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And we're hosted on Linode cloud servers head to linode.com slash changelog. This podcast is for educational purposes only and does not constitute a doctor patient relationship. If you have specific questions or concerns, we encourage you to consult a health professional in your local area. From changelog media, this is brain science podcast with curious, we're exploring the inner workings of the human brain to understand behavior change, have the formation, mental health, and what it means to be human.
It's brain science applied, not just how the brain worked, but how do we probably know about the brain? The trains form our lives. I'm Emma Stikoviak. And I'm Dr.
Mary L. Reese. I think we've said this before that where attention goes, energy flows. So the more that I focus on something, I tend to feed that and make that grow.
It's interesting because I think attention and focus is something that all of us struggle with in one way or another. And I think it was Aristotle who said the demise of the world will come through destruction. And while many years ago, Socrates and Aristotle were trying to debate this idea of destruction around it being a matter of the will, but they didn't have the same distractions we had. The binge watching games of thrones was not something they had to resist.
Good luck, yes. Yeah, there's a season eight, though, however, it's a different story. It's a season eight. Season eight.
That's all season eight. And everybody knows, but yes, so true. I mean, I don't watch the Bachelor or the Bachelorette, not because they're terrible TV shows or any sort of personal reasons, but I personally don't have a desire to watch them. However, I do.
My wife watches them. And so I hang with my wife. And next thing you know, I'm enthralled in the drama or what's going on. I want to know, how would she do that to him?
Or why did he do that to her? Why do they like him? Or why does she like, you know, whatever the situation is? And it's so easy to get distracted.
Right, but I would say that part of that is relative to the sense of curiosity, right? Like what's going to happen? Are they going to, right? Well, I even think like horror movies, right?
We all know in watching horror movies like don't go there. Don't go behind in the background. The bad things there, you know? But we're apt towards discovery and being like, I'm just curious, I just want to find out what happens.
What's terrible with that, too, is there's times where our curiosity pays off. Sure. And there's times our curiosity leads us down a road of distraction. Yeah.
And maybe finding a way to distinct those two is the key. Well, and this is why like we talk a lot with some things we know and more of the things that we don't know or things that are sort of generally true versus the specifics which apply to an individual or the context of them and their situation. But attention as a construct or as a function of the brain is really critical because it plays a role in so many things. Like so attention, ironically, is actually a function of our brain.
It is generally related to our prefrontal cortex. So that front part, your forehead right behind there, well, prefrontal cortex is part of the frontal lobe, which is related to the system of executive function. So executive function involves set shifting, how quickly we process information, problem solving. And so if I don't consider what I'm placing my attention on, I might not also consider the domino effect, so to speak, that occurs from focusing in that way, right?
Like I've talked about this phenomenologically like putting when you buy a new car and then all of a sudden you go out and you drive and you go, there's one, and there's one, and there's another, right? And nothing really changed other than your attention. And maybe I can even substitute the word awareness for attention. I think awareness is a key word because one, there's a book around it, and we can point to that, which is a great book, we've mentioned that one before.
But definitely what is in your awareness is has got your attention. I can think of like when I don't like to do this, but every once in a while I drive, I might look at my phone. And even before I do it, I have a precursor to say, don't go too deep, you know? But something very tantalizing will be on the device and somehow distract me for a moment.
And it could turn out to be a bad moment, right? So that's why driving and looking at your phone is gonna be really bad. Cause it's got your full awareness. And you know, you might be trying to drive.
I use this as an example because it's so easy to get distracted. And that's the point I'm trying to make here. So it's so easy for us to become our awareness to as you say domino effect into something else. Because if I'm trying to drive and or someone's trying to drive and their phone distracts them or something around, you know, changing the radio station or changing the song, it's so easy to go from full awareness and full attention to driving safely to wrecking or not seeing the car in front of you stop or whatever.
And the loss of attention and the distraction process is so fast. Like it's almost, it is milliseconds and it happens just so fast. Yeah, it does. And I love this.
This Kitty Chisholm, hopefully I didn't mask her name but she did this TEDx talk on attention. And she says, it's a very competitive environment when it comes to attention. And so attention is this mechanism through which the brain focuses its resources on something. And if you can direct your attention, then you can direct where your brain puts its resources.
