Ask yourself if you've truly lost the thing or just the memory of where you put it. Experts on memory recommend a few surprisingly simple methods to help your brain remember.

1. Breathe slowly. This will help you calm down. "Stress is a big destroyer of memory," says Barry Gordon, a neuroscience professor at Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore, and the author of Intelligent Memory ($17, www.amazon.com).

2. To avoid panicking, repeat a simple phrase over and over. "If you do that, your cognitive processes will take over from the emotional centers of the brain, and you will remember," says Sheenah Hankin, a New York City psychotherapist and the author of Complete Confidence ($25, www.amazon.com).

3. Back up. "Do a mental walk-through of where you might have left the item," says Gordon. If that doesn't work, "physically retrace your steps."

4. Hit the sack. "Lack of sleep affects cognitive functioning," says New York City psychotherapist Lloyd Glauberman, author of the audio program Resilience: The Power to Bounce Back (four CDs,$80, www.nightingale.com). "If you're chronically tired, your brain won't be able to store information, and you'll lose stuff."