Maybe they shouldn't, because having total recall is totally overrated.

That's according to a new paper in the journal Neuron, which concludes that forgetting things is not just normal, it actually makes us smarter.

In the new report, researchers Paul Frankland and Blake Richards of the University of Toronto propose that the goal of memory is not to transmit the most accurate information over time.

Rather, they say, it's to optimize intelligent decision-making by holding onto what's important and letting go of what's not.

"It's important that the brain forgets irrelevant details and instead focuses on the stuff that's going to help make decisions in the real world," says Richards, an associate fellow in the Learning in Machines and Brains program.

The researchers came to this conclusion after looking at years of data on memory, memory loss, and brain activity in both humans and animals.

One of Frankland's own studies in mice, for example, found that as new brain cells are formed in the hippocampus — a region of the brain associated with learning new things — those new connections overwrite old memories and make them harder to access.

This constant swapping of old memories for new ones can have real evolutionary benefits, they say. For example, it can allow us to adapt to new situations by letting go of outdated and potentially misleading information.

"If you're trying to navigate the world and your brain is constantly bringing up conflicting memories, that makes it harder for you to make an informed decision," says Richards.

Our brains also help us forget specifics about past events while still remembering the big picture, which the researchers think gives us the ability to generalize previous experiences and better apply them to current situations.

"We all admire the person who can smash Trivial Pursuit or win at Jeopardy, but the fact is that evolution shaped our memory not to win a trivia game, but to make intelligent decisions," says Richards. "And when you look at what's needed to make intelligent decisions, we would argue that it's healthy to forget some things." Continue reading

• Image: Memes

I discovered it accidentally at first, and marveled at the direct, immediate correlation between the days I exercised and the days when I'd think, "Today was a good day."

The wonder quickly gave way to slight irritation, because the pleasant mood boost required sometimes unpleasant physical exertion.

Sometimes I gave it up entirely, for months or years, and only lapsed back into exercise out of desperation.

But I always lapsed back into it, because I knew that it was the one thing guaranteed to make me less grumpy and more relaxed.

What I didn't know back then was that exercise doesn't just have that effect on someone's personality for one day; the positive effects of exercise last for decades, according to Business Insider:

You might not be surprised to hear about the harmful health consequences of a sedentary lifestyle, but perhaps less obvious is that physical inactivity is also associated with unwelcome changes in personality over time.

Previous research has documented these effects over periods of four and ten years.

A new paper in the Journal of Research in Personality has extended this, finding that greater physical inactivity at baseline is associated with deterioration in personality two decades later, even after accounting for any differences in initial personality.

As the researchers, led by Yannick Stephan at Université de Montpellier, point out, there is an upside: the findings suggest that even a moderate increase in your activity levels today could have positive implications for your personality decades from now.

The research was combined from three long-running, statistically significant studies from people nationwide, and the findings consistently revealed that baseline physical inactivity directly correlated with a significant deterioration in personality decades later.

Specifically, researchers found that the more sedentary a person was at the study's outset, the sharper the decline was in their conscientiousness, agreeableness, extraversion, and openness two decades later.

Surprisingly, the researchers also found a direct link between sedentary lifestyles and late-life neuroticism.

Basically, not exercising today will make you a grumpy, neurotic miser — no matter who you are or what your life is like.

That's right, the study controlled so effectively for demographic and life factors that the effect of physical activity (or the lack thereof) on personality change was as great or greater than the personality changes stemming from demographic factors and even disease burden.

So not exercising could literally have a more detrimental effect on your personality than living in poverty, or suffering from an autoimmune disease. Continue reading

• Image: The Atlantic

"I was hoping to hold out until September next year when it would have been 80 years, but I had quite a bad fall," said the 94-year-old, who now resides at Woburn Home, and whose memory is sharp as a pin when recalling her early introduction to music.

She first joined the choir in September 1937, at the invitation of Mrs Bryce, the church organist at the time.

Most of the news is focussed on welfare issues, while increased advertising suggests there is money to be made retirement villages, rest homes and funerals. Very little is said about the gifts of wisdom that can come only with a life fully lived.

Most of the advantages of getting old are emotional, intellectual and spiritual. Most of the disadvantages are physical. Because the physical tends to demand more attention, we don't always appreciate what we have gained through the aging process. Let's look at some of the benefits.

1. We've spent many years in Life School and our experience is a part of our faith. We have come to a deeper place where we see God in everything. There is no separation. The world is full of God.

2. We know that while the head has language, the heart has no words, only feeling. We have learned that words are not idols to be worshipped: they are signposts that lead us to the heart space. Here there is a knowing of God that fills us with freedom and peace.

3. We are comfortable with the way we are made, and are not bothered by public opinion. The incidents that used to bother us, now seem trivial, almost laughable.

4. We have learned that insecurity and doubt are not enemies but good friends of wisdom. Both allow us to grow. The security and certainty we once sought, have tended to prevent growth.

5. We value the beauty of lectio divina, especially in the gospels when we walk with our Lord. In the company of Jesus, the words cease to be "law" and become "life," meeting our every need.

6. We value our uniqueness, aware that God has formed us as individuals and continues to do so. We have let go of the need to be like others, or to see them as like us.

7. Judgement and division belong to the smallness of human understanding. We know that God's love is much bigger than human ideas, and that no one is ever lost to that love. In our thinking, we avoid making God too small.

8. We live in an understanding of paradox, knowing the strength in weakness, the richness of poverty, the fullness of emptiness, the gain that comes from loss, the resurrections that follow our little crucifixions. We have learned to trust that the lessons in life school have all been for our spiritual growth.

9. When we were young we had a lot of questions about life. Maybe we didn't get the answers we wanted; but now the questions themselves have disappeared. In life of faith, those questions seem irrelevant.

10. Our faith has become much simpler. It is all held in three words: God is love.

11. We no longer identify with our bodies. They are like coats we've worn for many years. They have served us well but now they are getting old and threadbare. When they no longer serve us, we will discard them and return to the love for which we were made.

• Joy Cowley is a wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and retreat facilitator.

Archbishop Georg Ganswein said Benedict is certain and serene about his decision, made for the good of the Church, because of his waning strength.

Archbishop Ganswein said the retired Pope's usual routine these days involves prayer, reading, keeping up with correspondence, receiving visitors, watching the evening news and walking in the Vatican Gardens.

Benedict, who turns 88 in April, has been playing the piano much more often.

"Mozart especially, but also other compositions that come to mind at the moment; he plays from memory," Archbishop Ganswein said.

The only health issues, the archbishop said, are "every now and then his legs give him some problems, that's all".

Benedict, who has had a pacemaker for several years and uses a cane, still has an incredibly sharp mind, Archbishop Ganswein added.

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