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Thoughts race through your mind, you’re swept away by a never-ending stream of thoughts, and overthinking ends up giving you a headache. According to a study, this mental overactivity is actually painful and a source of discomfort.
A study published by the American Psychological Association in the journal Psychological Bulletin reveals that mental effort can be detrimental to mental health, particularly at work. Contrary to the conventional wisdom that intellectual stimulation is always beneficial, this study demonstrates that thinking too much can lead to feelings of stress, frustration and irritation, thereby affecting mental well-being.
The researchers analyzed data from 170 studies conducted between 2019 and 2020, including 4,670 participants. The goal was to examine the impact of mental effort on the sensations experienced by individuals. The results show that mental effort is often perceived as unpleasant, contradicting the idea that people naturally enjoy intellectual challenges.
“Managers often encourage their employees, and teachers their students, to engage in mental effort. At first glance, this seems to work well: employees and students often opt for mentally stimulating activities.“, explains the study’s lead author, Erik Bijleveld, a doctoral student at Radboud University in the Netherlands, in a press release. “One might be tempted to conclude that employees and students tend to enjoy intense thinking. Our results suggest that this conclusion is wrong: in general, people really don’t like mental effort.”, he adds.
The study participants came from a variety of backgrounds, including healthcare workers, military personnel, recreational athletes and students, from 29 countries. They were given 358 different cognitive tasks, ranging from learning new technologies to playing virtual reality games. Regardless of the task, the mental effort consistently produced unpleasant sensations.
“Our results show that mental effort is unpleasant for a wide range of populations and tasks. It is important for professionals, such as engineers and educators, to keep this in mind when designing tasks, tools, interfaces, applications, hardware, or instructions. When people are required to exert significant mental effort, care should be taken to support or reward them for their efforts.“, explains the author of the study.
The study also indicates that the impact of intellectual activity varies by region. Asian populations appear to be less affected than those in Europe or North America, due to increased exposure to intellectual challenges from a young age, which makes them more resilient.
The key to mitigating the negative effects of mental effort lies in individuals’ willingness to voluntarily engage in demanding tasks, especially if they are associated with rewards.
“Yet when people choose to engage in activities that require mental effort, this should not be taken as an indication that they enjoy mental effort per se. It may be that people choose mentally demanding activities in spite of the effort, not because of the effort.”, concludes Erik Bijleveld.
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