The 50% Brain Tax

Your brain is a budgeting organ, constantly forecasting energy requirements and allocating resources based on available assets and your environment.

That’s the theory according to Jim Coan, understood as ‘Social Baseline Theory’ (SBT) and there’s surprising data to back it up.

According to SBT, our biology evolved to assume close proximity to trusted others. To quote him directly, “the brain construes social resources as bioenergetic resources, much like oxygen or glucose.”

The Alone Tax

When your brain perceives itself as part of a connected group, it distributes the load: threats can be shared and resources can be pooled. As a result, your threat response downshifts, freeing up bandwidth to focus, perform, regulate, create and execute.

One brilliant example of this was a study that used fMRI to monitor neural responses to threats. Women were threatened with a mild electric shock and were either alone, holding a stranger’s hand or holding their husband’s hand.

During the trial, the threat-responsive brain reduced neural activity. In simple terms, social support literally offloaded the work the brain was doing to process stress. The hypothalamus (your stress command centre) saw a 20% reduction when holding a stranger’s hand, and a 50% reduction when holding their husband’s hand.

Extrapolating slightly, this suggests a socially isolated high performer works twice as hard at a neurological level just to maintain a state of calm. This is bandwidth that could be directed towards, well, anything.

The Biological Cost of Loneliness

Loneliness alerts the nervous system that we don’t have the tools we need to thrive properly. That’s why the US Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, described the negative effects of social isolation as comparable to those of smoking 15 cigarettes per day.

Being part of a group is our default setting.

Your body responds differently to simulations of community and connection even if they scratch part of the itch. There’s a difference between laughing with a friend and listening to a funny podcast; between sex and masturbation; watching a camping video is distinct from sleeping under the stars.

It’s become so easy to withdraw. To flourish, you must accept the friction of moving in circles with others. The commotion of community is the price of admission for the benefits it provides.

Tasks Feel Harder When You’re Alone

Another well-cited and startling example of the power of connection looked at perceptions of the gradient of a hill. Individuals viewed a literal hill as 10-15% less steep when standing next to a friend.

The brain interprets the presence of a partner as an increase in its own ability. When you isolate yourself, you’re telling your nervous system that the task ahead of you is steeper than it is. When you have a companion, the burden can be shared.

Coan, the father of SBT, notes that this stretches beyond perception: “socially isolated individuals consume more sugar, even after adjusting for BMI, depression, physical activity and age…to the human brain, social and metabolic resources are treated almost interchangeably.”

How to Optimise Your Neurological Bandwidth

Modernity has skewed our sense of baseline. Regardless of your introvert/extrovert tendencies, you’re wired to be in communion with others. The rise of people living alone, lacking close friends and the decline of community is, through the lens of performance and capacity, a worrying one.

SBT suggests that capacity is uplifted by the number of interconnected people in your life. Being part of a network of people who know each other signals safety to the nervous system.

When your brain registers belonging, it downshifts threat responses and frees up bandwidth for creativity and execution.

To increase your capacity, build a circle and connect your people. Your brain looks most at rest when social resources are available. Stop paying more tax than you need to.