Memory and Kinesiology: Unlocking Your Mind's Potential

Memory is more than recall — it’s a journey inward, full of beauty, healing, and unexpected discovery.

by Natalia Gavrilova, Kinesiologist

Before We Begin

Kinesiology can significantly improve your memory. Along the way, you may also gain unexpected insights and emotional shifts. Memory isn’t merely about storing facts; it forms the foundation of your identity. As you rebalance the brain and nervous system, you'll reflect on your experiences, values, goals, and beliefs. Thus, the journey to clearer memory often leads to deeper clarity about yourself.

Memory Problems? What Might Be Happening

You don’t notice your memory until it lets you down. Forgotten keys, struggles with remembering names, missed appointments — or that moment when you walk into a room and realise you have no idea why you’re there. These are the common, worrying signs that our memory is on holiday.

Can it be helped? Is it serious? Is there really a way to fix this?

The answer is… it’s complicated.

Put simply, memory is not a separate function — it’s a system. For instance, when you have a problem with one joint in your body, the others still work fine. But if you have a problem with blood circulation, every tissue is affected. Memory is more like blood flow than a single organ. It supports everything else.

Memory is not a separate function — it’s a system, more like blood flow than a single organ.

Working with memory pathways is a part of Brain Integration kinesiology treatment. In this article, we will explore how kinesiology works with memory and what to expect during treatment. If you’re unfamiliar with Brain Integration, you may want to look through this introductory article to better understand the approach.

What Memory really is

First things first — let’s define our terms. What is memory, neurologically speaking? The word “memory” is a bit like the word “energy”: it gets used in many contexts and can mean many different things.

I’m not going to bore you with neuroscience jargon. Instead, let me offer a simple metaphor.

Memory isn’t just storage — it’s the active process of reflecting, connecting, and making meaning.

Imagine you want to write a letter. (Yes — an old-fashioned pen-and-paper kind of letter. Hm… maybe this example isn’t so relatable after all!)

There are a few things you’ll need: a desk, paper, a pen, an envelope, and the address.

The desk represents your hippocampus — the part of the brain where the action happens. The paper and pen are like short-term memory — items you’re working with right now, easily accessible. You’ll also need to dig into your bottom drawer to find the envelope and check your address book for the recipient’s details. These are long-term memory items — still available, but stored away.

In this metaphor, memory isn’t just the desk or the items. It’s not even the filing cabinet. Memory is the whole process — from having the idea to write the letter, gathering the materials, completing the task, and tidying up after.

To summarise: memory doesn’t live in one compartment of the brain. It’s not a single function — it’s a dynamic, multi-layered network. Like the internet, it doesn’t have a central location. It’s the connectivity itself — the ongoing flow of communication between different brain regions. And the quality of that flow is what we experience as memory.

Why Does Memory Feel “Off”?

When discussing memory issues, people often refer to symptoms such as:

• Forgetting names or appointments

• Experiencing brain fog or poor concentration

• Daydreaming or absent-mindedness

• Struggling to find the right word

• Feeling low energy and lacking motivation

  
  

However, diving deeper often reveals more troubling patterns like:

• Intrusive thoughts or memories

• Ruminating about the past

• Difficulty relaxing the mind

• Nightmares

• Persistent negative self-talk

  
  

When the past stays unresolved, it can overload the system — kinesiology helps reset and restore flow.

In such cases, the issue may not be a weak memory, but rather a busy one. When unprocessed past experiences loop in the background, they clutter mental space. Unfinished emotional experiences act like a program running endlessly in your computer's RAM. It’s hard to focus when the system is overloaded.

The term “memory issues” can refer to various conditions, including:

• Neurological wiring (like in neurodivergent brains)

• Hormonal shifts (such as menopause or thyroid imbalance)

• Processing traumatic events

• Major life transitions

• Age-related cognitive slowdown

  
  

What all these situations have in common is this: your brain is trying to make sense of experience. To understand what’s happening, we don’t just store information — we relate it to what we already know, believe, and feel. That’s why memory isn’t just a mental file cabinet — it’s the engine behind how we interpret life itself.

