We often wonder about the people a few centuries ago – living in a time with so little conscious efforts for brain health and yet managed to live a longer, healthier, functioning life. Not knowing that the amygdala, the hippocampus, the cerebellum, and the prefrontal cortex are major stakeholders for memory – they could still remember a 150-verse long poem by hearing it once. Without training, they could manage just fine. Without a calculator, focus well, and stay cheery all day. So, what changed?
Further questioning: Is brain health an over-discussed topic today, or is it genuinely gaining its importance over time and turning into a necessity? The answer lies in the very contrast of our routines compared to our forefathers. They did everything a healthy brain requires today – out of habit. They never paid for the gym to stay fit, their routine work sufficed – the same way they indulged naturally into activities that allowed optimum brain functioning. Since the drastic change of our routines, conscious measures need to be taken to keep our brains healthy and happy.
The pandemic then fell upon us as the cherry on top. It pushed us into an unprecedented state of mind for a good 2 years. Physical movement reduced significantly, eating habits became round the clock and socializing switched to virtual norms. Considering the long list of adverse shifts, Brain health should thus climb up on our priority list – especially this year. We might not realize it, but the pandemic has left its marks way beyond what we had initially imagined. Infected or not – all of us are left impacted and possibly unaware. To restore our health, let’s understand the damage, and prioritize investing in our brain’s health today.
So, what exactly happened to our brain during the pandemic?
Living in an already turbulent century, we were further detached from the major factors of a healthy brain. We spent the last two years in the least favorable environment being deprived of all the major influencers of a well-functioning brain.
STRESS – a complete no-no for brain health
During the pandemic, stress skyrocketed since the simplest of activities we once took for granted now required us to weigh multiple risks and make difficult decisions like going for groceries or taking public transport. The stress of constant assessing risk – took a toll deeply impacting our mind even without notice.
DISCIPLINED SLEEP – our brain’s best friend
Isolation allowed us to sleep anytime we wanted to, resulting in not sleeping when we SHOULD. So, what happens is that a sleep-deprived brain loses control over emotion-processing and mood-regulation making us low without realizing why. The brain’s decision-making, and organizational systems are all impaired too. Beyond mental interference, sleep disturbance can affect physical functions like the body’s immune system as well.
Being STAGNANT – the brain depressor
We saw a new trend of work from home. Sitting at computers for long periods of time without moving lends itself to less cognitive thinking, lower energy levels, and less interaction. When people are sitting all day, they should ideally find a reason to get up and out every 1-2 hours. These breaks increase oxygen to their brain and body and allow them to return to work with renewed focus and creativity. WFH did not give us that liberty for the much-required mind and body reset, forming an unnoticed gloom and impacting our brain-efficiency.
Occupying our minds with minor problems
When we cannot wrap our heads around a problem, we find a way to distract ourselves by creating other solvable ones—for example, the toilet tissue shortage panic. Logically, food, shelter, and medications were the most necessary needs. But finding solutions to such a minor problem made us feel a sense of victory and control. But this also means building a habit of distracting ourselves from the much bigger lurking threat, and shutting down the stress emotion in the brain damaging it as a result.
Excessive MULTI-TASKING – a total brain damage
Being at home meant having to do everything at once. You can cook when you’re out for work or address house chores or attend to your children. But at home we started juggling all of it at once – missing out on a bottle or two each day. The constant switching between tasks impacted our ability to focus and even our confidence in performing tasks efficiently.
Impaired FOCUS
Another reason why we just couldn’t pay attention in a meeting lies in our biology. When we face a threat, such as encountering a bear – Cortisol is released to focus our attention on the predator in front of us and nothing else. This hormone lowers a person’s attention, concentration, and memory and directs it to the immediate environment to be able to flee and save their lives. However, if such a threat persists for a year, a constant focus on the threat and lowered focus on anything else damages our focus and impairs our attention.
Affected MEMORY
Our brain responds to anything new, the surprise element stimulates it, keeping it attentive and helping in memory formation. The brain stops paying attention when bored. This way of distinguishing each event by the ‘new-factor’ helps our brain in remembering what happened when. The mundane routine for over a year impacted our memory in inevitable ways. All of the days being the same, many of us couldn’t remember what we did when.
But wait – here comes the good part
The influences of the pandemic undoubtedly, have made a mark – but unlike dementia or cognitive decline – they are completely reversible. The human brain being plastic – has the ability to override its hard-wired nature. It’s possible for you to re-engineer your brain and self-calm the knee-jerk worries and fears because your brain can change its own structure.
Knowing that it’s not you alone facing the difficulties of going through the day, that it’s not your fault, and that you can go back to the pre-pandemic times is a relief! This realization is half the cure in itself.
The impacts of Covid-19 were inevitable, but minimizing the risk, by a range of lifestyle factors that help in long-term brain health and mental function remains in our hands.
We can aim to maximize our cognitive reserve by paying close attention to brain health. While dementia and Alzheimer’s can only be slowed down, the pandemic brain fog can luckily be cleared with effort. If you have a family history of Alzheimer’s, starting to focus on brain health is certainly a wise investment. As a brain training center, we might not be providing Alzheimer’s treatment in Dubai, but we do know how to slow it down or even prevent it by starting early.
To preserve your cognition, we prescribe having rich experiences and interactions, prioritizing sleep and diet overwork, meditating, lowering multi-tasking, exercising, and engaging in adequate amounts of brain training. This would allow you to focus, memorize and learn quicker. We know that our brain keeps growing and getting stronger through each new challenge, hence, training with experts might be the damage control remedy we need today. Since the covid-19 impacts are mercifully temporary, we still have hopes to recover and who knows – come back even stronger!