“It is very important to mentally label tasks”

The first day of vacation arrives, the laptop is closed and work-related cell phone notifications are silenced. But the head is still going a mile an hour without being able to take focus off of workmentally reviewing emails that have not been sent and feeling a need to find out what is happening at work. All this leads to an inability to relax on vacation, and the explanation for this is not a lack of will, but a neurological block.

Because? Science has a name for what’s happening to you: information overload syndrome. And what happens in your brain before you go on vacation is the result of a neural system that has been pushed to its limits by the “infoxication“.

To understand why we cannot turn off the brain at will, we must look at our metabolic energy consumption, since as detailed in a exhaustive literature review published, attention is a limited cognitive function that requires a constant flow of energy in the brain.

What happens. When we are exposed to a volume of information that exceeds our processing capacity, our brain enters a phase of overactivation. Under conditions of moderate overload, the prefrontal cortex, which is the area responsible for complex decision-making and planning, becomes hyperactive to try to manage the chaos. However, if digital multitasking and the deluge of data continue, a phenomenon known as ‘neural overload’ occurs.

The result. The prefrontal cortex is deactivated as a protective mechanism, and what causes constant digital multitasking causes an accumulation of glutamate in this frontal region, which physically translates into that heavy “cognitive fatigue” that we drag to the beach.

But the impact does not stop at simple fatigue. Neurobiological studies have documented that this overexposure alters dopamine pathways in a way similar to that of addictive substances, reducing gray matter in areas of impulsive control and disconnecting regions of the Default Neural Network, which is precisely the brain network that allows us to daydream, wander and, ultimately, rest.

The digital epidemic. Although we are now talking about social networks and artificial intelligence, the problem has been brewing for decades. Already in 1996, psychologist David Lewis proposed the term “information fatigue syndrome” in a study for Reuters, and shortly after, in 1999the specialist Alfons Cornellá coined the term infoxication to describe the information contamination to which we were beginning to be subjected.

Today the different sources paint a much harsher picture, since in 2024 a study demonstrated that information overload directly leads to fatigue, culminating in emotional stress and anxiety. Added to this is a 2025 meta-analysis that warns of how current digital environments saturate our working memory, diminishing our understanding and leading us to burnout.

before vacation It is when this whole neurological cocktail that we have been building explodes. Here the expert Elena Gallardo, neuroscientist, he pointed out in statements to EFE which defines this state as “mental noise.”

And the fact is that, before a period of rest, the brain perceives that it must leave everything tied up and closed, which generates a peak of cognitive demand in a system that is already saturated by the year’s chronic infoxication.

You have to stop. If the origin is biological and behavioral, the solution must be too. To avoid carrying “mental noise” in our suitcase, neuroscience experts propose applying what they call cognitive ergonomics, which is nothing more than strategies designed to optimize and protect our mental effort.

Among the tips that this expert offers is the possibility of labeling and verbalizing tasks to prevent pending tasks from “floating” in our brain. In this way we free up the prefrontal cortex so that, when it comes to vacation, it is not so exhausted and can better process the entire avalanche of data.

Images | Image from freepik

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