Question: why do I forget things

Fiona McLean answered on 18 Jun 2014:

There is a few reasons why you forget things. One is that your brain decides that it isn’t important enough to store long-term for instance what you had to eat for lunch 2 weeks ago. There would be no benefit to you to remember this unless you had a food that you particularly like or didn’t like.

Another reason is that your brain didn’t have enough information to store a memory for example it didn’t get enough information from all your senses (your eyes, ears, nose). Your brain also finds it easier to remember things that you do a lot. For example, if you are trying to remember how to get to your friend’s house from yours and you have only walked that route once you might find it hard to remember the route you took. However if you walk to your friends house all the time you will find it much easier to remember the way because you will have done it lots and given your brain more of a chance to learn the route.

A further reason that you sometimes forget things is because you haven’t had enough sleep. Memories can get changed from short-term memories to long-term memories overnight when you sleep. So if you don’t get enough sleep then you can sometimes not store memories permanently.