This article was written for Annabel & Grace, which is now part of Rest Less.
Did my mother every worry that she was getting dementia? No I don’t think she did as it was not talked about in those days. Older people did not live as long as they do now and if they did we just thought they were getting a little forgetful. They did not own any technology so digital dementia was an unknown. Nowadays a week does not go past without there being an article in the media about dementia.
However, in ignorant bliss, my mother sadly did get dementia. Maybe it was better that way i.e. not knowing. Now we hear that it is hereditary. This means that I spend many wasted hours worrying that I am getting it.
Of course we all do that thing of wandering into a room to do something and not remembering what exactly it was. Or do you forget who you saw the day before yesterday and what you talked about? Even worse you cannot remember the name of someone you know so well.
The panic and anxiety rises and I start Googling what I need to do to prevent dementia. I actually don’t think there is anything that you can do but it is worth a try isn’t it?
We are told that overuse of technology is changing the way our brains work. That simply means the digital world is zapping our memory.
I get that as when I was young we had to memorise telephone numbers. To this day I can remember telephone numbers from those day. Flaxman 1719 was the number of my cousins who lived just off the Fulham Rd. I suppose I had that number in case I was ever in London and wanted a place to stay. Now I cannot remember the mobile number of my husband because I have him on direct dial on my mobile.
This is more than a light-hearted concern as statistics tell us 225,000 will develop dementia this year, that’s one every three minutes. 1 in 6 people over the age of 80 have dementia.
The good news is that whilst doctors are noticing more and more people in their 30s and 40s with memory issues they call it digital dementia. Apparently we all have digital overload which I can well believe.
As I type this I have an Ocado order open as I need to find the ingredients for my daughter’s favourite recipe to add to the order. I have just had to apologise to a friend that I haven’t replied to her urgent text of two days ago (it slipped my mind sounds so rude). I am also searching for a mini bus company to take some girlfriends to the ballet in August. Instead of doing one thing and finishing it I am halfway through about 4 things. Plus of course there is the inevitable email pinging up tempting me to read it as the writer needs an instant answer.
Apparently 21st century living is harming our minds. We are drowning out thoughts in status updates, text messages, notifications and emails. So we are not losing our memory and becoming demented but rather we are just digitally distracted. We are doing one thing and we then get digitally sucked into another. We have grown away from just doing one thing at a time.
I have a girlfriend who has the most incredible garden and she is an avid reader. How does she get the time I ask her? She listens to Audible books whilst gardening. It’s too much. We need to dial down.
Our brains or rather our memories are in our handbags i.e. they are our smartphones. If we lose our smartphone we are completely lost. So the problem lies with the storing of important information.
“Information enters through your senses and goes your brain, where it is attended to in the prefrontal cortex. Next the information gets transferred to other areas in the back of your brain – the hippocampus, the amygdala, part of the thalamus – that are responsible for storing memories. That’s where the information gets deep-coded.
Our attention span has become so short that we do not give our prefrontal cortex time to attend to those memories. Once you have an answer, you jump on to the next, and the next, then more, os the information does not get properly stored. You’r perpetually skim reading.”
Professor Rosen
Apparently our attention span has shrunk to 8 seconds – we can officially say ‘we have the attention of a sparrow.’
We need to pay more attention and link it to something else. Haven’t you noticed how Americans upon meeting you ask you lots of questions and keep repeating your name. That way it is then lodged safely in their memory. I meanwhile meet lots of people and continue to refer to them as, ‘you know that nice lady with the pink dress we met at so-and-so’s dinner party’. Hopeless I know but maybe quite endearing or so I would like to think. Not so endearing when I cannot remember the name of one of my children.
The best news is that there is no need to take pills to boost our memory – the best medicine is some downtime – take a break from your technology. So I am signing off and going to sit in the garden to read a book if I can remember where I left it!