London - Struggling to remember names and numbers is often dismissed as the inevitable effects of ageing.
Scientists, however, say that the problem is down to knowing too much. And the solution is easily at hand - to declutter or spring clean your mind.
Experiments show that memory lapses which come with age are not just due to the brain slowing down.
Instead, they can be blamed on the well-used mind finding it more difficult to stop irrelevant information interfering with the task in hand.
Tips from experts on how to free up your mind include getting a good night’s sleep and taking up mediation or yoga to help maintain calmness.
Learning a language or musical instrument and doing crosswords also help to keep the mind young and active.
Meanwhile, socialising with other people can aid mental sharpness.
To test their theory, scientists in Canada set out to compare the working memory of the young and old. Working memory involves holding information in your mind while manipulating it mentally.
Examples in everyday life include retaining the plot of films and books to understand or predict what will happen next. It could also mean following the thread of a conversation while working out how you can contribute.
Mervin Blair, of Concordia University, Montreal said: “We found that older adults had more difficulty in getting rid of previous information.
“That accounted for a lot of the working memory problems seen in the study.
“Reduce clutter - if you don’t, you may not get anything done.”
Volunteers were given groups of sentences and asked to work out if each line made sense. They also had to remember the last word of each sentence. Overall, the younger people, who had an average age of 23, did better.
The researchers then did a second experiment to find out what was hindering the older volunteers, who had an average age of 67.
They were shown pictures of eight animals and asked to memorise the order in which the creatures appeared.
The volunteers were then shown dozens of the pictures.
They had to click on their computer mouse when the first animal in their memorised sequence occurred, then the second and so on. The older adults found it more difficult to progress, suggesting the previous picture was stuck in their mind.
A third study reported by the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology confirmed that the memory problems were not simply due to a simple slowing down of the mind.
Mr Blair, a PhD candidate, said the research backed the idea that older minds appear to have trouble suppressing irrelevant information and so have more trouble focusing on the here and now.
However, younger people can also fall foul of memory lapses caused by a failure to suppress extraneous information.
In addition, lack of sleep can make it harder for their brains to function properly.
Previous research has found that the part of the brain which keeps embarrassing thoughts in check also weakens with age, leading to people losing their inhibitions.
In other words, outspoken older people are not being rude - they just can’t hold their tongues.
STAY SHARP BY PLAYING MUSIC
Learning a musical instrument as a child could also help keep your mind sharp in old age.
A study found that pensioners who had piano, flute, clarinet or other lessons when young did better in intelligence tests.
The longer they had played the instrument, the better they did.
Skills which tend to deteriorate rapidly in conditions like Alzheimer’s disease were particularly likely to be preserved, said the American medical journal Neuropsychology.
Brenda Hanna-Pladdy, of the University of Kansas, said: “Studying an instrument may create alternate connections in the brain that compensate for cognitive declines as we get older.” - Daily Mail