Forgetfulness and Anxiety

Causes

When this symptom is solely attributed to stress, including anxiety-caused stress, studies have found that stress can cause memory problems [1][2][3][4][5][6].

There are many reasons for this. Here are the most common:

1. The Stress Response

Anxious behavior activates the stress response. The stress response causes many physiological, psychological, and emotional changes that prepare the body for emergency action when we believe we could be in danger.

This survival reaction is often referred to as the fight or flight response [7][8].

Some of these changes include:

• Increases blood sugar so that we have an instant boost of energy.
• Stimulates the nervous system.
• Increases activity in the fear center of the brain (amygdala and others) and decreases activity in the rationalization areas of the brain (cortex and others). This change in brain function occurs to immediately react to danger rather than remain in danger as we figure things out. This change in brain function allows us to focus on potential threats while ignoring irrelevant information.
• Heightens most of the body’s senses so we can quickly detect and react to danger.
• Shunts blood to parts of the body that are more vital to survival, such as the brain, arms, legs, and vital organs, and away from parts that are less vital for survival, such as the stomach, digestive system, and skin.
• Increases respiration and heart rate to prepare the body for immediate action.

And so on.

The higher the degree of stress response, the greater the physiological, psychological, and emotional changes.

Visit our “Stress Response” article for more information about the stress response and the many changes it causes.

Since stress responses push the body beyond its balance point, stress responses stress the body. As such, anxiety stresses the body.

As mentioned, stress can cause problems with memory, especially short-term memory.

Many anxious people have memory problems due to stress.

More specifically:

Stress increases electrical activity in parts of the brain.

Stress responses increase electrical activity in parts of the brain. Increased electrical activity causes the brain to increase thought generation and at a faster rate.

An increase in thought generation can cause our attention to be easily distracted, resulting in split attention and focus, making learning and remembering difficult.

The stress response alters brain function.

Stress hormones suppress the rationalization areas of the brain (cortex and others) and increase activity in the fear center of the brain (amygdala and others).

This combination reduces the ability to logically rationalize and process information while increasing the awareness of danger, fear, apprehension, gloom and doom – many describe anxiety as a sense of sudden or ongoing foreboding and doom.

While this change in brain function can benefit us when in danger, the downside is that it reduces memory performance, especially short-term memory.

The stress response suppresses the hippocampus - the learning and memory area of the brain.

The hippocampus is thought to be the primary area of the brain responsible for learning and memory. Stress hormones suppress the activity in the hippocampus, making it more difficult to store and retrieve information.

For instance, University of California, Irvine researchers found that short-term stress lasting as little as a few hours can impair brain-cell communication in areas associated with learning and memory [9].

Stress causes fatigue, impairing memory.

Stress, including anxiety-caused stress, taxes the body’s energy resources harder and faster than normal. Overly taxed energy resources can cause the body to become fatigued. Fatigue can impair memory.

As the body becomes fatigued, the brain has a more difficult time functioning normally. Fatigue is a common cause of memory problems, especially short-term memory.

Moreover, studies have found that the brain tires more quickly than the rest of the body. An exhausted brain loses its ability to think, remember, and reason much sooner than the body fatigues.

Many people notice they have memory and thinking problems when tired.

Stress adversely affects the connectivity between brain regions responsible for schema processing when encoding new information.

Research has found that prior knowledge, represented as a schema, facilitates memory encoding. Stress can impair the brain regions for this encoding, which can cause memory problems, especially with new or recent information [5].

Stress reduces dopamine.

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter associated with feelings of bliss, pleasure, and euphoria. It’s also associated with drive, motivation, focus, and concentration.

A reduction in dopamine can cause many symptoms, including reduced concentration and memory loss [6].

2. Hyperstimulation

When stress responses occur infrequently, the body can recover relatively quickly from the many stress response changes.

However, when stress responses occur too frequently, such as from overly apprehensive behavior, the body can’t complete recovery.

Incomplete recovery can leave the body in a state of semi-stress response readiness, which we call “stress-response hyperstimulation” since stress hormones are stimulants.

Hyperstimulation is also often referred to as “hyperarousal,” “HPA axis dysfunction,” or “nervous system dysregulation” [10][11].

Hyperstimulation can cause the changes of an active stress response even though a stress response hasn’t been activated.

Visit our “Hyperstimulation” article for more information about the many ways hyperstimulation can affect how we feel, including Nervous System Excitation and Dysregulation, Homeostatic Dysregulation, and Hormone Changes.

Hyperstimulation (chronic stress) is a common cause of chronic memory loss.

Many anxious people experience memory issues due to anxiety and hyperstimulation.

Some people say it feels like premature dementia since they have so many problems with memory and thinking, even though they know they are too young to have dementia.

3. Sleep disruption

Disrupted sleep can affect cognitive performance and working memory.

If anxiety, stress, or hyperstimulation affect the quality and length of good sleep, research has found that sleep disruption (acute or chronic) can negatively affect cognitive performance and memory (both short- and long-term) [12].

As the degree, frequency, and duration of sleep disruption increases, cognitive and memory performance decreases.

4. Behavior

Many anxious people develop a habit of being internally focused: ruminating about their health, how they feel, the implications of anxiety disorder and how that might affect their future, concerns about their recovery, questions about recovery, what others will think, how their struggle may affect their loved ones, and so on.

“Internal focus” is also a common cause of memory problems due to being easily distracted by all the “what if” scenarios and implications of long-term suffering.

It’s also common for anxious people to become so obsessed with trying to figure out their condition that everything else takes a back seat, including attention and focus on the external parts of their lives.

“Internal focus” and “what if” thinking can become so habituated that many anxious people aren’t aware they are doing it.

Recovery Support members can read more about internal focus in the sections “Inward Focused Thinking” and “Scanning, Testing, and Monitoring” in Chapter 6.

Unfortunately, when short-term memory and thinking problems occur, many anxious people become frightened and think they might be losing their mind, that they might be on the doorstep of a complete mental breakdown, or think their thinking and memory problems are an indication of a serious mental or biological illness, such as Alzheimer’s.

These anxieties can create more stress and distraction, making memory problems and other anxiety symptoms worse.

Other Factors

Other factors can create stress and cause anxiety-like symptoms, as well as aggravate existing anxiety symptoms, including:

• Medication
• Recreational drugs
• Stimulants
• Sleep deprivation
• Fatigue
• Hyper and hypoventilation
• Low blood sugar
• Nutritional deficiencies
• Dehydration
• Hormone changes
• Pain

Select the relevant link for more information.