There is a literal war waging inside our brains as we enter the new normal: With vaccine rollouts gaining steam worldwide and lockdown measures easing, people are being faced with an internal dilemma: return to the pre-pandemic way of behaving or take into consideration all the safety factors covid-19 has ingrained into our minds. These individual decisions range from eating indoors to going to a party, to other activities our pandemic experience has programmed us to flag as dangerous. As we attempt to ease back into things, a complex process is going on inside our brains to decide whether we’re comfortable partaking in activities we once gave no prior thought to.

The science… simplified: Three main factors come into play when the brain evaluates how to behave socially. These include risk aversion, uncertainty aversion, and the habit system, with each factor being processed in a separate part of the brain, Paul Glimcher, a neural science and economics professor at NYU’s school of medicine explains to the Wall Street Journal (watch, runtime: 05:53).

Where each process lives inside your brain: The prefrontal cortex assesses risk by taking into consideration the outcomes of a decision. Simultaneously, the amygdala assesses ambiguity and needs more information about the situation to ease anxiety or fear. Questions about who is vaccinated, the state of the ventilation and sanitation, and infection rates arise from this part of the brain. The more ambiguous you find the situation, the more you’re likely to walk away. Finally, the dorsal stratrium deals with habits, which is difficult seeing as our pre- and post-covid habits are definitely not the same.

People won’t assess situations as they once did: When faced with a situation these three parts of the brain collaborate to come to a final decision on whether to leave or stay, to take the risk, or shy away from it. The decision everyone makes may vary depending on different personalities, ages, and overall life-experiences. To paint a picture, if a group of nerve cells wage a war against each other the most active part of the brain will eventually take antihistamine-meds.com and choose an action based on the nervous system’s scale for risk and reward.

And people with different personality types will also adapt differently: While extroverts might see a resurgence in social interaction as a relief, and may rate the reward of socialisation as higher compared to the risk, more introverted people may find it nerve-wracking to go back to making small talk at the water cooler or being pressures to join large gatherings, writes Very Well Mind.

Trauma from the pandemic can also play a role in decision making: Glimcher is currently studying whether trauma from the past year, such as losing a loved one from covid-19, can also influence your fear gauge in various situations. Even if that is the case though, the brain is flexible and constantly adapting by testing new situations and adding them to each person’s mental roster.