Attention Archives - Page 3 of 4

Brain & Mind Roundup

May 17, 2014 by Joycelyn Campbell 7 Comments

Here are some links to a few of the really great articles and blog posts I come across in the course of keeping up to date on the best way to use the brain & mind. Click on the titles below to go to the original posts. Please check these sites out. I think you’ll be glad you did.

Psychological Benefits of Writing

Gregory Ciotti (Sparring Mind)

Writing isn’t just for writers.

Have you ever had too many Internet tabs open at once? It is a madhouse of distraction. Sometimes I feel like my brain has too many tabs open at once. This is often the result of trying to mentally juggle too many thoughts at the same time. Writing allows abstract information to cross over into the tangible world. It frees up mental bandwidth, and will stop your brain from crashing due to tab overload.

You Don’t Know What You’re Saying

Scientific American (reprinted from Nature)

Our awareness of our own speech often comes after the words have left our mouth, not before. The dominant model of how speech works is that it is planned in advance — speakers begin with a conscious idea of exactly what they are going to say. But some researchers think that speech is not entirely planned, and that people know what they are saying in part through hearing themselves speak.

Things You Cannot Unsee

The Atlantic

What you know influences what you see. Once you see something in a different way, you can’t unsee it. “[P]erception is not the result of simply processing stimulus cues. It also importantly involves fitting prior knowledge to the current situation to create a meaningful interpretation.” — Villanova psychologist Tom Toppino

How Attention Works: The Brain’s Anti-Distraction System Discovered

Jeremy Dean (PsyBlog)

Attention is only partly about what we focus on; it’s also about what we manage to ignore. “Most contemporary ideas of attention highlight brain processes that are involved in picking out relevant objects from the visual field. Our results show clearly that this is only one part of the equation and that active suppression of the irrelevant objects is another important part.” –John M. Gaspar, Simon Fraser University

Super-Focus: 10 Natural Steps to Nurture Your Attention

Jeremy Dean (PsyBlog)

How to deal with interruptions, structure your environment, enter a flow state and much more.

The Backfire Effect: The Psychology of Why We Have a Hard Time Changing Our Minds

Maria Popova (brainpickings)

The disconnect between information and insight explains our dangerous self-righteousness. “Just as confirmation bias shields you when you actively seek information, the backfire effect defends you when the information seeks you.” –David McRaney, author of You Are Not So Smart and You Are Now Less Dumb

The Illusion of Choice

May 13, 2014 by Joycelyn Campbell 4 Comments

You always have a choice.

Isn’t that what everyone says? No matter what happens, you can choose how to respond. And if you want things to be different, well then just make different choices.

Making a different choice sounds so simple. And it’s appealing to believe you can do it if you really want to. But if you don’t make a different choice, does that mean you really don’t want to? Does it mean you lack self-control or will power? Does it mean you’re trying to sabotage yourself?

If you believe that you could make a different choice but don’t, why don’t you?

When we believe we could make a different choice, but we fail to do so, we’re forced to explain ourselves—at least to ourselves. So we get busy rationalizing, making excuses, or berating ourselves. It’s the start of a vicious cycle, one that can go on for years or even decades. Not only is this a waste of time, it’s also counterproductive to changing behavior.

The truth is that we don’t always have a choice. In fact, we rarely have a choice. We keep doing the same things we’ve always done because that’s how our brain is wired. It conserves precious energy by turning as many behaviors as possible into routines and habits. Once those routines and habits are in place, they’re extremely difficult to disrupt. When faced with a familiar situation, you and I and everyone else will likely as not do what we’ve always done in that situation, even if we want to make a different choice.

Minute by minute, second by second, the unconscious part of your brain is absorbing and processing an unbelievable amount of data, all but a small fraction of which you’re not consciously aware of. So at the moment you’re faced with that familiar situation, your unconscious is picking up on signals, making connections, and initiating the usual response long before you can consciously entertain the idea of doing something different. When it comes to routines and habits, consciousness is simply no match for the speed of the unconscious brain.

As long as you don’t recognize what’s going on, you’re up against an unseen enemy. The challenge is to use the brain’s labor-saving mechanisms instead of being used by them. That’s where intention comes in.

