Memories will always stay with us. Releasing negative thoughts about the past

Every person has their own past. And no matter what anyone says, it is completely impossible to forget him even with a strong desire. This is how the brain works, this is the peculiarity of memory. Today we will talk about the past that you want to throw out of your head.

The main reasons for memories of the past

There are typical situations after which it is very difficult for a person to cope with emotions. He dwells on what happened and brings negative memories into his later life. Among them:

• Death loved one or child. It is really hard to go through such an event. Especially if there were many happy moments lived together, if death took a loved one suddenly.
• Cheating and parting with a loved one. Betrayal can leave a deep wound on the heart, make you turn away from the opposite sex for a long time and stop trusting people in principle. The result can be complete loneliness, detachment.
• Lack of demand in the profession. Often, people who could realize their abilities, ambitions there, get decent wages, but in force various situations(were laid off, the company went bankrupt) were left without a favorite place.
• Moving to another city for permanent residence. Homesickness, even if life was much harder there, is characteristic of every immigrant. It is expressed rather not in memories of the past place of residence, but of the people who stayed there, their favorite vacation spots.
• Daily routine at home and at work. Lack of emotions, sadness, depression from the change of seasons - all this makes you return again and again to memories of cheerful companies, warm weather, etc.

Whatever the reason for remembering the past, if a person constantly thinks about it, reproaches and blames himself for what happened, or for what he did not do, mentally turns events and thinks, what would have happened if then he acted differently, he clearly needs to urgently get rid of obsessive thoughts. This is a false path to the healing of the soul. A person who constantly looks back to the past is doomed to further failures. As the famous German writer of the twentieth century, Erich Maria Remarque, said, “one who looks back too often can easily stumble and fall.”

How to get rid of memories of the past

Our life is not full of troubles. Everyone has bright and joyful moments, at the recollection of which the soul comes to life and sings. And instead of thinking about the good more often, many people are ready to suffer for the rest of their lives, regret the unrealizable, harbor pain and resentment, worry about past failures and disappointments. They do not even understand that it could be otherwise, and continue to cause irreparable harm to themselves and their loved ones, refusing to forget past memories. In order to clear the memory, you first need to calmly sort out the reasons, separate the events that are worth deleting from your life, or accept them, leaving tender and warm moments in your memory, and turn them to your advantage.

Conducting past memory analysis

At this stage it is important:

1. forgive and let go. It often happens that, having experienced certain failures, a person constantly scrolls through them, reinsuring himself from new disappointments. He mistakenly thinks that he will be ready for a situation where the same failures will be repeated in his life, and does not understand that, on the contrary, only attracts them to him.
2. Admit your guilt. It must be understood that everything that happens to a person partly happens because of his actions. It is very important to realize this, since it is easiest to blame anyone for all the sins, but not yourself. This approach will make it possible to quickly draw the right conclusions: if you yourself are to blame for what happened, by actions or thoughts you have attracted negativity to yourself, then it is easier to get out of this situation and change everything.
3. forget mistakes. It often happens that a person reproaches himself all his life for having acted badly towards another, giving him a lot of trouble, pain and tears. Most likely, he really acted disgustingly, for which he should be ashamed. But this does not mean at all that because of this you need to endlessly torment yourself, poisoning the life not only for yourself, but also for those close to you. The very fact of realizing a bad deed is important.

Learning from memories of the past

As for unpleasant situations, then, all the more, you should always learn from them. Firstly, so that they do not repeat themselves in the future, and secondly, so that in the future the question of how to get rid of negative memories of the past does not torment.

The past should become an invaluable experience for everyone. And if a person learns to use it wisely so as not to make or repeat mistakes, then he will be able to live, enjoying the present, and look confidently into the future.

But, unfortunately, there are not so many such people. The rest continue to step on the same rake, which leads them to the next vicissitudes of life, which return to them in unpleasant and unwanted memories.

