We gather events that we'd prefer to forget during our lives. These recollections can be more than undesirable. Painful memories are often associated with events that were traumatizing or affected one’s mental health in a significant manner.
They can be devastating for persons who have endured a major trauma, such as conflict, marital assault, or psychological trauma. It is a natural human tendency to block out memories that seem painful.
Source: Live Science
Thus, with these memories come the recollections of the details of the associated event. And, research says, the more often we revisit these memories, the stronger they get hold in our brains. So, how wonderful it’d be if we can delete or erase such memories completely from our minds. However impossible it may sound, recent studies by psychiatrists and associated academicians have established this fact.
Let us then look into a few easy ways to forget these painful memories deliberately.
Easy Ways To Forget Painful Memories
1. Identify The Triggers
Memories are stimulus-dependent, meaning they need a trigger to activate them. Your negative memory isn't always in your thinking; things in your existing surroundings activate the recollection cycle by reminding you of the unpleasant event.
Source: Lindsay Braman
Some memories contain only a few stimuli, such as specific scents or sights, while many others have several that make it difficult to escape them. Loud sounds, the stench of fire, locked doors, specific tunes, objects on the roadside, and other things may trigger somebody with war trauma.
Recognizing your most typical stressors can assist you in gaining control. You can try blocking the unpleasant connection when you actively detect a trigger. The smoother it will get to inhibit this connection the more you do it.
2. Embrace Your Mistakes
Perfectionism may make things appear more painful at times. If you have a strong need to be considered faultless at all times, the recollections of past failures might make moving ahead tough.
Source: Best Positive Quotes
If you have positive recollections of making mistakes, try creating errors and just performing things incorrectly on intent. If you're out there trying to humiliate yourselves, recollections of those encounters will take on a new hue over time.
Remind yourself that you have been deserving of approval right now, instead of when you have achieved your goal of being the "ideal" individual. Self-acceptance can serve to mitigate the negative effects of those recollections.
3. Suppress Your Memories
Scientists have been studying the think/no-think hypothesis, a concept of memory inhibition, for decades. They think that one can deliberately disrupt the cycle of memory retrieval by using the brain's superior functions, such as logic and rationalism.
Source: Very Well Mind
Essentially, you practise deliberately closing down the traumatic moment as quickly as it begins. You could (conceivably) train your mind not to recall after doing it for many weeks or even months. You're essentially weakening the neurological link that permits you to recall that experience.
4. Journal Joyful Experiences
When prior occurrences give back to anxiety, it stands to reason that erasing thoughts of such incidents would tend to alleviate your emotions.
If you suffer visions or "cringe outbreaks" concerning embarrassing circumstances from your past, keeping a notebook in which you chronicle pleasant occasions may be beneficial. If you recall a bad experience, try to replace it with a happy recollection.
Source: Thrive Global
Also, you might try doodling or sketching the beautiful scenery you encounter every day. Try and write down a line of positive affirmation and gratitude in your journal every single day. Make a note of it and try to remember it throughout the day. This will help you to banish the painful memories with this new hope of strength every day.
5. Change Contexts
The psychological framework where a person views an event influences how the brain organizes that event's thoughts.
We recall experiences in connection to other experiences, the location of the event, and so on. This has an impact on what activates later memories, as well as how we recollect them.
Source: Quanta Magazine
Anything related to a remembrance can be considered a context. It could contain sensory clues like flavour or scent, the physical factors, occurrences, ideas or sentiments at the moment of the event, and minor qualities of the object like where it shows on a page, among other things.
Scientists have hypothesized that because we need contextual signals to remember details about previous occurrences, any action that alters our interpretation of that background can affect our memory.
The Bottom Line
Unpleasant memories might be triggered by anxiety and sleep deprivation. Make sure you receive adequate sleep, consume a healthy diet, and exercise often. Adopt a balanced routine to benefit your psychological and emotional well-being. Mindfulness is a technique for keeping your attention in the current moment. Practice yoga and breathing exercises if you cannot make time for a meditation session.
Also, practising gratitude and asserting positive affirmations every day will help you manifest the hope and strength within you. It will gradually work towards building your mental strength to fight off these triggering unpleasant memories.