Don’t trust your memory. Science proves it’s not trustworthy.

It’s time to leave for work or take the kids to soccer practice and you forgot where your placed your keys. Or, you walk into a room with a purpose and totally forgot what it was you were going to do. Your mind goes blank. You may be like me and repeat it to yourself over and over yet still forget half of the time. Why?

When it comes to your memory capacity, it is remarkable. Yet, despite massive amounts of memories over a lifetime of experiences, relying on your memory is not always in your best in interest.  More than likely that we will forget things, whether intentionally or accidentally.

“Human memory is not like a computer. Human memory is extremely fallible,” study author, Dr. William Hirst.

This can problematic when it comes to your heating, cooling and air quality. For example, do you remember the last time you changed your air filter? When is your next oil delivery due? Did you get a furnace tune-up this year or last year? You can decrease your chances of be comfortable this Fall and Winter. It can even turn dangerous if a huge snowstorm comes and your out of fuel.

We Have Two Types of Memory

Cognitive psychologists have determined there are two primary memory systems:

1) Short-term memory (or “primary” or “active memory“) is the capacity for holding, but not manipulating, a small amount of information in mind in an active, readily available state for a short period of time. Key aspects of short term memory.

• limited capacity (only about 7 items can be stored at a time)
• limited duration (storage is very fragile and information can be lost with distraction or passage of time)
• encoding (primarily acoustic, even translating visual information into sounds).

2) Long–term memory is the repository for more permanent knowledge and skills and includes all things in memory that are not currently being used but which are needed to enable understanding.

Accuracy of Memories

In long-term memory, every time your remembers an even, that memory becomes a  less accurate than the time before. Like the game “telephone”, each time you repeat it, details are less sharp. As your memory fades, the less reliable that memory becomes for you and the listener.

Memories Can Weakened or Strenghtened

Not all information is equal in the eyes of your brain. “Important” things are recorded better less important things. The hippocampus part of your brain will prioritise information. When a memory is activated it is strengthened. If a memory is not used they don’t disappear,  you simply can’t recall it. The more often you use a memory, the easier it is to find. Human memories aren’t stored like photos on your phone; they’re constantly being weakend, strengthened, and updated.

The Science of Why We Forget Things.

According to Adam Gazzaley, MD, PhD, founding director of the Neuroscience Imaging Center at the University of California, San Francisco, “When you’re trying to remember something, your brain establishes a new network. Memory glitches occur when there’s a break in that network.”

What causes the break? Interference and it impairs your ability remember. Intereference can be caused by a notification bell on your cellphone, a song on the radio, or someone asking you a question while your en route.

“We’ve found that when a person is exposed to interference, their ability to recall info, even over very short periods of time, declines significantly,” says Gazzaley.

We forget for the following reasons:

• Memory Loss, which is everything that we learn carries a ‘trace’ in the brain and if it is not reinforced, we experience memory decay or loss.
• Storage failure, that is, sometimes ‘insignificant’ information often at times is not stored for long-term usage due to their ‘irrelevance’ at that time. Encoding failures sometimes prevent information from entering long-term memory.
• Recall Failure: Have you ever felt like a memory simply vanished? Sometimes you try to recall somehting but you just can’t seem to find it. Have you ever said, “It’s on the tip of my tongue.” The inability to retrieve a memory is one of the most common causes of forgetting.

Let Hillside remember!

When it comes to your heating, cooling and air quality, let Hillside take care of it for you. We use sophisticated computer programs to:

• Automatically Deliver Your Oil: Hillside Oil Heating & Cooling offers automatic home heating oil delivery services in New Castle County, DE, Cecil County, MD and Southern Chester County, PA. Enjoy peace of mind with our worry-free service that will keep you warm all winter long. You’ll be fueled during the coldest days and nights. You can stop monitoring your heating oil tank and permanently avoid emergency deliveries when extreme weather hits and the world is scrambling for heating fuel.
• Schedule Your Annual Heating Tune-Up: A tune-up of your furnace or boiler can pay for itself over time. Regular furnace cleaning and maintenance helps prevent frequent failures, inefficient performance, and poor indoor air quality. Hillside Heating & Cooling is the leading furnace cleaning and maintenance specialists in New Castle County, DE, Cecil County, MD, and Southern Chester County, PA. Schedule our  30-point Furnace Tune-Up designed to prevent heating problems this season.
• Worry-Free Winter Plans (limited availablity): Hillside Oil Heating & Cooling has created our Worry-Free Winter Packages. We’ll take care of your heating system, your fuel deliveries, and help spread out the cost of heating oil.