I wanna say real quick, that's why I love podcasting because podcasting like listener who's listening to my word right now, you opted into this. We didn't put a banner ad out there. We didn't put this flyer out. We didn't email you, well, we may have emails because you opted into that too.
But the point is that somehow you're listening to this because you opted in. You've said that to yourself somewhere, some shape or form, I wanna place my attention to here, to this show called brain science or to other shows we have or other podcasts. The point is that it's very opt in. And you've said before, Maryl, that when you can participate in your choices, it's so much easier to be involved and to be committed to those choices because you play a role, a key role in that choice.
And that's why the podcasting, you opted in. We didn't distract you to get you to listen to this. You're listening to this on your own accord, hopefully. Maybe your friend wrote you and said, hey, listen to this, but the point is is that you opted in and we're not stealing your attention.
That's what this format is. It's not an attention stealer. Yeah, but even what you're talking about, I appreciate so much because it's exactly what the philosophers were talking about and that it involves an aspect of the will. So I have options.
Right. When you have options, you have options. You have choices. What exactly is the will though?
Because we've talked about that being a finite resource. Right. It is, but it doesn't mean it can't grow. It can't change.
And this is why I love talking about the brain and really doing what I do and that neuroplasticity, so the brain's flexibility, willingness ability to adapt is alive and real. And it doesn't matter what age you are, that you can always change your brain. So willpower, again, as a resource to say, I've built it maybe over in this lane because what I've done is allocate my resources so that now it doesn't require as much for that habit, that skill, that practice, but over here in this new lane, now it requires greater resources for resistance. And so, you know, attention isn't a sort of one thing.
It's multi-faceted, right? And I don't know how much we've talked about this, but it's really important to get out. The brain is never as simple as we'd like it to be and we're always discovering more, but we process information from the bottom up. So think brain stem up to more of the neocortex as well as top down, so within that neocortex back down because it's always interfacing.
And so studies talk about bottom up features of perception, which is this degree to which our sensory systems are taxed or loaded upon, and that influences how much attention we can devote to a task. So say, for example, I think about this, like my office staff or anybody in admin, where phones are ringing perpetually, the sensory data you're taking in is consistent. And you have people coming up to the front window, so you're seeing things, you're hearing things, your senses are on overdrive while, you also then have to do other tasks, like writing things down. And it's not like all of the internal processing stops.
So that's the other component when I talk about top down that can constrain attention or awareness, that for example, these are like our expectations or other people's expectations can also shift our attention sometimes in meaningful ways. Well, I mean, if we might be, suddenly I feel a sensation in my fingers. Oh, that sensation is fire. Suddenly my full attention is now to the fact that I'm being burned, or something like something, I've put my hand on stuff or made a mistake while cooking, whatever it is, it's like I've got attention on the recipe, I'm thinking about swiping my iPad to get to the different ingredients or the specifics of how to make this meal, or whatever it might be.
And suddenly my centuries, you're talking about your different sensory organisms to say, hey, hang on your axion fire, you probably stop everything, even though this meal is important, your hand cannot be replaced easily easily. But see how that's evolutionarily adaptive, like we need to be able to register sensory data live, like it's happening in the moment, so that that takes precedence, right? That's why it's a bottom up. So it comes to that brainstem, which our brains fundamentally, the foundation of what our brains are always trying to do is keep us alive.
Yeah, like the so cool, honestly. Just don't die, everything's about not, everything is about every choice we make is about not dying. Right, and so think about, it's this competing system. So if I'm taking in system information bottom up, my sense is tell me one thing, think VR, and then my higher cognitive functions, tell me another thing, like that's not real, even though your brain is telling you it's real, like, oh gosh, like now how do I respond?
And which thing do I put greater attention on? That's a constant battle. It is because attention really sort of imagine it sort of blows things up, so that it's like that then colors all of what you see. I mean, I see this a lot in the work that I do in just the way that people have been trained, so to speak, by their experience, to go, this is what I expect in relationship.
