Have you ever been forced to change your password, and then at the very next opportunity entered the old password instead of the new? Or have you driven home, pulled up, and then realized you didn’t remember any of the journey? When something is familiar our brains can put themselves on autopilot – it’s their way of saving energy.
Much in 2020 has not been familiar, or normal. Our brains have had to remain switched on for longer than usual, navigating new ways of taking care of family, of working (hopefully), of shopping for groceries,… of electing presidents. It takes time, and neural energy to build new habits. When you’re trying to build so many new habits all at once it can feel overwhelming; there is only so much new information and so much change we can absorb before we’re totally knackered. 2020 has, quite literally, been mentally exhausting.
Our brains represent about 2% of our body’s mass but consume about 20% of the energy. Thinking burns a lot of precious fuel so our brains have developed ways to save power. As we experience the same thing over and over our brain realizes it can afford to devote fewer calories to the matter. They have become so good at carving these neural grooves of expectation they can even fill in the gaps with what they expect to see, even when that is not what is actually there. It’s why you can esaliy raed wrods taht are splet inocerrtcly. Of course it helps to have the first and last letters to frame your expectations but after that your brains figure things out based on past experience (as opposed to future experience, presumably).
Pattern recognition may be our super power but change is our kryptonite. Not only do our brains prefer the energy-saving predictability of the familiar, they are also hypersensitive to anything jarringly new. This trait harkens back to a time when our mammal ancestors were faced with an odd scent, or a peculiar movement. The familiar had kept them alive up to that point, and anything new could be the last thing they ever sense. It was in the interests of their survival to react faster and more powerfully to difference; that difference could represent a threat, and that threat could prove terminal. A heightened response to the unfamiliar has remained with us, even when it may not serve us.
Our brains aren’t just good at good at finding patterns, it upsets them when they can’t establish one. We experience psychological discomfort in ambiguity and uncertainty. There is even research to support what many of us have felt in our gut, the notion that our brains prefer the certainty of bad news over the uncertainty of potentially good news. I have lost count of the number of times I’ve been stood, waiting on a platform for a train, frustrated by a blank indicator board – it’s just plain annoying to be unsure whether I have about a 15 minute wait, which I would use to read my book, or a mere 4 minutes, which I would also devote to reading my book. The sense of relief is palpable when the indicator board flashes into life and tells me my ride is a hearty 24 minutes away. “Woo hoo,” I say to myself, “that means I can read my book!”
How does all of this help in 2020? A magic bullet to solve Covid would be superb. Going back to the way things were is also where our brains want to be. Caught in the purgatory between not being able to live as things were, and not wishing to live as things are is taking a toll.
It’s easier to say ‘be kind to yourself’ than it is to do, especially when so much and so many may be depending on you. It’s easy to say slow down when you don’t have a thousand and one things that all need to happen at once. But maybe, even if only a little, it might help to understand that some of the discomfort we’re experiencing is down to how human beings are wired. Maybe then we can be as kind to ourselves as we strive to be towards others.