The time to decide how you want to respond in a familiar situation is not when you’re in that situation but when you have some distance from it and can think clearly about it. If you know what you’re up against, you can come up with a plan to outwit your unseen enemy and even turn it into an ally. The plan involves IAP:

Intention
Attention
Perseverance

The IAP process is based on the way the brain actually works.

(1) Plan ahead. Formulate a clear and specific intention.
(2) Don’t count on remembering. Come up with a way to keep your attention focused on your intention.
(3) Assume you won’t be perfect out of the gate. Your unconscious brain is stubborn and set in its ways. With perseverance, however, your desired response will become the automatic one.

Focus: Keep Your Eyes on the Prize

May 5, 2014 by Joycelyn Campbell Leave a Comment

A distraction is something that keeps us from giving 100% of our attention to what we’re doing or attempting to do right now. By diverting our attention, it dims our focus. Being distracted isn’t the same as choosing to take a break. Allowing ourselves to be distracted is rarely a conscious choice.

The path to anywhere is booby-trapped with an unrelenting blitzkrieg of tempting distractions so magnificent and horrible—and insistent—they may even invade our dreams.

These distractions tempt us because they include:

things we’re naturally interested in
things we’re convinced we need to know (every single thing there is to know) about
things we have to be on top of or take care of
things we suddenly remember we forgot to do
things that are simply so compelling we can’t not be distracted by them
things that take our minds off whatever we’re doing that we don’t want to be doing
things that seem better (more interesting, easier, or maybe just newer) than whatever we’re doing now

The internet is a major—and obvious—source of distraction, but it’s a piker compared to the source of distraction inside our own heads.

Attention is notoriously difficult to keep focused. One reason is that conscious attention requires, well, consciousness, and conscious (System 2) attention is a limited resource that can’t be easily or quickly renewed. It definitely can’t be renewed on command. If we squander it early in the day, we may not have enough left for another task that requires it later on. And squander it we do, on all kinds of things that are not worth actually thinking about.

When it comes to maintaining focus on a long-term goal—keeping our eyes on a distant prize—we often trip ourselves up at the outset by not accounting for the inevitable flagging of conscious attention. All evidence to the contrary, we’re convinced we will maintain the same level of enthusiasm and focus through the entire extent of a project that we had at the beginning of it. We count on our interest and enthusiasm to carry us through. It can’t and it won’t.

The sane thing to do, then, would be to assume that our interest, enthusiasm, and attention are going to flag and to create a plan that doesn’t rely solely on will power, self-discipline, enthusiasm, interest, or anything else that comes and goes.

If you want to use your brain to help maintain your focus, one thing you can do is set up checkpoints along the path to monitor your progress and to reward yourself for your achievements. The hits of dopamine your brain releases when you reward yourself will not only make you feel good, they will also activate emotional and learning circuits to increase the likelihood you will remember what you did and will want to do it again. As you get closer to reaching your goal, your brain will actually increase the amount of dopamine it releases each time you pass another checkpoint.

Achieving a distant goal—which could mean two months, two years, or two decades from now—requires detailed planning in order to get your brain to get with the program. Imagining the outcome—so you know what you’re aiming for—is important. But if you don’t identify all the steps it will take to get to the finish line and claim the prize, your brain will not be on board. Your brain, in fact, will be looking to board any passing train it catches sight of, and it will be taking you right along with it.

[NOTE: This post is the third in a series. See also When the Going Gets Grueling and Fortitude: Don’t Leave Home Without It.]

A Mind Really IS a Terrible Thing to Waste

August 25, 2013 by Joycelyn Campbell 5 Comments

A snag amongst other living trees. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Science is telling us something we already knew—even if we hadn’t put it into words. We have a limited amount of conscious attention, and when we’ve exhausted it on a task, there’s nothing we can do to immediately replenish it.

But we don’t just exhaust conscious attention on important matters or complex tasks. We squander it bit-by-bit on dozens of things throughout the day. As if that weren’t bad enough, we often squander it on the same darn things day after day after day.

I’ve had an annoying problem with my car for what I thought was the past year and a half but then found out was the past two and a half years. It isn’t as though I hadn’t tried to get it taken care of because I made multiple unsuccessful attempts to do so. In the meantime, I learned to put up with the problem. I didn’t have to think about it unless I wanted or needed to drive my car. But every time I started my car and attempted to drive it, I was forced to put my conscious attention on a routine my basal ganglia normally handles.