Here's the way that people treat me. And I have to go, hold on, is that I recognize and I empathize that this is what it's been like for you, but is that always only ever true? Or is that what you've trained yourself to see and or? Is there a way in which you actually participate in that because you believe or put your attention to see relationships or people that are going to interface with you in that way?
And now you're stuck in the same cycle. We can look at it with even any work things that you do. So say you always get stuck in the same place on a work project, like or in a sport, like I always get to like that final race and then I just blow it at the end. That's in your line.
Right. Because and so here we go. I got a, I can't talk about attention without talking about emotion. Because emotion is going to create hiccups in and around what I can pay attention to because if I take in sensory data, that it's like, okay, I'm running a race or I'm riding a bike or I'm working on a project.
And then my emotions are like talking to me or have that negative internal dialogue. Like we've talked about that inner bully. Yeah. Yes.
Now I've got this disruption in my attention and going like, oh, how do I do this task in front of me? Like live live while I also have this chatter that's competing for my attention that tells me what the outcome is already going to be. And that's hard to, and I don't even know how and so maybe you have some awareness of how to not let that be such an occurrence. Because as we said before, you know, emotion curiosity, if you put those two in the same kind of bucket, there's times when following our intuition or our gut or our curiosity, it pays off.
And there's times when obviously it's going to distract us in that 10 year line, blow it kind of moment. It's going to happen because you might have killed the first 80 yards, you know, to use a football analogy. And the last 10 yards, you're like, your emotion steps in and gets distracted and the next thing you know, your tag would be fumbled, you lose the ball, whatever. You basically don't cross the goal.
Right. You know, there's times when those things pay off, there's times when they don't. How do you discern that? Discernment is probably a key aspect to sort of training.
It is, it is. Imagine that you have to learn how to translate your own experience of fear. Yeah. There's a lot of talk nowadays about fear and struggling, people struggling with anxiety.
And I want our listeners to understand and recognize like fear is adaptive. Like the purpose is never to eliminate fear because fear is a signal. It's just a feedback. Yeah.
But if I don't know how to interpret the signals that fear is sending me, I'm going to struggle. Because fear, it could be that there is an actual threat. I mean, it could be around a loss or it could be, you know, an act of violence. It could be, you know, performance anxiety in that way.
But how do you begin to be aware of your own internal system that then creates the physiological response, which then competes for your attention and then runs the dialogue as based on past experience, not present or future? We're still in this New Year aspect, right? It's still January, barely. And people are still, you know, transitioning to and determining their goals for the year.
If that's what you do, not so much that's in the year's name. But just something that people tend to do because it's a New Year's new beginning. It's a new slate to build upon. And a way that you can use fear to your advantage is if your goals that you've set for the year, don't scare you in some way.
You know, you probably didn't push yourself or probably not pushing yourself as far hard as you could to not so much to just for the sake of progress but for the sake of the fact that it's a feedback of like, if the goals I put before me don't give me some sort of fear then I probably should push my goals a little further. And just to be, and that's probably way I can say I personally use fear than my advantage. And in the case where you just said there's times when fear is an indicator, it's feedback. And to not minimize it or reduce it to nothing but to use it to your advantage.
Yeah, I've heard this example in people, you know, within the martial arts field and, you know, for the sake of my experience in conversation and awareness as a woman, not learning to trust intuition which fear is a signal of something that has the potential for harm and researchers and experts in that field will say the data is the 100% of the time when people who have survived an attack of sorts had a feeling, had some sense of awareness of that something was off before they were assaulted or attacked in some sort of way. For example, you know, and yet we don't want to make other people feel uncomfortable or badly. And so, and I might not have the rational data to support the feeling so I'm apt to diminish that data point as having relevance. Think for example, they give this analogy of somebody pressing the emergency stop on the elevator like say I'm in an elevator with only one other person and they hit the emergency stop.
Do you think that that is caused for my brain to signal alarm? Probably. Oh yeah, there's some reason. Right, because do people really have, Adam, have you ever had an experience where someone has playfully hit the emergency stop button when you're in an elevator?
No, no, I was gonna say if you say back. It's usually a purposeful action, usually. Right, and so if I shut down on that awareness, that signal, my brain is giving me, I am now in further opportunity for harm because I'm not gonna react out of that perception of threat. So our conversation when it comes to attention isn't all around threat, but actually deciphering signals and recognizing more of attention as whether things are in the forefront or the background.
