For many Black students, code-switching isn’t a choice; it’s a matter of survival. It’s the slight shift in tone before raising your hand in class, the careful wording in emails to professors, the way your voice, posture, or even gestures change depending on who’s in the room. On predominantly white campuses, these adjustments often become automatic, but what does it cost mentally and emotionally?
Code-switching requires constant cognitive control. Your prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for decision-making, self-monitoring, and emotional regulation, is always active, calculating how to present yourself in ways that avoid judgment or stereotype (Yan et al, 2025). This continuous mental effort can lead to mental fatigue, making it harder to focus, participate, or even enjoy academic life (Yan et al., 2025).
The emotional toll is real, too. Chronic self-monitoring is mentally demanding and activates the body’s stress response, which can increase cortisol, the stress hormone (Knezevic et al., 2023, Warm et al. 2008). Over time, this contributes to racial vigilance, the constant expectation of bias, which research links to anxiety, emotional exhaustion, and feeling “on edge” just to exist in certain spaces (Himmelstein et al., 2015). Suppressing emotions to appear composed might feel necessary, but it only adds to the invisible load many Black students carry daily.
Recent studies also suggest that the mental and emotional load of code-switching can have measurable effects on academic performance and well-being. When students constantly regulate their behavior, their working memory and attention are taxed, which can make learning more difficult and increase fatigue over time (Yan et al., 2025). Awareness of these effects can help educators design more inclusive classroom environments, like validating diverse communication styles and reducing the pressure to conform, so that Black students can participate fully without sacrificing mental health.
Code-switching is often praised as resilience, but it comes at a cost. Black students may appear quiet or disengaged, but this is often a protective strategy, not a lack of motivation. Understanding the neuroscience behind code-switching reveals that performance, attention, and participation are shaped not just by effort, but by identity, environment, and the mental weight of constantly adapting.
Supporting Black students means reducing the need for this invisible labor. Representation, validation of diverse communication styles, and culturally responsive teaching aren’t just progressive, they protect mental health. Code-switching is a skill, yes, but it’s also brain-draining, stress-inducing, and exhausting. And real talk? We shouldn’t have to always “act a certain way” to be respected, feel me?
Himmelstein, M. S., Young, D. M., Sanchez, D. T., & Jackson, J. S. (2015). Vigilance in the discrimination-stress model for Black Americans. Psychology & health, 30(3), 253–267. https://doi.org/10.1080/08870446.2014.966104
Knezevic, E., Nenic, K., Milanovic, V., & Knezevic, N. N. (2023). The Role of Cortisol in Chronic Stress, Neurodegenerative Diseases, and Psychological Disorders. Cells, 12(23), 2726. https://doi.org/10.3390/cells12232726
Warm, J. S., Parasuraman, R., & Matthews, G. (2008). Vigilance requires hard mental work and is stressful. Human factors, 50(3), 433–441. https://doi.org/10.1518/001872008X312152
Yan, Y., Guo, Y., & Zhou, D. (2025). Mental fatigue causes significant activation of the prefrontal cortex: A systematic review and meta-analysis of fNIRS studies. Psychophysiology, 62(1), e14747. https://doi.org/10.1111/psyp.14747
