{"id":4288,"date":"2011-09-20T05:00:25","date_gmt":"2011-09-20T10:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wholehealthchicago.com\/?p=4288"},"modified":"2021-09-08T10:52:47","modified_gmt":"2021-09-08T15:52:47","slug":"i-think-my-mind-is-going","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wholehealthchicago.com\/blog\/2011\/09\/20\/i-think-my-mind-is-going","title":{"rendered":"I Think My Mind Is Going"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Posted 09\/20\/2011<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s fairly common, actually. You walk into a room suddenly befuddled, wracking your brain, desperate to remember just why you came to this room in the first place. Or you\u2019re telling someone about a movie you just saw the night before, really enjoyed, and now you\u2019re clawing at your cerebral cortex trying to extricate the title, the actor, the name of the theatre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAm I in the foothills of Alzheimer\u2019s?\u201d you ask yourself, breaking into a cold sweat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the plus side, very unlikely. A neurologist once explained it to me. \u201cThe \u2018worried well\u2019 agonize over mild and completely normal blips in brain function. Basically these folks are all fine, just need to be reassured. Most early Alzheimer patients absolutely deny anything is wrong with their thinking because they can\u2019t recognize it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the minus side, if we don\u2019t pay attention to our brains, we can let slip by (and likely allow to worsen) some of the decline in function now referred to as age-related memory dysfunction, which can, by the way, begin in your forties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of these minor walk-into-a-room forgetfulness issues are caused by a combination of overload and inattentiveness. Let\u2019s say you\u2019re in Room A and you need a pencil in Room D. By the time you uncurl from the sofa and walk through Rooms A, B, and C, your mind has raced through the evening\u2019s to-do list, your attentiveness unraveled by someone else\u2019s TV, the day\u2019s mail on a table, and minor background worry about the fact that your foot has fallen asleep. Or someone you live with asks as you pass through \u201cHey, do you remember the name of that film we saw with what\u2019s-his-name?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the time you arrive in Room D, the quest for your pencil has been pushed to the back-most of your burners, you blurt \u201cWhy did I come in here!,\u201d and you wonder \u201cShould I be calling my doctor about this?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your great-great-grandmother didn\u2019t have these issues about her pencil, and not because she didn\u2019t use one. There\u2019s something to be said for the simpler life: many generations ago grandma probably had just one prized pencil in her house, which contained just two rooms, A and B.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s what I suggest to reclaim your brain<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n