The snacks. The schedules. The forms you definitely meant to sign. Remembering which child suddenly hates bananas, who’s had a bath, whether anyone’s brushed their teeth, and when (seriously, when?) you’re supposed to fit in a shower between work, bedtime stories, tomorrow’s lunches and the creeping sense that you’re forgetting something important. Again.

If motherhood sometimes feels like living inside a browser with 47 tabs open – half of them playing music you can’t locate – that’s not a personal failing. Forgetting things isn’t a sign you’re not coping with the demands of motherhood. Instead, it’s your brain doing exactly what scientists expect it to do when it’s overloaded.

“To understand what juggling too much does to the brain, it helps to recognise that the brain and mind – like every system in the body – has limitations,” says chartered psychologist Aidan Kearney, founder of psychology consultancy Malleable Mind. Juggling too many plates doesn’t just feel overwhelming; it actively disrupts the systems in the brain responsible for memory, focus and recall.

This isn’t a new idea. As far back as the late 19th century, psychologists such as Hermann Ebbinghaus were mapping the boundaries of short-term and working memory. By the 1950s, pioneering research by cognitive scientist George Miller suggested that we can only comfortably hold around seven pieces of information in our minds at once, give or take.

“That idea really encapsulates the reality of system limitations,” says Kearney. “We can all relate to being overwhelmed by information. When there’s too much coming in, something has to give.”

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