Releasing negative thoughts about the past

Daily practical exercises and meditation will help to get rid of obsessive memories:

• Choose the Right Mood. Every morning you need to start by listing everything positive and dear to your heart that is today.
• Conduct a psychological reception with water. If unpleasant thoughts and memories come into your head, you need to open the faucet and imagine how all the negativity flows into the sink along with the water.
• Let go of things from the past. If resentment and anger at the former loved one with whom you broke up pester you, you need to remove his phone number from your mobile phone, put it away or throw away his photos, gifts and things. It is better to destroy them, while freeing yourself from his invisible presence, or at least hide them away or give them to strangers.
• Change something in the environment and habits. Another good way forget about the bad - do something useful (put the house in perfect order, buy new furniture or start repairs), change the environment (go to a fitness club, make new friends), change your appearance (cut your hair or dye your hair a different color) and finally change jobs.
• Master meditation. This will help you learn how to relax your body and mind, soothe nervous system, focus your attention only on important and pleasant things.
• Take the lessons of fate. In order to let go of resentment and forgive offenders, you need to learn to be grateful for what you have. After analyzing all the events that have occurred in the past, you can find in them positive points. For example, how did they help creative development or developing yourself as a person.

As you can see, nothing special is required from a person. But still there is one important condition - you need to discard laziness, because laziness and stupidity are our two worst enemies. You should get rid of them first of all, otherwise nothing in life will change for the better.

The introduction of meditation to get rid of memories of the past

With the help of certain mantras, which are not difficult to find on the Internet, or meaningful phrases, you can protect yourself from negative thoughts. It is not bad when a person independently comes up with phrases for meditation according to his personal memories and phobias from the past, which he wants to get rid of.

These should be short and specific phrases, for example:

1. I release my past. Repeating the phrase several times will make it easier to deal with the memories. It also acts as self-hypnosis.
2. I am free from unpleasant memories, I control my thoughts myself. This is the second step of purification. This is the only way to set yourself up, to open yourself to the outside world.
3. I easily part with painful memories, forgive myself for mistakes in a past life. Yes, it's painful and difficult. But you can't bring back the past and you can't change it. So it's better to accept it as it is, let it go and avoid repetition in the future.
4. I sincerely thank the past for the lessons and life experiences. Sometimes believers say that God will not give trials that a person cannot endure. Once it was destined to happen - there's nothing to be done. But you need to find the strength and survive the events.
5. I only live in the present. Such a simple mantra teaches to perceive reality, to notice others, events that just happen, helps to escape from the abyss of sad memories.
6. I love myself, my loved ones and all people. Yes exactly. Even if someone hurt you a lot, you should forgive them. And also to live with faith that this will not happen again.

At the same time, the psychological mood of a person is of no small importance. And if he pronounces healing formulas from the bottom of his heart, this can be the starting point for a new life without unpleasant memories of the past.

I would like to once again emphasize the well-known truth about the materiality of thoughts. Therefore, you need to repeat verbal phrases slowly, thoughtfully, many times and until you start to feel favorable changes in your mind. Relief may not come immediately, so do not be upset ahead of time. Positive thoughts will surely begin to fill the brain, gradually displacing disturbing memories from consciousness.

The main thing in meditation is to learn to concentrate your attention on the spoken words. At first, a person's mind may be distracted by other thoughts. Therefore, it is necessary to return the consciousness to the repetition of a mantra or a significant phrase, trying to keep attention on them for as long as possible.

Why can't let go of memories of the past

There may be several options here. Either a person is cheating with himself, or the problem really sits so deep that he cannot get rid of it on his own. Then you need to contact a psychologist who will help you not only understand yourself, your feelings for past events and people, past grievances and failures, but also provide qualified psychological help, sorting out all the memories on the shelves: pleasant - closer, and tormenting the soul - away, in the bins.

Letting go of the past is very difficult, but possible. You need to constantly work on yourself in order to learn to forgive yourself and others, to let go of people with whom unhealthy relationships have developed, to get rid of bad habits and a constant sense of guilt, do not regret what did not work out, do not come up with unfulfilled desires. And those who managed to overcome their thoughts and feelings, turn weaknesses in strong, really regret not having done it sooner. After all, that inner freedom, healing power, peace of mind and happiness that they felt and acquired are incomparable with anything.

For some, an ordinary frank conversation will be enough, for someone you need to apply special techniques, and in especially severe cases - to conduct long trainings. The sooner a person realizes that he needs the help of a specialist, the sooner he will be able to recover from his “sick” thoughts, and the problem of how not to live with past memories will go into oblivion.

How to get rid of memories of the past - look at the video:

Memory is our life. If it were not for it, as I. M. Sechenov said, people would remain in the stage of infancy, they would live by instincts alone. It has always been a value. Even in Ancient Greece was considered as a gift from God, the patroness of which was the goddess Mnemosyne. Often memory interferes, frightens, does not allow moving on. Learn how to get rid of this and much more.

