tv – Skillfully Well & Painfully Aware

I like to sit down for a TV binge to unplug, unwind, and vegetate as much as the next person. But is TV viewing actually a break for your mind?

When I need to take a mental vacation, I often turn to television. Personally, the more mentally fatigued I am, the harder I find it to watch a show or movie with a lot of special effects, complex narratives, or intense action scenes. This is the time for soothing DIY decorating shows, simplistic soapy dramas, or trashy reality TV, in my opinion!

We know that one of the primary symptoms of fibromyalgia is brain fog, which makes concentration and memory problematic, leaving you feeling mixed up, disoriented, or distracted. It stands to reason that mental rest breaks may help people with fibromyalgia reduce their cognitive difficulties. Does TV watching help provide this mental rest?

TV Viewing May Not Be The Mental Vacay You Hoped It Was

It’s true that brain regions responsible for analysis and reasoning, like the neocortex, shut down when we vegetate in front of a TV screen. However, the visual cortex, which processes images, is hyperactive. This contradiction, between a highly stimulated visual cortex that is receiving large amounts of data, and a zonked out neocortex which isn’t able to analyse that information, puts your brain in a state of limbo (Vice). Your brain is not fully engaged, but neither is it resting.

What does mental rest actually mean? Brain breaks allow the mind to process recent incoming information from your senses, to learn, make connections, and store memories. Mental rest can help improve memory retention in healthy people. “Research suggests short periods of rest — as little as ten seconds… can lead to four times the improvement you get from overnight memory consolidation [while you sleep]” (CBC).

Being in a state of mental rest is associated with alpha brain waves, occurs when you feel relaxed, have daydreams, and your mind can wander. However, a recent study demonstrated that TV watching does not induce the alpha waves necessary for mental rest. Instead, TV watching triggers gamma waves in the visual cortex (Research Matters). Gamma waves are linked to visual perception, emotions, and word repetition.

This doesn’t mean that TV watching isn’t a relaxing way to spend an evening, only that you shouldn’t expect it to improve brain fog or provide mental rest. Instead, boosting alpha waves through activities like listening to calming music, deep breathing, meditation, or guided visualization can give your brain a real break.

Try taking a bit of time in between episodes to rest your eyes and mind, so you don’t overload your visual cortex. Sensory overload is a known energy zapper for people with chronic fatigue.

Does TV Rot Your Brain?

Unfortunately, there is more bad news about the effect of binging TV on long-term cognitive function. Binging for more than three hours per day can lead to greater declines in cognitive focus as you age compared with non-bingers, probably because TV watching is a cognitively passive activity (Live Science). If you’re like me, fibromyalgia has made you an involuntary couch potato, so this study may initially seem like pointless bad news, since there aren’t many other options than watching TV, especially on a flare day.

However, the good news is that cognitively active sedentary activities, like reading, playing board games, or listening to a podcast, are exactly the types of activities that promote brain health as you age. I was happy to discover that listening to audiobooks and podcasts is as beneficial to the brain as reading (Discover)! I’m often unable to read a physical book, due to neck pain or eye-strain, but lying down with my eyes closed and listening is something I can do!

When you need a distraction, try sometimes swapping out watching a TV show with listening to an audiobook chapter or podcast (or radio!) episode may promote your long-term brain health and cognitive function, which should be a priority when you live with an illness linked to cognitive challenges. Intersperse mental breaks that stimulate alpha waves in between your TV watching or audiobook listening sessions to give your mind a chance to process and store all of that new information.

Can TV Watching Reduce Stress?

But even if watching TV doesn’t allow you to completely switch off your mind, can it reduce stress? After all, it often feels good to binge on a television series, at least while you’re doing it (NBC). The sense of excitement and connection to the social world of the characters on a show stimulates the feel-good brain neurotransmitter dopamine. If you’re looking for a good distraction, prime TV is your go-to. Binge watching is the ultimate form of escapism, and distraction can be very necessary when you feel overwhelmed or are in a lot of pain. Distraction is a valid pain management tool.

If you are in a state of high stress, the best choice of TV show may be a rerun of a favourite series. Studies show that the safe predictability and enjoyable familiarity of a rerun can help you lower your stress level (Verywell Mind). It’s not a coincidence that shows like Friends resurged in popularity during the pandemic! Remember that, to your body, stress is stress, so watching psychological thrillers, horror movies, or even tense reality show competitions, will add to your overall stress burden. Comedies, light-hearted dramas, or predictable get-the-bad guy cop shows are better choices if you are feeling overwhelmed.

Use your judgement to pick the best type of show to match your mental and physical state. Since developing fibromyalgia, I have found myself easily swayed emotionally by the plot of shows or books. I am quite picky about avoiding tragic endings, shows with entire casts of unlikeable characters, disturbing or twisted plot lines, or gratuitous violence. One tip for avoiding these types of shows that never fails is to check whether critics rate a show more highly on Rotten Tomatoes than audiences (which is a virtual guarantee you will get a nihilistic plot and sad ending)!

Setting limits ahead of time on how many episodes you watch in a row, ideally no more than two or three, can help you resist the addictive pull of a cliffhanger episode ending. You may find yourself feeling depleted when a series comes to an end, as the dopamine level falls, and reality reasserts itself. Switch to a comedy, or a few minutes of a favourite re-run in order to boost endorphins and counteract that dopamine crash. I like to think of this as the dessert course.

