Brain fog and blurry thinking:  How to tackle pandemic memory loss 

Repeated lockdowns, where weeks and months merged into each other, have taken a toll on our ability to recall. But there are ways to move beyond it, say the experts

The pandemic has resulted in a surge of fuzzy memories and hazy recollections.
Picture: iStock 

If you have found yourself forgetting birthdays, films you have watched or names of faces, then you are not alone. Psychologists say we are emerging from two years of blur into a brain fog and that successive lockdowns when days bled into weeks and time had so few boundaries that everything felt the same, are taking their toll. There were no diary dates and no birthday celebrations, the usual reference points that are crucial for memories to be cemented in our minds. The result? We find ourselves in a pandemic memory hole.

With few Christmas gatherings, annual holidays, birthday parties or celebrations such as weddings and christenings to define each passing 12 months, the recent past may seem shuffled and disordered. Quarantines and lockdowns meant there were no boundary date markers, or clear chapter breaks - which psychologists call ‘pattern separation' - in our minds. What we are left with is a sense of jumbled and confusing chronology.