Most memory lapses are perfectly normal — here's how to handle them
Article Source: msnbc.com
from:msnbc.comWhere's my car? How do I know you? Beating brain glitches
Seeded on Wed Nov 10, 2010 8:43 AM EST (msnbc.com)
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Yup. It happened to me at work, i'd leave the office for something and got waylaid by another worker. this happened at Sears.
I forgot what I was gonna say ....
That's what I was going to , um, ah, I was going to ............... whatever.
I HAVE A CAR ?
A friend in Portland recently returned to where she thought she parked her car, but it wasn't there. Reported it stolen, but after two weeks of seaching, the police couldn't find it. Meantime, after being parked illegally for a couple of weeks, it was towed to the impoundment lot where the plate number was run against police records, including those for stolen cars. Turns out, it was just a street over from where she "remembered" parking it.
I had a few "OMG" instances where I freaked for a second about my car being stolen. I lived in Pittsburgh's South Side neighborhood where it was all on-street parking and there were a few spots I would usually be able to get but on weekends when all the boozers were running all over I had to park in weird places and sometimes forgot since I had parked somewhere familiar before I had left the day before.
I parked at a mega-plex theatre once and searched for my car for an hour when I got out of the movie. It was a crappy car so I was pretty sure it wasn't stolen. I finally realized that the theatre and the parking lots in the front and back of the building were exactly symetric. I was searching the wrong one.
On another brain fart day we took my daughter to the airport on a very cold day and parked in the parking garage, thinking my girlfriend was paying attention to where we parked ... she was thinking the same thing about me. By the time we found the car, my daughter had already touched down 3 states away and I couldn't feel my extremeties.
The problem is that we do not use our brains for anything. The little that we once used it for can now be performed by iPhones, Blackberry's and computers. Be honest, how many of you actually know the street address and telephone numbers for at least five people... OK, three?
Alphabet Trick - When I can't remember a name of someone or something I slowly start silently reciting the alphabet one letter at a time. Most of the time I'll get the right name two or three letters ahead of where I am at, like the subconcious brain is way ahead of the subvocalization. Works virtually every time.
I still have to make a list if going to the store for more than two items. Walking through a grocery store door is the #1 cause of amnesia.
I've done this Alphabet Trick since I was very young. I'm an oldster now. It works almost every time. My friends and family are used to me saying, "Wait a sec, I know it starts with a D". Actually, I thought everyone did this, but I guess not.
What the heck is the "Alphabet"? Is it something I should know? lol
Sequim88too: Unless I only have one or two things to buy on a shopping trip, I make a list of things to buy on paper, and check them off the list as I find them. This is especially important when shopping Costco, WalMart, Target, KMart, or other big box stores.
I am the queen of list making!
me, too. but sometimes i leave my list at home.
Yes, sad to say, but sometimes I forget my list and accidentally leave it at home. <sigh>
I always forget words. Then 30 minutes later I remember the word and say it out loud with great enthusiasm. Unfortunately, when I remember the word nobody else shares my joy. The world is full of unappreciative jerks, I'll tell you what.
I had something to say, but totally forgot what it was.....
Last night I tried to recite the alphabet backwards and got it all wrong. Pretty strange because know all the letters forwards. The officer was not impressed.
I've tried to recite the alphabet backwards and I can't do it without hesitating and thinking. Can most people do it sober or otherwise? Just wondering. It doesn't seem like a good test to check for sobriety.
I can do the alphabit backwards "zyxwvustrqponmlkjihgfedcba"
@Winker, you have the "S" and "T" reversed. lol
winker - you failed! Please blow into the tube at a constant rate until I tell you to stop.
What tube is that? I was typing mega fast because I know the alphabit backwards. I sing it like the alphabit song but backwards.
Breathylizer joke winker. Cops have been known to ask you to recite the alphabet backwards to determine if you need to blow.
awwww crap. Now I can't remember what I was going to say
Monty Python had a great sketch about inability to remember the word you wanted. As I recall, the sufferers from "E. Henry Thripshaw's Disease" simply blurted out a different, totally inappropriate word instead.
Didn't make any difference to the memory problem, but was a lot more amusing than "um... er... um...".
I was going to make a comment, but I forgot what I was going to say
i am so glad i'm not alone in this. i'm 62 now but recall getting up from the kitchen table as a teenager, opening the refrigerator (just a step or two from my seat) and not knowing what i was looking for. mustard? catsup? mayo? DAMN!
I have all those moments. I can recall events in 1947 but can't remember why I came downstairs.
