It's easy to feel overwhelmed by all the pieces of information that come at us from all directions: emails, text messages, instant messages, Twitter feeds and more. Some of it is important, so you can't tune out completely. But read it all and your mind becomes so drained that it’s a challenge to get anything else done.

In fact, a University of London study done for Hewlett-Packard found that “infomania” can lower your IQ by twice as much as smoking marijuana. Moreover, email can raise the levels of noradrenaline and dopamine in your brain by constantly introducing new stimuli into your day. When those levels get too high, complex thinking becomes more difficult, making it harder to make decisions and solve problems.

How can you survive this information overload? Try these tips, courtesy of BNET:

• Take control of email
• Prioritize
• Break down complex information into manageable chunks
• Do less
• Unplug

For more details, read the full BNET article here.

Also check out this article from CNN about a new iPhone app that tries to predict the information you'd be most interested in and moves this content to the top of your "streams".