AM I LOSING IT?
MOMMY BRAIN EXPLAINED
I got an exciting call last week, the kind of call one dreams of during their career. The kind of project that could open many doors, challenge AND inspire me. Safe to say, I was thrilled. So the next step was to write a proposal, which at this point in my career comes as second nature. Only that I couldn’t focus if my life depended on it. I kept looking for every excuse in the book to do pretty much ANYTHING else. Somehow reorganizing my baby’s closet, taking the dog for a walk, choosing the pics for my next Instagram dump and even cleaning the dishes became a priority. (and trust me, when cleaning becomes a priority for me - IT’S BAD)
Until I finally grabbed a cold brew, turned classical music on, and sat down in front of my blank computer screen, only to have a full-blown breakdown.
It was just simply bigger than me, I had hit peak level of frustration. Why was something that had been so easy all of a sudden so difficult for me? Was I getting dumber? Was it all downhill from here? Ever since my 3rd trimester of pregnancy, I have felt that my brain simply didn’t work the same way anymore. Writing a simple email, let alone a proposal or a newsletter takes me 10X as long as it used to. It’s as if I had mental lakes of nothingness in my brain and I was stretching myself trying to reach for simple words that otherwise are part of my daily vocabulary. *true story* As I am writing this newsletter, my husband came in asking where the baby wipes were, and all I could do was make hand signals of door sliding because I couldn’t remember the word closet.
I had heard about “mommy brain”, before but I couldn’t help but wonder: Is “mommy brain” really a “thing” or if I am simply losing it and having some sort of early dementia?
Here are some things I learned:
It is 100% “ a thing” - Studies have shown that pregnancy results in a loss of gray matter in mothers’ brain areas involved in social cognition(aka Verbal Reca)
Most of these changes last for about 2 years.
There is a plasticity of learning of the brain, which shifts the attention where needed. A similar shift happens during adolescence - another peak of hormonal changes - gray matter decreases in several brain regions that are believed to provide fine-tuning for the social, emotional, and cognitive territory of being a teenager.
“Gray matter volume loss does not necessarily represent a bad thing”, Elseline Hoekzema, a researcher at Leiden University in the Netherlands, said. “It can also represent a beneficial process of maturation or specialization.”
A study in 2016 found that mothers who showed the biggest drops in gray-matter volume also scored on a measure of emotional attachment to their babies.
The changes in the brain are a way of coping with the future. During pregnancy hormone surges might cause a helpful shift in the brain that highlights areas to be more efficient in mother skills (nurturing/teaching/extra attentiveness)
In a study published in 2019, Dr. Galea, along with researchers Paula Duarte-Guterman and Benedetta Leuner, discovered that female rodents got better at completing mazes after they weaned their pups, which suggests that, with time, mothers’ brains improve. “This is one of the major messages: Our brains actually get better”, Dr. Galea said.
The truth is that there is an invisible metamorphosis that happens inside of us the moment we get pregnant. An evolution of sorts, a change so far-reaching that overflows into every single part of our lives - including our brains.
If you, like me, are in the thick of it - here are 5 ways to manage it:
TO DO lists will become your best friend.
FOCUS ON ONE THING AT A TIME - My friend Janell said it best “I think being a mom definitely feels like I always have 35 tabs open.” So focus on one task at a time and make sure you finish it before you can move to the next one. (Easier said than done, I know - trust me)
PLAN AHEAD - This one is particularly hard for me, as I think of myself as a creative go-with-the-flow type of person. But the reality is that planning ahead works, it gives us time to anticipate and prepare for the unexpected.
BUILD ROUTINES - routines build structure, which that can help us feel more centered and able to handle daily tasks (zen emoji inserted here). *I got super inspired by Nadia’s morning routine and have been making an effort to create my own this week - wish me luck.
MEDITATION- think of it as a workout for your brain. And just like going to the gym, the first couple of weeks it painful but once you get into it and start seeing results there’s no going back.
So that’s a wrap for today. I completed a task. A round of applause please!!!
Besos,
Victoria
Ps: Im ESL so please excuse any grammar errors.