Lack of Memory Post Pregnancy

My baby had just fallen asleep. I sat quietly, watching his chest rise and fall as he breathed and noticed how peaceful he looked. 

Suddenly, a moment of realisation occurred. I can do stuff! I am free! Right, now what was it I had to do?  

A lot of the problem is that there is so much to do, and really, I don't know how long my baby will sleep for, so it's difficult to match up the job with an amount of time required to complete the job. Also, the tasks I need to do vary from the easy mundane jobs (housework) to more complex mundane tasks (tax returns). Quite often in these moments of freedom, I walk quickly and purposefully into a room, to do something and then, it's gone. I have no idea why I walked into the room. Sound familiar?

Why Do We Forget Things?

Working memory loss can happen for a number of reasons. Often, while caring for young children, we are sleep deprived. We are also very busy and it's been proven that it's difficult to keep more than 3 - 4 items  in your mind at one time (ref. Alan Baddeley).

Motherhood can be stressful too. It is proven that when we are stressed, our bodies secrete a toxic hormone. This is why stress is very damaging to our bodies. Stress can lead to memory loss too.

How Yoga Can Help

It is proven that, 'neurones that fire together, wire together'.  This means that by repeating an activity over and over again, you can teach your brain and your body to behave differently. You can change. Wise yogis say that 'a calm mind is a focused mind'.  By spending 5 minutes meditating each day, you can retrain your mind to become focused and calm. 

There are also some very beneficial restorative yoga poses which allow your body to rebalance and deeply relax. Here is a restorative yoga sequence you can try.

I recommend, before you rush around trying to complete the many tasks ahead of you in a short space of time, to spend 5 or 10 minutes practicing a meditation or a restorative yoga sequence. You may notice a big difference in a short space of time.