Her tangled locks were fluttering around her face.
—Umema Zafar
Rosy cheeks; grin pasted in place.
The wind roared in her ears as the rollercoaster plummeted down.
The rush of adrenaline through her veins sent her stumbling into the past.
“You have great potential; never give it up in life,” her father remarked.
It was her first real oil painting at the age of seven.
How many of us have had to jog our memory to remember the details of certain past events? Yet, for many of us, it’s so easy to recall events that are linked to emotions—times when we felt happy, sad or excited. I still remember the first time I managed to balance on rollerblades. Why is it that emotionally charged memories stay with us so clearly? Carpe diem! Seize the day, the saying goes. But are memories really needed, and do they serve a deeper purpose? Don’t we need reflection for growth and identity development? Philosophers say the answer is yes—but it’s not that simple.
Long-term repeated trauma in adults (e.g., breakups, academic failures or isolation) can alter the brain and its physiology in ways that affect memory, cognition and language.
The brain structures primarily involved in memory consolidation and retrieval are the hippocampus, prefrontal cortex and amygdala. Continuous repeated stressors cause increased levels of stress hormones over long periods of time. These hormones, such as cortisol, activate our fight-or-flight response and redirect our energy toward essential survival systems. High levels of cortisol can make it harder for us to hold on to our memories by damaging the neuronal connections in the brain.
When we sleep, our memories convert from short- to long-term. You may have had trouble sleeping before an important interview or an exam—if so, you’re not alone! Sometimes when we’ve had a sleepless night, we don’t perform as well the next day. Not because we didn’t prepare, but because our brain’s retrieval systems were too taxed to deliver, reminding us that our ability to recall is shaped not just by time but by emotion and physiology.
Taking care of our mind and our stress levels can help us remember life’s moments more clearly—like the exhilaration of a rollercoaster or the budding artist’s pride of completing her first work.
Umema Zafar, MBBS, MPhil, PhD, is an associate professor in the department of Physiology at Shifa School of Medicine, Islamabad, Pakistan. She has been teaching human physiology for the past 13 years and is an avid researcher. Zafar’s research spans across cardiovascular, respiratory and neurophysiology topics.
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Beautifully said Umema Zafar! I have observed in my 20 years Physiology teaching career that lessons taught on the basis of emotional theory of learning are remembered longer. Students are able to reproduce the concepts in annual professional viva in association with the association of embodied components of physiological mechanisms by their friends. This is a positive use of emotions to touch the subconscious mind (hypothalamus) that has memory, learning and emotions centre (ANS control centre). When students are facing loss of memory in the viva, they tell me that they could not sleep due to stress of exam or could not have the breakfast due to stress associated nausea. Indeed hunger centre is also controlled by hypothalamus indicating clearly a cross talk between all the components of hypothalamus.