Befriending Forgetting

This may sound a strange title for a workshop on maintaining and, indeed, improving memory as we age, but there's a logic here and people who have attended these entertaining (and educational) workshops love them. It turns out that befriending forgetting is one of the surprising tricks for remembering! …for helping memories work better as we age.

Many people reach very old age as sharp as ever. Genetics clearly plays a role in how we age, but how we live our lives on a day-to-day basis is critical. So too are the assumptions we hold about what happens to our mind and memory as we age - a case of self-fulfilling prophecies and all that.

This workshop gives you an opportunity to examine some of myths about memory and ageing that one hears all too often. We'll consider the accumulating scientific evidence about mental function and what you can do (and what you shouldn't bother to do) to maintain memory as you grow older.

Perhaps the most important insight you will gain is that memory loss is NOT an inevitable part of ageing. There is a myth about that you must learn is myth:

The Major Myth: ageing and memory loss go hand in hand and memory loss means you are getting dementia

The Reality: Memory does change with age, but most people don't experience memory loss that interferes with their ability to live a normal life. Understanding how and why we forget things is also a good way to make changes to maintain memory-at any age!

In healthy people, the basic ways our brains learn probably don't change much as we age-it's just that new learning ( and unlearning) may take a bit longer. But when we learn something well, it tends to stick with us just as well as it did in younger years

The hysteria generated in the media, and elsewhere, about a coming tsunami of Alzheimer's Disease is not only wrong, it is wholly counterproductive. Fear of memory loss may actually help trigger memory loss, as whenever we are fearful or stressed we tend to forget things. Further, one of the surprising tricks to maintaining a sound working memory is to befriend forgetting!

You will come away from this workshop with real insight into how memory works and some practical schemes for keeping yours well behaved. Because you can keep your brain healthy, your mind active, and your memory reliable as you get older.