The Power and Importance of Memory

The memories and experiences we collect help shape our personality and worldview, influencing what we come to believe, how we react and respond to others, and who we choose to trust, accompany, and follow.  From them we write the lessons to pass on to the next generations, and, in a remarkable demonstration of just how fast and present human evolution really is, we’ve learned they even imprint on our DNA.  So, even though there are species-specific and individually unique imperatives imprinted in our DNA to direct us, cutting-edge research into human psychology and neurobiology has revealed the influence of nurture on nature, and part of our “nurtured” selves are the memories we select to hold on to.

Unfortunately, for many of us it is the process of memory selection that presents a big problem, both short and long-term, and it stems from a strong negativity bias (widely believed to be another evolutionary adaption developed to help ensure the survival of early humans while imprinting on their DNA and generations of their offspring the tendency to be sour cranks).  In the process of selection it is easy to focus on the negative and discount the positive - to our detriment.  Our tendency to remember negative emotional experiences over positive is well-documented and understood, but also contributes to anxiety, depression, professional burnout, and even poor physical health.  The upshot is that choosing positive experiences to offset the negative is within our power.

A (very) brief primer on how memory works

Deep inside our brains, tucked up under the cerebral cortex, lies the hippocampus. Part of the limbic system, this relatively small structure consists of two separate but connected hippocampi located one on each hemisphere of the brain.  Working in concert with other structures (we’ll get into that shortly), it plays a vital role in how we select, organize, and consolidate information to transform certain memories from short-term to long-term.

While this is a constant and ongoing process, much of the hippocampus’s work is done while we sleep.  Proper and adequate sleep is well-understood for its critical restorative function for the brain and body, and further research is showing the importance of sleep in preparing the body to receive new information and allowing the mind to encode and incorporate learned information and experiences in the form of lasting memory. The hippocampus is central to this and one of its most important jobs is choosing which memories to keep and deleting the rest.

Most short-term memories are scrapped within a few hours or days — the brain holds on to them only as long as needed or until it is clear they are unimportant, then they are filed into the deepest archives of the brain, never to surface again. 

The long-term memories selected and filed by the hippocampus are different, and generally fall under one of two categories:

The first are data-driven, consciously collected and detail-oriented. Sometimes called declarative or explicit memory, these are the “classroom” memories of the facts we determine are important and work to memorize. The second are emotional memories, those experiences that trigger response in the amygdala, another part of the limbic system that partners with the hippocampus on matters of emotion and memory. Also known as procedural or implicit memory, they are less fact-based and more experiential. They are also the most durable long-term memories as they are remembered for both the emotions they create and the details attached.

Now think back to a couple common high school memories: learning trigonometry (explicit memory) and learning how to kiss (implicit memory). Which do you remember today?

So why do memories matter?

Law enforcement is a memory-rich environment, with a strong likelihood many of them have had a strong and negative emotional impact.  Of course, many cops do experience policing as largely positive, with treasured memories, close friendships, laughter, and sense of accomplishment. That doesn’t discount the bad they’ve seen, it’s just held in perspective.

But for others who’ve abandoned early idealism, lost touch with their sense of value and doing good, or have come to see policing as just so much frustration, negative memories prevail.  Constantly on the defensive on the street and in the station, a career’s worth of negative emotional memories has soured their perspective even away from work. When idealism fades, anger and cynicism fill the void, and it is hard to separate the professional self (and worldview) from the personal.

Powerful negative emotions create some of the strongest, most indelible memories. When they become the norm they program us to expect the negative, distrust the positive, and take our low expectations outside of work to infect our personal lives. If who we are is, in fact, dictated by the sum of our memories, then who we are might just be an angry, fatalistic cynic with a personality and worldview shaped to reflect it. For these officers isolation, depression, anxiety, and broken relationships are the common result.

And how others think of and remember you will be tied mainly to the emotions you evoke in them. So ask yourself:  How do you want to be thought of?  What legacy do you want your career and life to reflect?  How well do you represent the profession and your brother and sister officers?  How do I make others feel, especially those closest to me and with whom I want to share my life?

Making Positive Memories

Police officers cannot much control what they experience at work and have only limited ability to avoid the things that create the negative emotional memories they experience; dealing with such things is the literal summation of the job description. What they can do is manage how those memories are framed and integrated into their experience banks.

Consciously maintaining healthy perspective is one of the most valuable skills emotionally healthy cops practice. Another is actively seeking experiences that create positive memories to offset the negative in order to create balance.

Negative emotional memories form naturally and without being sought out; traumatic events, poor treatment by supervisors or administration, combative arrestees, and run-of-the-mill frustrations in our personal and professional lives are inevitable and lead to negative emotional memories. To offset them we have to be deliberate in seeking out positive emotional memories, being mindful of our present in order not to lose the experiences we have, and practice reframing the meaning and impact of negative experiences. It is the mastery of these three principles that will lead us toward a practice of deliberately combatting the effects of negative memory predominance. 

Below are the practices we personally embrace, with explanation:

1. Create Positive Emotional Memories

Memories of negative events are easily made and tend to stick around, so much so we begin to isolate, expect the worst, and obsess over all that is wrong to the exclusion of even looking for that which is good. It is critical to break this self-destructive habit. Instead, seek out experiences that are fun, unique, and novel.

Maximize your time off with friends and family, travel, take up new hobbies and dust off old ones. Volunteer, coach kids, or moonlight in a job far removed from police work, with people who aren’t cops or somehow tied to the law enforcement world. Take a class or even work toward a degree or certification, or maybe teach something yourself if you have skills or knowledge others would want to learn.

The point is to go out and create positive emotional memories rather than wait for them to find you.

2. Be Mindful of Your Present

Mindfulness is “the practice of maintaining a nonjudgmental state of heightened or complete awareness of one's thoughts, emotions, or experiences on a moment-to-moment basis” (Merriam-Webster). Though commonly associated with yoga and meditation, you need not be an experienced yogi or limit it to dedicated meditation time.

By practicing mindfulness you learn to lose the noise of what has happened (and how it affected you) and what will happen (and the distraction that carries) and focus on the present, appreciating the moment you are in. And, true, sometimes that moment sucks, but sometimes it is awesome. The problem with constantly focusing on the regrets and frustration of the past and worries about the future is we miss the great, funny, fascinating, and heartening things occurring right now.

3. Reframe Meaning and Impact of Negative Experiences

Great bosses build great environments, and we’ve both worked with and for some outstanding leaders.  Perhaps paradoxically, we’ve learned as much or more about human behavior, organizational dynamics, and leadership from some of the biggest managerial disasters to ever grind morale into dust.  We appreciate the lessons they taught us about how not to manage people (and provided material for more articles than we can count, and much of the training we’ve developed over the years).

Search for the hidden gifts negative experiences can offer. That doesn’t mean wallowing in a bad situation, or accepting the unacceptable when the power to change it is in your hands, but learning to seek meaning or lessons from dark moments is a valuable skill you can develop, and a powerful shield against the most dangerous effects of negative memories.

Law enforcement is a memory rich environment, and those memories will have a powerful and lasting impact. Whether they are harmful or enriching is up to you, and taking steps to manage and frame the negative memories, while consciously building the positive ones, is crucial for an emotionally healthy life.