This has been a lifetime thing w/ me. I recall as a teenager, misplacing my glasses. Found them in the silverware drawer; I had been drying dishes. Now that I'm nearly 60 and have these glitches, it doesn't freak me out since I've always been having them.
Linda, that's funny and it reminded of a story about my mother-in-law. This happened a long time ago. She went to the meat market and bought some really nice steaks along with other grocery items. As she was unloading and putting up her groceries, she realized the steaks weren't there. She went back to the store and told them they'd forgotten to give her the steaks she bought. Later in the day, she reached into the bread box for bread and there were the steaks she'd "lost".
 I have a page in my dayrunn entitled, "Names remembered" (which is actaully names fogotten). Everytime I see someone at work whose name temporarily escapes me, but then I recall it a few moments later (or have to obtain it another way), I write that person's name on my "Names remembered" page. I refer to it from time to time to refresh my memory of anyone I have ever forgotten at work, even for a moment, which sharpens my memory so that I won't happen again to embarrass me.
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My daughters came to visit me at work once. It was lunchtime so the whole office, about 12 people, were gathered around the conference room table eating lunch. I introduced each one of them one by one, until the last one - who was the guy whose desk was next to mine and the one I spent the most time with, and I temporarilly forgot his name. Unexplainably embarassing and weird.
Interesting idea! Do you include a description of the person with the name?
No multi tasking the article say lol that would,nt have worked in Uncle Sugars Confused Group no one multi tasks more.
After i retired i refused to multi task with maybe a few exceptions and i never get it and go anywhere . Why hurry? Unless someone i dying is my rule. I used to love sports cars now my wife has me wanting a mini van slow sure but a living room on wheels. Oops off topic maybe what was the story about again? ;-)
I never forget where I parked and if a can't remember a word for a moment I can usually pull it up shortly, I've even had my girlfriend go to look it up online and I was able to remember before she could find the word by definition and a thesaurus. My problem is names! I have a simple common name so most people remember mine and that leaves me quite often running into people I met briefly who call me by name and I haven't a clue who they are. Often I can't even remember the face if the encounter was very brief but I have a memorable character and look so no one else has that problem with me. I've gone to parties and ended up knowing almost everyone there but only ten or so by name. The only thing that seems to make their name stick is if I have hung out and conversated with them intently at least twice.
No,l have not added descriptions as others have suggested. I use it more like a quick before a quiz. And because the page has just names, and not a lot of other words, I am quickly seeing other names I have ever forgotten when I go back to look for a name when I forget someone a second time, or when I am adding a new name, I see other names I have forgotten. It's quick and easy. And, it is just one page in the back of my day runnner. Works for me!
Hopefully someone won't find your list of random names and think you are some kind of weirdo stalker.
Over the last 10 years, I found myself increasingly blanking on names that I should have been able to remember easily. After reading about the benefits of omega 3's on neural pathways, I started taking fish oil tablets regularly. It took a few months, but I noticed tangible improvement in my ability to recall names. It also helped me watching Jeopardy . . . another area of degraded quick recall that improved. It's a rare example of personally experiencing evidence backing up any of the gazillion claims they write about leading off with "research shows that . . . ".
"...and forgot her double stroller in the space beside her, driving away and abandoning it. Worse, she did it again a few months later." ... I could be wrong, but maybe she shouldn't be driving.
In my thirties and forties I use to worry that I was going to be a forgetful old person, then I remembered that my grandparents had no major memory problems and my mother who is now 84 has very little problems too so I have stopped worrying in my fifties. Now I read this article and it makes me feel much better, Yes I too forget peoples names and every now and then I forget what I was about to do or say but it not a hassle anymore I just relax and ask the Lord to remind me and He always does.
Stop reading if you've heard this one.
The pastor was shaking hands with people leaving his church. He spied an elderly lady and asked her if she ever thought about the "hereafter". She said, Why, oh yes, I think about the hear after all the time, when I go into my bedroom, when I go to the basement, when I go to the living room, and when I go to to refrigerator. I always seem to be asking myself, "Now, what did I come here after".
That happens to me a lot. I usually remember if I go back to where I was before and start again.
As someone diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder, I have had these brain/memory problems all my life, so if I ever get any "senior moments", I'll never recognize them!
All of your lame brained errors don't hold a candle to my stupidity!
My little brother Tom came for a visit,
I took him to my best friend Bob's place to introduce them to each other
at the proper moment I introduced my brother as ME, Jack, instead of Tom!
Bob promptly took the unopened beer from my hand and asked for my drivers license.