2022-01-10 14:30:43
The Perils of Multi-tasking
Because there is a ‘central hub’ in the brain, called the hippocampus, that organizes and regulates all the super-highways of ‘neural traffic’ coming in from multiple brain areas.
When you are working on (one) task, the hippocampus protects your thinking by stopping all the ‘other traffic’, and only letting the important signals get through that let you pay attention, organize, problem-solve, and remember your task. This whole process of doing ‘one thing’ while the rest of the traffic waits at the ‘red lights’ is called Working Memory (WM).
Like any traffic pattern, WM has ‘limited capacity;’ it can only allow so much traffic through at one time. This is very necessary and efficient because it lets the key brain areas you need to ‘speed into’ the hippocampus ‘hub’ and help you with your specific thought[ task/ idea] problem.
If neural traffic is not controlled, then your thinking and problem-solving on ‘one thing’ gets interrupted, distracted and bogged down.
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