Another way in which I, or area that I can talk about this is like when people have chronic pain, pain as an experience, it's really pervasive. Like it sort of is always knocking on your door like you're aware, you hurt, remember this hurts. Don't do this, right? But that pain, if you can learn how to move and maneuver it from the forefront of your mind to the background of your mind, so like from the forefront of your attention to just in the background, it actually helps you navigate the pain differently and more adaptively.
And that being said, it doesn't mean it's easy, right? Hence binge watching Game of Thrones, right? They're all coming back to Game of Thrones. There is this aspect of willpower involved with attention.
So what if you could think of attention very much like your camera lens? Well, we've used that as an example before, the panorama view versus the narrow view, and okay, this makes sense. Selfie mode versus outward mode. And going, where is my attention?
Cause if you can imagine wherever you're placing that attention, I'm now blowing up the balloon bigger and bigger so that I'm very much focused on that detail. Yeah. Let me add one more to this then for you. So what if instead of saying where's my attention, you can say, where's my camera pointing?
Yeah. And then the question after that might be which focal length am I at? So you might have to dig into the camera aspects of this to some degree, but you know, a 20 millimeter lens is very narrow versus, sorry, that's a 20 millimeters very wide or pretty wide, well, 85 millimeters, what they use for portraits, very narrow, you like that because it sort of separates the backgrounds of different lenses have different, very distinct different vantage points, you know, to the camera itself. So just pointing it is one aspect, but the focal length of the lens is another.
Right. But do you see how it then creates a whole different experience because of what you're bringing into focus? Yeah. And whether you see the sort of close up or the distance and all of the sort of, you know, images or outlines of the images as opposed to all of the pixels of the person.
Yeah. And there's times we need both, right? I mean, we wouldn't want it to only. Well, the new iPhone has three cameras.
Yeah. That's a joke there, but it's true. I mean, why take one picture of one focal length? Why not take a picture with all three or three different distinct focal lengths?
Is that something that we can sort of adapt to us? Can we have many focal lengths at once? Sure. Is that what you would, that would be perception?
That's how you sort of like narrow your focus and attention? Yeah, yeah. Think about this being able to, you know, push things out of awareness or into the background is like I am just honing more of a certain image in my camera lens so that I can see it more clearly. Yeah, I like this analogy a lot.
It's this idea of our awareness being a camera where's appointed, you know, to which degree is our lens focused? You know, what are we seeing in there? Because it's all, we've said this before. It's all data, you know, and how can you take in this data to make wise choices?
And if we can use fear to our advantage, as you've said, fear as an indicator, it's a feedback loop, we're always considering how can we, how can we not die in this moment? And there's some moments that are more, you know, threatful than others, obviously, you know, when you're being physically attacked, that's way different than just simply say, poking your finger with a needle or, you know, stubbing your toe or something like that. They're different pain or fear receptors that happen because of that. But the point is that to not die today means to leverage your fear to make wise choices, to focus your attention, to therefore hit some sort of optimization of what you're trying to do in your life.
Yeah. And I don't want to sort of divert too far away from this, but I can't help but braid in also the concept of vulnerability. Because if we're talking about fear and not dying, it might not be that there's an eminent threat to my physical, you know, body, but rather like in creative endeavors. Yeah.
Like my creativity, my ego, my brand. Yeah. Like who people think I am. Right.
And I think people encounter this vulnerability in a myriad of ways in different jobs, like authors, writing books. Like there's a degree of vulnerable, yeah. Correct. When you write even a program, whenever you sort of use yourself as the frame of reference to then offer something to the world without a guaranteed outcome around how others are going to receive it.
Now I'm vulnerable. Now I'm anxious. And now I'm like, am I really thinking with my whole brain? Or am I just thinking like a reptile?
And I'm just like fight, flater, freeze. Do I go hide out under my turtle shell? Or do I sort of like puff up and try to be bigger? Yeah.
Yeah. So why do you think vulnerability plays into attention? Like why is it important to, I guess if we can say if fear is a feedback, is vulnerability a feedback? It is.
