Needless to say, being forgetful can feel like a curse, but research actually says the opposite! You heard that right. Research has found that forgetful people have an advantage in life over everyone else in three different ways. Here they are:
1. Forgetful people remember important things more easily
There is an active mechanism within the brain that clears out unnecessary pieces of information so that the important things can be remembered in the long term.
Basically, holding on to every little memory and detail takes up a lot of space in your brain. So forgetting things that aren't necessarily important, like what you had for breakfast yesterday or the color of your friend's shoes, helps you remember the things that actually matter.
2. The brains of forgetful people are better at gathering new information.
When the brain needs to acquire new information about something specific, it weakens old memory connections while strengthening new, additional connections so that you can better remember the new information.
This makes evolutionary sense. If people during hunter-gatherer times realized that a safe place, such as a watering hole, was suddenly dangerous, their brains would have to update their memory of the watering hole to label it as unsafe, or their lives could be threatened.
3. Forgetful people are much more positive <3
In 1998, researchers found that forgetting helps people get through the pain of their daily lives, and it happens quite regularly. If you're interested in letting go of negative memories to improve your happiness, Psychology Today recommends trying to keep a list of every annoyance or insult that comes your way in a day and then see how much you actually remember a week later.
While it may seem like a drawback to forget, it can be more helpful to remember all the advantages of forgetting.
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Source: Your Tango
