Multitasking Affects Your Brain | The Price is Your Health, Career, and Relationships

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Busy parents live with a constant bombardment of information and interruptions both at home and at work. Multitasking may seem like a good idea to try and get through everything but in the long-term, multitasking affects your brain, health, career, and relationships.

A quick search on Google and you can find multiple articles discussing multitasking. There are various viewpoints on the topic that will support or deny it for various reasons. There are even discussions on whether women or men are better multi-taskers.

In my opinion, after much research and personal experience there 8 side-effects to multitasking. All 8 side-effects point to long-term effects on our brain, health, career, and relationships. The price is simply too big to keep multitasking.

1. Overwhelm
2. Stress
3. Anxiety
4. Procrastination
5. Less efficient and Less productive
6. Increased distractibility
7. Memory loss
8. Less empathy and Decreased emotional control

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Overwhelm

Endless items need to get done and you are constantly worrying about what you have forgotten or what you need to do next. As this continues you start to feel overwhelmed and can’t focus on anything long enough to complete it.

Multitasking is the brain moving from one task to another quickly. When you are constantly in that state of mind you will quickly become overwhelmed with everything that needs to get done.

It seems simple but one of the best ways to overcome overwhelm is to “give it the mom look”.  This will stop the flutter of thoughts bouncing around in your head; essentially stopping the internal conflict and giving yourself time to sort rational thoughts.

After shocking your thought process with the “mom look” then start a to-do list to help separate important vs non-important tasks.

Stress

Ah, stress! Some people thrive on it and others shut down completely. I used to think that I thrived on stress. I felt like a superwoman trying to do it all. Constant stress isn’t good for your health or your mindset long-term though. When you are multitasking it takes you longer to complete one single task and you are less likely to finish anything on time, increasing stress levels.

Staying organized and using planning techniques to achieve goals will help reduce stress levels. One of the best tools I used as a busy working mother was the FREE Cozi Family Organizer. It helped reduce my stress by sharing the planning role with my family. Within my career, I focus on staying accountable to myself so that I can achieve goals at work.

Giving yourself permission to take some mom time is also a great way to reduce stress. The FREE printable is available within the VIP Portal.

Anxiety

Anxiety can be linked to stress but you can live with stress without suffering anxiety. Much like overwhelm and stress though, anxiety can be directly linked to multitasking. When you are multitasking the levels of stress and overwhelm can lead to anxiety issues. As thoughts in your head become too much, you become more anxious.

Using the tools for both overwhelm and stress might help you lessen anxiety levels. Discussing your anxiety with a doctor is recommended to see if there are any health concerns you need to address. Long-term anxiety has also been linked to gut health, and discussing it with your doctor is also recommended.

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Procrastination

Finishing everything just in time is not always good. When you dig into procrastination is it leaving it to the last minute or is it multitasking too much? When the brain is constantly thinking about all of the other tasks it is harder to completely focus on any one item. This ultimately looks like procrastination but in reality, it is just one of the downsides to multitasking.

Learning to stay focused on a single task at a time has proven to improve productivity, essentially kicking procrastination to the curb. I have found that following a simple weekly plan to keep myself accountable makes it harder to procrastinate.

Less efficient & Less Productive

Multitasking makes a person less efficient and less productive. This is THE most common theory among people today. There are countless articles proving this connection with multitasking. All of the previous side effects of overwhelm, stress, anxiety, and even procrastination point to being less efficient and less productive.

It is hard to get anything done well when you are flitting about trying to do everything at once. Even when I took up cross-stitching in the evenings to help break a bad habit of evening snacking. I found myself either missing huge plot turns in the tv show or I was ripping out stitches. The tv watching and the cross stitching were both less efficient when done together, but it did help with the snacking while watching tv habit.

Increased Distractibility

Over the years I found that my multitasking habit became a problem. When you constantly are multitasking your brain loses the ability to differentiate between important and non-important tasks. It flits from one task or thought to another constantly.  Forming the habit of multitasking affects your brain, making it easier to feel distracted and harder to stay focused.

Mastering multitasking essentially will train the brain to lose focus easily, making it harder to remain undistracted by random events or thoughts. Career goals, and productivity at work are areas that are negatively affected. Let’s talk about relationships.

When you are constantly distracted your relationships will suffer. Engaging in the present moment to enjoy being with your spouse or your kids will become harder and harder.

How many times do we say, “The years seem to fly by faster as I get older!”.

They do.

Is it because we are too distracted and aren’t living in the moment?

Memory Loss

Some of the research is showing a link from multitasking to memory loss. When you look at multitasking as a bad habit that is changing how the brain functions, it is easy to see how memory loss can be affected. When you multitask you aren’t truly engaged in an activity, making it harder to remember discussions and topics.

I used to call this “baby brain” or “mommy brain” but the truth is I was multitasking too much to fully engage in the discussion. I had too many thoughts going through my head to remember what I needed to remember. As the years go on it will be harder and harder to remember.

I always pictured myself old and grey sitting with grandchildren telling them stories of our life. Now I worry that if I don’t take more mindful moments and tuck them away in my memory, that dream will be lost.

Less Empathy & Decreased Emotional Control

People that habitually multitask are typically less empathetic and have less control over their emotions. I found this connection interesting and valid. To practice empathy you need to be aware of your surroundings, and how people are feeling. When you aren’t engaged in conversations it is near impossible to be empathetic.

Emotional control is harder when a person is in a constant stressful state of mind. Is it possible that multitasking parents are affected emotionally? Is multitasking one of the reasons we might lose our temper easier than normal?

When it comes right down it, there is too big of a price to pay to continue multitasking. As busy parents, it’s important to realize that in order to bring balance into our lives we need to be as productive as possible.

Multitasking isn’t the answer if the price is your health, career, and relationships. Multitasking affects your brain long-term but with practice, you can change your habits and bring more focus to your tasks and mindfulness in your relationships and self-care.

How are you bringing more focus to your life?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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