We Are Grateful for Our Memories!

We had a good discussion about Remember: The Science of Memory and the Art of Forgetting, by Lisa Genova. This is this author's second book about the memory. Her first book, Still Alice, about a woman who had early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, was self-published in 2007 and later became a bestseller. (Our group discussed Still Alice in 2014.)

Carla led us on a journey through the mind. We had a lot in common about a lot of the concepts in the book. The discussion and the book seemed to trigger our memories rather than make us forget things or make us notice forgetting. We went through the question list. A lot of us were familiar with the experiences of forgetting that were mentioned in the book; and for each of the author’s hints as to how to better remember, it seemed one or more, and in some cases most, of us have used that advice.

Remember is almost a self-help book. It’s divided into 3 main chapters: How we Remember, Why We Forget, and Improve or Impair. Much of the book is common knowledge, especially among readers heading into advanced ages. Some of the tools and advice Genova mentioned in the “Improve or Impair” section have been working for some of us. We were familiar with “muscle memory,” such as for driving a car with a stick shift or riding a bicycle, both well known as activities one “never forgets.” For dancing, one can utilize muscle memory by practicing the moves for a song over and over. Then, it becomes easy to join other dancers with the right moves when the song is played. For the “tip of the tongue” phenomenon (technically called “lethologica,” and on the way down that rabbit hole, there’s “lethonomia” for forgetting names), many Baby Boomers go through the alphabet to help remember whatever word has temporarily abandoned them; this tool is mentioned in the book. It was interesting to note that tip of the tongue starts in childhood but becomes more pervasive in each person’s life when they reach much older ages. Some of us liked Genova’s discussing how paying attention results in a higher likelihood of remembering something and how, likewise, avoiding repeating or thinking about something can help us to forget it.

Well-received takeaways included the following: Paying attention to things helps you remember them. Stress isn’t good for the memory, as it shrinks the seat of memory in the brain, the hippocampus. Sleep works with attention for creating memories. Attention helps us notice things, and then our brains encode and consolidate new memories during sleep. Caffeine can help create memories when placed between memorable activities and sleep or napping. Exercise is good for the brain. (I think we’ve heard and read that before.) A takeaway some of us found surprising and maybe disturbing is that puzzles and games are not primary resources for evading Alzheimer’s disease; once you become adept at a puzzle type or a game, the “healthy” aspect diminishes along with the learning factor. Genova’s well-researched recommendation is to learn/do new things rather than revisiting established habits.

This book helped some of us to feel better about the inevitable diminishing of the power of the memory as we age. The book generally reassured us, especially the chapter delineating differences among types of forgetting as they relate to the differences between normal aging and Alzheimer’s disease. The differences are vast, so the common and minor memory glitches many of us suffer during our senior years can remain ephemeral and allow us to feel free to enjoy and appreciate our senior years, complete with “senior moments.”