I would say that that's part of it because having the awareness of whatever I'm doing involves a certain amount of vulnerability, then now I'm switching over to a matter of the will and asking myself, is it worth it to recognize that I'm going to potentially lose or be rejected or have other people say, you know, criticisms of the work I've done when I am vulnerable. Yeah. And remember when we're talking about these things, I'm never talking about it as a binary construct, like it's all or nothing, black or white, but rather like vulnerability as a continuum, attention even as a continuum, that you can focus your camera lens in different ways along a continuum, like super close up or way zoomed out. So coming back around to that attention, there is what we talk about or describe as divided attention.
Like literally I'm attending to two separate things simultaneously. So think about it like taking notes when you're in college or you're listening to a lecture, you're listening. So you're taking it in through your auditory senses, but then I'm also transmitting the information and utilizing other cognitive resources to be able to manipulate the information and write it down. So I'm doing two things simultaneously.
That's this divided attention. But then there's also sustained attention. So it's literally like one track, one way, there's no two way streets, I'm on a one way road. And this is like all I'm focused on.
So these two aspects of attention you got divided, you got sustained, I think about flow. Years ago, I did a podcast with a woman named Kathy Sierra, very famous in the software world. She exposed me to user experience and this desire to sort of like this aspect of the brain, this cognitive awareness, so to speak. And she had talked about the state of flow, and I had no idea about it.
I've read some books obviously since then about it, but it's sort of borderlineing on these two things where you have divided or sustained attention and the benefits that can come from being in the state of flow, which a lot of our listeners can be pretty familiar with, but very interesting and deep subject. Yeah, flow is a very interesting concept. And it gets at the heart of the sustained attention, although there's more to it, and that flow is very much sort of like the epitome of mindfulness, like I'm fully absorbed in the moment I'm in. Some people would reference flow very much like the concept of play.
And for play as a construct, it's qualified by like two things. And one is that I don't want it to end, and two that I lose track of time. Hence like it's a deep dive, like I am all in, whatever I'm doing. That's why they encourage some work, I'm not sure how to phrase it, but essentially making work playful.
Cause you get lost. Like you find a kid deep in, you know, pretend mode, their play mode, whatever it is, it's gonna be very difficult to get their attention. Like my son, if I, if I, he's playing, and I'm like Eli, Eli, you know, and I'm trying to get his attention for whatever reason, you know, it's hard to sort of like, it's almost like zapping them out of something, you know what I mean? Like you almost have to like do something significant to get their attention, and they even almost sort of like shake themselves awake.
And I'm using this as a metaphor, obviously for this, but that's what it reminds me of. It's like when we're in flow, it's like tunnel vision deep, deep, deep, deep, and some really amazing things can come from that, whether it's a child play and they work related to aspect, whether it's an artist, a podcaster, you know, a software developer, you know, whatever it might be, to use this data flow to their advantage. It is. So years ago, I actually had the opportunity when I was in graduate school to do what we refer to as biofeedback or neurofeedback.
So you put electrodes on someone's head in certain places. And then ironically, that's like the video game controller for a computer screen. And so based on whatever thoughts they're thinking, it controls or moves or maneuver, whatever it is on the screen. And so it's like practicing their brain, getting in a gear for this optimal functioning, which is sort of the calmer state.
Like I'm just in that zone. So it's very much in like sports, athletic performance of like, I'm using these theta waves, these brain waves that are like not asleep, but not like super high awake waves. And that's why it's very different as a construct and an experience because you're just kicking on all cylinders except not at that high rate. Does that make sense?
Kind of. When you said theta waves, is that like a sound wave or a brain wave? It's brain waves. So there's brain waves.
So there's alpha theta beta waves for our brain. And so theta waves are just sort of the one that comes up to being more in the forefront when people are in this state of flow. If you can think about it, it's just like a gear. Like I get in that gear.
And so we can train ourselves around this, which is why I want, I'm so glad you brought this up because we always want our listeners to know what they can do, not just hear some information. Yeah, apply it. Yeah. And so figuring out one, things that like when you're in that place, like do you even know Adam, like times at which you felt sort of at your peak performance where imagine everything else fades into the background for your awareness and you're just honed in on a project or?
