The Habit To Stop By 60 To Protect Your Brain
It can feel productive to multitask. Replying to emails during a virtual work call, listening to a podcast while writing a paper, toggling between 10 different tabs on your browser…But according to brain experts we talked to, attempting to do more than one mentally taxing activity at the same time is bad for brain health.“When multitasking, we are actually shifting rapidly from one task to another, which requires more mental effort. It also impacts our ability to maintain focus and strains working memory, or our ability to hold information temporarily in our brain while we are using that information. All of this makes us less efficient, increases the likelihood of making errors and is fatiguing,” explains Dr. Greg Cooper, MD, PhD, the director of the Norton Neuroscience Institute Memory Center at Norton Healthcare.?SIGN UP for tips to stay healthy & fit with the top moves, clean eats, health trends & more delivered right to your inbox twice a week?
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Consistently multitasking can be detrimental to brain health long-term too. According to Dr. Crawford, it reduces gray matter in the brain. Gray matter is important because it plays a role in memory, decision-making and emotions. “You're essentially weakening your brain's ability to focus and regulate emotions,” he says of what happens if someone consistently multitasks long term.As mentioned earlier, multitasking can lead to feeling more anxious or overwhelmed. This is likely due to an increase in cortisol, which Dr. Crawford says also negatively impacts brain health long-term. “We see increased cortisol levels in chronic multitaskers, which over time can be neurotoxic, particularly to the hippocampus,” he says.
Instead of attempting to multitask, Dr. Crawford recommends focusing on one task at a time. It may seem like it will take you longer to get through your to-do list, but you’ll end up doing a better job and won’t be as mentally fatigued.
“My recommendation: Start with ‘attention blocks,’ which are 20-minute periods of single-task focus with your phone on airplane mode and all notifications off,” Dr. Crawford says. He explains that when you start to do this, you start undoing the toll multitasking has taken, sharing, “The good news is that the brain can change. If you practice monotasking and gradually rebuild your attention capacity, you can reverse a lot of this damage. But it requires intentional effort and often feels uncomfortable at first because you're fighting against neural pathways you've spent years strengthening."
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Sources:
Dr. Greg Cooper, MD, PhD, director of the Norton Neuroscience Institute Memory Center at Norton HealthcareDr. Brandon Crawford, DC, FIBFN-CND, functional neurologist at the NeuroSolution Center of Austin Changes That Occur to the Aging Brain: What Happens When We Get Older. Columbia Mailman School of Public HealthMorris, C.M., Tangney C.C., Wang, Y., et al. MIND diet slows cognitive decline with aging. (2016). Alzheimer’s Dementia Neuroanatomy, Gray Matter. StatPearlsHence then, the article about stop doing this by age 60 to protect your brain was published today ( ) and is available on Parade ( Saudi Arabia ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
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