Some people are very proud of having a fantastic memory. This characteristic is definitely useful in school or social circles. Despite this, remembering every little detail of the educational material you learned or the smallest detail of every situation is nearly impossible. Then there's forgetfulness; Whenever you forget something, you may feel embarrassed and a bit stupid. Forgetting things is a result of minor brain lapses, and while it may feel as if you're getting dumb or older, forgetfulness may actually be a great sign!

Whenever we make new memories, they are written over old ones. This makes it very difficult for us to remember the old ones. According to some research that was performed by Paul Frankland and Blake Richards from the University of Toronto, we may even forget them altogether.

The pair also found that having great memory is not connected to possessing high intelligence at all. It is actually more useful for you to remember the bigger picture of situations in your life and forget the little details. This helps you to get the important things done first, and the rest can follow later.

In an interview with CNN, Richards expressed that your brain needs to forget all the irrelevant things and focus on the elements that will help you make great real-world decisions. By handling memories in this way, your brain can guide you forward and ensure positive growth.

Within the brain, there's a small mechanism known as the hippocampus. Memories are stored there.

This mechanism gets rid of all the details that are not important to express your focus on the elements that really matter. As a result, you're able to make more intelligent decisions.

This process in the hippocampus actually involves overwriting old memories with new, fresh, and relevant ones. If old memories were retained and the new ones, it could lead to excess information for your brain. As a matter of fact, indecisiveness is a sign of having too many active memories.

Some activities have a direct effect on memory. An example of one is sports. It increases the efficiency of memory by increasing the number of neurons in the hippocampus.

Living in a hostile environment can cause you to have an efficient memory. Early humans lived in a dangerous, highly competitive
environment and had to develop accurate memory to survive. However, modern-day technology has eliminated the need to remember everything. We are able to save memories in our devices, thus freeing up our mental capacity for the most important details of our lives.

For a long time, forgetfulness has been associated with low intelligence. Thankfully, this is not the case, as it's actually a sign of efficient memory management. It is quite okay to forget the small details from time to time. However, if you find yourself forgetting large sections of time or highly important information, please seek medical advice.