How can a person who does the same thing every day forget to do it today? How can the brain just forget tonight? I am always amazed with my morning ablutions. My pattern has not varied for the past fifty years or more, but every so often I just leave something out. Some days I forget to clean my glasses just after showering, and sometimes I even forget to brush my hair. By now my routine should be so ingrained that I can carry out my pattern in my sleep, but it is not so easy. It seems that when an activity is performed in the same way every day we often can not remember whether or not we have done the activity at all. This is why the boxes of pills are prevalent. It is always interesting to me why these routine regular activities are not memorable. I do know from new research that the reason we can remember the major events in our lives that stay with us forever is that the event triggers activity in the part of our brain that deals with the emotions. Our memory of why we know exactly what you were doing when you heard of the shooting of Pres. Kennedy is because you had a strong emotional response to the event, which seems to put the memory strongly into your long term memory. More and more discoveries come out all the time, so maybe when I am 80 I will be able to remember everything I ever knew.
Last night I just forgot to write my little web log. In the middle of the night I awoke with a start to realize that I omitted to complete my tasks for the day. Now this does not please me. It is one thing to decide not to write a blog today, but to just forget to write my small blog makes me thing I am getting old and forgetful. But I think it is the opposite. I have made my writing routine for the past 11 months so much a part of my routine that I am not connecting to my emotional center, and I am running on automatic pilot, just with my morning routines. I am going to decide that this is a good thing and has nothing about my age or infirmity. The whole question of intellect is difficult, as is memory. I can recognize high intellect when I see it but I certainly don't know how it happens. The other part of memory is that it takes about six weeks to develop a routine, but after a while you can't recall whether you have competed the task or not.
Your body certainly remembers what has happened to your body. After just one week of exercise, I developed a training effect. My heart rate fell with the same work load. In other words, in order to keep my heart rate up to a target rate, I was forced to work harder. This tells me that my memory is not as good as the cells in my body. Just amazing.
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