Memory is not a single function; it’s a dynamic, multi-layered network—a connectivity that allows for an ongoing flow of communication between different brain regions. Thus, the quality of that flow is what we perceive as memory.

You may have heard the phrase “we are our memory.” In my experience, that’s true not only poetically, but neurologically.

Memory is selective and context-driven. The way we experience ourselves — as capable or powerless, creative or stuck — often depends on what beliefs are most available to us in key moments. There’s a dynamic loop between our core beliefs, the meaning we assign to past experiences, and our sense of identity. Together, they create a kind of feedback system: memory loops that continuously generate the story of “me.”

Beliefs act like tracks beneath our thoughts. With the right support, we can gently change direction.

This is why our self-talk can sound so definitive:“I’m not the kind of person who would say no.”“I have to take control.”“I need someone to tell me what to do — who am I to decide?”

Imagine these thoughts as a train — and the beliefs beneath them as railway tracks. Brain Integration acts like a skilled rail switch operator. It doesn’t try to stop the train or blow it up — it simply adjusts the tracks. With the right neurological signal, the train can be gently redirected. Now it can access thoughts and beliefs that are more constructive, more self-supportive, more free.

So how does kinesiology fit into all of this?

Kinesiology has something unique and valuable to offer when it comes to memory challenges. It works at the intersection of the emotional, neurological, and even the spiritual. Rather than isolating “the problem” as a biochemical deficiency, kinesiology listens to the meaning of the experience from a personal point of view. It doesn’t try to fit people into tight boxes of “normality” for the sake of scientific neatness. Instead, it honours what’s showing up — even brain fog — as a form of communication from the body’s intelligence. A road sign. A changing condition. A call for attention.

In kinesiology, we work with the brain not through invasive tools, but through the body — especially through gentle touch and acupressure. The process is deeply calming. Sometimes we tap acupoints. Sometimes we use healing sounds. Sometimes, just holding specific points while saying an affirmation can help reroute the train of negative thought and restore energetic balance. (For more on kinesiology methods please refer to this blog article.)

Kinesiology listens to the significance of your experience personally and applies gentle techniques to restore inner peace.

The session may look deceptively simple and unobtrusive — but underneath, it can create powerful neurological reorganisation.

Healing the memory pathways in kinesiology is a bit like doing roadwork and litter-picking at the same time. We’re clearing debris — leftover stress imprints and emotional fragments. We’re mending the neural roads, rerouting blocked or tangled pathways, and gently restoring flow and connection.

Clearing old stress imprints and restoring neural pathways — kinesiology brings the system back into motion.

It’s also like tidying up a cluttered desktop. Too many open files can slow things down. Kinesiology helps the system close what doesn’t need to stay open, so your mind can focus, respond, and feel present again.

In this way, kinesiology doesn’t just improve memory — it helps your meaning-making system run more smoothly, so your brain and body can feel current, coherent, and calm.

Practical Ways Kinesiology Supports Memory

What can kinesiology do for your memory? Here are several outcomes I've consistently observed in my clients:

Calming the Stress Response

Chronic stress depletes both body and mind. Even long after the hardships have passed, the nervous system can stay stuck in fight-or-flight — too drained to stay alert, yet too tense to fully rest. The brain is left struggling on two fronts: to settle emotional memories and to restore hormonal and nutritional balance.

Brain Integration helps reduce stress signals and improves the brain’s access to what it needs — oxygen, nutrients, and clarity. It supports a shift from survival into integration, where learning and memory become possible again.

If this topic resonates, you may enjoy this blog article about how kinesiology works with stress.

Balancing Hormonal Cycles

Hormones play a major role in memory and mood. When levels fluctuate or fall out of rhythm, we may feel foggy, disconnected, or emotionally flat. Kinesiology works with the body’s internal regulators — the glands, cells, and feedback systems — to support smoother hormonal function and a more stable sense of self.

Some memories hide to protect us. Healing means inviting them back with gentleness and care.

