Hole punched in Walmart
Cop cleared after cyclist hit
Seniors in the housing crisis
Tracking bird flu in cows
Alberta braces for drought
Premiers want co-operation
Full Trump jury seated
Iran fires at attack drones 
World's largest election 
Body Shop explores sale
Apple pulls apps from China
Oil and gas leases restricted
Warriors ready for Round 2
Kalamalka Bowl cancelled
Rockets live to fight on
Hilton teams up with Sia
Swift still 'can't forgive' Kim
Grimes to ‘cap the disarray’
Just because something’s a new normal doesn’t mean it’s good for us.
Modern-life habits can come at a cost.
Many of us pride ourselves on our ability to multitask, holding and juggling many balls in the air at the same time. It’s a badge-of-honor for many, and is becoming an expected ability. Email has made this problematic, and texting and instant messaging has made it even worse.
While we may pride ourselves at our multitasking ability, researchers tell us we’re probably not as good at it as we think we are. We may be fooling ourselves.
Whether it’s doing two things at once, quickly switching back-and-forth between a few jobs, or doing many tasks in quick succession, the belief that multitasking saves time and makes us more efficient is a myth.
Our brains aren’t made to work that way and it might be hurting us more than helping.
While modern computers are designed to have multiple browser windows open, our brains are not.
What we’ve come to believe as multitasking isn’t really that at all. What we’re doing is quickly switching between several tasks, and in doing so, not only does our work suffer, but so does our health. Multitasking comes at a cost.
Converging evidence finds multitasking:
- Reduces our productivity – it takes longer to complete tasks, by as much as 40%;
- Reduces our cognitive ability, reducing our IQ by 10 – 15%;
- Makes us more prone to errors;
- Makes it harder to filter out distractions and irrelevant information;
- Inhibits our ability to remember what we’ve done or learned;
- Reduces creativity and problem-solving;
- Creates inattentional blindness – we don’t notice what’s happening in the moment;
- Increases the stress response in our bodies.
It may feel like we’re getting more done, but we’re not.
We’re developing bad brain-habits. Studies reveal multitasking causes our IQ to fall to levels similar to a person who is sleep deprived or who has smoked marijuana. Yikes!
Multitasking is exhausting, and it activates the stress response in our bodies, causing increases in the production of the stress hormone cortisol, which over time, has harmful implications for our health. It can easily lead to mistakes, causing us additional stress.
Quickly checking things off our to-do list feels good, because we get a hit of dopamine for completing a task, but many of those quick things we complete aren’t helping us accomplish the big things requiring our full attention.
Researchers at Stanford found heavy multitaskers were less mentally organized, and these effects lingered even when they weren’t multitasking.
Multitasking during meals can cause us to over-eat. I recall a mindfulness student who was horrified at the thought of eating her meal without the distraction of technology. To her, it just wasn’t efficient to simply enjoy a meal. Using meal time as an opportunity to check our inbox or social media easily leads to over-eating and we miss out on the pleasure-benefits of noticing our food.
As the pace of life and demands increase, the modern tendency is to try and cram it all in simultaneously. It’s easy to get sucked into the vortex and feel spit-out at the end of the day.
Technology is wonderful, but the immediacy demands created by the way we live life keeps us on high alert. The constant notifications of emails and texts arriving are distractions.
It’s easy to get hooked on the feeling multitasking brings. The hits of adrenaline and dopamine can become addictive, even though they’re not good for us in the long run. It can cost us our health and prevent us from using all of our intelligence.
Creating habits to assist ourselves in becoming more focused, truly productive and creative can be as simple as creating a schedule for checking emails, turning off text notifications, and avoiding the use of multiple devices at one time, such as watching TV and checking our phone.
Making it a habit to pause, breathe and stretch between tasks allows our brains to make the switch. These simple practices support our health, our happiness, and our intelligence.
This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.
