For over 100 years, we have known that as soon as we become stressed or experience any kind of trauma, our cognition becomes impaired.  It has already been evidenced that the stress arising from the pandemic itself has activated neurological changes in the brain. Indeed, the novel and shocking ingredients of the pandemic with its anxiety, uncertainty, isolation and loneliness has been found to alter our brain chemistry and impact mood disorders.

From the start of the first lockdown, we were being faced with microdoses of unpredictable stresses all the time, whether this was more globally with the flight of this pandemic into our own lives, the Government’s varying and confusing sets of rules, the impact it was having on family members, whether this was with loved ones we could not visit or who were sick, and financial worries.  A state of such uncertainty has been shown to change the parts of the brain that affect and control executive function, learning and memory.  We know that repeated stress is a major trigger for persistent inflammation in the body, including the brain.  We are also aware that stress affects levels of both serotonin and cortisol which will often generate symptoms of both depression and anxiety. Though this might make uncomfortable reading, we can be reassured by the plasticity of our brain, which essentially means it is adaptable and that such damage can be reversed.

As this pandemic has continued unrelentingly, I have already started noticing my own cognitive faculties compromised.  I found myself forgetting things in a way that a few months previously I would never have imagined for a man who had only just hit 50. Surely, this was too soon for early onset dementia?  Increasingly I would grasp at words, lose my train of thought in the middle of a sentence, or the classic walking into a room without remembering what I had entered it for. Then, I talked to family, friends and colleagues, and was comforted to know that many of them had also experienced some of this fog and the mental lapses that came with it.  We’ve been hypervigilant and overwhelmed over the last year and this level of stress can often result in a “cognitive dulling”.  It can also be thought about as a mental fatigue where concentration is harder, productivity declines and we just feel less robust emotionally. None of this is terribly surprising given that we have been in “survival mode” for much of the last year with routines abandoned, sacrifices thrust upon us, fears for ourselves and our loved ones, and a deep uncertainty about the future.

I began to contemplate earnestly about what might be happening to people’s lives. So much about our daily routine had drastically altered which, during the week, was often punctuated by alarms synchronised, morning rituals tightly configured, school runs and travelling to work. The rhythm of our day had also been interposed with natural pauses and transitions. So much of that had been completely stripped down or even removed as our lives took on rather different forms. Personally, I’ve had to shift all my teaching and therapy online, adapt my research studies, find new ways of getting daily exercise, creating spaces for myself and others. Many of my friends cannot imagine going back to the routine that was the familiar framework that we never questioned. For large periods over the last year, our worlds had contracted within the confines of our homes.  We were barely socialising and were not exposing ourselves to the stimuli that came from going to shops, restaurants, public transport, gyms and so much more.  The pandemic may have been allowing us to learn new habits whilst some of these older ones were becoming obsolete. We were of course learning how to manage Covid through sanitisation, social distancing, mask wearing, adhering to extensive rules and communicating virtually. These have now become ingrained.

The cycle of forgetting and learning is nothing that new and is very much part of our natural adaptation, and evidences our own resilience. We have had to adjust to this pandemic in numerous ways.  Our monochrome lives have had a simplicity and comfort but with that has come more inactivity, stress and even boredom, even when most of us have been busier than ever.   Perhaps, it is this concoction that has contributed towards this cognitive and mental dulling.

With this mental fatigue, I’ve definitely felt a sense of “heaviness” which often felt like I was wading through treacle. Coupled with this psychological malaise was the restricted movement and by that I don’t just mean the aerobic exercise fixes that many of us try to incorporate into our lives. It is the micro-movements as we shift through the different phases of our day such as popping out to get a sandwich during the day. This was missing and often what people I spoke with referenced as an almost surprising loss.

Then there was boredom. It wasn’t just children who lamented the tedium and plainness of their lives, it was adults too. Prolonged boredom is stressful and our brain is more responsive when we have a more enriched and stimulating lived experience. We were collectively deprived of these moments, the walk to the tube station, the fleeting exchange with the barista when ordering our latte, the observations of our environment and the interactions at work. Our dopamine levels have been down given how our work, social and family lives were threadbare in content and variety.

I have a job that allows me to work from home, am in decent health, with privileges and support around me that not everyone is lucky enough to have. I have not had a bad pandemic like many, yet I am still fatigued and deflated operating my work and leisure worlds from a small screen in my living room.  We are working hard but not at our highest capacity.

We’re all wondering how we will be when normality starts to resume.  We might be excited by being at a dinner party, a bar, a theatre, an airport on route to a holiday destination, but we might take a little time to smoothly transition into those activities that were once so commonplace they operated outside our consciousness. The pandemic’s devastating effect on these normalities mean it might take a while before our plastic brain eases back into them.

There are positive activities and approaches that we can take to combat much of what this article talks about. These include self-care which perhaps more simply is about creating a designated space to do something we enjoy (e.g. taking a bath, playing with your children, a walk, reading).  At another level, this will also include mindfulness, which is essentially about training ourselves to stay in the present, which has been shown to be helpful in combating stress.

We need to ensure that some sort of routine or structure continues whether that is with good sleep hygiene, being exposed to the outdoors, eating regularly and healthily, and exercising.

We might also want to slow down and check in with ourselves. I always tell my clients that they should imagine being their own life coach.  In this way, we can be kind to ourselves, understand our limits and assert ourselves when a particular choice does not appear to be right for us. We can all be guilty of being self-sacrificial to our detriment.

As the cliché goes, we might also want to take step at a time and even if we’re juggling multiple stresses, focusing on one area is a more successful way to control our stress and feel more empowered.

If we are unduly stressed and overwhelmed, we might want to redress our expectations and take the pressure off, meaning that we allow ourselves to be less productive, to have less energy, to allow certain matters to be relegated.

And finally, it is perhaps the isolation that we as social beings have had to contend with most. We will manage our cognitive and mental wellbeing through talking and of course through seeking help whether this is through a family member, friend or a professional.  It is through these activities that we will then promote our own cognitive resilience and mental health.  The fog will lift but this will happen more quickly if we actively engage with some of these strategies.