Yes. Yeah, I'm very aware of that. And I'm even more aware when I don't achieve it, which is terrible. But I think what I try to do is I try to optimize my life for serving up that opportunity.
Sure. Right. So determining what it is that allows me to have a distraction free scenario for a sustained amount of time in order to hit these sort of peak performance flow states. And so most of what I do, I think pretty much anybody who desires to be productive is like, how can I optimize for those environments?
And when we're trying to like define our day and design our work life, you know, the work time of our life, that for me, I've mentioned before, work eight plates, when I define my eight, how can I optimize those eight to have as much of that as possible? Yeah. So am I correct? If what you're saying is you are aware that there's certain elements that you utilize in order to impose constraints around you and the time you spend in the work type of work that you're doing.
You were correct. Yeah. And so there's deliberate efforts. Yes.
Right. I remember I had a possible purposeful. Yeah. Yeah.
I once upon a time had a boss who used to tape a sign to his door that said in Barbados. That's awesome. Yes. I'm gonna get that for my job.
Well, I'll go to Jamaican's desk. Barbados, sure. But that was the indicator, like unless the office was burning down, like you did not, yeah, you don't interrupt me. Like I need to get this thing done.
And so I need to have like all of my attention focused on this one thing so that I can do my best or feel like I've accomplished the task that before me. Well, let me just say that the sign is one, you know, one layer of protection for this, you know, to use this example of your boss or your previous boss or whatever this scenario was, but you still have yourself, my gosh, put your phone away. This is me talking to me, not me talking to you audience, but, you know, I am my worst final barrier to the state of flow because I have to have the discipline, the discipline of pushing these things away for which to distract me because the sign will help. The sign will help other people outside the door from coming in, but it won't stop the things that are already in like digital things that can be distracting.
Sure, sure. And so that's just it. When we were talking about attention, you know, there's external intrusions, you know, the phone ringing, other people interrupting us, but there's also internal distractions or sort of like, oh, yeah, what was that shoot? I needed to make sure I get the laundry done, get what was the grocery list before I do that.
Oh, and like, what else do we have this weekend? And right, the litany of other things. The intro chatter of life. Yeah, yeah, and then we now have this phone that's such an easy distraction.
Like, I think it was, I forget where I was reading this, but somebody said the average person, and I don't know what constitutes person or how that's defined, 2,617 times is how often a person picks up a phone like within a day. Oh, yeah. Right? Yeah, I so bad when I go on like a phone fast, you know, like a 30 day, like I don't know if I could do it.
Well, how would I change? Because I see people, you know, out there saying I did a 30 day fast from my smartphone or from X, you know, social media accounts or whatever it is. But, you know, I want to see how that works because, you know, the phone is one part because it's both helpful and hurtful. Yeah.
There's so many things about their positives because, you know, indicators, feedback, getting a text from my wife saying the house is on fire or quick come here, I need you because we have a newborn. That's, I need to still have that kind of attachment to the external world. Sure. So the phone is both helpful and hurtful.
So how can I, how can I balance that? So part of it is it's sort of knowing yourself and sort of what you're most prone to do. I think about it, you know, I do, I write a lot of reports and sometimes, well, I just have a lot of writing to do. Always.
And so I'm always tempted. Like that's my time to shop online. And so I will actually disconnect the wifi or go to somewhere where I know I don't have wifi. So I impose other constraints in order to be able to do it.
Also, other things that I do is like sort of tethering this in distractions plus flow, I will play certain music as based on whatever activity I'm trying to cultivate or get done. Yeah, I actually play some, that's why I asked if it was audio waves earlier, because I listen to some theta wave stuff and I'm working. I'll listen to some, they call it like white noise, pink noise, there's different types of noise, but essentially it's in some cases, like in banks, for example, they will play certain sounds that reduces the audibility of words. So you may be 10 feet away from the teller, but not be able to hear that person communicate, you know, personal feedback to the person two feet away from them, you're 10 feet away.
