Causes
The causes of memory loss in people differ widely. Let’s take a brief look at some of them.
- Sleep Deprivation: You’ve probably wondered that when you don’t get enough sleep at night, it usually affects the next day. Not having proper sleep at night devoid of waking intermittently can affect your memory in a significant way, making it hard to store and retrieve memory information.
- Alcohol: It has been established for decades that excessive alcohol intake has a negative impact on memory. Students are usually advised to steer clear of alcohol if they must keep their grades afloat.
- Stroke: Stroke results from the rupture of a blood vessel that supplies the brain with blood. Sometimes it might be due to blockage to the flow of blood to the brain. When this occurs, brain cells lack oxygen and other nutrients. This can affect memory for a brief period until the blood supply is restored.
- Stress or Depression: Under stress, you might easily relinquish the ability to pay attention to details and lose hold of memory information. When one is depressed, they can’t seem to focus, and this affects their memory.
- Dementia: Dementia might be a serious cause of progressive memory loss, which may alter your life’s activities. There are several causes of dementia, but the most common is Alzheimer’s disease, a very serious mental condition.
- Concussion or Head Injury: This happens when you take a terrible hit on the head, maybe due to an automobile accident or a fall from a height. You might lose a portion or the whole of your memory, but you can recover with time.
- Drugs or Medications: From sleeping pills and muscle relaxants to antihistamines and antidepressants, many prescription drugs can widen the divide between what you know and what you can remember.
- Nutritional Deficiency: It’s a no-brainer that maintaining a healthy diet helps memory. But not everyone knows that deficiency of some nutrients can cause memory loss to a degree.
- There are many other causes of memory loss that may not have been mentioned here. Some of them are due to diseases, such as Parkinson’s disease, fibromyalgia, thyroid disorders, multiple sclerosis and some seizures. [2]
