Your Brain@Work: Post #4--Interference

Dual-task Interference: Researchers show that when people try to do two cognitive functions, one of them suffers measurably. The PFC takes a lot of energy to sustain, and though it can hold up to four conscious thoughts at a time, it can only effectively focus on one mental process at a time (understanding, deciding, recalling, memorizing, and inhibiting). Split attention is exhausting. Constant emailing and texting has the effect of missing a night’s sleep or the same debilitation as smoking pot! Such strain increases your “allostatic load,” your level of stress hormones, and this “always on” state has a significant impact on brain functioning.