Continued: Remembering & Forgetting
So what can we do to strengthen our
memories to remember what we have done or even
who we are? John Medina, a neuroscientist from
Harvard, advocates first of all a healthy brain. The
brain is one of the most amazing organs in the human
body. It controls our central nervous system, keeping
us walking, talking, breathing and thinking. The brain
is also incredibly complex, comprising around 100
billion neurons which are each connected to a
thousand more. Thinking and remembering occur
because of the integrated action of these neurons.
Every thought and action is controlled by the brain.
The brain uses more energy than any other human
organ, accounting for up to 20 percent of the body's
total use. There are over one hundred thousand miles
of vessels and capillaries intertwined with the brain to
supply the oxygen needed to fire neurons, for cell
maintenance and to produce the proteins needed for
synaptic transfer.
All of this convinces me that John Medina is
right. He recommends a healthy diet, exercise,
adequate sleep and stress reduction as some of the
ways to maintain a brain that will remember, even in
old age. This is a life long process and commitment
that each person has to decide to make in order to live
a full and healthy life.
My father contracted congestive heart failure
when he was in his late 80s. The lack of blood flow
caused his brain to change. He lost his immediate
memory and was unable to create new memories. He
was able to recall many events and details from his
early life, childhood and his young adult life. He
remembered chemistry, his major in college and some
family events if he was primed. He could, however,
talk in detail about his experiences in WWII as a
bomber pilot and he could remember some things
about his career as an Air Force officer. But, he
couldn’t recall what we had just discussed minutes
before. It pointed out to me the importance of a
healthy brain. You have to keep the blood flowing and
insure your body can produce the elements needed to
keep your nervous system and brain firing.
If you don’t sleep well your brain can not
consolidate the neurons into networks to give you
plenty of points of recall for the things you have
recently learned. It is obvious that exercise causes the
blood to flow and carry oxygen to the brain. A healthy
diet impacts your total health, obesity, for instance,
causes changes in the brain that impair memory.
Stress is the most toxic of memory disrupters. It
releases cortisol, a chemical that inhibits the
information processing system. The impact of not
following a lifestyle to have a healthy brain and body
may take a while to impact a person, but eventually
your memory will exhibit symptoms of poor care and
maintenance if you don’t.
The doctor who examined my dad after he had
experienced rapid deterioration of his memory did not
believe Dad had a stroke, although many of the
symptoms were similar.
They weren’t sure what
caused it, but in retrospect he was probably already
experiencing symptoms of low blood pressure and his
brain lacked the blood flow necessary to provide
energy his brain needed to work at full capacity.
Dad had always been really smart, Mensa type
of smart. He had been a pilot, a nuclear chemist, and
an officer in the Air Force among other attainments.
The loss of his memory was hard for me as I recalled
what a witty and humorous man he had been and now
he read the same story in the newspaper all day long.
I could sort of prime Dad’s memory and get him
talking about many things from the past and event
recent family or world events. His memory pretty
much stopped at about the time he had the rapid
deterioration.
He hated exercise, it was kind of a j