Memory, all alone in the moonlight...
Well, some people's memories may be alone in the moonlight, but not mine.
Mine have plenty of company. In fact, sometimes I think that my brain may resemble a subway car in Tokyo. You know the ones I mean. There are people employed for the sole purpose of pushing people into the cars because they are already so full of people.
Presumably my brain employs some neurons or whatever to push new information in, no doubt at some pitiful minimum wage. The problem is, other information is falling out the windows on the other side, where it lands on the tracks and gets runover by another train.
In other words, memory death.
Like many femmes d'une certain age (don't you just love the French? They have a word for everything) my memory is not what it once was. Sudies have confirmed the link between memory loss and menopause. I can attest to this.
Especially my working memory. I can lose track of where I am going in about half a second. So, a typical day for me goes like this:
1. Go up the steps, get to the top
2. Stand there and wonder why I am at the top of the steps
3. Give up and go back down the steps
4. Remember why I went up the steps
5. Go back to number 1
While it is not quite that bad, it is kind of scary.
I know that part of the problem is distraction. Everything I see in my house is a reminder to do something - vacuum, dust, laundry, bills, whatever.
No doubt it was the mental shopping list, and scanning the aisles, that caused my latest memory crisis. Last week I went into the supermarket, and while tooling around with my cart, spotted a woman coming toward me. I looked at her, and thought, Gee, she looks familiar. She looked at me with expectation, and fortunately, just as she got to within hailing distance, I realized who she was.
She is my neighbor.
I got bonus points for actually coming up with her name (Janice). I am hoping that she did not see the totally blank look on my face, followed by the brightening up of recognition and the relief of the name recall, but I can't be sure about this.
Anyone with a baby or small children is familiar with the issue of lack of sleep and memory loss. Ten years ago, before the train of my childbearing years pulled into the station (hmm, subway cars? Trains? I seem to be onto transportation metaphors today) I ran into a former co-worker, whom I had not seen in about ten years. She was ahead of me in line at a toystore, and turned and instantaneously exclaimed "Valerie!" I smiled brightly and said, "Hey! How are you?" and went through the conversation desperately rummaging through the attic furniture for her name. I did eventually come up with that particular piece of information.
Three months later.
Tara Parker-Pope, in her excellent Well blog on the New York Times, has mentioned connections between sleep problems and memory loss; I wonder sometimes if Norm has this problem, because he can snore like an angry moose, and misplaces his wallet approximately every four days.
I have written before about cutting out wine or chocolate late at night to help me sleep better. Another option is using vitamin B12, which my friend Joan swears by to help her sleep. Studies show it also can help improve memory. I have used this in the past, and I think I will try it again.
Now, if only I could remember where I put that bottle of vitamins...
No comments:
Post a Comment