Remember: The Science of Memory and the Art of Forgetting - A New York Times bestseller!

by Lisa Genova

Most of us paint forgetting as our mortal adversary, but it isn’t always an obstacle to overcome. Effective remembering often requires forgetting. And just because memory sometimes fails doesn’t mean it’s in any way broken. While admittedly frustrating, forgetting is a normal part of being human.

You’ll learn that attention is essential for creating a memory for anything. If you don’t pay attention to where you park your car in the multistory car park, you’ll struggle to find it later, but not because you’ve forgotten where you parked. You have forgotten nothing. Without adding your attention, you never formed a memory for where you parked in the first place.

Functional MRI brain imaging studies have glimpsed the act of retrieving a memory. When a person is asked to remember something while in an MRI scanner, we can literally see this person “searching his or her brain” for the information to be recalled.

For example, if you don’t notice where you put your glasses, you can’t form a memory of where you put them. Later, when you’re frustrated, unable to find them, you’re not experiencing a true memory failure. You haven’t forgotten anything, because the memory was never formed. Your glasses are missing because of a lack of attention (they’re usually on my head!).

If you look for magic every day, if you pay attention to the moments of joy and awe, you can then capture these moments and consolidate them into memory. Over time, your life’s narrative will be populated with memories that make you smile.

If big pharma came out with a pill tomorrow that could improve your memory and significantly lower your risk of Alzheimer’s, would you take it? How much would you pay for that medication? Well, we already have it. It’s called sleep.