Should you keep pushing yourself when your mind is telling you to slow down? Scientists believe they’ve found what’s happening in your brain after a hard day of thinking <Link>. What is happening, writes Jason Feifer, is not pretty.
It’s not an energy problem. It’s a brain problem. They are not computers that work forever . . . our minds need a rest.”
When our brains are worn out junk in the form of a common amino acid, glutamate, collects in the synapses of the brains’ prefrontal cortexes. Researchers believe glutamate is eliminated from synapses during sleep.
Source: Build for Tomorrow, August 21, 2022. Link. The information source Feifer uses is from research published in Current Biology.
- Hard cognitive work leads to glutamate accumulation in the lateral prefrontal cortex
- The need for glutamate regulation reduces the control exerted over decision-making
- Reduced control favors the choice of low-effort actions with short-term rewards
INSIGHTS: To do our best work, we cannot just work hard. We must work fresh.