Dr. Aditi Nerurkar

There's no such thing.

When we are multitasking, what we are actually doing is task switching, doing two separate tasks in rapid succession.

Aditi says that's amazing.

taxing on the brain.

Multitasking, or rather task switching, weakens our prefrontal cortex, weakens our cognition, our memory, our attention, and ironically, our ability to be productive.

Essentially, it means doing one task for, you know, you start at five or 10 minutes and then you take a short break and then you do another task for five, 10, 20 minutes and take a short break and then do the next task.

Whether it means getting up and stretching, taking a walk, going outside, doing something where you are intentionally creating a little bit of spaciousness in your brain can have an impact not just on feeling good, but actually changing the biology of your stress in your brain and your body.

In fact, when you take a break, you are...

Enhancing your productivity.

So when there is a negative experience, it becomes sticky in your brain like Velcro.

The same amount of good and bad may be happening to you at the same time.

But when you're feeling the sense of stress, you hold on to those negative experiences and there's a heightened sense of negativity.

She says when you're stressed, the brain uses a part of it called the amygdala.

Your amygdala is focused on survival and self-preservation.

And your inner critic has a megaphone during periods of stress because, ironically, it's trying to keep you safe and out of harm's way.

And so when you are trying something new or when you're learning something new, that inner critic is holding that megaphone and shouting from the rooftops, you're not good enough, you're going to fail, you'll never get there.

One of those things could be, I have a roof over my head.

I have food in my fridge and my pantry.

It shifts your focus to focusing on those good things.

And that in turn will change your brain.