Freud's memory

He considered it the most important component of the human psyche, which determines personality. He put forward the theory of three types of memory:

• Conscious. Characterized by awareness of reality. That is, what happens to a person in this moment time. This is a tactile sensation (book in hand), visual perception (what color it is), or gurgling in the stomach, and so on. Consciousness, in this case, is determined by what is heard, seen and through feeling.
• Preconscious. We are talking about memories that the individual is not aware of at the moment, but which, if desired, can be recalled and activated, for example, driving a car, dates of birthdays and anniversaries.
• And unconscious. This memory is the most significant, includes experiences and memories that are not realized by a person, which sit deep in the memory, and access to them is limited. Freud believed that the unconscious bowl is filled with those images, pictures and feelings, that is, memories of the past that a person wants to forget.

Memories and the degree of their awareness determine the personality of a person.

What is a memory?

This is a reproduction (from English) of pictures of the past cut off in time and space from autobiographical (episodic) memory. It cannot be attributed to the whole past. This is just a sensual part of it: feelings and experiences. Experience, thoughts and evaluations are not included here.

Memories are different: joyful and sad, bright and gloomy, good and evil. Of course, I want to return to sweet memorable events, because you can’t live in the past. Now we have a general idea of ​​past memories. Memories of the future will become a further topic of conversation.

It's about deja vu

A mysterious and little-studied phenomenon, at the occurrence of which the present, past and future intersect. The person gets the feeling that it has already happened to him once. For some reason, our consciousness travels in the future, remembers something there, as a result of which, before the onset of the event, there is confidence that we know what will happen, because we remember it from the past.

Every healthy person experiences it at least once in their life. What is it - a game of our imagination, fragments of memories, fragments of dreams, a mental disorder, or evidence that we are not living the first life? Or is this a misinterpretation of the timing of the event? There are many questions, but there is no reasonable answer. What if there is no time, and we can remember the future as well as the past?

Let's talk about magic

Let's talk about memories, about past lives. There are many myths regarding this topic, but reincarnation has been proven by scientists.

“Science cannot bring absolutely reliable arguments against the idea of ​​eternal return”

It also confirms. Ian Stevenson, a doctor of medicine from the USA, has devoted more than a dozen years to the study of past lives. He worked with children from Asia, who told him about memories, about the past. He was checking data that supported their story.

In Eastern culture, there is no prohibition to talk about past lives; the idea that there is only one life is not promoted there. Therefore, they talk about it calmly. Another scientist proved the past life theory through hypnosis.

Can you learn to see?

Definitely. Special techniques and trainings will help in this. Moreover, scientists argue that children under five years of age have this property, memories of past lives are not closed to them. Why do we need to know about them, you ask. It's simple - they contain the key to the future, or rather, to understanding what is happening to you in the present. Thanks to this, it is easier and faster to understand yourself than through childhood memories and an analysis of the comparison of situations within one current life. We remember only the accumulated experience that we received in past lives.

After all, you can see your talents and happy lives. Find out what you did well, what made you successful and famous, how you achieved your goals, by what means, what kind of emotions you experienced at the same time. It is this state of inner upsurge of vitality that ensures the achievement of success. All this is really "re-living" again.

With the help of past lives, you can get answers to all your questions, understand why something does not work out, and remove obstacles to achieving your goal. It is understanding and re-awareness of the problem that helps to get rid of it.

Is there any benefit to looking at past lives?

Of course yes. This eliminates mechanical reactions. We use only 5% of the possibilities of the brain, and 95% are beyond our control, these are programs. That is, beliefs, hidden benefits, psychological features, oaths, taboos and so on that a person has formed or given in past lives. You can also get rid of your fears.

What are the reasons for remembering the past?

A person quite often returns to past events, thinks, plunging into them. Those, in turn, absorb. Obsessed with them, the individual causes harm to psychological and physical health. Here are the main situations that provoke it:

• Death of a loved one or loved one.
• Treason, parting with your beloved half.
• Unfulfillment in life, in particular, lack of demand in the profession.
• Change of residence (different district, city, country).
• Household monotonous life.

There are many reasons, but whatever they are, you can’t look back into the past, otherwise you will be doomed to constant failure.

You can get rid of the memories of past years. We give advice:

• Analyze the past. It is necessary to forgive, admit the mistake and let go of the situation.
• Extract errors.
• Use meditations and positive affirmations.

It also happens that a person understands and tries to get rid of the memories of past years, but nothing comes of it. Here the individual is either dishonest with himself, or there really is a deep-seated reason in the subconscious. Then it might be better to consult a professional psychologist.