Recently, I had to take my car into the shop for an unrelated issue. This time I told the mechanic I didn’t care what it took to resolve the other longstanding problem, I just wanted it fixed once and for all. And lo and behold, it has been fixed! It took about a week before starting the car and driving it stopped snagging my conscious attention each and every time.

The experience led me to notice other things I’ve been putting up with in various areas of my life—things that snag my conscious attention repeatedly. I made a list of various minor but highly visible things that need to be taken care of in my apartment and gave it to the maintenance manager of the complex the other day. These issues all resulted from a series of upgrades that were done about two years ago. At least I thought it was two years ago. Turns out I was wrong about that, too. It was actually three years ago.

I began to notice that every time one of these things-I’m-not-taking-care-of rears its head, I have to give it conscious attention if only to disregard it. That’s true whether it’s something visible in my apartment, something I’ve been wanting to do, something I haven’t finished, or something I’ve been needing to take care of in another area of my life. It’s as if “not now” has become the mantra for these things. Compared to some, my list of things-I’m-not-taking-care-of may be relatively small, but that doesn’t matter. Everything on it still takes up headspace, still snags my conscious attention. There are things in life we do have to tolerate (put up with, if you will), but we don’t have to tolerate these kinds of things. And we do ourselves no favor by tolerating or putting up with them.

So my intention for the rest of 2013 is to clear up every item in my backlog of things-I’m-not-taking-care-of, no matter how large or small. I have only a dim idea of what it might be like to face a new year without these things taking up headspace and without regularly giving my conscious attention away to them. But I can’t wait to find out.

Self-Talk Radio: It’s Always On the Air

July 27, 2013 by Joycelyn Campbell 4 Comments

Our monkey minds are constantly chattering away, leaping from one thought to another, unchecked and unguided. We have many conflicting wants, needs, and goals but little available headspace in which to sort them out. Most of our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are not even consciously generated. They’re the result of what neuroscientist David Eagleman calls zombie systems and alien subroutines. In addition, we’re unaware of how vulnerable we are to influence from the environment. We are reportedly mentally AWOL at least 50% of the time. If you don’t believe that, just try tuning in to your own self talk. But be prepared to be appalled.

You’re engaging in some variation of self-talk whenever you:

Explain yourself to yourself
Explain external events and other people to yourself
Assign blame
Rationalize
Justify
Judge
React to events and other people
Rehash events
Mentally argue with yourself or others
Come to conclusions
Recall past events
Berate yourself
Make comparisons
Make predictions about the future
Encourage yourself
Give yourself directions
Remind yourself or keep a mental to-do list
Rehearse for the future

Most of these categories of self-talk are not very productive or what anyone would call positive. It’s part of the human condition. But self-talk can have a very powerful effect on us—especially when we’re tuned in to it unconsciously rather than consciously. On the other hand, tuning in to your self-talk is a great way to find out what’s going on in your unconscious.

Notice the ongoing stream of self-talk. Some of it is productive, some of it is neutral, and a lot of it is counterproductive.
Notice your inclination to label, judge, or try to change it—which creates additional self-talk.
Notice what kinds of themes your self-talk has. Does it bolster a particular mental, emotional, or physical state? Do particular events or situations hook you more often than others? Do you find yourself rerunning mental tapes?
Notice your emotions. What’s the relationship between your self-talk and the way you feel?
Notice your physical sensations. What’s the relationship between your self-talk and your physical state?

Instead of judging or trying to change your self-talk, try these gentle tools.

Ask questions. (Is that true? What do I want? What actually happened? etc.)
Empty the trash. If a particular situation or issue has hooked you and you want to get it out of your head, set a timer for 10 minutes and flow-write (keep writing without lifting your pen from the paper and without reflecting) about it. When you’re finished, do not reread what you wrote. Just toss it.
Focus your attention. Choose a word or phrase to focus your attention in the moment so you can redirect your thoughts.

A great way to pay attention to your self-talk is to get a pocket-sized notebook to carry with you. Each time you become aware of your self-talk, jot down the date, time, and a brief summary of your self-talk. The notebook is a cue for you to pay attention, and the more often you write in it, the more aware you will become of how you talk to yourself, what you talk to yourself about, and what effect it has on you.

Remember that Self-Talk Radio is always on the air—so you can tune in any time.