The human brain is fascinating in many ways and one involves the concept of memories. The main parts of the brain involved with memory are the amygdala, the hippocampus, the cerebellum, and the prefrontal cortex. Many people, including me, often like to reflect on the “good times”..i.e. memories we have of certain life events that bring smiles to our faces: Examples include: the summer when we experienced our first kiss, the wedding day, trips to a theme park when our children were small, a special romantic vacation with our loved one, the day our grandchild/grandchildren were born, etc etc.
The brain is also interesting in the fact that often, we tend to “erase” the bad memories and instead focus on conjuring up the good memories of events. For example, think of your 4 years at college: Many describe this as the “best 4 years of my life”. Why? We consciously remember all of the “good times”…the beer parties, co-rec football games, finding our first loves, etc. Obviously, back in those days we also had bad times, such as relationship breakups, having to pull all-nighters to study, having to share bathrooms with people etc. We will often push those memories into our subconscious.
How about memories of when our children were young? Consciously, we will remember most of the “fun times”…trips to the beach, cute things they said, family gatherings etc. The tantrums, stress and other difficult aspects of parenting are often pushed to the subconscious.
What seems common to almost all of our “good” memories is this: We felt well, had great energy and our health was in a good state. A “good” memory usually does not involve being at a doctor’s office (except coming to ours because everyone loves coming to us!) having a medical procedure, or being locked down by a pandemic
So, circling to the weight control arena: Your success in controlling weight will markedly increase the chances of you being a part of many activities and events that will turn into good memories. There will be many future events that you will be a part of that will be super fun and rewarding. It is so much better to be at these events when your physical well-being is optimized. Let’s all focus on our health and create wonderful new memories.
Enjoy Paul Anka’s song about memories that brought tears to our eyes when we watched those hokey Kodak commercials.