Now, here are the statements of famous people

So, quotes about memories, about the past:

• “Remembrance is the only paradise from which we cannot be expelled” (J. Richter).

• “Memories are so ridiculous. Some of them are quite vague, others are absolutely clear, others are too painful, and you try not to think about them, and some are so painful that you will never forget them ”(A. McPartlin).

• “Getting rid of memories is like stealing from yourself. Sometimes memories are all we have, and they taste sweeter than any fruit” (M. Brenton).

• “The paths parted, the memories remained” (S. Yesenin).

• “Memories are what make us grow old. The secret of eternal youth is the ability to forget” (Erich Maria Remarque).

So many sayings famous people, and each definitely has its own truth, because it is not for nothing that these phrases have become catchphrases. Memories of the past, in a word - the key to the future. Of course, it is impossible to live with them, but it is possible and even necessary to use them as an experience in order to avoid making mistakes.

How to get rid of torment?

The main thing is to understand that the past cannot be canceled and corrected, whatever it may be. Use it as a resource or experience. For example, before important negotiations, to cope with the excitement, remember the moments when you were successful.

Use bad memories of the past as an experience. Drawing a lesson from them, remember only about it, so as not to repeat previous mistakes. It's worth living in the present. It is at this moment that you can influence something and change the course of events. It is necessary to use and appreciate the past correctly, because the future will depend on it.

What do you do to stop living in the past?

Consider the algorithm of actions, so:

1. In the event of the loss of a loved one or parting, a person experiences the deepest depression, pain. Of course, it will not be possible to forget everything quickly, but it is necessary to try to reduce this time. The main thing is to stop blaming yourself for this, to understand, to give assessments.
2. As weird and silly as it may sound, take the time to experience it. Let it be, for example, a week, two or three, a month. Throw out your emotions as you like, only without harming others, and then pull yourself together and let go of the situation in the past.
3. You can commemorate this event with a tea party or a feast. The main thing is to decide for yourself that there is no more pain. You start new life.
4. Don't go back to the past. As soon as it starts to tighten again, switch. Suppose you come up with your own fairy-tale world, town or village, where you will be comfortable and calm, and return there.
5. Improve yourself. Engage in a hobby or hobby. Go deeper into the profession, improve your skills.
6. Cheer yourself up. Remember yourself in your youth, when you were full of strength and confidence. Transfer that energy to the present, start a new communication, get to know each other, enjoy life.

Concentrate exclusively on if it doesn’t work out yet, focus on vivid dreams. Of course, it is very difficult to learn to let go of the situation, to forgive offenders and yourself, not to cling to the past. But you have to try. The past should serve only as an invaluable experience, and not become a source of troubles and bad mood.

Memory

Memory

noun, With., use often

Morphology: (no) what? memories, what? recollection, (see) what? memory, how? memory, about what? about remembrance; pl. what? memories, (no) what? memories, what? memories, (see) what? memories, how? memories, about what? about memories

1. Memories you name the images that arise in your mind when you think about someone or something related to your past.

Childhood memories washed over him. | Sitting by the fire, grandfather could reminisce for hours. | In my memories, she will forever remain young.

2. If from someone, something one memory left, then it disappeared from your life, leaving behind nothing but vague (usually pleasant) impressions.

From this beautiful youthful love there was only one memory.

3. Memories you name notes or stories about the past containing the facts of your or someone else's life; memoirs.

Veterans of the Great Patriotic War spoke at the evening. | The memoirs of contemporaries contain a lot of information about the personal life of the poet. | I'm going to retire and sit down to write my memoirs.

Dictionary Russian language Dmitrieva. D.V. Dmitriev. 2003 .

See what "memory" is in other dictionaries:

Mystery of feelings * Remembrance * Desire * Dream * Pleasure * Loneliness * Expectation * Fall * Memory * Victory * Defeat * Glory * Conscience * Passion * Superstition * Respect * … Consolidated encyclopedia of aphorisms

MEMORY, memories, cf. 1. What is preserved in memory; mental reproduction of it. Memories of childhood. Childhood memory. Old people live in memories. Pleasant memory. 2. only pl. Genus literary work,… … Explanatory Dictionary of Ushakov

memory- extraction from long-term memory (see long-term memory) of images of the past, mentally localized in time and space. V. can be arbitrary (remembering) and involuntary ... Great Psychological Encyclopedia

memory- pale (Balmont); vague (Karenin); foggy (Balmont); obliging (Pushkin) Epithets of literary Russian speech. M: The supplier of the court of His Majesty, the partnership of the printing press A. A. Levenson. A. L. Zelenetsky. 1913. recollection About the degree ... ... Dictionary of epithets