So it disrupts the audibility of words by a distance. The same, it might influence a state of flow or a state of internal hum. I don't know the science behind it, but I know there are theta waves, there are these kinds of waves and stuff like that, and there's different hurts that the sound may be in and it may attract, what do you know about those things? Is that something you use or?
What, for the different hurts? Well, just that, the auditory thing, I like the aspect of the intentionality, like disconnecting the wifi, like the same is me turning on a certain soundtrack. Yeah, part of it is what I'm trying to do with attention is sort of impose other constraints. I mean, very much like all the different dishes you can use for cooking and going, what is the form that I want whatever dish to have when it's done?
Do I want muffins? Do I want bread? Do I want, you know, it on a sheet, right? Like, and so how can I impose constraints that make me more prone?
Like ironically that I'm relying less on my will and more on the demand of that environment. Hence why it can be challenging to work from home. Yeah. Because there's less buffering, so to speak, from both internal and external distractions or disruptions.
Yeah, so you have the bonus, you don't have to leave your home, but then how does your brain calibrate around, like, no, this is where I'm working. And I think that's why it's so important that people, when they work remotely, do have a designated workspace because it cues your brain. Remember, we talk about habits. Yeah.
Our environment is a key catalyst with running whatever play. That's right. Yeah, if you're in your office or in a particular place where you do the work, that's where the work is done. And I try, that's what I do in my own home, is that I have a designated space where I do work.
And so when I'm there, like anybody, even my kids, they know like when dad's in there, he's working, you know, or supposedly working if I'm not distracted, right? But if I'm vulnerable with the audience and myself here in this moment, which is a good thing, you know, is that when I'm in this place here, it's work mode. Yeah. You know, and to not, don't put a workout machine, don't put a peloton in your office.
You know, sure, you probably couldn't if you have the willpower discipline, maybe that works for you. But sometimes mixing exercise with work, you get this guilt or the shame that comes from not doing one or the other. And you sort of mix environments. Right, like what if we did a poll?
Cause think about this relative to whether or not couples have TVs in their bedrooms. Yeah, well, many functional medicine doctors that I follow will say, do not put a TV in your bedroom. Guess where we have a TV. Right.
But it's going, do I need those constraints or am I able to manage it? Like what's hard for me isn't necessarily hard for someone else, which may be like semi-hard for another person. It really just comes back to building skills alongside this awareness. And I think for people to recognize just like we actually will cast a body part for a period of time to create less mobility so that healing can take place.
That's the same thing we can do when we're trying to change ourselves. Is there a way in which I can impose further constraints so that healing or strength can be built in this area so that when I remove the cast, I then can use it differently? Yeah. But what about distractions as being good?
When has a distraction been good for me? Well, I suppose I don't like to do, not so much give blood, but what does it, whenever you go and you get lab work done? I guess it's not give blood. It's not give blood for you.
It's not give blood for you. It's not donating your blood. I mean, but you're still giving your blood because of labs. You know what I mean?
I like that. I mean, I'm a tough person. I don't particularly like a needle and IV going into my body. I don't like to look at it.
It's not gonna make me faint. You know, not a weenie because of it or whatever it is. You know, like, I just don't particularly like it. And so for me, I use a distraction in those moments to help me take my attention off of the thing that is like the elephant in the room, you know, giving my blood for this lab cause.
Oh, you mean, so you use distraction to manage painful or negative emotions. That's right. Yeah, right. That's right.
I do that. Right. And I'm still with you. Like, I just don't like the prick.
So I minimize my attention. And all I do is I look away while I do the initial prick. And then I'm fine. I'm looking right.
Yeah. And they're so quick with it too, thankfully. I know. And there's very pain with these.
I mean, there's nothing painful about it. It's just I don't like it. I prefer not to pay attention to it. Right.
So I queue up some distractions. Right. And so, you know, I do want to sort of clarify when we're talking about, you know, these distractions as being good that people have more of the concept of them. And Daniel Gorman, which I'm not sure if you're familiar with him, but he wrote Emotional Intelligence.
Yes. And he's now got the book Focus, The Hidden Power of Excellence. Ironically. And so he talks about sensory distractions and emotional distractions.
