On Tuesday, April 12, 2022 at 1:23:23 AM UTC+8, David P. wrote:
> Why We’re All Forgetting Things Right Now
> By Elizabeth Bernstein, April 5, 2022, WSJ
>
> Short, temporary instances of forgetfulness—those ‘senior moments’—
> are happening to more of us more often these days, memory experts say.
> We’re finding it difficult to recall simple things: names of friends
> and co-workers we haven’t seen in a while, words that should come easily,
> even how to perform routine acts that once seemed like second nature.
>
> We’re living in yet another moment of big change as we return to
> offices, create new routines and find our footing in yet another new
> normal. (And don’t forget a scary war in Europe on top of that.) All
> this change consumes cognitive energy, often much more than we think,
> neuroscientists say. It’s no wonder we can’t remember what we had for
> breakfast. Our minds are struggling with transition moments.
>
> “Our brains are like computers with so many tabs open right now,”
> says Sara C. Mednick, a neuroscientist and professor of cognitive
> science at UC Irvine. “This slows down our processing power, and
> memory is one of the areas that falters.”
>
> The chronic and cumulative stress of the past two years has taken
> its toll, too. Research led by Dr. Shields shows that people who
> have experienced recent life stressors have impaired memory. Stress
> negatively affects our attention span and sleep, which also impact
> memory. And chronic stress can damage the brain, causing further
> memory problems, says Dr. Shields, an assistant prof in the dept of
> psychological science at the U. of Arkansas.
>
> The deluge of info coming at us on multiple channels is cluttering
> our brains, too. We’re terrible at paying attention, constantly
> scrolling our phones while we’re doing other things, which neuro-
> scientists say makes it hard to encode memories in the first place.
> And it can be hard to remember something out of context, such as the
> name of the co-worker suddenly talking to us in person, rather than
> on Zoom.
>
> Then there’s the sameness of our lives during the pandemic. How
> are we supposed to remember a specific event when each day was
> exactly the same as every other?
>
> “Memory benefits from novelty,” says Zachariah Reagh, a cognitive
> neuroscientist and assistant prof of psychological and brain sciences
> at Washington U. in St. Louis. “When all of our experiences blend
> together, it’s hard to remember any of them as distinct.”
>
> Michelle Triant, 39, blames two Covid-tinged years for why she
> recently forgot the name of her own body part. When her 4-year-old
> daughter asked her: “Mommy, did I grow in your tummy?” Triant sensed
> an opportunity for an anatomy lesson and started to explain. “No,
> sweetheart, actually, you grew in my… ” but drew a blank. She stuttered
> for a moment, hoping to retrieve the right word.
>
> Her 7-year-old daughter piped up: “She means uterus,” she told her
> younger sister. “Babies grow in the mom’s uterus but her belly gets
> bigger which is why that’s confusing.”
>
> “Oh, to have the memory of a first-grader,” says Triant, who lives
> in Spokane Valley, Wash.
>
> Memory declines with age, but medical science isn’t clear exactly
> when. People age cognitively at different rates.
>
> https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-were-all-forgetting-things-right-now-11649166214

Even though memory declines with age, it could be possible that Covid vaccine caused forgetfulness in finding or retrieving the right word or wording to it.