“We added a question about pandemic anxiety because at that time it was all over the news,” says Laine. “We asked people to report their anxiety levels on a scale from zero to ten, with ten being ‘rippling constant worry that interferes with daily activity’. The mean value, which I think is pretty high, was about 5.6.”
In addition, Laine says those figures showed a clear correlation between that pandemic-related anxiety and decreased working memory performance, though there may be several different mechanisms for how anxiety, pandemic-related or otherwise, interrupts cognitive function. “There’s an idea that it somehow eats up your capacity,” he says. “When you’re anxious, your head is full of those thoughts, and your brain is somehow biased and paying more attention to negative things.”
Sustained anxiety can also cause insomnia, explains Oliver Robinson of the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London. “Lack of sleep is a really good way of impairing working memory,” he says. “If you’re not sleeping as well, that’s a great way to wreck it.”
Even if you’re not explicitly aware of being more on edge, “it’s something you’re processing,” adds Robinson. Working memory problems might also be due in part to a cognitive load that’s overwhelming your brain’s capacity.
Robinson explains that even simple cognitive processes like making a shopping list now require more brainpower. “Now, rather than thinking, ‘I’ll just run to the store’, you’re thinking about what you need, what stores are open and whether it’ll be safe to go there. Let’s say your brain can do four tasks at once. Now all of a sudden there are 10, and you can’t do any of them.”
