Chew on these ways to help remember

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 27/01/2020 (2456 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

I was driving to work the other day when, suddenly and without warning, I decided to stop at my drugstore to pick up a pack of gum.

While I was there, I bought a few items I desperately needed — a sugar-free Gatorade, some power bars, scratch-and-win lottery tickets and a People magazine — then strolled back to the car.

I tossed my purchases onto the passenger seat, hopped in behind the wheel and began driving to work, which is when I realized I’d forgotten to buy something in the drugstore.

It was the gum. I’d forgotten to buy the gum, the one thing I intended to get when I pulled into the parking lot. I laughed and then, as I typically do after experiencing one of these memory lapses, I began fretting about my aging male brain.

Those of us with aging male brains are not strangers to minor memory lapses. You (and by “you” I mean “me”) can recall the name of every player on the 1964 B.C. Lions roster, but you struggle to remember what you had for breakfast, assuming you had breakfast in the first place.

And then I forgot all about it, because there is no point in worrying about whatever it was that I was worrying about, which has just slipped my mind.

Hours later, after writing another entertaining and informative newspaper column in my office cubicle, I hopped back in the car and began driving home, but I decided to stop at the grocery store near my house to pick up a few things for dinner.

When I climbed out of the car, I noticed what looked like a skinny blue snake dangling out from behind one of my car’s front tires. I’m going to guess a lot of readers know exactly what that blue snake was.

It turns out that I had done one of the most Manitoban things it is possible to do — when I pulled out of my garage that morning I forgot to unplug the block-heater extension cord, then I drove around all day with the (bad word) cord trailing behind me, a signal to all the other motorists on the road they should steer clear of me because, clearly, I am an idiot.

“Ha ha ha!” I said to myself. “You’ve done it again, you (bad word) blockhead!”

Then I strolled into the grocery store, bought some delicious ingredients for dinner — pasta, ground beef and raspberry chocolate scones — then casually wandered back to my car.

Ha ha ha! I am kidding around because what really happened is, with grocery bags in hand, I walked into the parking lot and proceeded to wander around aimlessly because — as astute readers have already realized — I didn’t have a clue where I had parked the car.

So I did what guys with aging male brains always do in that case — I put the “I-can’t-remember-where-I-parked-the-(bad word)-car” expression on my face and meandered up and down the aisles looking for my vehicle, which is black with silver trim, just like 98 per cent of the other cars on the road.

As I wove my way around the parking lot, another guy of my particular gender slowly sidled past me, smiled a knowing smile, then chirped in a sympathetic manner: “Can’t remember where you parked the car, eh?”

I laughed a manly laugh to convey the concept that I had an excellent sense of humour. “No!” I finally grunted, scanning the nearby vehicles just in case.

“Me, neither,” the other guy conceded before boldly striding off in the other direction.

What with being a hip and happening newspaper columnist with a keen understanding of modern technology, I finally pulled out my key fob and began pressing the button to activate my car horn.

Which is how I managed to track down my wayward auto, which was sitting on the other side of the parking lot, with the blue plastic snake still trailing behind the tires as a reminder of my forgetfulness.

When I got home, I remembered to sit down at the computer to do a Google search for helpful tips on how to improve my aging brain’s ability to recall simple stuff.

I found myself drawn to a fascinating article on the website fastcompany.com that appeared under the following upbeat headline: “Six Science-Backed Methods To Improve Your Memory.”

You will not be surprised by most of these science-backed tips for improving your brain’s recall skills, including meditating to improve working memory, drinking coffee to boost memory consolidation and exercising more frequently because studies involving rats — it would have been the same if they’d used senators — have shown fitness can improve memory recall.

But there was one bit of advice that surprised me. It was Tip No. 5, which stated, in bold capital letters: “CHEW GUM TO MAKE STRONGER MEMORIES.”

It cited a study published in Scientific American stating that participants who completed a memory recall task were more accurate and had higher reaction times if they chewed gum during the study.

“One reason that chewing gum might affect our memory recall is that it increases activity in the hippocampus, an important area of the brain for memory,” is what the tip pointed out.

So chewing gum might just help my aging brain recall stuff that’s important to me. That’s great news. I’m going to have to remember to stop at the drugstore to pick up a pack.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca