How Cognitive Real Estate relates to Stress, Depression & PTSD

A few years ago, I was talking to a financial counsellor and they introduced me to the idea of cognitive real estate. They were talking about clients they had who were living on the breadline, and experiencing financial instability — and the fact that it was actually really hard to concentrate on anything else when they had such pressing financial needs.

The energy and attention in their brain was constantly working on this big, pressing problem — which might result in homelessness and even further instability — and this blocked out the other things in their lives.

These individuals were impulsive (eg. drinking, gambling), irritable (eg. getting angry, annoyed easily), and disorganised (eg. forgetting appointments, missing deadlines, ect). Perhaps these were stable personality traits in some of them, but the counsellor described seeing major changes when these individuals had sorted out their financial issues.

Suddenly, there was much more mental space to focus on getting things in order — to pay attention to things like what their house looked like, whether they were looking after themselves, and actually being empathic and caring about what others think.

This idea has stayed with me, as it explains a lot about how we all function in times of deprivation, instability and crisis — and how surprising it is that we expect ourselves and others to continue like it is business as usual. I know for myself when there is a certain level of instability or change going on, my cognitive and emotional resources grind to a bit of a halt and I might struggle with empathy or caring about things that aren’t in front of me.

Those of us who have stable home lives, incomes, relationships and health take this privilege for granted — but for people living in less stable conditions, the things that occupy their cognitive real estate can overshadow the other parts of their lives.

More than that, when we are low on cognitive real estate, we tend to do things that perpetuate the stress — such as drinking (a relaxant), buying things (giving us a dopamine boost), using social media (dopamine again as well as an avoidance strategy).

We don’t necessarily have the mental resources to start an exercise regime, do some online learning, clean out our closets — we are literally trying to just get through the day. Ongoing stress and avoidance tends to trigger depressive mood, which makes it even harder to find a will to clear our mental space and get back on top of things.

For those with PTSD, cognitive real estate is even more limited — since a big part of their brains are already occupied with managing hyper-vigilance and flashbacks. You can think of your brain as a city block, and PTSD as a big power plant that sits off to the side of the block, using up a lot of the resources but also letting things be built around it.

Add financial, relationship or health stress, and this is the equivalent of erecting temporary houses all around the power plant — the more houses, the more crowded the block becomes, and the less chance there is for anything else to be built — like a routine, or a hobby, or anything beyond that which we need for day to day survival.

If this is sounding relevant to you, some other things to consider are:

Financial Burden

This is where a lot of the research is — the idea that when you’re worrying about money (which often we don’t have much control over, especially if there is debt that is growing interest each day), it is hard to look ahead of the day to day. Debt, job loss, even things like not having enough money for social activities or dates — these are things that undermine that sense of security that makes it possible to feel confident in the world.

Thinking about debt and cognitive real estate, it is understandable why many people who are financially struggling (especially those on the breadline) are less concerned by social issues or even things like the environment or climate change. Those things are major, but our brains are good at triaging what is the most important, and leaving the other stuff for when we have the time and space.

Thinking about how so many people have lost jobs and are wondering how they can pay rent, I’d guess that money and security are occupying a great deal of space in a great deal of minds right now — and that this is likely contributing to issues with stress and, of course, depression. We don’t really acknowledge how much depression can be linked to stress, but for many people living in stressful times where they don’t have much control over their environments can make a pre-existing depression much worse.

Safety

For those living in NYC during the riots and looting, this might be something that is relatable. For myself, in this past week, I have felt fatigue like I’ve never felt before. It started when our neighbourhood was looted, and is kind of like a big box I’m carrying around, making everything else difficult. I’ve never really felt this way before, and it stunned me to consider that this is what many people deal with on a daily basis — having to prepare for the worst every day, having to have a bag packed with their essentials in case they need to leave.

From my understanding, it is not instability that is the burden, but rather the fact that you suddenly need to think about a hundred more things than you did before — where am I going to go if things get worse? What do I need to bring? What about my pets? Where will we stay? What should I leave? How would we get out of the city? These pressing concerns make it hard to focus on anything else, and would make it almost impossible to perform at a consistent level at work. Again, I’m lucky that my employers understood that I needed a day off fo get my shit together — but if I’d had to work a high pressure job this week I don’t think I’d be functioning at all by the end of it.

We don’t really acknowledge this, it seems, and expect people to be able to ‘get it together’ at work or at school — but the reality is, our brains would have to be like computers to be able to switch attention away from a survival concern, towards something as abstract as answering an email or learning about ancient history. This also accounts for why many children in unstable situations struggle at school and are diagnosed with ADHD, a label that will follow them around for most of their lives.

Often a diagnosis needs to take into account the circumstances that someone is in — and you could say that a distracted child is behaving in completely normal way if they focus on what is going on around them rather than what is being taught on the board in front of them.

As frightening as riots and looting are, in some ways it has been useful to actually experience that sense of unease and fear, since it is almost impossible to describe. I was annoyed with friends from home who joked about looting, even though I might have done the same last week. For people who live with this permanently, I can imagine how debilitating it would be to not be able to plan too far ahead, to not be able to decide what you do and with who, and to be on high alert a lot of the time.

