Susan Britton explains how uncertainty overloads your prefrontal cortex and breaks three key functions: working memory becomes a sieve, focus splinters into distraction or tunnel vision, and your ability to shift thinking freezes. Together they tank your decisions when you need them most.
What's happening with the economy? Maybe if I read this extra news headline, I'm going to be able to figure out and get a piece of data that's going to fix this. So we've got this cognitive load just going heavier and heavier and heavier. We've added pounds and pounds and pounds of data, so to speak. And at the same time, the research shows that we also lose 3 really important pieces of our prefrontal cortex, uh, 3 functions, rather, and that is we lose working memory. So here we are trying to pick up more pieces of information so that we can solve something, but at the same time, the brain can't hold as much information. So it's like a sieve or Swiss cheese is happening there. The other thing that happens with this cognitive load is that we lose our ability to focus on critical tasks. We start getting distracted, a little ADHD in nature, we pick up more information, we focus or hyperfocus or get tunnel vision about one piece of the puzzle and don't see the big picture as much. So that gets compromised, our ability to see the strategic critical pieces. And then the third thing that gets compromised is our flexible thinking. So if ever we needed to have some flexible thinking during uncertainty, it's— this is the time. And yet that is a very much compromised function within the brain when we're in that uncertain state.
Susan’s ICF Educator Award | The Heart Behind the Impact Katy Montgomery, PCC
