When it comes to memory loss, it’s not forgetting where you put your reading glasses or the car keys that grabs your attention. It’s hearing someone tell you, “But I already told you that.”
Dealing with a memory lapse like completely forgetting a recent conversation is an experience that can kneecap any aging adult—and by aging, I mean all of us. Recently, I faced this situation head-on when my husband shared details with me about a certain important event he was to attend. Somehow, neither the discussion nor the details entered my consciousness and I went on to make my own plan, one that directly interfered with his.
Domestic chaos ensued.
I’m aware that as I enter my seventh decade, living my very active life, new information is continually entering my brain, stuffing it with an infinite amount of data. So, I reassure myself that I shouldn’t panic when some details occasionally slip away, kind of like when the new edits on a document I forgot to save disappear right into the digital ether.
Just as I long for a foolproof system to protect and preserve my computer’s memory, I’ve been seeking a solution to help protect and preserve my memory (not to mention my marriage!). There, just as close as my office chair, sat mindfulness.
Unraveling the Mysteries of Memory
When we refer to memory, we’re talking about the way we store information over time. In a sense, our memories make us who we are, because they allow us to reference what’s happened to us in the past to inform our behavior and understanding of the events we face right now, according to an article published online by the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning at Harvard University.
There’s nothing simple, though, about the process involved when we recall that stored information. In fact, memory is a dual-process system involving working memory and regular memory, says Sara Lazar, PhD, assistant professor in psychology at Harvard Medical School and associate researcher in psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Routine thought processes, those that occur more or less unconsciously, are the first aspect of our memory system. The second aspect is the conscious brain work we employ to solve problems. Both these aspects are impacted by the way we get our information (called encoding), how we retain that information (storage), and how we use it (retrieval or recall).
But how your brain stores those memories is still not perfectly understood. Even though neuroscientists now have the knowledge and the tools to tackle the mystery, various experts’ theories abound.
One clear distinction we can make, however, is this: “Regular memory is facts and information, what we ‘know.’ But working memory is being able to juggle two or more tasks or pieces of information at a time. For example, counting backwards from 100 by 3, interspersed with counting up from 0 by 8 (e.g. 100, 0, 97, 8, 94, 16, etc.),” says Dr. Lazar.
How Mindfulness Optimizes Your Working Memory
To understand how mindfulness might be able to support one’s memory, Dr. Lazar and her lab team at Harvard Medical School studied how mindfulness reduces working-memory problems.
Her theory was that overcoming interference to your working memory can help improve your abilities to reason and problem-solve. And one step to overcoming that interference is being able to distinguish older from newer memories. Dr. Lazar and her team began their study with the hypothesis that mindfulness training, which focuses on maintaining attention in the present moment, could be an effective way to reduce something called “proactive interference.”
As Dr. Lazar tells me, proactive interference is defined as the “tendency of previously learned material to hinder subsequent learning.” Chances are, we’re all able to relate to classic examples of this hindrance: “Things like your old address popping into your mind when you have to write your new address for a few months after you move. Or (uh oh) calling your current partner by the name of your ex,” says Dr. Lazar.
In her study, 79 participants took either a four-week web-based mindfulness training program or a creative-writing class, which served as a control group. The classes were one hour and contained 30 minutes of practice along with 30 minutes of general instruction and Q&A. The mindfulness training group’s practices included body scans, mindfulness of breath, and open awareness meditation.
At the end of the study, the participants in the mindfulness group had significantly lower proactive interference rates compared to people who took the writing class. The people who took the mindfulness training also increased the volume of their left hippocampus region of the brain, which is involved with long-term memory. A larger hippocampus volume has been linked to improved memory performance.
The researchers concluded that practicing mindfulness promotes attention to the experience of the present moment, while minimizing interference from past events. Voila, an improved working memory.
Protecting Your Memory from Damage by High Stress
It’s a relief that mindfulness can help us learn our new ZIP code faster, or effectively retain project updates in a work meeting—however, it’s not only past information that puts our working memory to the test. Stress also tries the limits of memory. Focusing on people engaged in high-stakes work, such as first responders and soldiers, many researchers are still exploring the best ways to salvage working memory from high stress.
Amishi P. Jha, PhD, is the director of contemplative neuroscience at the University of Miami’s Mindful Research and Practice Initiative. She and her team have studied the effects of mindfulness on soldiers during the high-stress period before they were deployed for active duty. While they have not yet studied precisely which kinds of mindfulness practice best help working memory, the training included practices rooted in four themes: concentration, body awareness, open monitoring, and connection.
How can high stress affect your memory? “It doesn’t matter what your profession is—a soldier, an accountant, an undergrad, a firefighter, a lawyer—if you’re enduring a period of prolonged stress, and feeling overwhelmed by being unable to achieve all your goals within a period of time, your working memory will be compromised,” says Dr. Jha. This means you’ll have less brain capacity available for memory to function at a normal level, she notes.
“Think of your memory as a mental whiteboard. Whatever we need to pull from long-term memory shows up on its surface so we can use it efficiently in the moment,” says Dr. Jha.
Dr. Jha believes that mindfulness helps the memory because it’s protective. “Our results suggest that the practices we do with mindfulness training actually strengthen working memory.”
Here’s how she explains it: “Think of your memory as a mental whiteboard. Whatever we need to pull from long-term memory shows up on its surface so we can use it efficiently in the moment,” says Dr. Jha.
But, during periods of high stress, when rumination, worry, regret, and anxiety are top of mind, this internal chatter “writes over” what’s on your “whiteboard,” cluttering it so that there’s not enough space available to actually use it for what we need to do, Dr. Jha says.
“When you practice mindfulness, you focus on one thing and tune in to what is going on in your mind. When old memories or random thoughts start to pop up, you disengage from them and go back to focusing on the breath,” says Dr. Lazar. So, you’re training your mind to stay focused on the task at hand and suppressing random thoughts as they pop up, including the ones (such as those old addresses or ex-lovers) that might interfere.
No matter how much mindfulness you practice, however, you may never become the person who can entertain a room by memorizing and reeling off long strings of facts, says Dr. Lazar. “It’s most likely that after following a mindfulness program and practicing for a half hour every day, most people will notice some improvement in their ability to stay focused on the task at hand without getting distracted,” suggests Dr. Lazar.
read more
How Mindfulness Eases Menopause Symptoms 
For veteran health writer Sara Altshul, going through midlife change felt like a major cringe-fest but as she found out, it doesn’t have to be. Read More 
8 Ways to Care for Your Amazing Brain
Making smart lifestyle choices now will support the health of your brain for years to come. Read More
The Science of the Bystander Effect
Writer Sharon Begley explores the research on why decent people will watch someone in trouble, possibly even film it, rather than step up to help. Read More
The post Can Mindfulness Improve Your Working Memory? appeared first on Mindful.
from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8196908 https://www.mindful.org/can-mindfulness-improve-your-working-memory/
No comments:
Post a Comment