12-13_Life Begins 19/11/2013 14:50 Page 2
health
Our memories make up a large part of who we are, and
as we get older often become the subject of jokes but also
of concern as we struggle to recall things we previously
would have had no problem remembering. Memories are part
of all of our lives, whether it’s something in our early childhood or something that happened yesterday, we have an
amazing capacity to remember millions of sights, sounds, smells
and experiences but have you ever wondered how our memories
actually work? Nel Staveley takes a trip down memory lane to
quiz the experts.
Then there are those agonising moments in exams or work
meetings, when facts you once learned completely vanish, or
when you bump into someone at a party but, however hard you
try and however much you nod along, you can’t recall their name
or even where you might know them from.
Everyone knows what these nostalgic and frustrating moments feel
like, and everyone knows they’re related to our memory, but how,
and why, do our memories actually work?
“Basically, memory is very sensory,” explains Steve Tromans, of
London-based Neuro-Linguistics Planning clinic, Just Be Well
(www.justbewell.com). The part of the brain responsible for storing
memories responds instinctively to smell, sight, noise and even
touch, so if we sniff, see or hear something we might have
experienced at an earlier time, we automatically link the two and
remember that former experience. “Sometimes, even without
realising it, you see something and your brain responds to it,”
Tromans adds. “It could be a painting in a corner of a room that
has the same colours as your teenage bedroom wall, prompting a
memory of growing up.
“Or perhaps when a child was young, his father always raised his
left eyebrow before telling him off; as he gets older, he’ll
instinctively link someone raising their left eyebrow with his father
being angry and will re-live the same feeling of anxiety that went
with it.”
This link between memory and emotional state is also the reason
we remember certain things in our lives, and not others.
“Memory’s very dependent on your emotional state,” explains
Tromans. “If you were experiencing heightened emotions at a
certain point, you’ll remember that moment instead of a time you
were very calm or distracted.” This explains why you recall a
birthday meal from six years ago, but not what you had for dinner
last Thursday - you were (hopefully) happy at your birthday,
whereas on an average week-day evening you probably
experienced no extreme emotions.
This doesn’t mean memories can’t change over time, though this
isn’t really related to the ‘rose-tinted spectacles’ people often
blame. “Each time we remember something, it’ll become slightly
altered by the emotional state we’re in at that specific time,”
Tromans says.
“
While the smell of grass may be what prompts you to remember
playing in the garden, if you smell it when you’re in a rush to get
somewhere, the next time you remember playing in the garden,
you’ll remember it being more active than it probably was.
The fact memory is so based on your feelings is something you can
use to your advantage if you’re trying to learn something new, like
a language. Before you start your class, take a deep breath and
make sure you’re calm. Then, when you try to recall something
from the lesson at a later date, by once again ensuring you’re in a
calm state, you’ll find remembering it much easier.
This works for those ever-annoying moments when you’re about to
say something, then you’re interrupted and the flow of thought
completely crumbles. “Stress scrambles memory,” Tromans
explains. “If you relax, things will come back to you.”
The power of memories is not always about remembering though strange as that may seem; memories can also try to automatically
forget bad experiences. It’s often referred to as a ‘coping
mechanism’ whereby those memories t