50 Times People Forgot Something Important And Documented The Consequences Online (New Pics)

Forgot where you put your keys? Drew a blank on a birthday? Did going to the doctor’s appointment slip your mind yet again? We all know how easy it is to be embarrassed and feel your cheeks turning bright red whenever you fail to remember something. Especially when it comes to the most obvious things that often make you look like a complete fool and leave you seriously questioning your choices in life.

But don’t worry, you’re definitely not the only one experiencing these blunders. And forgetting these things is usually not that big of a deal. We at Bored Panda are firm believers that laughing off the embarrassment is extremely important, and thankfully, the internet is buzzing with brave people who think so too. The examples in this list even prove that being absentminded can cause some seriously funny consequences that will one day become entertaining tales you can whip out to entertain guests at your next dinner party.

Moreover, there's no need to be concerned about premature memory loss or your brain slowing down due to age just yet. Memory lapses can happen at any age and for several different reasons. Seth Gale, MD, a neurologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and assistant professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School in Boston, told Everyday Health that when patients experience memory loss, doctors can drill down and find out what’s actually happening with their mental functions.

"For example, it’s common for people to still have the capacity to learn and store information, but because of their overloaded mental resources at this time of their life, they have trouble doing it well," Dr. Gale said.

One issue that may play a significant role is nutritional deficiency. A lack of sufficient levels of B12, one of the B vitamins essential for normal nerve function, can lead to confusion and even dementia. Moreover, experiencing stress and anxiety can also affect brain function and lead to problems with attention and memory. This particularly relates to people who consistently juggle home and work responsibilities, sacrificing their sleep.

Speaking of sleep, Harvard Medical School found that inadequate sleep in midlife may lead to dementia. "If you’re currently only sleeping four to five hours because you’re up late working every night, you might want to change your habits, otherwise you risk developing dementia by the time you retire," Dr. Andrew E. Budson wrote.

The lecturer pointed out that previously, the relationship between sleep in midlife and dementia in late life has always been a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem. "Was it really poor sleep that caused dementia, or just early dementia symptoms causing poor sleep? By looking at individuals who were initially studied in midlife — some as young as age 50 — we now have greater certainty that poor sleep can increase one’s risk of developing dementia 25 years or more in the future."

We’ve heard a million times that struggling to recall information is a sign of a worrying change. But sometimes, forgetting things is just how our brain works. Of course, sometimes our silly actions make you wish the ground would swallow you right up and hope that everyone can collectively pretend it didn’t happen. But if you believe you’re the only one facing these struggles, you might find comfort in knowing that forgetting things is only part of life. And people tend to forget surprisingly fast.

Here’s where Ebbinghaus's Forgetting Curve comes in. This model demonstrates how memories are lost over time and what we can do to reinforce the things that we learn. In the late 19th century, German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus tested his memory over various periods of time and discovered that when you first learn something, the information disappears at an exponential rate. In other words, you lose most of your newly acquired knowledge in the first couple of days, after which the rate of loss decreases.

Dr. Art Kohn, Professor at Portland State University School of Business stated that on average, 50 percent of information is forgotten after one hour, 70 percent in 24 hours, and 90 percent is lost in a week. Hence, what you do after learning and training is more important than what you do during.

"Forgetting is usually an active, adaptive, and even desirable process," Dr. Kohn wrote. "After all, most of the things we remember (like where we set our glasses), are only of short-term importance, and after a day or so the brain needs to suppress such time-limited memories in order to free space for information that may be of more immediate value."

However, the problem is that if you try to remember many different things throughout the day, your brain doesn’t know which of these bits of information will be useful to you in the long run.

"The good news is that while forgetting is a pervasive process, it is not random. In fact, it is possible to signal the brain that a particular piece of information is important and that it should retain it," Dr. Kohn added. So when learners are forced to recall this new information in the following hours and days after training, they are much more likely to retain that information in the future.

Dr. Kohn refers to this as booster opportunities, a series of questions and quizzes after learning something new that allow people to better recall the information. "Your brain wants to retain information that is useful to you and purge information that is not. And so, if you happen to call that information into your mind in the hours and days after training, your brain tags that information as important and is more likely to retain it," the professor explained. "If you use it, you won’t lose it!"

However, scientists recently presented a new theory that contradicts the belief that memories simply decay with time. See, every now and then, we tend to forget memories that are similar to each other to remember the novel or more interesting ones. The research proposed by Dr. Tomás Ryan, Associate Professor at Trinity College Dublin, and Dr. Paul Frankland, Professor at the University of Toronto, found that forgetting some memories can actually be beneficial as this can lead to more flexible behavior and better decision-making.

"Memories are stored in ensembles of neurons called 'engram cells' and successful recall of these memories involves the reactivation of these ensembles," Dr. Ryan explained. "The logical extension of this is that forgetting occurs when engram cells cannot be reactivated." In other words, memories are still there, but they can't be recalled: "It's as if the memories are stored in a safe but you can't remember the code to unlock it."

"We propose that forgetting is actually a form of learning that alters memory accessibility in line with the environment and how predictable it is," Dr. Ryan concluded.