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One of my favourite films growing up was Gigi and the song I Remember It

Well. I’m pretty sure my parents had the LP and it was played regularly on our Dansette record player, which may be why it comes easily to mind. What I particularly like about it is that it relays a conversation between two people who have experienced the same events but remember it differently. You may recognise that.

Nick and I certainly do. Nick has an amazing memory for certain things. For example, finding his way around a place he’s only visited once. Mine is for certain facts and information.

I have found recently, when sharing some of our background with the groups we work

with, that certain key aspects of my life have come to light when previously overlooked, diminished or temporarily forgotten. That may be similar for you. Memory is interesting and complex and there are two main types, short and long-term.

Short-term or working memory is about the here and now, providing current information about the external world. The incoming information is processed in the pre-frontal cortex, doesn’t last long (20-30 seconds) and is quickly forgotten. It can only hold around seven items and if it’s important enough or experienced frequently the information is encoded via the hippocampus and filed in the long-term memory.

Long-term memory handles storage of facts, figures and information and can retain unlimited amounts of information indefinitely. It is not always immediately available but accessed via the hippocampus. Long-term memory is further broken down into declarative (what is known and able to be expressed) and non-declarative memory (what is known but cannot be expressed verbally).

So I’m guessing that my recent experience of being able to recall parts of my life that I hadn’t spoken about for a long time is a combination of short-term and long-term memory function. Short-term because of the repetitive nature of sharing our background with the group has brought it back into my current attention and long-term because it’s been stored in my memory for a long time.

We may not realise just how complex the brain is or understand much about memory and I think a lot of us worry when we can’t remember something easily or get confused at times about things we should know well and may assume the worst.

If this happens then it’s worth considering that it can be caused by stress and fatigue and is also influenced by many of our unconscious filters – particularly our beliefs and perceptions.

By the way, September is mental health awareness month. Mental health is vital to overall wellbeing, so now may be a good time to find out more about your brain, how it works and what you can do to maintain your own mental health and wellbeing.