The liquor shop next door to us was robbed during the day last week, and each time I walk past and nod hello to the guys inside, they have a kind of ‘startle’ response — they’re shaken too, from having that mask of safety lifted, and needing to clock everyone who passes through their line of vision. I think they’ll adjust,, but this is something that people with PTSD live with daily — add instability on top of that, and it really is like that big box they carry around, that gets heavier and bigger when you add the subsequent depression, and then work stress from not performing well, and then financial stress from being unable to work.

Parenting

My friends who’ve had children talk about cognitive resources going as well, and this feeds into the whole idea of us only having so much space in our brains to care about things at a time. I’m sure many of us will have had the experience of catching up with friends who’ve had babies, and having the uncanny sense that no matter what you say, they’ll only be half listening.

The other part of their brain (as it should be) is thinking about where their baby is, what they need, how they’re doing, whether they need to be changed. It seems like kids are the ultimate occupiers of cognitive real estate (think of them as mansions on the city block), since their survival depends on having someone thinking a lot about them and giving them consideration.

I can imagine that for those with children during this time, things must feel especially strange — the city block must be extra crowded. If you have children and also financial issues, an unstable environment and other things going on such as trauma and anxiety — I imagine the city block is spilling over into the street.

For people in this situation, it really is about getting through the day to day — as nice as it would be to plan how the week is going to look, what recipes look good and what kinds of self care will be needed. It feels like this is really important to remember when we are dealing with people who have families and who are going through what we all are right now — and that we might need to lower our expectations of what is achievable when you are being pulled in so many directions.

A Solution?

It would be great if there was a magic button that freed up a lot of space in that city block that is our mind. Don’t worry, I’m not going to recommend a 10-day yoga retreat — even though that would probably help enormously, it is not really within anyone’s reach.

A more practical and reliable method of freeing up cognitive real estate is having small habits that you do each day that temporarily free up space — think of these as little tiny janitors and maintenance workers, sweeping up debris and clearing the entrances to buildings — and occasionally mowing a lawn, or joining together to knock down an old, dilapidated building. This can look like:

Exercise — Yes, I know — who has time?! But the reality is that nothing quite clears space like vigorous exercise. For those stretched for time, this might look like: a brisk walk around the block, a YouTube workout for 10 minutes of high level activity, an online yoga class, a lot of star jumps and sit-ups — whatever floats you boat.

For me, I bought a cheap bike stand that turns my old bike into a stationary trainer, and watch the West Wing for 30 minutes a day while pedalling furiously — at the end of this i’m sweaty, euphoric, clear-minded mess. There seems to be something about breaking a sweat that really kicks things up a notch — we know that vigorous exercise is the most fundamental way of releasing stress and restoring our physical homeostasis back from ‘flight or fight’.

When things return to normal, a game of tennis or social sport might be the ideal head-clearer, since this is not just endorphin-producing, but also social and giving the opportunity for connection and camaraderie.

Talking — In all the research done on stress, one clear thing has emerged -that with social support, stress is much less harmful than it could be. Generally if we have just one person to talk things through with — whether that is a therapist, a friend, a coach, a parent — anyone who is supportive, really — we can free up a lot of cognitive space.

Journaling is another way of getting those thoughts out of your head (something we call externalising). Something great happens when we can express ourselves in words, with many people describing feeling lighter and calmer — why should you have to carry all that around yourself, when there are so many ways to lighten the load?

Creativity & Learning — One thing stress does to us is that it keeps us grimly focused on what is just in front of us — the ‘must do’ and ‘don’t forget’. The city block in our heads gets taller and more grim, and we are stuck and built in trying to manage all of these structures and responsibilities. Sometimes we are shocked out of this — by learning about something new, by having the opportunity to create something, by having an inspiring conversation — and it can feel like a whole lot of room has been cleared — that things have opened up for us.

This is possible to do in our daily lives, as long as we stay aware of that need for newness and opportunity. When your life is stressful and challenging, this might be when you need this the most — whether it is in the form of a podcast about a topic you’re interested in (eg. relationships, art, music), a friend that you catch up with who inspires and challenges you, a creative hobby that you can escape into that refreshes and excites you.

These new experiences cause our brains to produce dopamine and give us a welcome break from the day to day — we can re-discover that we are, in fact, in control of our lives and that, no matter how grim things are at the moment, there is a part of us that is shining and excited — and that one day we can grow that part. This looks different for everyone, but for many people it is to do with some kind of personal growth, that feels ‘right’ — and takes us away from the everyday.

If you take away anything from this piece, perhaps it can be that sometimes we just won’t have the cognitive real estate available to be our best selves — we might be overbooked and no matter how much exercise or talking we do, it still feels crowded in there. This is most likely to happen when we’re frightened, in unstable situations, when our loved ones are in danger or when our core needs aren’t being met.

It is great to be able to recognise this in ourselves, but more than that, to be able to see this in others, and understand that perhaps their behavior is arising out of this lack of cognitive real estate. We are all only human, and dealing with several things at once tends to have the same effect on all of us — but we can agree that, with empathy and understanding, we can at least not add to someone’s already crowded city block.