How to Retrieve “Lost” Memories
While certain memories seem to be locked in place and unforgettable, there are plenty of other events or moments that are no longer easily retrieved. Are those memories lost forever, or are there strategies to help cue your memory so they can be recalled again?
Neurologist Alessandro Biffi, MD, who heads the Aging and Brain Health Research Group at Massachusetts General Hospital, explains that, yes, many old and new memories that are hard to find now can be retrieved with the right tools. But he adds that the brain also deliberately removes certain chunks of information to make room for newly learned material.
“Losing memories is an important function,” Dr. Biffi says, noting that the brain usually does a very good job deciding what information is worth saving and what is not worth storing for a long time.
But when it comes to important memories that seem lost, many of them really just need a little extra coaxing to reemerge.
Cue the Music
For some memories, all it takes is hearing an old song for them to leap into view. If you are trying to recall details from events or situations from your youth, listening to the music you did in those days may trigger a flood of memories to rush back.
One explanation for this phenomenon is that the memories that tend to endure are often those that have some emotional relevance—a wedding, birth of a child, saying goodbye to friends and relatives, etc. Research shows that music, especially pleasurable tunes, increases activity in the limbic system, a collection of brain regions, such as the hippocampus, amygdala, and the hypothalamus, that are involved with the processing of memory and emotion.
Music that we associate with the moments in our lives, especially the emotional ones, become inextricably linked to the memories themselves, so, in essence, the song brings a memory along for the ride.
In addition to emotional relevance helping a memory stick, the other key factor that helps keep memories alive is personal significance. The brain has a way of tagging emotional and signficant moments for long-term storage, while letting more trivial bits of information go so as not to take up important real estate in our memory.
Getting hired for your first job, for example, may have been a hugely significant milestone in your life, making it likely to be a memory that you have stored away securely. But if the details have gotten fuzzy, you may need to focus on something strongly associated with that moment. Picture what you wore to the interview, the workplace, your boss’s face.
Other external cues that can often crystallize old memories include:
- photos, either from a specific event or from that time period
- foods, especially with distinct aromas
- an article of clothing saved from that time
- reading a newspaper article, poem or other work from that time
- visiting a location where events occurred
External cues may not always bring a flood of memories, but if one recollection or detail emerges, then another may follow. Soon, you may be transported back to an event or experience you haven’t relived in a long time.
Think in Bite-Sized Morsels
Another way to more easily retrieve a “lost” memory, Dr. Biffi suggests, is not to try to recall the whole thing at once. Like any big chore, recalling a hard-to-reach memory may be more efficiently and effectively done if approached as a few little chores.
“Try to break it down into smaller pieces of information,” he says. “This gets the process of recovery going. Thinking about things this way is the beginning of the recovery process. Focus on remarks that you can recall or little bits and pieces that may seem unimportant, but may stimulate the brain to start recalling bigger pieces of information.”
Picture This
If you have a “photographic memory” or are simply more likely to remember a face rather than a name, then start your recall process with the images associated with the target memory. “Use your visualization skills,” Dr. Biffi says. “Rather than try to get the name, think about the face.”
He adds that putting people or events in context can also help the brain fill in the details. If you’re trying to recall a person’s name, start thinking about how you know them. Is the person from work? A former neighbor? Once you figuratively put the person back in a familiar setting, more information may emerge.
“If you’re trying to recall the details of a specific event, rather than try to remember the whole event, start with specific interactions you had at the event, for example,” Dr. Biffi says. “That way you can leverage a different memory channel to help you recall more details. Where was that interaction? Do you have a good or bad relationship with that person? Contextualize as much as possible.”
Don’t Stress About It
Our memories work best when we are relaxed and calm. For instance, if you sat down now to recall all 50 states, you could probably name them all pretty quickly. But if you were playing a game and had to list as many as possible in a minute, you might be surprised at how many states you’d forget. The difference is due to the over-secretion of stress hormones that are released when we’re under pressure, feeling anxious, or are otherwise stressed. Research has shown that a flood of stress chemicals in the brain directly interferes with long-term recall.
When we struggle to remember something we think we should know by heart, it can be especially frustrating, and the more frustrated we get, the harder and harder it becomes to recall that memory. “You want to avoid the stress of failed memory retrieval,” Dr. Biffi says. “Managing the emotional response to memory struggle is important, because otherwise, it really doesn’t improve the likelihood of recalling a memory.”
Bring in the Reinforcements
When you learn a bit of exciting news (or a juicy piece of gossip), you’re likely to share that information with others. And the more you talk about it, the more that news gets reinforced in your memory. It’s like writing your spelling words in school. Your teacher figured if you wrote each word 10 times, you’d learn how to spell them all.
Dr. Biffi says there is something to be said for doing the same thing with any recalled information you want to easily remember. “When we repeat and repeat information to different people and in different settings, it adds a different element to the memory storage process,” he says.
Of course, simply writing down retrieved information in a journal or other personal document is helpful, too. The main takeaway is that once you pull up that memory you thought was lost, tell the world in some way, so it becomes easier to find it next time.
Takeaway
While there is much you can do to retrieve lost memories, it’s important to understand that some memories do remain lost. But the inability to recall a particular moment isn’t necessarily a sign that dementia is taking hold. Over time, even memories that seemed so important can slip away, simply because of normal age-related memory changes. Don’t let this discourage you.
With some internal and external cues, you may find you can remember more than you imagined.
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