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THE NUANCE
How to Counter Modern Life’s Assault on Your Prefrontal Cortex
A Yale psychiatrist explains the remedies for “frontal fatigue.”
Your brain doesn’t much resemble an onion, but it does have layers.
The innermost layers and structures (sometimes called the “lizard brain”) are thought to have evolved first. These parts play a strong role in appetite, fear, fight-or-flight responses, and the other brain functions we share with all vertebrates.
‘If you have any vulnerability to mental disorder, heaping stress on the prefrontal cortex is going to draw it out.’
The outer layers of the brain — the ones that evolved more recently — deal with complex, intellectual, and distinctly human forms of cognition. These outer layers also seems to be where most mental illnesses arise.
The prefrontal cortex is part of the outermost layer of the brain. It’s heavily involved in mental self-observation (thinking about thinking), selective attention, and the creation and manipulation of mental representations.
Put another way, how you see yourself and everything in your world — the mental models that form your unique version of…