MEMORY, I, cf. 1. Mental reproduction of what n. preserved in memory. V. childhood. There is one left in from what n. (nothing left; joke.). 2. pl. Notes or stories about the past. Literary Memories. Evening of memories. Explanatory … Explanatory dictionary of Ozhegov

An involuntarily arose or voluntarily re-evoked content of consciousness that is more or less similar to the original experience or seems to be similar (the reliability of the memory and its delusions). The ability to accurately reproduce, ... ... Philosophical Encyclopedia

Exist., number of synonyms: 3 memoir (1) remembrance (2) mention (8) ASIS synonym dictionary ... Synonym dictionary

MEMORY- MEMORY. Retrieval from long-term memory previously learned material. V. can be arbitrary (remembering) and involuntary (when images spontaneously arise in the mind). Reconstruction, or restoration, of past experience ... ... New dictionary methodological terms and concepts (theory and practice of teaching languages)

MEMORY- REMEMBER, one of the processes of memory, which boils down to the reproduction of previous experience, the revival of traces left by previous irritations. Memory is based, as some authors think, on the plasticity of living matter; every irritation leaves ... Big Medical Encyclopedia

Memory- 1. a mental image (of an object, idea, conclusions), intentionally extracted or spontaneously appearing in the mind from memory storages. Usually memories are localized in the space and time to which they relate, and are associated with one or another ... ... Encyclopedic Dictionary of Psychology and Pedagogy

Books

• Remembrance, Jude Devereux. main character of the novel MEMORY - Hayden Lane, having got into the 16th century with the help of hypnosis, is embodied in his prototypes. She manages not only to understand the prehistory of the tragedies of past lives, ...

Knowledge and skills are remembered differently

Many of us have noticed that forgetting the solution to a quadratic equation is relatively easy, but unlearning how to swim or ride a bike is almost impossible. This is due to the fact that theoretical knowledge and practical skills are stored in memory in different ways. Procedural memory, which is associated with remembering actions, uses older areas of the brain responsible for coordination, response to visual stimuli (when we see an obstacle and drive around it, for example), and automatic motor reflexes. When we learn a new skill, different parts of the brain work as a team: the prefrontal cortex controls the setting of tasks and their distribution, the basal nucleus remembers patterns of interactive interaction and helps to quickly respond to visual information, and the cerebellum is responsible for finer coordination of motor actions. As a result, they form a very complex and stable system that allows you to remember the acquired skills. Procedural memory has evolved over hundreds of millions of years and exists in all animals.

And for abstract knowledge, like decision rules quadratic equations, responds to declarative memory, which is controlled by only one area - the cerebral cortex. Therefore, abstract memories are less “fixed” and fade faster if they are not used regularly. This kind of memory is relatively new and only familiar to primates.

The fate of a neuron depends on emotions

So far, the main hypothesis of how long-term memory works is that memories are stored in the hippocampus, a three-layered region located deep in the temporal lobes of the brain and which is part of the limbic system. This is one of two regions of the brain where new neurons emerge during adulthood (the other being the olfactory bulb). Neurons form in the subgranular zone, from where cells subsequently migrate short distances to gain a foothold in the granular cell layer.

If some significant event happened to you, this part of the memory is stored in a new neuron. But of all the new neurons formed in the granular layer, 98% will die naturally within a few months to a year. They can survive (and the memories contained in them are retained as a long-term memory) only if the person periodically returns to this memory during this period.

Usually memories that have an affective load "survive" - ​​they return as soon as you experience something that is associated with a past event that left a vivid emotional trace. The brain is constantly supplementing "working memory" with related events from the past, so memory often works by free association.

Scientists have managed to "catch" a specific memory in the brain

Science still cannot unequivocally answer the question of whether memories are focused pointwise in specific neurons or distributed over different parts of the brain. The distribution hypothesis states that each memory is stored in thousands of synapses and neurons, and each synapse or neuron is involved in thousands of memories. So if one neuron dies, there are hundreds of others responsible for maintaining the same memory - but at the same time, with the disappearance of each neuron, thousands of memories fade a little. At the same time, there is no such critical number of neurons, the death of which causes the erasure of memories.

