Everyday
Walking into a room and forgetting why
The most-quoted version of midlife brain fog, and the practical explanation behind it.
3 minSource: Narrated
What is happening
This is working memory, the small amount of information your brain holds live while you do something else with it.
Working memory is the first thing to suffer when you are tired, interrupted or carrying too much at once, which describes most days in this decade.
It is the same reason it happens more when you are doing three things on the way to the room than when you are doing one.
What actually helps
Going back to where you started often retrieves it, because the context is part of the memory.
Saying the thing out loud before you set off. It sounds daft and it works.
Carrying fewer things at once, which is the underlying fix and the hardest one.
What most women want to know is whether this is permanent. The research on that is more reassuring than the experience of it.
General information, not medical advice. Narrated never diagnoses.
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