Chronic pain can affect cognitive function: Learn how pain affects your concentration, memory and more

Chronic pain Chronic pain is persistent pain that usually lasts more than three months, which often exceeds the usual recovery time from an injury or illness. Chronic pain can persist without a clear cause and significantly affect a person’s quality of life. It can be caused by conditions such as arthritis, nerve damage, or fibromyalgia and lead to physical limitations, emotional distress, and mental health issues such as depression and anxiety.

Chronic pain not only affects physical health, but it also significantly impacts cognitive functioning. People living with chronic pain often have problems with memory, concentration, and decision-making, which is also known as “brain fog.” Experts believe this is due to the constant stress and fatigue that comes with persistent pain.

Here, see how pain affects your concentration, memory, and other aspects of your cognitive functioning.

Difficulty concentrating

Pain takes up a lot of your attention, making it harder for you to focus on other things. It distracts you, and so you may find it difficult to concentrate on tasks or assignments for long periods.

Short-term memory problems

Pain can affect working memory, which helps you remember information for short periods of time, such as remembering a phone number. When you have chronic pain, it’s harder to perform simple tasks or follow instructions.

Difficulty creating long-term memories

Chronic pain can interfere with the ability to form new, lasting memories. Pain-related stress releases hormones like cortisol that damage the part of the brain, the hippocampus, that is responsible for creating long-term memories, making it harder to remember things later.

Slow decision making

Pain affects the ability to plan, solve problems, and make decisions. Because the brain is busy processing pain signals, it has less energy to focus on these higher-level thinking tasks, which makes decision-making slower.

Processing information slowly

When you’re in pain, you may think more slowly or take longer to solve problems. This happens because pain uses up some of your mental resources, leaving you less available for other tasks.

Emotional stress

Pain often triggers feelings of anxiety, stress, or sadness. These emotions can make it even more difficult to concentrate, remember things, or think clearly, further affecting cognitive abilities.

Bad dream

Pain can affect sleep, and when you don’t get enough sleep, it’s harder to think clearly the next day. Lack of sleep affects memory, concentration, and decision-making, creating a cycle where pain and poor sleep quality affect memory and thinking ability. cognitive function live off each other.

Difficulty multitasking

Juggling multiple tasks requires mental effort, and pain reduces the brain’s ability to handle several things at once. This makes multitasking much more difficult, as the brain is preoccupied with managing the pain.