What is it about being human? No sooner is a vaccine announced – heralding a hopeful future – than our suspicions are fuelled by avid anti-vaxxers warning of possible side effects and conspiracies.
One thing we can be sure about: we are an unpredictable lot.
COVID-19 has given us much to think about and plenty to discover about ourselves. Dropped forcibly into a world where anyone potentially poses a threat to our life, we have all had to adjust to a new way of living.
None of us are certain of either what the world will be like when we all re-enter it, or what state we will be in when we do.
We know that the human brain finds uncertainty difficult. Being social creatures, we also struggle with isolation and any restriction to our personal freedom.
But change is not just around us; change is also being wrought within us. What will this mean when we have to face each other properly again?
The human brain is infinitely malleable. This capability, known as neuroplasticity, is a relatively recent discovery arising from intimate research into our neural workings and structural set-up.
It doesn’t take much for the brain to adjust to the external world. We only have to blindfold the eyes for an hour for the brain’s visual-processing occipital lobe to rewire itself in order to handle information from other senses such as sound and touch, instead of sight.
Heightened uncertainty, growing insecurity, limited touch, social separation, a sedentary lifestyle and digital reliance therefore come at a cost to our mental and physical health.
Studies abound with findings, with one report from Queen’s University, Belfast, citing loneliness increasing as satisfaction with digital contact wanes.
Doing right for ourselves is not always the same as doing the right thing
The more certain the environment, the easier it is for the brain to make fast predictions and rapid adjustments. When certainty is threatened, so too is our ability to respond appropriately.
We treat the unknown in much the same way as we would address a real and present threat to our life: we fight or run. If our body cannot play an active role in saving us from danger (the reason for our stress response), the same chemicals that are released to protect us then have no outlet and instead start to poison us.
Uncertainty does not generally merit the full fight-or-flight activation that happens, compromising our biological immune system and putting us more at risk of illness.
On a behavioural level we have another immune system, built on routines we have developed over time to safeguard us from danger.
We are now used to wearing seat belts, not smoking indoors and more recently wearing masks. We are protective of members of our in-group whose behaviours we accept and even validate, rightly or wrongly, because they form part of our herd.
And so our behavioural immune system has a darker side to it.
While it is natural for a brain thrust into survival mode to turn to the people who can provide the highest level of psychological safety, these people also allow much of what we do to go unchecked and unchallenged.
But doing right for ourselves is not always the same as doing the right thing.
The digital day needs careful thought and design, with regular breaks and reboots for the brain
As our surroundings have shrunk with home working and social distancing, our focus on ourselves and our immediate circle has narrowed and intensified, tuning out the broader social context.
A large-scale study in France has referred to this as the ‘funnelling effect’, whereby a few relationships have strengthened as others have collapsed. The net result of this myopia is an ethical erosion negatively impacting decision-making, communication, trust and transparency.
As early as April 2020, Experian was reporting a rise in fraud rates by 33% compared with previous monthly averages.
The National Audit Office in the UK has recently warned of £26bn from fraud linked to the business Bounce Back Loan, offered as an emergency measure to British businesses affected by the pandemic.
Having a common enemy is normally the glue that unites people and is most observable in a ‘war spirit’. But there is one notable difference in this crisis, namely that our physical distance has created a social widening of worrying proportions.
Scientists are even predicting that our ability to connect and empathise with each other may have degraded when we eventually have to face each other again.
Already we are seeing what lack of schooling is doing to children in the UK, with many of kindergarten age regressing in their ability to eat and even be toilet-trained.
Fast-forward to the younger working generations who are being denied an office structure with its social contracts and collaborations, and the problems become even more complex.
Our most persistent problem is that the virtual world is placing demands on a part of the brain (the frontal lobe) that we rely on to pay attention. But this is also one of our most energy-consuming neural regions.
In other words, we try to sustain focus with the very same part of the brain that we are simultaneously depleting of its ability to do just that! It is not surprising that the digital world’s appeal is wearing thin.
1. Keep the brain’s ‘touch network’ alive
If we wish to engage properly with people now and in the future, we must make an effort to keep our connections alive when we can.
This means strengthening the bonds we have around us, hugging or cuddling those we can and even looking at pictures of loving embraces – all of which will help remind us of how important touch is.
We have neurons that mirror activity – and so we just need to see someone doing something for the brain to register as if it were actually doing the same thing itself.
2. Free up the frontal lobe
We cannot replace previous office life with a virtual equivalent at home. The digital day needs careful thought and design, with regular breaks and reboots for the brain.
Relentless, back-to-back virtual meetings are unproductive and exhausting. Moving away from the screen at intervals to do something manual or physical helps the body feel in control and calms the mind.
3. Leave the right trace
Our genes interact with the environment into which they are deposited – an area of science known as epigenetics – which means that we not only pass on our genes, but also the way in which these genes are expressed in their surroundings.
So, what we do and even how we feel are potentially heritable for future generations. We all leave a trace in ways we may not realise. Fear and anxiety can be passed on in much the same way as eye colour. But equally we can leave a legacy of grit, determination and altruism.
We may not be able to change most of what is happening around us, but we can choose to change how we respond to it.
However unpredictable we are, we do know that emotions tend to linger long after the act has passed. And we will certainly remember how we were treated by others at this time.
Dr Helena Boschi is a psychologist who focuses on applied neuroscience in the workplace. She is the author of Why We Do What We Do: Understanding Our Brain to Get the Best Out of Ourselves and Others (Wiley, 2020)