Anxiety and Memory Loss: What’s the Connection? – Healthline

You won’t necessarily find yourself unable to recall key events in your life, since anxiety generally affects working memory.

Instead, you might have difficulty remembering things like:

• task instructions
• directions to a friend’s house
• a child’s play date
• conversations you had with others
• information in a textbook chapter you just studied

A few different factors play a part in anxiety-related memory loss:

Elevated cortisol levels

Ever heard of the stress hormone? Cortisol earns this nickname because it helps kick your body into fight-flight-freeze mode during times of increased stress.

This hormone has several important functions, and the right amount can even help you form memories. This might help explain why mild anxiety can actually help improve memory.

Too much cortisol, on the other hand, can have the opposite effect. People with chronic or severe anxiety tend to have higher levels of cortisol, which makes sense considering that anxiety involves extreme, frequent worry about potential threats.

The constant stress you experience can keep your body stuck in a fight-flight-freeze response, ready to respond to danger.

Lack of sleep

Anxiety can make it tough to get enough restful sleep. If you aren’t lying awake, replaying a loop of anxious thoughts, you might wake up frequently or have troubling dreams.

A few nights of poor sleep can leave you feeling foggy, distracted, and unable to concentrate, though you probably won’t experience any major health impacts.

Regular sleep deprivation can have serious health consequences, including memory loss. This is because sleep is essential for both memory and overall brain function.

Anxiety itself

If you live with anxiety, you know it can serve as a powerful distractor.

Your worries might occupy your thoughts to the point where you can’t seem to escape them, even when you try. Worry and distress might eventually become repeating background tracks for your day. No matter what you do, you’re also attempting to manage and cope with anxious thoughts at the same time.

This divided brainpower often makes it harder to give your whole attention to what you want to focus on, since anxiety keeps getting in the way.

As you continue to focus on your worries and their causes, your brain begins prioritizing these potential threats in order to keep you safe.

As a result, other information may begin to fade into the background.

Once you realize you’ve forgotten some important things, you might even start to wonder whether something serious is going on. And you might begin to fixate on those concentration and memory issues.

In turn, minor moments of forgetfulness that might happen to anyone, especially people under stress, stand out more and more. Normal forgetfulness, then, fuels the cycle by becoming another trigger for anxious thoughts.

Habit of pushing back unwanted memories

Many people respond to traumatic or distressing memories by burying them or pushing them away.

If your worries overwhelm and exhaust you to the point where you begin to have trouble functioning, you might try to block or suppress them in order to cope.

You might not forget a specific event entirely, but refusing to think about it can blur the details and help it fade from the forefront of your memory.

Suppression might seem beneficial, but it doesn’t help you address the source of the problem. Unaddressed anxiety can get worse and have an even greater effect on memory and concentration over time.

Some people who have panic attacks find it difficult to recall what happened just before or during an attack. Panic-related memory loss can happen for some of the same reasons that general anxiety leads to memory loss.

Panic attacks — brief episodes of extreme fear — are a type of anxiety. They come on quickly, often without warning, triggering symptoms that can feel overwhelming and terrifying:

• difficulty breathing or feelings of choking
• pounding or racing heart
• sweating, trembling, or shaking
• numbness, tingling, or blurred vision
• feeling of doom
• feeling of losing control

Some people having a panic attack might believe they’re dying or having a heart attack. You might feel totally preoccupied by these unpleasant feelings, lose track of time, and think about nothing except getting through the attack.

Afterward, you might recall the intense panic vividly, but you might not recall exactly how you made it through.

If you’ve had a panic attack before, you might also worry about having one again, especially when you find yourself in a situation that triggers feelings of worry or fear. When this increase in anxiety occupies your focus, you might also notice some memory trouble.

Memory loss can happen for plenty of reasons.

A few of the other potential causes include:

Even when you live with anxiety, other concerns can contribute to memory loss, so it’s important to monitor your difficulty remembering things.

Occasional forgetfulness, especially when it accompanies anxiety and poor sleep, might not be serious, but it can worsen over time.

