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[THREAD] memory loss and mental health. It is something that we don’t often put together. However, it is a very common issue for many individuals whose mental health is not doing well. So why do we get that memory loss? Is it permanent? Are there ways to cope with that?
The reason why memory loss happens is not because our brains are not working well or somehow not registering events but because we are so tuned in to our thoughts and emotions that we are not paying attention to our environment.
Given that we are not paying attention to what is going on around us, we are less likely to remember them. Also, issues such as depression and anxiety affect the way we sleep and sleep has been proven to be the time when short term memories are transferred into long term memory.
When we can’t sleep well, that process is disturbed and we may lose some memories during that process shift. Also, we may feel as unable to access our childhood or even recent memories when our mental health is not doing well and we may be scared that it is permanent.
However, in this situation, it is not so much that we have lost our memories. It is more a problem of retrieval. The memories are still there in our big library, but we just can’t find them. Furthermore, memories are highly dependent on our mood.
When we are depressed or anxious, we are more likely to remember anxiety/depression related memories and we are more likely to remember happy memories when we are feeling happy. That’s why it can feel as though we are unable to access many of our memories.
So how can we cope with that? One thing we can do is journal in order to be able to remember some details that we forget. Fixing our sleep schedule as much as we can will certainly with that transfer from short term to long term memory.
Furthermore, we can do some exercises to reconnect with our environment. For example, we can force ourselves out of our mind into our environment by counting sounds around us or paying attention to some details that we can see around us.
That will allow us to be more in touch with our environment and therefore more likely to activate memorization of things outside of us. This exercise can be good to do before studying or working and we can repeat it if we feel ourselves slipping back into our own thoughts.
In conclusion, memory loss is very common and is not something permanent at all. It will come back as we get better and there are a few things we can do such as proper sleep, and reconnecting with our environment to help our memories a little bit. It will get better 
To everyone who found this tweet about memory loss and mental health informative, check out the video I made about it. I am able to go in more details about the mechanisms and ways to cope with it! Much love to you all
