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If the questions sound familiar, it’ll do you good to read on. You’ll be reassured to know that, although forgetting things is disconcerting, for most of us, it’s a normal part of the aging process. And you’re definitely not alone.

When these types of memory lapses began happening with more frequency to writer Martha Weinman Lear — she calls them the “tip-of-the-tongue-syndrome” — she freaked out. She was so worried that it might be Alzheimer’s disease that she made an appointment with the director of a memory-aid program at a major New York hospital.

After a battery of tests, she was pronounced “fine.”

“I learned there are totally normal brain changes that begin to happen in your 30s, but you’re not typically aware of them until you get into your boomer years,” says Lear, who figured that other worriers might benefit from her experiences.

Lear spent two years interviewing neuroscientists, psychologists and evolutionary biologists, along with friends and strangers. The resulting book is titled “Where Did I Leave My Glasses? The What, When and Why of Normal Memory Loss.”

“We accept as normal the fact that we won’t be able to run or play the same game of tennis at 50 that we did at 20, but we can’t accept that normal changes are also happening in our brains,” she says. “But the brain begins to lose volume, to shrink.”

Here’s more that Lear learned: Proper names are the first to go because names don’t really mean anything. Words like “lampshade” and “shoe” trigger specific associations, while “Mary” does not. Memory works by association.

Different kinds of memories rely on different areas of the brain. The current thinking is that the brain’s frontal lobe is one of the first to shrink as we age and is responsible for helping us retrieve information. That’s why we can’t remember the name of an actor in a film, even though we’ve seen him a hundred times, but it will come to us a few hours later.

Episodic memory can also rely on the front areas of the brain. That’s why we may forget whom we ran into yesterday or where we read something. On the other hand, we don’t lose procedural memory because those types of memories — walking, tying our shoes, riding a bike — work automatically.

We also retain information known as “semantic” memory that relates to facts: A restaurant is a place to eat in, eyeglasses are to read through, a dog is a household pet.

As we age, it becomes harder to multi-task, and it also takes us longer to process new information. That doesn’t mean that as an 80-year-old, you can’t handle college, Lear says; it just means it’ll probably take you longer to learn the information. That’s because, as you get older, you’re shoving more information into your brain, so it may take you longer to pick out the information you want. That specific piece of information isn’t lost to you; it’s just harder to locate.

The answer, Lear says, is to compensate for the losses by coming up with memory tricks.

“I have a pill I take once a week,” she says. “I used to forget to take it. Now I know; I always settle into the same chair in our living room to read the Sunday Times, so I keep the bottle beside that chair, and I take the pill when I sit down to read the paper.”

When you routinely misplace items, such as keys, she says, it’s a matter of finding a place for them that is sacrosanct: “It’s non-negotiable; you have to put them back every single time.”

As for those bits of information you want to remember for a long time, Lear says, you must give them your undivided attention.

“What isn’t being paid attention to cannot be stored,” she concludes. “It’s gone. And since paying attention, like multi-tasking, may become a bit more difficult with time, we need to pay more attention to paying attention.”

Are you OK?

Wonder whether your memory is OK, or if there’s something you should be worried about? Here are some ways to gauge your memory skills.

Even if you do any of the following things, you’re probably normal:

• You often misplace things.

• You forget your social plans and ask, “What did you say we’re doing tonight?”

• Occasionally, you forget where you parked the car.

• You tell the world that your memory is terrible.

• You sometimes forget to keep appointments, run errands, make calls or take pills.

• Sometimes you forget what you ate last night.

• You know you have some memory loss, but you can run your life the way you want to.

• You forget the names of new acquaintances.

• People sometimes say, “You already told me that.”

• It’s much harder for you than it used to be to handle several tasks at once.

These things may be cause for worry:

• You constantly misplace things and may blame other people.

• A half-hour later, you ask again.

• You often forget where you parked and sometimes forget a familiar route.

• Others complain about your memory. You tend to worry silently.

• There are increasingly common lapses.

• Much of yesterday is often a blank.

• Your memory loss interferes with daily functioning.

• You forget the names of close friends and relatives.

• You frequently and unknowingly repeat yourself.

• You simply cannot handle several tasks at once.