Reconnecting Dissociated Experiences

Sometimes we “forget” whole periods of life — not because our memory is poor, but because our system protected us from overwhelm.

Although “Remember everything!” (Total Recall, anyone?) is not the goal of therapy, unprocessed pain often lingers in the background. It distracts, drains energy, and shapes our reactions without us realising.

Kinesiology allows us to approach those tender, hidden parts gently — not by forcing recall, but by making space for the body to reintegrate what was once too much to hold. This can restore a sense of inner wholeness and peace. (More on the tuning into the therapeutic priorities read here)

Supporting Self-Worth

Many people speak about themselves in ways that simply aren’t true:“I’m not smart.”“I can’t learn.”“I always mess things up.”

These beliefs often formed during moments of high emotional stress. Kinesiology explores when and how these ideas became embedded — and offers a way to reframe them. If your first instinct when facing change is to remember what went wrong last time, working with memory loops can help you reassess your capabilities and reconnect with a more realistic, empowered sense of self.

Improving Focus and Attention — So the “Record” Button Actually Works

We can’t remember what we didn’t notice. Poor attention is one of the most common (and overlooked) reasons for memory issues.

Attention often runs on autopilot — scattered by inner chatter or distracted by outer noise. Before we retrieve a memory, we need to be sure it was recorded in the first place.

Brain Integration works with both internal and external distraction patterns, helping the nervous system regulate input and stay calm. The result is a quieter mind, steadier focus, and an easier time learning, absorbing, and recalling information.

(More on this in my upcoming blog about clarity and focus.)

In healing memory, we come home to ourselves — present, calm, and whole.

Enhancing Emotional Safety

When we don’t feel safe — physically, emotionally, or socially — the brain prioritises survival. That means it shuts down the pathways we use to reflect, recall, and understand.

One of the first therapeutic goals in kinesiology is to restore a felt sense of inner safety. From this calmer baseline, the whole system becomes more receptive, more integrated, and more able to hold and organise memory with clarity.

Want to know more about emotional healing with kinesiology? Here is the link to my article describing the emotional healing process. 

In a Nutshell

Memory is more than just a mental filing cabinet — it’s the process through which we make meaning, form identity, and navigate change. Whether you're facing brain fog, emotional overload, or a sense of being stuck in the past, kinesiology offers a compassionate, body-centred way to restore flow and clarity.

By working with memory, we don’t just improve recall — we reclaim the story of who we are becoming.

What’s Next in This Blog Series

Brain Integration may well be the missing element in your healing journey—especially if you're grappling with stress, life transitions, burnout, or emotional fatigue.

In the upcoming posts, I will discuss the core benefits of this work:

• How it reconnects you with inner clarity, values, and direction

• How it enhances mental focus and performance

• How it encourages emotional expression and connection

  
  

To read the introductory article about Brain Integration, click here.

If you’re wondering who Brain Integration suits best or how many sessions people typically require, click here.

If you’re uncertain whether this work is right for your situation, feel free to reach out.

If you want to delve deeper into the guiding principles of kinesiology healing, you might enjoy my blog article titled The Truth About Energetic Kinesiology .

Natalia Gavrilova – Your Local Kinesiologist in Fremantle (Perth, WA)

This article was written by Natalia Gavrilova, a kinesiologist based in Fremantle who works with clients throughout Perth, Western Australia. I specialize in the emotional and energetic aspects of kinesiology and write to help others understand how this gentle, holistic therapy can facilitate genuine change.

We invite you to get in touch here or browse frequently asked questions here.

If you’re new to kinesiology and want to learn how it works, please visit my introductory page.

To learn more about my background, read my story.

Кинезиология — это мягкий, целостный метод, который помогает восстановить внутренний баланс, освободиться от стресса и глубже понять свои потребности.

Меня зовут Наталья Гаврилова, я кинезиолог из Фримантла (Перт, Западная Австралия). На этой странице я рассказываю, как проходят мои сеансы, с чем я могу помочь и почему кинезиология становится всё более популярной в работе с эмоциональными, физическими и энергетическими трудностями.