Is It Possible To Erase Painful Memories?
There are certain things that happen to people facing grief. These memories can prevent them from continuing a healthy life in a peaceful way without fear. Is it possible to erase such painful memories?
What are memories?
What are the benefits of memories?
Without remembering, or memories, it would be impossible to live. That would mean that we would have to learn everything as if it were something new again, and do so all the time. Thus, it would be impossible to preserve or transfer the experience.
How do your brain retain memories?
The mind preserves memories in many ways, creating different collections for different memories.
However, the list is really long. To simplify it, we can say that memories are divided into short-term, long-term, and sensory memories.
Sensory memory
First, it is a memory that we experience through our own senses.
These memories are preserved for a very short time, up to 300 milliseconds. After that, they disappear completely unless they become part of a short-term memory.
Short-term memory
Once we have selected an experience from sensory memory, it will remain in short-term memory.
This category is sometimes called functional memory. In total, it can contain 5-9 elements at a time.
Long-term memory
This is a way for the mind to preserve memories in a sustainable way. This is also the location of painful memories. Long-term memory can be divided into ambiguous and clear memories.
- The first stores unconscious memories and is related to learning different skills. This allows us to perform certain activities, such as riding a bike or car.
- Clear memories are associated with conscious activity. Here are two examples of obvious memories: semantic and periodic . Semantics refers to historical or scientific memories as well as geographical and spatial knowledge. People’s names are also stored in such a memory.
Periodic memory is the area where painful memories are stored. There we store stories about ourselves as well as certain facts or experiences. Experiences stored in periodic memory can be, for example, a wedding day, a graduation ceremony, a fight, or something unfortunate that has happened to us.
Is it possible to erase painful memories?
Going through painful memories throughout life is natural for all people. Sometimes it is possible to process these events and memories and move on.
However, there are also times when it can be more complicated. Enduring depression and traumatic stress disorder due to past events can be really difficult.
The stabilization of memories depends on the way memories are stored and it affects whether we can forget them or not. This takes us to a discipline that studies the body, known as neuroscience .
Studies in this field have shown that whenever we regain (remember) a certain experience, it becomes unstable or adaptive. This makes us add new information to it. When we restore the memory back to its location, it has changed slightly from the original.
This mechanism creates a space where painful or traumatic memories can be modified. With it, we are able to change the mental reaction bound to them.
Negative emotions
Believe it or not, psychotherapy can also help fight negative emotions by helping us reinterpret the facts that cause us pain. As the meaning changes, so does the painful fact. It can be supplemented with information or replaced to reduce suffering.
Researchers are currently developing drugs that can help patients go through painful memories. Stress hormone cortisol production inhibitors can even help resolve painful memories.
However, most theories related to the study of painful memories state that we must accept the facts and understand that we cannot change the past.
It is important to look for ways to get perspective on looking at the painful memories of the past. Even if the memory is strong and traumatic, it always has a positive lesson to teach.
It is also important to forgive. Forgiveness allows us to get over anything, leaving the past in the past, where it belongs.