You will want to connect with a healthcare professional, though, when you regularly:

• have trouble completing everyday tasks, such as work responsibilities or traveling from place to place
• lose things regularly
• forget important safety precautions, such as turning off the stove or locking your doors
• ask the same questions or say the same things again and again
• notice problems at work or school or in your personal relationships
• have difficulty remembering scheduled appointments or events
• forget words

Along with mentioning any signs you notice, it might also help to share any signs your loved ones have noticed. For example, maybe you mix up words or tell the same stories without realizing.

It’s always a good idea to reach out if your memory problems cause distress. Worrying about what’s going on can fuel more anxiety, making the problem worse.

Anxiety symptoms usually improve with treatment, but these changes probably won’t happen overnight.

To boost your concentration and recall in the meantime, try these tips:

Write things down

Making a note of important information can help in two ways.

You’re more likely to remember things when you write them down, for one. But, even if jotting down a note doesn’t help you remember offhand, you’ll still have a physical reminder to look back on.

Try keeping a daily journal or planner, or make notes on a large calendar. Prefer more advanced technology? Scheduling apps or smartphone notifications can also offer helpful reminders.

Journaling can also help relieve anxiety. Exploring your worries and their potential causes in writing can help you express them so they don’t take up so much mental energy.

When you have less to worry about, your memory might improve automatically.

Spend time with loved ones

Staying connected to friends and family can help improve memory indirectly.

Enjoyable social interactions can help distract you from anxiety, making it easier to focus on (and remember) other things.

Talking about your worries to people who care about you can also help. Knowing you have their support can help relieve stress, decreasing cortisol levels and helping you sleep more easily.

Train your brain

Memory and brain games, like sudoku, crosswords, word puzzles, Scrabble, or chess, can all help boost memory and brain function.

Playing these games won’t just exercise your brain, so to speak. They can also serve as a fun distraction from anxious thoughts.

If games don’t appeal, you can also strengthen your brain and improve memory by:

• studying a new language (try a free app, like Duolingo)
• picking up an old musical instrument (or a new one) and refreshing your skills
• teaching yourself a new skill, like knitting, watercolor painting, or basic home repair

Make time for exercise

Exercising your body can help, too.

Physical activity can help improve your mood, ease symptoms of anxiety and depression, and boost overall brain health.

Try starting with something simple, like a 15-minute walk after meals, a weekend hike, or a walk along the beach.

Another benefit? Exercise can help tire you out, so you might fall asleep faster and stay asleep longer. When you get better sleep, you might begin to notice anxiety symptoms, including memory loss, begin to ease.

Taking time to relax and wind down before getting into bed every night can also help improve the quality of your sleep.

While mild anxiety symptoms might lift on their own, persistent anxiety generally won’t improve without support from a trained mental health professional.

To find therapists in your area who specialize in anxiety, consult a therapist directory or try a quick Google search.

Interested in giving online therapy a try? Start with our recommendations for the top online therapy services.

Let your therapist know about all of your symptoms, not just memory loss. Make sure to let them know if memory problems don’t improve with treatment.

Already receiving some kind of treatment for anxiety and still have symptoms? It’s worth talking to a professional about other approaches.

Not all treatments work for everyone, and it may take time to find the most effective approach for you.

Some people benefit from therapy alone, while others find a combination of medication and therapy most effective.

Certain coping skills, alternative treatments, and natural remedies can also make a difference.

Memory loss can disrupt your day-to-day life and compound the distress caused by anxiety, but treatment can help.

Along with helping you explore and address underlying causes of anxiety, a therapist can also teach effective coping skills, including breathing exercises or meditation techniques.

As your other anxiety symptoms begin to improve, your memory likely will, too.

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Crystal Raypole has previously worked as a writer and editor for GoodTherapy. Her fields of interest include Asian languages and literature, Japanese translation, cooking, natural sciences, sex positivity, and mental health. In particular, she’s committed to helping decrease stigma around mental health issues.