A unsettling twinge in my stomach – feeling something like hunger and food poisoning – churned relentlessly the week before the first day of classes at SUNY Fredonia (Aug. 25); I could not figure out the source of this constant cramp.

I kept wondering, “Am I excited/nervous because this is my last year before I emerge into the ‘real world’? Am I sad because all of my close friends have graduated and I will be on my own for the first time since being a first year student? Am I getting sick?”

It was about this time that I had begun to write e-mails, talk on the phone, eat meals, read books and scribble personal writings simultaneously again; I was getting back into my annual autumn routine in preparation for school.

At the time, I could not tell if it was positive or negative that the feeling of accomplishment began to mesh with my stomach spasms; I was getting 12 hours worth of work packed into six-hour sessions. But the more I thought about these (what I consider) panic attacks prior to school starting, the more I realized that it was not the actual schoolwork that steered my anxiety; rather, the act of multitasking that was mandatory for that work.

I considered the escalating amount that my generation multitasks – listening to ipods, instant messaging, talking/texting on a cell phone, checking e-mail, googling – and that the growing popularity and “necessity” of the Internet (and technology in general) must have some relationship to the increase of people training themselves on a daily basis to accept interruptions to the point that they are not really paying attention to anything anymore.

Fifteen years ago, most computers were not linked to the Internet. Today, 82 percent of adolescents are online by the seventh grade, according to the Internet and American Life Project.

It cannot be a coincidence that the two diseases that people increasingly think they have these days (but generally do not) are Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and Alzheimer’s disease. People, young and old, are just on overloaded from a severe case of everyday life.

Dr. Edward Hallowell, a Massachusetts-based psychiatrist who specializes in the treatment of ADD/hyperactivity wrote the book “CrazyBusy: Overstretched, Overbooked and About to Snap!” (2006). In the book he calls multitasking a “mythical activity in which people believe they can perform two or more tasks simultaneously.”

Hallowell writes, “Technology may not be helping you as much as you think, and that is the grand seduction of multitasking. You think you are getting a lot done at once, but you in fact are not.”

A Vanderbilt University neuroscientist Rene Marois is acknowledged in the book for his research. Marois asked students to do two tasks at once and then examined their brains using an MRI. Supporting Hallowell’s argument, he found that multitasking really does “slow us down.”

Marois described a hypothetical situation of someone folding clothes and listening to the weather channel. As that person visualizes the incoming storm, her/his mental imagery and actual eye movements struggle for dominance; the mind always wins. This is why, he explains, that person will start putting mismatched socks together.

Possibly this is why people who talk/text on a cell phone are 5 percent more at risk for getting into an accident than people who are just concentrating on the road.

Besides people placing themselves into dangerous situations due to multitasking, studies are also proving that there are many negative health problems tied into performing too many tasks at once.

The very definition of multitasking includes stress – the brain signals the body to begin rapid-fire release of the hormone cortisol (what is commonly referred to as the “stress hormone,” which is secreted by the adrenal glands and involved in the following functions and more: proper glucose metabolism, regulation of blood pressure, insulin release for blood sugar maintenance, immune function and inflammatory response).

Researchers argue some stress is not a bad thing; small increases of cortisol, can give you a quick burst of energy, heightened memory functions, a spurt of increased immunity, lower sensitivity to pain and helps to maintain internal equilibrium (homeostasis) in the body.

People need cortisol to help them perform well under pressure, argues leading researcher at the National Institute of Mental Health Esther Sternberg, M.D., in her book “The Balance Within: The Science Connecting Health and Emotions” (2000).

However, too much stress – releasing too much cortisol – over time can lead to any of the following: impaired cognitive performance, suppressed thyroid function, decreased bone density and muscle tissue, high blood pressure, lowered immunity and inflammatory responses and increased body (typically abdominal) fat, according to www.labtestsonline.org, a non-commercial public resource on clinical labs testing from laboratory professionals.

This information was a shock to me as I considered how much I multitask, especially out of necessity for school. I do not know if the solution is that people need to take a breath and learn to retrain themselves to do one task at a time again, or if it is a cultural problem that is being made inevitable for people.

Looking down at my feet, I also do not know if I should laugh or be concerned that my socks are always mismatched.

Originally published Sunday, August 25, 2008