Brain Obesity and the Widespread Impact of Excessive Information Overload

Face the challenge of information overload and learn not to waste energy, focusing on data that drives meaningful action. In addition, check out practical tips for exercising your mind and standing out in today's digital landscape.

The Challenge of Brain Obesity: How to Keep Your Mind Agile and Productive

Nowadays, just as excessive consumption of sugar and flour can negatively affect our health, information overload can make our minds slow, unfocused, and inactive.

Contrary to popular belief, the "brain obese" person is often highly intelligent. These individuals, dedicated to their studies and frequent attendees of courses, lectures, and seminars, face a serious problem resulting from the excess of information they consume.

Most of these scholars, despite accumulating vast knowledge, end up unable to put into practice even 1% of what they have learned, being swallowed up by the excess of information. When this excess is combined with a lack of action, a dangerous situation of cerebral obesity arises.

To put this into context, a nine-year-old child with a cell phone today has access to more information than former US President Barack Obama had in 2009. Easy access to information becomes a trap when we get lost in a barrage of content without concrete action.

The Challenge of Information Overload

Have you ever stopped to think about how many times we open our cell phones looking for specific information and end up distracted by messages on WhatsApp, Instagram, or TikTok?

Even consuming information requires energy, and our brains, efficient in their management, save energy by not storing data that does not contribute to future experiences or actions.

In short, we become "ghosts," feeding on unnecessary content that is soon forgotten.

Comparatively, an obese brain resembles a slow, unfocused, and inactive brain, similar to someone who consumes excessive carbohydrates without exercising.

How to exercise your brain and become smarter?

Below are three tips for training and keeping your brain sharp:

First, be selective about the information you consume. Don't try to take in everything all at once!

Instead, choose what you are going to consume and what your goal is in studying it.

Remember that continuous learning is extremely important, but wanting to know everything will certainly not get you very far.

Therefore, try to choose what to learn and make sure that information is put into practice right away.

Regardless of whether we act masterfully or not, our brain needs to be rewarded for its efforts, which keeps it alert and allows it to store that information properly.

"Ready, aim and fire"

What do you mean by "prepare, shoot, and aim"? Wouldn't the correct order be "prepare, aim, and shoot"?

The answer is no, because if we aim too much, we will never know where the shot will hit, and we will spend our whole lives analyzing, thinking, and trying to find the best moment to do what needs to be done.

I'm not talking about reckless and thoughtless actions, but rather actions that involve managed risk, because just as there is no result without calculated risk, there is no learning without practice.

Secondly, since you don't need to know everything, make use of shared knowledge.

According to popular wisdom, the intelligent learn from their mistakes, but the wise learn from the mistakes of others.

Don't waste time trying to know everything; often the best question is not "how" but "who."

That is, who can help you with a particular piece of information? Who is an expert on this subject and could give me a simple lesson? Who can do this task for me?

The power of a multidisciplinary team is still largely untapped.

Choose carefully what you are going to learn and what you are going to consume from other people.

Don't waste energy

Finally, the third and last lesson I would like you to take away from this text is that information without action is a pure waste of energy.

Focus all your attention on consuming information that will lead you to action!

According to research, the average concentration span of an animal is 9 seconds, while that of most people is only 8.

Our ability to concentrate is decreasing, and this is one of the main reasons why you should focus on the things that are important to get you where you want to go.

As Herbert Simon, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, says, "Information consumes the attention of the receiver. A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention."