The Link Between Mental Health and Memory Problems

Facing depression & anxiety is often correlated with being unable to remember and loss of memory. This usually occurs because memory loss itself is a coping mechanism by your brain to disassociate, mentally daydream, escape & blast off 🚀 

Luckily, this is partly reversible and you can color in your experiences & life events!

I don't know about you but when I look at my past, I struggle to remember many parts of my childhood. However through deep work I've been able to uncover more of my memories and even at times change the past. 

Huh?

What do I mean by change the past?

Well, you can’t go back in time and change the past, unless you have a time machine and if you do please let me now! But you can change how you think about the past.

I remember growing up and getting bad grades, never winning any academic achievement, and lived in a time where if you weren’t a good student or an athlete, people thought you were dumb and would never be successful. 

I always thought I was stupid and lazy as a result of this…

On the surface, my mind wouldn’t think about this deeply and as a result, I just believed whatever my mind would tell me like I was somehow lazy or stupid and never questioned it. 

It wasn’t until I remembered a memory of talking to my best friend when I was a teenager.

One day he took me aside and said “hey man I’m really proud of you for creating what you created. You are winning. You escaped the system I’m in.” 

Feeling surprised…

Next, I asked my parents questions about good memories of me as a kid and all of a sudden I start recalling memories of being a student of the month as a young kid, and different situations my parents told me where I was a very smart and good person.

I never thought about these throughout my life ever.

How Memory Issues Contributes Towards Mental Health Problems

You are probably an awesome person.

Maybe you have weaknesses, flaws, regrets, etc.

But you’re still an awesome person. Memory problems make us forget this by hyper focusing on one problematic situation while forgetting every other memory in your mind that proves you are a good person.

So what happens?

We walk around with a distorted sense of our identity of we think we are…

Which impacts our self esteem, and therefore how we show up, how we feel about ourselves, how confident we are, and even how much energy we feel in our mind/body.

Looking At Brain Health

Your brain’s ability to retain its memory is generally based on your sleep quality, nutrition, meditation, exercise and stress levels.

It turns out there are supplements like Bacopa Monnieri, Acetyl-L-carnitine, Gotu Kola, CDP Choline, and more. Here's a great illustration from Dr. William Wallace.

Try a Memory Retraining Exercise

Pull out a piece of paper, and identify what you think is “bad” about yourself. Now, come up with memories that are the exact opposite of this bad trait. My example, my bad trait was laziness & stupidity and writing down the memories I listed above as evidence that I am not that. 

Continue to do this, with the good and bad traits. You will build up a cognitive library of evidence in your brain that is more equipped to now battle any negative thoughts or perceptions about yourself. 

Feel like you can’t think of any memories? Ask your friends, family, and spend more time thinking about it. The more you think, the more your mind will be able to go back to the past as opposed to locking away your former memories.

Conclusion

💬 I am opening my calendar right now to work with 1 more person 1-on-1 on an ongoing basis to manage anxiety and heal your mind more effectively.

Interested? Schedule a free call with me to see if it’s right for you or not :) Send me an email to markmetry722@gmail.com

PS. If you want to take the self-paced individual program, check out the details here: www.markmetry.com/program