You’re Getting Distracted, and It’s Affecting Your Memory

I walked into the kitchen the other day, thoughts wading through my mind, and when I reached out to open the cupboard, I forgot what it was I wanted. After a contemplative moment, I retreated, “can’t have been that important.” I was running late for work anyway, so I needed to get going, but before I could run out the door, I’d totally forgotten where I put my keys — I could tell this was going to be a long day.

Have you ever had moments like these? Maybe you meet someone new and within 5 seconds of the introduction you forget their name, you have trouble keeping a simple list in your head, you forget things all the time.

The good news is that you’re not going crazy, your memory is faltering but it’s not dying, rather it’s the distracted mind that’s not giving you a chance.

Even the average, healthy 25-year-old will experience moments like these three or four times a week; the difference is that the forgotten name will soon be recalled, or the keys will eventually be found between the couch cushions. It’s less likely that these things are being caused by a degenerative disease at all; for younger, healthy adults, distraction is the real issue. “Most of us, when we can’t find our keys, it actually isn’t a memory problem, it’s an attention problem,” Genova said. “You’re doing five things at once and you never actually paid attention to where you put them in the first place.”

So the solution? Start paying more attention to what you’re doing, be in the moment a little more. Most of our mental distractions come from trying to predict the events of the day, worrying about meetings and reports, that we don’t leave enough mind power for what’s going on at that very moment. Read the rest of the article for more info.