And so sensory distractions as being things happening around you, i.e. that sort of bottom-up processing, what you're taking in from the outside in, as opposed to emotional distractions, which is your inner dialogue, thoughts about things happening in your life. So think more, you know, top-down processing. And so when we use distractions to help us are very much like, I would say in this case of managing more of the emotional distractions and going, I don't want to hear the chatter that my brain is telling me around whatever situation or feeling that I have.
And so now I'm going to go, whoop, and I'm going to pivot my attention, just like you turned your head in doing the lab work, so that I'm not focused on that thing that feels aversive to me. And I think this is so much at the heart of change when people realize like, oh, you mean, I don't have to just wallow in the feeling? Yeah. No, no, change it, change the channel of what you're focusing on.
And so imagine then I've got sort of this divided attention. I'm aware that I'm being poked, but my attention is also attuned to music or something else that's positive that feels good. I'm in the Bahamas on a beach. Right, but it is.
Yes, yes, yeah. And so apart from the negative emotions that we all encounter, the other time that destruction is actually sometimes helpful is with falling asleep. Oh, yes, I use this one very often. And I'm actually, I'm not sure if it's a good thing.
I've done it for so long. I almost have to be distracted. Well, tell me, tell me what you do. No, I don't want to understand.
I'll tell you. Mostly it's listening to usually a conversation or a book on a deep subject. If it's something that's stimulating, that really catches my attention, it's hard. So that's a two-edged sword.
Sometimes I really enjoy listening to books on physics, different astrophysics or deep thinking type stuff. So sometimes it's good because it's so deep. I can't follow it and I get distracted and fall asleep because of it. Or my attention gets peaked.
And next thing you know, I'm wired. And this is exactly why I asked you because you just nailed both sides of how it can be helpful and how it can be harmful in that context of like you don't want the arousal to be the attention, so to speak, when I talk about arousal, that your attention gets peaked to the degree that you're like, oh, I'm not going to go to sleep now because I want to hear the end or what they're going to say. But rather, it is enough of a distraction sort of clearing or minimizing the chatter in my own mind that it's like that humdrum that your brain's like, and we can fade away and go to sleep. This might be a deeper subject, so let's maybe pin this one for a future topic because it is very deep.
I'll have to say four letters, ASMR. ASMR. So have you heard of this ASMR? No.
It's auditory sensory MR. I don't know what the MR stands for, but it's essentially people, it's huge. It's huge in this distraction to follow sleep scenario. ASMR essentially is like some sort of auto sensory thing that you can listen to that's like maybe crackling of tin foil or different sensory or like fingernails on a microphone or something like that.
These are like really things that people listen to that they get really unique and deep. Some are very out there and some are just sort of kind of normal, but they can be, essentially it's sounds that you wouldn't typically hear that provide this distractive state. So that you can follow sleep? Yeah, or relax, or relax.
It could be a sensory deprivation tank where you're doing zero sensory or some of that sensory could be, essentially it's to every relaxful state sometimes to sleep. Well, this is why I love these conversations because they always promote further conversations and the sense of discovery. And so I know there's a lot I wanna dive into around sleep because we've referenced it briefly in other episodes, but a lot of people struggle with it. And part of it has to do with where we're placing our attention.
I mean, you've heard of people like Count Sheep. Yeah, exactly. Or ironically, what does it count backward in sets of threes? Oh yeah, because you gotta really think about that and then your brain gets distracted and it's like, what was it, three or four?
So it's funny, yes. It is. It is, and so four people to recognize, like I want people to begin to practice to experiment. Like how might you go about it this week and go, what am I putting my attention on?
And what does that feel like to me? Do I like it? Is it aversive? I'm like, oh no, I need to change that channel in my mind.
Or like I can stay here for a while. But recognizing that there's this perpetual interplay between the inside and the outside. And that if we don't practice even discovering within ourselves how those factors interplay, we're apt to struggle all the more throughout our day-to-day lives. So maybe consider how you might focus on something at the outside of your day to go, this is where I'm gonna focus.
You could say, I'm gonna focus on looking for two lips. Or I wanna find red cars. Or I wanna find the number three. Like make it a playful exercise so that you can begin to see the power of your own attention and how that acts as the steering wheel for your life.
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