When you are busy, it often comes with a slew of negative associations.
Too busy to finish your work. Too busy to plan for tomorrow. Too busy to stay on top of your tasks. Too busy to get ahead.
It’s tough being busy. But according to a recent study published in Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, being busy isn’t all bad. Busyness – or rather, a healthy busyness – can improve cognition and encourage your brain to form new neural connections.
Healthy Busyness
According to Dr. Christina Hibbert, a clinical psychologist, a healthy busy lifestyle means performing activities that inspire, uplift and challenge your body and mind. According to this study, that’s the busyness you want in your life.
“We show that people who report greater levels of daily busyness tend to have better cognition, especially with regard to memory for recently learned information,” said Sara Festini, a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Vital Longevity of the University of Texas at Dallas and lead author of the study.
The Study
Festini and team surveyed 330 participants in the Dallas Lifespan Brain Study. They wanted to see if busyness was beneficial or detrimental to cognition in healthy adults between the ages of 50 and 89.
“We were surprised at how little research there was on busyness, given that being too busy seems to be a fact of modern life for so many,” said Denise Park, University Distinguished Chair at the Center for Vital Longevity, Director of the Dallas Lifespan Brain Study.
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These participants – brought in via advertisements and community notices – were interviewed about their daily schedules and day-to-day busyness.
Participant busyness was measured via the Mark and Park Environmental Demands (MPED) Questionnaire. The questionnaire offers two scale scores—Busyness and Routines. These categories asked individuals to think about how often they are overwhelmed by tasks, or how frequently they wish they had more time in the day, and rate their feelings on a five-point Likert scale. Their responses were then catalogued and measured to find out whether their busyness was healthy.
The Results
The results were straightforward.
Regardless of age, education, or background, a busy lifestyle is associated with the processing speed of your brain, the effectiveness of your memory, your ability to reason, and the scope of your vocabulary.
The participants who had the healthiest busyness also demonstrated exceptional episodic memories, which allowed them to recall specific events they’d observed or been a part of.
“Living a busy lifestyle appears beneficial for mental function,” said Festini.
But why?
Festini and company aren’t totally sure. They are not ready to say that being busy can directly improve your cognition. It could be that people with better cognitive functions tend to build busier lifestyles for themselves. Or maybe busy people have more opportunities to learn and absorb information, which strengthens those cognitive abilities.
Whatever the cause, the study has shown some relationship between doing things that inspire you, and your ability to approach the world cognitively. So take some time out of your busy schedule to stay busy.
Healthy busy.