But, according to another theory, each memory leaves a very specific trace in the brain - an engram. And if you trace this engram, you can theoretically remove it or change it. Evidence for this hypothesis was recently presented by Nobel laureate Susumu Tonegawa, a professor at the Pickover Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT. Tonegawa and his colleagues at the institute showed that they were able to locate the cells that are responsible for part of the engram of a particular memory and activate them using the technology of optogenetics - a technique for studying nerve cells using light pulses. Scientists were able to reactivate the engram under new conditions and with the help of this, implant a false memory in the brain of a mouse.

The researchers first placed mice in an unfamiliar cell A, after they got used to it, their memory cells were labeled with canalrhodopsin, a sensitive protein that, in response to blue light irradiation, can pass ions into the cell and thus allows targeted stimulation of brain regions. The next day, the mice were placed in a new cage, B, not similar to A. After a while, the mice were hit with a medium electric shock. At the same time, the scientists used light to activate the cells that coded for the memories of room A. On the third day, the mice were again placed in cage A, where they froze in fear, waiting for the shock. False memories stuck: the rodents associated the shock received in room B with room A.

However, it is possible to introduce false memories without sophisticated surgical intervention: American psychologist Elizabeth Loftus conducted an experiment in which participants who had been to Disneyland were shown a photo of the park, in which one of the visitors shook hands with Bugs Bunny the rabbit. After that, about a third of the respondents remembered that they also met Bugs Bunny at Disneyland - although this was impossible, because this is a character not in the Disney world, but in the Warner Brothers universe.

Unpleasant experience can be edited

You can also change existing memories - this method helps to treat phobias, post-traumatic stress and other syndromes associated with increased anxiety. However, while this is the prerogative of psychologists, not neurophysiologists. One of the most promising methods of "overwriting" was developed by Harvard professor Roger Pitman and professor of psychiatry at McGill University Alain Brunet. It looks like this: first, specialists stimulate memory, prompting a person to re-experience the emotions that he once felt at the time of the traumatic experience. A person first writes down his unpleasant experiences from the past and rereads them before each psychotherapeutic session, having previously taken propranolol, a medicine for hypertension that suppresses palpitations, sweating and other symptoms of fear. As a result, the previous traumatic memory ceases to be associated with unpleasant sensations.

Obsession helps develop super memory

For an incredibly sharp memory for the events of one's own life, there is a separate term - "hyperthymesia". True, this does not mean abstract mnemonic abilities, but autobiographical memory - attempts to force a hyperthymetic to memorize the Brockhaus and Efron dictionary are unlikely to be successful, but he will remember the guests' wardrobe and playlist at his sixteenth birthday in detail.

The first case of hypermnesia recorded by official medicine occurred relatively recently - in 2000, Broadway actress Marilu Henner wrote to UC Irvine neurophysiologist James McGough, claiming that all autobiographical memories are stored in her head like pictures on DVD. She could memorize thousands of faces and remembered in detail every day of her life since the age of 11. Research conducted by McGough and his colleagues confirmed her unusual abilities, which turned out to be very rare - since then only 20 people have been found with a similar “super memory” syndrome.

Magnetic resonance imaging showed that Marilou's incredibly sharp memory may be associated with brain features: the temporal lobe and caudate nucleus are enlarged, which is typical for people with obsessive-compulsive disorder. And, indeed, in the behavior of Marilou, there were some signs of OCD: she strove to ensure that everything in her life was in order, including the events of the past.

From the outside, this ability looks like an incredible gift, but its flip side should also be taken into account: people with hyperthymesia not only vividly remember the best moments of their lives, but also cannot forget a single bad event that happened to them.

We remember incomplete actions better

This phenomenon is called the "Zeigarnik effect" after the Soviet psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik, a student of Kurt Lewin. According to Lewin's "field theory", memories live longer if you keep a certain energy tension that occurs at the beginning of any action. This can be done without letting the action complete. Levin conducted experiments with children, where the children were interrupted in the middle of the creative process and offered to do something else. But the unfinished business caused anxiety to the children, and at the first opportunity they tried to complete it.

Zeigarnik continued to explore this phenomenon and conducted more experiments that confirmed that unfinished tasks create a certain tension in human memory - in other words, unfinished. It turned out that, on average, participants recalled incomplete actions 90% better than completed ones. Zeigarnik came to the conclusion that this feature is related to motivation - people with mental disorders, affecting the motivational sphere, did not show such attention to unfinished actions.