Is Cycling Destroying my Memory?

I’ve noticed it increasing too, and figured it’s the lack of ‘stimulation’ due to lock downs and such. I also have been having more knee pain, and after doing the Full PRL on Zwift the weekend before last, have been getting less sleep due to the positional pain during the night. (Although I slept like a dead man that night. Go figure. So more training?)

I tried to rationalize it as spending too much time exercising and the body shunting more blood to the muscles than the brain. My doc got a chuckle at that hypothesis. It made some sense to me, as a layman.

A year ago, I had constant headaches for over a week, and got an MRI. They didn’t find anything. (I asked if they found a brain, the doc chuckled at that too: ‘A small one. Train less!’. Hah hah) I wonder now, if at the time I had COVID, and was able to power through it. He didn’t laugh at that one, but said that the science is so new on that virus, it’s too early to tell what happened. Nice… My wife has insomnia, so I think some of my issues are from her when she’s stressed, which seems to be constantly. (I keep telling her to ‘leave it on the bike’, but she says she’s too stressed for that. But anyway)

I think the fight is real. I wonder how much of it is from all of the different issues going on…

How old are you? Generally its down to age and something else…I forget :wink:

Too much weed? :grin:

My training and interest in professional cycling has increased over the past four years. Now I’m doing 500 TSS weeks and often forgetting the names of actors/musicians in conversations where I was once the authority on the subject. However, I have the names and results of many dozens of pro cyclists in my memory now, but that never comes up in conversation, so I’d say most people who know me would say I’m a bit dimmer than I was.

Do you drink alcohol? If so that is more likely the culprit.

We try to associate two items that may or may not have a correlation.

I would suggest you need to look at all aspects of your life to help determine what is happening. It seems unlikely that exercise would be causing poor memory in and by itself. There are likely other factors at play here. Outside stress…current environment due to Covid is challenging for many. Sleep? Drugs? Alcohol? Is your body sore from your efforts. Is recovery a factor? etc etc

How is your life outside of cycling? Any training stress is still stress and if you’re dealing with a stressful life in general with work obligations, family etc it can be the straw that breaks the camels back and what you’re experiencing is burnout. Problem with memory and focus is common with burnout.

FWIW I have noted a similar thing, but then I spent the time studying/reading beforehand.

I can live with the change :wink:

Memory also requires attention first. For my part, after a long ride when I’m wrecked, hard to pay much attention.

As mentioned, other things going on in your life/over time may have a bigger impact. Phone (attention!) and behavior (scrolling posts vs reading a book for hours) probably the biggest for most ppl.