I forget things constantly

Memory has three stages: encoding, storage, retrieval. Almost all “memory problems” reported by healthy adults are in fact encoding problems — the information was never recorded, because attention was elsewhere at the time.

Anxiety and depression consume working-memory capacity. Working memory is limited — five to seven items — and part of it is already taken up by worry, by replaying a conversation, or by monitoring your own sensations. What remains for what is actually happening around you is less, and the name of the person just introduced never gets stored at all.

Sleep is the second major factor. Memory consolidation happens during sleep, particularly in the deep stages. A few weeks of fragmented sleep produce a picture that looks very much like a cognitive problem and that clears completely once sleep returns.

The third is the worry loop: after a few episodes, fear of dementia appears, fear raises anxiety, anxiety consumes still more working memory, and the lapses multiply. Here self-monitoring worsens exactly what it measures.

• Offload memory outside itself. One place for everything to be remembered, checked twice a day. Not a concession to a problem — it is what people with good memories do anyway.
• Reduce simultaneity. Most lapses are encoding lapses. Putting the keys in the same place every time removes the whole class of problem without training anything.
• Say aloud what you want to retain. “I've turned the hob off”, spoken, makes the action a consciously encoded event, and repeated checking becomes unnecessary.
• Treat sleep as a cognitive intervention. Consolidation happens there; two weeks of repaired sleep changes the picture more than any memory exercise.
• Stop self-testing. Constantly checking your memory raises anxiety, and anxiety consumes exactly the resource being tested. If fear of dementia is present, it deserves saying to someone — not resolving through repeated measurement at home.