Excessive Multitasking Damages Your Brain

When mindfulness doesn’t help, you need mechanisms for self-control

Jun Wu
Jun Wu
Jan 30 · 6 min read

A mom friend said to me recently, “You know, I thrive on multitasking. I have this ADHD brain where I focus better in chaos.” I nodded in agreement. I mean I worked on the trading floor for 7 years simply because I was a multitasker. My ADHD brain functioned well. I focused like a hawk on extremely analytical work. So, yes, I resonate with what she is talking about. She is describing the reasons why both of us busy ourselves to pieces every day. Our todo lists are a mile long.

Does life have to be so difficult?

Multitasking Damages Your Brain

After I stopped working in such intense environments and focused on child-rearing, I had a period of focus to pursue my own interests. During that time, I found a kind of clarity that only focused work can bring you. When my life became busy again and I had to juggle caring for my son and work simultaneously, I realized that a type of “brain fog” comes over me when I am multitasking excessively.

This kind of “brain fog” makes me seek stimulants such as coffee to cope. When I have to focus, I often need half an hour or more of silence to be able to clear my mind. It reminds me of “white noise” or “background noise” that persistently bother my mind.

Studies have shown that your brain is not made for multitasking. When you multitask, your brain is switching between tasks. Often, places to handle these tasks are located in different parts of your brain. If you switch tasks frequently, you will be booting up and shutting down different processes in different parts of your brain.

All of that comes at a cost. The cost is a depletion of neuro-chemicals in your brain that is essential to focus your attention.

The Pomodoro technique where you work for an hour, then take a 15-minute break is designed to help you restore these neuro-chemicals.

In truths, multitasking plus instant gratification is even more damaging.

Studies have shown that your brain will prioritize instant gratification over long term memory. There’s a tug of war going on in your brain when you are faced with choices of instant gratification over long term gratification. It’s the tug of war between the emotional side of the brain and the logical side of the brain.

If we choose instant gratification consistently, we are picking to process choices with the emotional side of the brain over the logical side of our brain. Eventually, we will favor using that side of the brain more.

Two Battles Inside Your Brain

Our brains have a certain amount of neuroplasticity. Our brains are also awash with chemicals that are regulated by different parts of the brain. If one type of decision process is favored over another, the brain chemistry can be changed. At the same time, the amount of neurons in a particular part of the brain also changes.

Studies have shown that the combination of multitasking and instant gratification both affect your brain’s regions that support self-control.

Image by Author

Two types of conflicts are going on in your brain: multitask vs focus and instant gratification vs. long term focus. If you have a constant struggle with these conflicts, your brain’s chemistry and plasticity can be altered.

Most of all, your capacity to self-regulate which is your self-control is altered.

One example of this that I personally experienced is my addiction to “cortisol”. Cortisol is our body’s alarm system and a steroid hormone to signal danger. When you live in constant stress, your body will end up awash with cortisol. When you are depleted of it in times of calm, you will crave it again. This is how my body is built. Many people who take risks excessively have the tendency to seek this chemical, too. I’m pretty sure that my brain is altered by all the cortisol in my system. In times of calm, I have to eat certain foods to maintain a kind of body equilibrium.

Self-control is Empathy for Your Future Self

Most people under-appreciate self-control. In our world of social media, everyone seems to be “venting” unrestricted. Emotions are heightened by the mechanism that governs our instant gratification. As our ability to regulate our brains or our ability to control ourselves decreases, more emotions are generated.

Empathy is your ability to overcome your own perspectives and step into other people’s shoes. Self-control is the same. It’s your ability to overcome your own perspectives to step into the shoes of your future self.

Self-control enables you to delay gratification in hopes of a better self later on. According to studies, self-control uses the same part of the brain as empathy does.

When you are multitasking and engaged in activities that give you instant gratification, you are compromising your ability to empathize with others, too.

Mindfulness is Just One Step Forward

When our lives are busy and hectic, we have no choice but to engage in multitasking and seek instant gratification. What do we need to do differently to adapt to the high demand of the technology era?

The first part of it is admitting that there’s a problem here. When you can take the first step forward to being mindful about your choices every day, then you have a shot of recovering from a life of multitasking and gratification.

Slow Things Down

We often don’t put enough emphasis on the rhythm of our day. But that is important. By slowing down the rhythm of your day, you are giving your brain more time and space to think about your choices.

Mindful Prioritization

Most of us just want to check off items on our todo list. But, that is another type of instant gratification. Have you tried to create mental maps of projects and then rotate these mental maps around in your mind as you move through the projects?

Don’t mark something urgent unless it’s actually urgent. Urgent should mean that if this task is not done immediately, it will have severe consequences.

Shift Focus Every Day Instead of Every Hour

Have you tried to group all your tasks for one project on one day? You can schedule projects to be taken care of on certain days of the week. This will free up time and mental space where you have to shift focus often.

Give Yourself More Time to Focus On One Task

It’s difficult to give ourselves time. When we are expected to make money, get results, and finish projects, how can you justify the delay? My friend, just breathe. If it’s not urgent to the client, why rush yourself to get there. The real enjoyment is in the work. So, focus. Check the results once you finish. Leave it for a day and then go back to take another look. Don’t focus on perfection, but certainly, have fun with the project until the deadline arrives.

Shut Down All Noise

There is noise in our lives that we can’t shut down such as the noise of our children playing, our neighbor’s dog barking, the tree rustling in the wind. But, there is noise that we can shut down, podcast, music, social media, etc.. When you need focus and feel that you have brain fog, then just turn everything off.


So you guessed it, I’m still trying to overcome my tendency to multitask. Freelancing from home just made me all that more aware of my own busy schedule. I try to use all of these mindful techniques to delay gratification and focus my days. I have the fortunate circumstances of my ADHD and my life-long addiction to “cortisol” to clue me in on what is going on in my brain when I multitask and engage in instant gratification.

Mindfulness is the key. But, it really is just the beginning. The everyday practice of mindfulness is what makes living in this digital age both challenging and rewarding.


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Jun Wu

Written by

Jun Wu

Writer, Technologist, Poet: Tech|Future|Leadership, Signup: http://bit.ly/2Wv02me, http://bit.ly/34mkjhe, (Forbes-AI, Behind the Code)

Mind Cafe

Mind Cafe

Relaxed, inspiring essays about happiness.

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