Written by: Irina Costea, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
We live in a world that goes 100mph in every second of every day, being exposed constantly to tons of information. Our brain is not equipped to process everything that is going on around us, at least not at this kind of speed.
We often find ourselves unable to focus, our attention being scattered in 100 places at a time. We start something, a notification or an email comes around, we get distracted and it goes like this every day of the week.
Burnout is an extremely common diagnosis these days, and the pandemic didn’t help our brains at all.
I often find myself exhausted, like my brain is on fire, I cannot focus on any task and I jump from this to that, and at the end of the day, I get the feeling that I started a lot of things, but didn’t really finish anything.
I always imagined that (lack of proper) sleep and technology play an important role in my exhaustion, but it wasn’t really clear until I started studying neuroscience. And then it hit me.
Let’s start with the basics.
First of all, only 3% of the population can actually multitask (supertaskers; they have less activity in the prefrontal cortex and some tasks become automatic). We do not multitask, we SWITCH TASKS. When we focus on only one task, both of our brain hemispheres share their activity and work together.
When we “multi-task”, things change. Each side of the prefrontal cortex performs one task, but not simultaneously: the activity is switching from one side to the other. Since we only have 2 frontal lobes, it’s becoming even harder above 2 tasks.
So what we can understand from here is that task switching reduces cognitive performance and is very stressful for our brains. It causes mental fatigue, it deteriorates mood and decision making. (source: NeuroMindfulness® Coach Certification Course).
If you look carefully in our environments, we are constantly task switching (we already decided that we are not multi-tasking): we work on something and an email pops. We open the email, we think about it, we process it, we reply to it than we get back to what we were doing.
In the meantime our phone beeps due to a notification. We pick up the phone (we interrupt our activity again), we check the notification, we take a scroll across social media, we get back to what we were doing.
And this continues through the rest of the day. When we sit on the couch “watching a movie”, but we also scroll through Instagram/Facebook. Our brains are constantly in this fatiguing dance, and yet we do not understand why we cannot focus on one task.
Because we do not allow ourselves to do one thing at a time!
And this is the starting point. Turn off your social media notifications, let your email update only once per hour, and try to focus on only one task.
And mindfulness plays a very important role here. We can use meditation or breathing exercises in order to strengthen our prefrontal cortex and therefore our focus. 5-10 minutes per day: it’s doable, it doesn’t take an awful amount of time, and it’s a brain workout.
Second most important thing.
“We are a dark deprived society” - Matthew Walker,
neuroscience professor. He spent the last 20 years studying sleep, and he wrote the New York Times Best Selling book “Why we sleep”. That means that our brains get mixed signals of when to go to sleep, or when to wake up.
But we also lack a proper sleep hygiene. We give little attention to sleep, but actually sleep is one of the most beneficial things that you should do properly for yourself.
Why?
Let’s see. Well, to begin with, there is no living creature in this world that does not sleep in a form or another. If sleep wouldn’t have been crucial for our development, evolution would have found a way to get rid of it.
Lack of sleep affects our focus and our memory in a very negative way. For example, for things to pass from short-term memory to long-term memory, we need a good quality of deep sleep and REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep (without micro awakenings). Why? In REM sleep, when information is passed in long-term memory, it connects with all the other information that is stored in our brains. There will be new connections made and maybe even new insights. And this process is a constant process, because our brains receive daily input, and while we are in REM sleep, the new connections get imprinted.
"The findings indicate that sleep deprivation most strongly affects the functional connectivity of prefrontal cortical areas. The findings extend those of previous studies, which showed sleep deprivation to predominantly affect functions mediated by the prefrontal cortex, such as working memory. Together, these findings suggest that the restorative effect of sleep is especially relevant for the maintenance of functional connectivity of prefrontal brain regions." (source: https://bmcneurosci.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2202-15-88)
This is the reason why you get brain fog if you don’t sleep or the reason why you are in such a bad mood if you don’t get your hours of sleep.
Severe lack of sleep has been associated with depression, anxiety, and many other mental health issues. I can confirm.
I was a suicidal depressive and lack of sleep has played a huge role in my depression.
During sleep, our brain basically washes off negative emotions. Did you ever go to sleep angry and woke up the next day, with nothing changed, and your mood was just better?
This is what sleep does for our emotional states. The researchers believe that when you get too little sleep, the amygdala does not 'hear' messages from the brain's reasoning centre. Over a long period of time, you risk becoming emotionally imbalanced. (source: https://sciencenorway.no/forskningno-norway-sleep/how-sleep-washes-away-our-worries/1460977)
If you want to take a deep dive into the sleep subject, I cannot recommend enough Matthew Walker’s book, "Why we sleep" or his Masterclass "The science of better sleep". It will change your life!
