In the age of modern technology, our brains are becoming more dependent on digital tools to perform our most basic functions. We are being surrounded by technology constantly and often it is hard for us to focus on things that are important to us. In fact, we are slowly picking up habits that are negatively impacting our mental health and brain. The modern lifestyle and work environment has severely affected our brains and slowly degrading our cognitive abilities.
When it comes to our health, we tend to focus more on the physical aspect than the mental one. To be the best of ourselves, we should focus on our brain health by changing our habits and behaviours that are slowly impairing our mental health and productivity. Here are some habits that are bad for your brain and you start by eliminating them from your life.
Physical Inactivity
Physical Inactivity leads to a lot of health issues, which include obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, anxiety, depression, and more. Along with this, It also impacts your cognitive abilities. Physical inactivity changes the shape of certain neurons in the brain, which affects your ability to process information and think clearly. Over time, you start to lose your focus and you may have trouble concentrating. A study published in the Journal of Comparative Neurology suggests a link between physical inactivity and cognitive decline.
With regular exercising more oxygen reaches your brain, which provides an excellent environment for the growth of brain cells. Regular exercise increases neuroplasticity by stimulating the growth of new connections between cells in your brain. Researchers from UCLA shows that exercise increased growth factors in the brain which promotes the growth of new neuronal connections.
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Multitasking
In today’s busy world, multitasking is becoming the norm. We chat while walking, reading emails and messages while watching television, and many more activities we normally do without even thinking about them.
But in reality, the human brain is not wired to multitask, according to Earl Miller, a neuroscientist at MIT who has been conducting research on human attention, says “When you are multitasking you are actually switching between the tasks“. This switching between tasks comes with a significant cost, which can lead to cognitive decline.
Multitasking causes stress and anxiety, which release the stress hormone cortisol along with the fight-or-flight hormone adrenaline. These hormones can lead to a loss of concentration and confused thinking.
Information Overloading
With the growth of the internet, the number of information sources is exponentially increasing. On a daily basis, we receive hundreds of emails, notifications and updates from multiple social media platforms. These daily updates consume a huge amount of time and energy, leading to information overloading.
If the information overloading is not properly managed, it can lead to loss of focus and concentration, causing stress and mental exhaustion.
When the human brain becomes overloaded with information, our brain starts to jump from one thought to another, leading to mental multitasking. This makes it difficult to focus on one task at a time and can lead to poor performance. Over long periods of time, this can lead to a decline in our overall intelligence.
So, make sure to use proper tools and settings to manage your daily updates and alerts. For instance, set a proper time to check your notifications and messages. Don’t unnecessarily check your phone or other digital devices constantly.
Long Screen Time
In today’s world, most of us are being surrounded by screens so much that the face to face interactions are being replaced by digital screens. People started spending most of their time remaining online rather than interacting with people.
Most digital screen devices such as mobile, tablets, laptops and many others emit blue light, which suppresses the secretion of melatonin hormone. This leads to disrupted sleeping patterns, which means the person is not getting enough deep REM sleep. According to research REM sleep is essential for processing and storing information from that day into memory.
Too much screen time changes the structure of your brain by decreasing the thickness of the grey matter, which leads to a decline in cognitive abilities. These results can worse over the course of time by leading to poorer concentration, weaker memory, slower information processing and weaker impulse control.
Junk Food
We all know that eating junk food is not good for your health, but most of us don’t realize how dangerous it is both physically and mentally. Junk foods are highly refined and contain high levels of sugar and fats which can lead to serious health issues such as weight gain, obesity and diabetes. High-level sugar and fats cause neuroinflammation in the brain which damages the neurons in the hippocampus. Damage hippocampus makes people hungry all time, which in turn leads to more cravings for junk food, and eventually creates a cycle of damaging the hippocampus even more.
The hippocampus plays a vital role in the formation and learning of memories in the brain. People who consume a lot of junk foods have been shown to have poor memory function and reduced neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity is the ability of the brain to change and adapt itself. It is important for the formation of new memories and learning new things rapidly.
So, try to limit your intake of junk food whenever possible. Eat fresh fruits and vegetables as they contain inflammation-fighting antioxidants and also provide nutritional value. Also, make a habit of regular physical exercise as it provides more oxygen to the brain and also increases neuroplasticity.
Conclusion
At last, I just want to share the good stuff with you all! I hope that this post would be helpful and informative for you and will help you to take better care of your brain.
