What Causes Memory Loss And Forgetfulness

Definition Of Memory Loss And Forgetfulness| The Real Cause of Memory Loss |

Have you ever had something in mind but forgot it the next minute? It turns out that it doesn’t come out of the blue. So what causes memory loss and forgetfulness?

A lack of sleep, depression, stress, anxiety, and some medications can cause memory loss and forgetfulness. Moreover, an underactive thyroid and some diseases can make you constantly bemused.

This article examines why you keep losing your memory or being forgetful.

How Do You Define Memory Loss and Forgetfulness?

You might wonder why you quickly forget things you only learned a few moments ago. Or perhaps, it might shock you that you only partially recall events, leaving out inexplicable gaps that hardly create a flow. Memory loss (amnesia) is unusual forgetfulness on various levels. It relatively differs from Alzheimer’s, a degenerative disease leading to dementia.

Forgetfulness is less severe than amnesia and often happens in the short term. There’s always a significant chance that you’ll remember something after forgetting to exist, and you can quickly come out of it after jogging your memory. However, it can be consistent and occur more frequently, making it somewhat concerning.

What Causes Memory Loss?

You may already be aware of numerous causes of memory loss and forgetfulness. These causes emanate from daily life, including what you may be profoundly indulging in. here are the typical causes of forgetfulness and memory loss you should be aware of. Also, read our article on Sudden Memory Loss: When Should You Worry And Seeks Help?

• Lack of Sleep

Excellent sleep is integral to your cognitive health and helps your memory. On the other hand, poor sleep compromises your mental ability to recall things. Proper sleep keeps the Hypothalamus in perfect shape and enables the creation of new memories. Remember that you constantly accumulate memories when awake that go to the back of the mind.

And it takes jogging your mind to pull them back to the front and remember them. However, excessive sleepiness can block the neuro pathways, negatively impacting your memory and causing you to forget things easily.

• Anxiety and Stress

Stress and anxiety can come in the way when trying to remember things. Often, anxiety gets you in panic mode, impeding your ability to put your thoughts together and recall an event. Concentrating on thinking is incredibly challenging when you’re under an anxiety spell, and it mostly takes you off balance.

Similarly, stress can compromise your thought and recall patterns, quickly causing you to forget things. Retrieving old memories requires a clear and settled mind that doesn’t have to wander or be destructed by what’s lying around.

• Depression

Depression impacts your thinking due to the lack of drive. Sometimes, the stiffing sadness and the loss of pleasure in things can pull your energy down. So much it can be that you fail to remember the simplest things you did recently.

The mind usually locks itself out of the ability to expend energy to trigger the neuropathy that facilitates remembering. But as it is, one can exist as a sign of the other. Some people forget a lot, which suggests they may be depressed without knowing it. However, memory loss and forgetfulness may occur in an individual due to various causes.

• Alcohol and Substance Abuse

Drugs and substance abuse can lead to memory loss and forgetfulness. Especially so, excessive alcohol consumption interferes with your short-term memory, making you less likely to jog your memory enough to recall things. So, perhaps it’s time you reconsider your daily alcohol intake amount if you want to keep your ability to remember things, even the most recent ones.

If possible, try limiting your drug and substance intake. Try relegating to soft drinks and generic drinks that don’t have too much alcohol percentages. Pretty sure that you’ll register a drastic improvement in your propensity to recall events.

• An Underactive Thyroid

While your thyroid may principally control your metabolism, it bites much of the way of remembering things if it’s not in its best shape. A malfunctioning thyroid impacts the entire body’s functioning, which can mostly keep you from forgetting and losing your memory.

It also interrupts your circadian rhythm, affecting sleep and causing possible depression. These conditions usually come back to haunt your capacity to remember things and retain events in the brain.

• Medications

Some medications have a downright impact on your capacity to recall and retain things. They may cause sedation or confusion as soon as you take them or long after, and their effect can be residual. Antidepressants may be ideal for helping you counter depression, but they often come back with an inverted impact, causing memory loss.

Blood thinner and tranquilizers also have a similar effect, which can be incredibly challenging to deal with. however, using alternative medicines that don’t have such an impact can go a long way.

• Old Age

Old age tags, along with its challenges, and memory loss and forgetfulness are typical. This condition mainly manifests in dementia, but it doesn’t always start as its full-blown version. Age-associated memory loss is typically expected, and pretty standard as the brain cells tend to degenerate.

Remembering a few things you’d have easily recalled in your youth becomes incredibly challenging. That doesn’t mean you’d have dementia, but it’s a sign that age is catching up with your cognitive ability to remember and retain memories.

• A Silent Stroke

A silent stroke blocks the main blood vessels that feed the brain with blood containing air and nutrients. Your memory loss may start mildly but progress into more noticeable symptoms later. It causes a vascular cognitive impairment, an abnormal condition resulting from vascular diseases which aren’t always chronic enough to qualify as severe.

A silent stroke can be why you lose memory and become overly forgetful, which can last for as long as you don’t treat it. However, treatment through blood thinning medications and cholesterol medications can salvage your ability to remember and retain information in your brain.

• Nutritional Deficiency

Sometimes diagnosing your memory loss and forgetfulness doesn’t have to go beyond what you munch on. The food you eat can determine whether or not you remember past events or if they remain etched in the back of your mind. Your diet and nutrition should meet the required nutritional requirements to help you remember.

It would help if you always stacked up your diet with more vitamin B12 to help facilitate normal nerve function. But while taking lots of it is essential, you only need about 2.4 micrograms of B12 to keep your mind in a perfect position.

• A Head Injury or Concussion

An apparent cause of memory loss and forgetfulness is nursing a head injury that might cause a concussion. Getting a concussion is possible if your head hits a hard surface when falling or when unfortunately involved in a severe accident.

Concussions occur alongside piercing headaches and confusion, and it’s easy to tell if you have one. However, concussions aren’t always permanent, depending on the severity, and can heal over time. Until then, racking your brains and hardly remembering a thing might be the norm.

Conclusion

Memory loss and forgetfulness can be cruel, making it incredibly challenging to recall your sweetest memories. The good thing, however, is that it’s typically conditional, and you can reverse your situation with treatment, concern, and self-care. If it persists, however, please seek immediate medical help.

Medical Discalimer: The information provided here On Geeks Health website is for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. If you have or suspect a medical problem, promptly contact your healthcare provider. Reliance on any information in this response is solely at your own risk.