This post was originally published in the Uk Fibromyalgia Magazine

Athalye, A. (2018). Research Matters: https://researchmatters.in/news/televisions-computer-screens-and-other-such-visual-stimuli-induce-gamma-waves-our-brain-study

Buyting, S. (2021). CBC: https://www.nbcnews.com/better/health/what-happens-your-brain-when-you-binge-watch-tv-series-ncna816991

Neal, M. (n. d). VICE: https://www.vice.com/en/article/3daqaj/is-watching-tv-actually-a-good-way-to-rest-your-brain

Page, D. (2017).NBC: https://www.nbcnews.com/better/health/what-happens-your-brain-when-you-binge-watch-tv-series-ncna816991

Scott, E. (2020). Verywell Mind: https://www.verywellmind.com/the-surprising-benefits-of-re-runs-3144586

Rettner, R. (2021). Live Science: https://www.livescience.com/tv-watching-midlife-brain-health.html

Waiter, J. (2019). Discover Magazine: https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/audiobooks-or-reading-to-our-brains-it-doesnt-matter

Distract Your Pain Away:

Living with daily pain can feel very limiting. The list of activities I can no longer do without increasing my pain levels or triggering flare-ups, which includes working, typing, holding a book, vacuuming, running, painting, and everything in between, is longer than the list of what I can do. It can feel like a cage that that I’m confined to.

In this situation, I found it liberating to discover new activities that I can do even while I am still in pain. In fact, distraction is a valid pain management tool. A recent study found that “mental distractions actually inhibit the response to incoming pain signals at the earliest stage of central pain processing” (Science Daily). In the study, participants either completed an easy or difficult memory task while painful heat was applied to their arms. Participants who completed the most difficult memory test, which was more mentally distracting, perceived less pain– a functional MRI scan of their spinal cord actually showed less nerve activity compared to the group doing the easy memory task. The researchers concluded that these results show “just how deeply mental processes can go in altering the experience of pain” (Science Daily).

This study shows the importance of finding low-key activities that you can enjoy even while you are in pain. Over the past few years, I have discovered a number of different activities that have helped me to expand my horizons, and manage my pain using distraction. I hope that you find some of these (free!) suggestions useful for making the most of your time, even if you are in pain.

Tune Out

Music is a powerful tool for managing pain and depression. Researchers recently found that listening to music for an hour a day reduced chronic pain by up to 21% and depression by 25%! (Science Daily, Listening to Music). Importantly, participants in the study reported feeling more in control of their condition and less disabled by it.

Personally, when I am feeling more alert I listen to my favourite albums and when I’m feeling fatigued, I relax to music specifically designed to help people fall asleep (I simply search for ‘deep sleep music’ in YouTube). If you want to discover new artists, or enjoy music without the cost of buying new albums, you might want to try free music streaming apps and websites, like the free Spotify plan, Google Play Radio or iTunes Radio. These sites let you legally listen to music without a paid subscription. I also like Jango, which has custom radio stations you can stream based on artists that you like (and promises only one audio ad per day).

Learn Something New

Can we be honest about something for a minute? I’m a complete nerd. But I’ve also discovered that most people have at least one topic that makes them geek out! Learning is good for brain health and it can also boost feelings of well-being and self-esteem.

There are many ways to learn new things from the comfort of your home. One of the most rewarding options that I have found is to watch free online video courses from sites like Open Learn, edX, Coursera. Whether you are interested in art or archaeology, math or music, there are thousands of options to explore. Sites like Open Culture provide listings that link to hundreds of courses so that you can choose what interests you most.

I recently discovered the world of podcasts, which has quickly become a staple activity that I turn to on high-pain days. The great part about audio is that you can lie down and rest in the most comfortable position you can find while you learn. The variety of podcasts out there is almost overwhelming, and there really is something for everyone, whether you are a news junkie, sports fanatic, gossip addict, policy wonk or anything else!

Transport Yourself to Another World

Who doesn’t love a good story? Nobody, that’s who! Books, TV shows and movies are all obvious forms of distraction for people living with chronic pain. While you probably already have thought of these options, I want to share a few tips from my own experience that may give you some new ideas to try.

Actually reading a book may be a challenge, depending on your chronic pain condition. Whether physically holding the book is painful, or reading the words on the page causes fatigue or headache, a paperback may not always be practical. Enter the amazing world of audiobooks! A great performance by a talented narrator can really bring a book to life. Lying down and getting carried away in a new story is one of the best low-key activities I have found.

Your local library may have an online audiobook library where you can temporarily download free audiobooks from a digital content service, without having to check them out from a local branch. LibriVoxi s a free, legal, online audiobook streaming service with hundreds of classic books (no longer copyrighted), read by volunteers. Audible and similar companies sell audiobooks from their large online libraries, which you can download or play using their app (but these subscriptions are pricey).

Binge-watching is a tried-and-true method for getting through a bad pain episode. Many people with chronic pain literally ‘Netflix and chill’! Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you already know about Netflix and all the other streaming services. However, like audiobooks, these services can get expensive. Did you know that there are a number of free (legal) streaming services like Popcornflix that offer public domain films (classics), independent and foreign films, and even recent features, as well as a number of documentaries? Sites like Pluto TV also offer an array of live tv options. My public library has a partnership with Kanopy, which offers 8 free videos per month of everything from Great Courses lectures to Oscar nominated films. Your library may offer a similar service!