Paying attention to more than one task at a time is called multitasking. In modern era, multitasking has become a major part in our day to day activities.
Few examples are:
- Listening to lecture/meeting and noting down the points.
- Crossing the road and listening to music
- Eating and watching mobile/TV
- Messaging and working on some important task.
- Cooking and watching TV/ talking on mobile/attending a lecture/reciting hymns.
- Engaging kids in play and talking on mobile.
The list goes on and on. If we observe, most of our day goes into multitasking and at present, the more we multitask, the more we are considered an active person and projected as a very busy and resourceful person to society. Of course, this pattern is developed and encouraged as everyone one of us are assigned many tasks and roles to fulfill in the modern society.
So, is this fancy multitasking a boon to us or is it taxing our brains?
Let's first see what happens in our brain, when we multitask:
To do any task/activity, our brain requires attention/focus on the task, as first step. when we do two or more tasks at same time, our focus or attention gets divided and starts shifting from one task to another.
If enough focus / attention is not paid, our brain cannot process fully the activity/task and it becomes difficult for the next step of understanding and perceiving the activity/task fully and memorizing it.
For example, if am cooking and talking on mobile, my attention jumps from cooking to conversing in a rapid manner. so my whole energy is used for this shifting the attention, rather than going to next level of processing., that is understanding how am cooking or what am talking. then i make errors/mistakes and my efficiency on the given tasks decreases. Lot of research is supporting that the efficiency or performance is affected due to multitasking.
Why are we doing multitasking? and why our brain is not stopping it?
Many reasons can be listed out for why we all do multitasking. A few are:
1. Its the need of the hour. we have so many roles and responsibilities, that we need to multitask to complete the given targets or goals of our lives.
2. When we multitask , our brain takes it as a challenge or an emergency. so it starts to become more alert and we feel energized temporarily. and when sometimes we succeed in multitasking and in completing the tasks, our brain takes it as a success, as if we handled an emergency. This cycle repeats and it becomes a habit for the brain to multitask,- to the level of addiction, as succeeding gives a kick to the brain.
What are effects of multitasking?
- Performance on tasks is effected.
- Once multitasking becomes a habit, we cannot do single task at a time. It becomes compulsion for our brain to do more than one task at a time. we feel as inferior if we slow down. and also feelings of restlessness, negative feelings and emotional imbalance is seen.
- Prolonged multitasking depletes our energy by continuous attention shifting and causes burnout symptoms, stress and anxiety. This further leads to low immunity of body and mind.
- Lifestyle changes like hypertension, diabetes, obesity etc are triggered.
What to do to come out of the cycle of multitasking?
- List out the unnecessary multitasking tasks and minimize them.
- Follow strict routine of waking up and sleeping and other biological needs.
- Keep specific time for checking mobiles, social network sites, watching TV. Mute the notifications.
- Organize your day by dividing repetitive tasks, compulsory tasks and non-compulsory tasks of the day.
- Start practicing mindfulness in all activities of the day.
- Nurture the social and emotional needs by spending time with family and friends.
- Take a few minutes "rest" between tasks, by taking deep long relaxing breaths.
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