Source: Well + Good
Anyone who suffers from anxiety knows how exhausting and all-consuming it can be. Because of that, it can lead to a particularly unwelcome side effect: memory loss. “Imagine that anxiety is powerful energy that pulsates through the body and mind and perpetuates negative emotions and sensationalized thoughts,” says psychologist Carder Stout, PhD. “The energy may become so dominant that it overrides our normal ability to function and self-regulate.”
In other words, when you’re in this state of total anguish, your memory can suffer, since you are unable to focus on anything other than your anxiety spiral. Or alternatively, your brain may also block a memory as a coping mechanism for handling trauma, Dr. Stout adds. (I can attest to the power of anxiety brain fog: It was a running joke in college among my friends that I had the memory of an elephant, but several anxious years later, I found myself in a hypochondriac-style panic, convinced I was suffering from early-onset dementia.)
