I keep hearing some version of the same worry. I can’t remember things. I’ve got brain fog all the time. Is this early dementia? Is it Alzheimer’s? Perimenopause? Am I just tired? Why doesn’t my brain work the way it used to?
Here’s a different possibility. It’s not that your brain is failing you. It’s that the world around you is placing more demands on your brain than at any time before in human history.
Greater Expectations
Evolution moves in thousands of years. The pace of change we’re living through moves year to year and even day to day. We are managing more information, more relationships, and more complexity than any generation before us, and we’re doing it with the same brain our parents used to pay attention to three TV channels and one set of coworkers they saw every day.
Thirty years ago, one newspaper a day made you well informed. I wake up every day to a dozen newsletters covering the world, the country, higher education, and the edges of leadership and technology. That’s a lot to take in before breakfast.
My parents got four or five pieces of real mail a day. I get mostly spam in the snail mail now, but hundreds of emails each day from actual people I need to read, respond to, and keep track of. And most of you probably get way more than I do.
Thirty years ago, you kept up with family, coworkers, and a dozen or so friends you saw or called regularly. Today I’m tracking birthdays, job changes, kids’ milestones, and cabin trips for hundreds of people on social media. I’m current on friends from forty years ago I haven’t seen in decades, and on colleagues I met once at a conference and haven’t spoken to since. Staying “in touch” now means something categorically different than it used to.
And then there’s information itself. Google search once felt like an overwhelming amount of access. Now AI makes an overwhelming Google search result look like child’s play and is sometimes even right.
Grace
None of this means your brain is broken. It means you’re carrying a load your brain didn’t evolve to carry, and you’re managing more of it than you probably give yourself credit for. You are likely doing better than you think, even if you can’t recall what’s-her-name you had breakfast with last week.
So, give your brain some grace. Maybe it’s not malfunctioning. It’s just full.
Strategies
Here are a few things worth considering: Offload what isn’t essential into a place you can find it later. This is called cognitive offloading and has upsides and downsides. Trim your inputs down to what matters for your work and your life. Maybe that means unsubscribing from a newsletter or two. Spend a little less time scrolling. Have one real conversation with one real person, or as the kids say, go touch grass.