How can we get more quality sleep?
No coffee after 1 PM. Coffee does not energize us, it masks the information that our brain perceives as „sleep pressure“. This sleep pressure is starting to build up as soon as we wake up in the morning. The substance that leads up to sleep pressure is adenosine, and coffee masks its effect. Caffeine stays in our system around 12 hours, so be mindful also of green tea, white tea, chocolate, and many energizing drinks, because they contain caffeine as well.
Routine. Try to be consistent with the hours at which you go to bed, or wake up in the morning. The more consistent the routine, the more your brain understands when you should go to sleep (and send you clear signals, that you should not ignore), and when to wake up naturally.
No technology at least 30-60 minutes before sleep. This is a very important step, because it sets the „wind-down“. Social media and technology in general, keep our brains in a high alert state. In order for our bodies to get ready for sleep, our parasympathetic system needs to be activated. This is the part of our nervous system that is responsible with our social engagement mode, also called „rest and digest“. We are calm, in a safe space, and so our bodies can send us signals that we can relax and go to sleep. Sleep is not essential when you are in fight/flight mode (and in 2021 we are almost always in fight/flight state), so we need to prime our body for that.
Be very mindful of naps during daytime. If you are in survival mode (a.k.a maybe new parent) it is what it is, get as much sleep as you can. If you are not in a survival mode and if you do nap, do it for 15-20 minutes maximum, and try to avoid napping after 2-3 PM. Naps release that „sleep pressure“ valve, and this can lead to having trouble falling asleep at night.
No alcohol before sleep. Alcohol is actually a sedative, and it doesn’t help you to fall asleep, you just get basically sedated. The quality of deep and REM sleep is decreased under the influence of alcohol, and it also affects negatively your memory (the transfer between short-term memory and long-term memory is altered).
Meditation can help you decrease the activity of the Default Mode Network (responsible for mind-wandering) and will for sure help you calm down your nervous system.
Breathing exercises. Here is a simple one. Inhale for 4 seconds, hold for 6 seconds, exhale for 8 seconds. Repeat at least 10 times before sleep. This exercise helps restore the state of your nervous system to a calm one and is very handy. You can do it before sleep, at work, in the car, when you wake up, basically anywhere, anytime. Take advantage of it!
Silence. We don‘t often get the chance to stay with ourselves in silence. In these days, we barely can contain it. Why does silence bother us so much? What are we running from? Re-learn to enjoy silence, to give your mind some time to wander, to rest, and give yourself time with the most important person in your life. You. When was the last time you did nothing? When you enjoyed your own presence just because? Try it for a few days. I think you will be pleased or at least you will learn something about yourself.
Get at least 7-8 hours of sleep per night. Here is the trick. Sleep recovery doesn’t do the job. From a neurological point of view, you cannot recover sleep. It doesn’t work to sleep 5-6 hours during the week, and 10-12 during the weekend, and also, it messes up with your biological rhythm. So be sure that you get your share of 7-8 hours per night, every night. Neuroscience proved that sleeping under 6-7 hours even on one night comes with a lot of cognitive impairments.
In the age of speed, we need to (re)learn how to slow down. For our brains, for our minds, for our well-being. We are wired to do ONE THING at a time, so let’s use that to our advantage. Turn off unnecessary notifications, let your email sync every hour, or even update it manually, let your mind focus on what it has to do.
Stay in silence.
Get your sleep hygiene in place, and try to respect your body enough to keep this promise to yourself. Don’t forget: sleep is basically free therapy!
So why not use these free and amazing tools that nature has provided for us? They are here for a reason, they are handy and scientifically proven. And yes, it’s that simple.
Irina Costea, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Irina Costea is a Transformational & NeuroMindfulness Coach® and a former HR Professional. After a severe postpartum depression scattered with suicidal thoughts, Irina discovered Positive Psychology and the power of coaching. Once enrolled in the coaching school, she soon realized that her personal mission is to help other people unlock their true potential through practices of neuroscience and mindfulness. She believes that only by mapping and following your fears and blockages you can live authentically. Because only when you use them as your stepping stones you can connect to yourself again.
Costea has been trained as a Coach at CoachVille, one of the first coaching schools in the world, and as a NeuroMindfulness® Practitioner at the NeuroMindfulness® Institute. She also worked as a Senior Talent Acquisition Specialist for one of the biggest travel platforms in the world.
