Memory Bad? Just Relax and Forget About It

We bolster ourselves with lists, those of us with bad memories.

Lists of people to call, appointments to keep, tasks to perform.

Yet we still pull into work 15 minutes after the important meeting has started, blissfully unaware of our lapse until we see the boss’ face.

We still find ourselves sitting dazed at our desk, trying to remember where we put that essential file that seems to have vanished into thin air.

We still break into a sweat as the phone rings, struggling to remember who the heck we were calling before the cheery voice on the other end has a chance to turn irritated at our thoughtlessness.

Because our behavior is without thought. We were relying on memory, and memory failed.

A good memory, or the appearance of one, can have a huge impact on our careers. Political destinies have been made and broken on a candidate’s ability to hook a name to a face. The guy in the office who can always remember dates and facts just seems smarter than the rest of us. And she who has perfect recall of numbers seems smooth and confident as she punches the client’s cell phone number into her own, no fumbling with address book required.

Dale Carnegie, author of “How to Make Friends and Influence People,” knew the importance of memory when he emphasized calling customers and contacts by name. Everyone loves hearing the sound of her own, and everyone likes to be remembered.

Not to mention the importance of remembering the spouse’s name, how the kids are doing in school and the fact that you nearly killed the client last time by taking her to a Middle Eastern restaurant, forgetting her fatal allergy to legumes.

Dr. Gary Small, director of the UCLA Center on Aging, has both comforting and disturbing words for those of us who lack total recall.

The comforting part is that we can do a lot to make up for our memory deficits, including relaxing about them. Anxiety just makes memory problems worse, he says. As with all things Zen, acceptance is key.

The disturbing part is that there really may be something wrong with our brains, that we have less going on upstairs than our better-remembering brethren.

Small would object to that brutal summary of his work, but that’s what it comes down to. People who rely on lists and other memory aids appear to have less brain function in their frontal lobes, the “executive center” of our brains that controls what gets done.

Small says that people are pretty good monitors of their own memories and often know the extent and severity of their problems far better than outsiders, including doctors and laboratory testers.

“These are subtle frontal lobe deficits that they are aware of and compensating for that didn’t show up on objective tests,” Small says.

Some of us have always had faulty memories. We could blame genetics or environment, take our choice, Small says. Others can attribute synaptic lapses to a head injury or alcohol or drug abuse that permanently damaged recall. Still others are beset by medical conditions ranging from depression to thyroid problems that affect the brain and memory.

And even those with normally good memories find themselves failing when overloaded by stimuli. Ask new mothers or anyone going through a traumatic life change how often they have locked themselves out of their house, discovered their wristwatch in the refrigerator or forgotten what day of the week it was.

Small recently found himself overwhelmed after moving his family, including children ages 4 and 6, from Studio City to a new home in Bel-Air. With their daily routines disrupted, his memory began to fail.

“If you constantly have to put in new information, you get overwhelmed,” Small says. “Now it’s just not, ‘Honey, can you pick up some milk,’ and you go do it. Now it’s, ‘OK, where’s the market?’ and once you’re there, ‘Where’s the dairy section?’ ”

As a memory researcher, Small knew his problem was temporary. But memory lapses of any kind often disturb us far out of proportion to the actual event, task or name not recalled. We experience embarrassment and anger at ourselves for our failing.

And no small amount of fear. After all, our memories define us. Our likes, dislikes, relationships and self-image are largely formed and informed by our memories of past events.

That’s why an Alzheimer’s sufferer feels terror not at the end, when all the traces of a life lived have been erased, when the mind no longer recalls the jobs held, the people loved, even one’s own name.

The terror comes at the beginning, when the person realizes what is slipping away.

Researchers believe people may be able to help stave off diseases such as Alzheimer’s by remaining mentally active: reading challenging books, doing crossword puzzles, socializing with interesting people.

Christopher Clark, associate director of the Memory Disorders Clinic at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center, urges the elderly in particular to make the effort to leave their homes, break their routines and meet new people.

As for improving day-to-day memory in the absence of dementia, the debate rages on.

Some speakers make their living on the seminar circuit, promising to impart the secrets to an improved memory in just six hours.

Others scoff, saying free association, self-hypnosis and other tricks don’t really work.

Simply trying to recall details of important events can bring the past to life and revive a spotty memory, advises Matthew Erdelyi, professor of psychology at Brooklyn College and author of “The Recovery of Unconscious Memories: Hypermesia Reminiscence.”

As for the other details, the world is full of memory aids, from lists to electronic organizers, directory assistance and answering machines, says Steven Clark, associate professor of psychology at UC Riverside. Clark, no relation to the Pennsylvania researcher, studies memory and cognition and has testified in criminal trials about the vagaries of memory in eyewitness identifications.

Clark, who says he is “always forgetting things,” leaves messages to himself on his home answering machine and slaps reminder notes on his door and briefcase.

“I think I keep 3M stock up just through my purchase of Post-it Notes,” Clark muses.

Clark believes people expect too much of their memories. Few people have truly flawless recall.

“I tell people, ‘Screw memory. Just cheat,’ ” Clark says. “We haven’t had perfect memories through most of our evolution. I don’t think we are going to get them now.”