faces of the waiters named Prime and Jowy who used to serve us.
Those treasured memories of days gone by are now so part of me they are no longer past. In the words of T.S. Eliot: “Time present and time past/Are both perhaps present in time future/And time future contained in time past.”
This is what I thought the painting of Salvador Dali entitled “The Persistence of Memory” was trying to say. In this work, Dali, depicts languid, melting clocks draped over an arid, desert landscape. To me, it is a meditation on the unfixed nature of time and space, a blending of actual time and remembered time.
By constantly striving to sift through and strain the gold from the debris of our blended memories, we ward off creeping forgetfulness and even emotional anxiety and depression. Let us not forget to remember: the persistence of memory is like a “salva vida” what will keep minds afloat and our spirits up in the face of this persistent pest of a plague.