Five Brain-Draining Habits You Might Be Practicing Without Even Knowing

The continual flood of information that we expose ourselves to due to constant connectivity is – sadly – not making us any wiser. Contrarily, it's leading to a form of cognitive overload that impairs our ability to focus and fully comprehend information. This issue is often exacerbated by the multitasking that we typically do when using digital devices.

Studies have indeed found that the constant distraction of app notifications and incoming messages dilutes our attention span thinner than we realize. While we believe we're being more productive, we're actually training our brains to be more fragmented, adversely affecting focus and memory retention.

Ironically, our coping mechanism is often to attempt to consume even more information – a vicious cycle that worsens the problem. Ultimately, this form of digital overload compromises the quality of our thought processes, making it harder for our brains to filter and integrate information effectively.

Lack of Adequate Sleep

Lack of sufficient, quality sleep is one of the insidious brain-draining habits. Sleep deprivation or irregular sleep patterns can significantly impair cognitive functions and result in decreased attention span, worsened memory, and slowed reaction times.

Our brains work on restorative processes during sleep – developing neural pathways that facilitate learning and memory. By neglecting the recommended seven to eight hours of sleep per day, we compromise these crucial processes.

Major research indicates that chronic insufficient sleep can even correlate to lower grey-matter volume your brain’s frontal lobe, which is responsible for decision-making and problem-solving abilities.