Mental exertion can make your brain “hurt,” evidence shows Heavy mental effort can cause unpleasant feelings These feelings include frustration, irritation, stress and annoyance MONDAY, Aug. 5, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- Folks who rub their forehead and complain that a complex problem is making their brain hurt aren’t overstating things, a new review suggests. Mental exertion appears to be associated with unpleasant feelings in many situations, researchers reported Aug.
5 in the journal . In fact, the greater a person’s mental effort, the more they experience feelings like frustration, irritation, stress or annoyance, results showed. “Our findings show that mental effort feels unpleasant across a wide range of populations and tasks,” said senior researcher , an associate professor of psychology with Radboud University in the Netherlands.
“This is important for professionals, such as engineers and educators, to keep in mind when designing tasks, tools, interfaces, apps, materials or instructions,” Bijleveld added in a university news release. “When people are required to exert substantial mental effort, you need to make sure to support or reward them for their effort.” For the review, researchers analyzed 170 studies published between 2019 and 2020 involving 4,670 people.
The participants included people from a wide range of backgrounds, including health care workers, military employees, amateur athletes and college students. They represented 29 countries. Th.