Does your brain feel tired?

The pandemic made simple things complicated. What was once a quick errand now took a face mask, hand sanitizer, time in line if the store was at capacity. On top of that, you couldn’t count on toilet paper or cat food or flour being on the shelves.

This was more than an inconvenience. Having more to think about affects how your brain works and it’s not good.

The overburdened brain struggles with executive function – which includes the ability to reason, apply logic and consider long-term effects. We make decisions that are short-sighted. We do things that in other times we would consider rude or stupid. For example, getting everyone’s COVID test results before Thanksgiving dinner distracted you from your daughter-in-law’s birthday, which you always celebrate on Black Friday. You save the day by finding a dessert in the freezer and candles, and then remember she hates cheesecake.

When a brain has too much to handle, it narrows its focus to the most immediate things. Anything that is not urgent gets pushed aside. It’s like you have only so much “space” and it’s become crowded with things that required no thought in the past. Parents used to be able to predict when school would be open; workers knew where to go and what to do for their next paycheck; stores always had enough toilet paper. These all became effortful tasks, rather than run-of-the-mill Tuesdays.

If someone had tested us before the pandemic and now two years into it, we would be aghast to see we lost IQ points. We haven’t lost intelligence. A burdened brain simply cannot use its resources efficiently.

The good news is that when the mental crowding eases, our IQ will restore itself. Many people are feeling relief as pandemic instability fades. Even if things are not entirely “normal,” the new norm has become a norm and requires less mental effort. You have a face mask stashed in your car at all times; you have set up the kitchen table for your work, and your kids go to school at least some of the time.

Not everyone is getting a break as the pandemic becomes less mentally demanding. People in poverty were already coping with mental overload; the pandemic just increased it. Living in poverty means there are perpetually too many things to think about and very few things that are stable. For example, the food and retail sectors were hard hit by the pandemic. A Harvard study of 30,000 workers in these sectors (before the pandemic) found that two-thirds get less than two weeks’ notice of their schedules; and 70 percent had a last-minute work schedule change within the past month. The pandemic’s impact on work just intensified an already precarious situation.

Similarly, the pandemic affected child care for all income levels, but low-income families were already coping with variable child care. Low-income workers who have variable schedules also tend to have several different child care arrangements – from child care centers to grandparents to children staying alone. Having child care as a wild card was not new; it was just made worse in the pandemic.

People are not in poverty because of poor decisions. Poverty itself shapes decisions, making it more difficult to focus on broader consequences. Our brains would respond in the same way. If we think we could do “better,” we can remember how hard it was to keep track of a face mask, hand sanitizer, school schedule, work, toilet paper and our daughter-in-law’s birthday all at the same time.