Adegoke Titilayo

How to get your brain to focus

I started to notice something in my own behavior a few years back that unnerved me a little. And so my existence was a sequence of screens from the time I woke up until the end of the day. I began the day by using my phone, which woke me up in the morning. I then sat in bed and watched several Instagram culinary videos while switching between a number of other apps. However, it was time to get out of bed and prepare breakfast, so I concentrated on the iPad that was next to the oven at that moment in addition to the omelette that was cooking. After that, it was time to get to work, so I moved to another screen that was connected to another screen. While I was trying to finish crucial tasks, this tiny devil on my wrist kept tapping, beeping, blooping, and distracting me. Out of all these devices, though, there was one that I spent more time on than any other. It was my phone, that evil device. I could work on this for hours every day. I therefore made the decision to basically get rid of it for a month-long period. "I'm going to live on this thing for just thirty minutes," I thought as an experiment.daily at most." So, this is how much time I have for maps, how much time I have to call my mom, how much time I have for anything I could possibly want to do, how much time I have to listen to music, how much time I have to listen to podcasts, and I watched what transpired during this time. A week or so was needed to become used to a new, lower level of stimulus, but after I did, I observed three odd things started to happen. My attention span increased first. It seemed as though I could concentrate on things much more easily than I could have before this experiment began, though not effortlessly. Furthermore, though, while I was moving about the world, and particularly when my thoughts strayed, I came up with new ideas. In addition, I had more goals and ideas for the future. These three impacts resulted from the removal of a single, basic device. Why? After realizing this a few years ago, I embarked on a protracted quest to understand what it takes to concentrate in a world full with distractions. In my office, I combed through hundreds of study papers from front to back. Have you ever watched one of those crime shows when someone is trying to solve a murder? They have a large Bristol board, and documents, memoranda, newspapers, and string are all fastened to it.clippings—this is similar to how my office was at the time. I took a plane to visit with specialists from all over the world who study focus, and I kept testing myself until I had 25,000 words of research notes explaining why this is the case. What effects does technology have on our capacity for focus and attention? First, I would want to discuss our attention spans. This is how we observe the environment and how much control we have over our attention. This specific field of research is exciting. It turns out that we only concentrate on one task for forty seconds when working in front of a computer, especially when our phone is close by change to something else, and this drops to 35 seconds when we're working and have apps like Slack open. However, after reviewing the evidence, the reason for this is not what we might have assumed. We believe that our preoccupied brains are the cause of the issue. However, after reviewing the literature, I've concluded that this is the primary cause of this distraction and a symptom of a far more serious issue. Our brains are overstimulated, not distracted, which is the problem. The reason is that we initially yearn for distraction. Social media, email, and other small bits of information are all very appealing to our minds.throughout the day. We also have a mechanism in our minds known as the "novelty bias," which is how our minds reward us with dopamine, one of those amazing pleasure chemicals. This is the same dopamine that we receive when we order a whole medium pizza from Domino's, or when we make love, you know. When we check Facebook, we experience the same stimulation. Dopamine starts to flow through our brains. Therefore, our mind rewards us for actively searching out and locating distraction in the first place, in addition to our desire for it. Thus, this is how we are thinking right now. We're in a hyperstimulated condition where we continually switch between these several items of attention that significantly stimulates our minds. So I began to wonder, "Okay, if the phone had this impact on my attention span, what if I lowered how stimulated I was even more, still?" There is a word for this sensation that we have when we transition from a high-stimulation state to a low-stimulation state. This restlessness that we get after a very hectic week is known as "boredom," (laughs) and occurs while we're laying on the sofa on a Sunday afternoon and wondering, "Alright, well, what am I doing now?" I thus called my website's readers and asked them, "What is the most boring thing about your site?"something that comes to mind? For a month, I'm going to keep myself occupied for an hour every day." As a result, I did several things that still make me angry with my readers. I spent an hour reading the iTunes terms and conditions on the first day. (Laughter) Contrary to popular belief, it is both shorter and easier to read. On the fourth day, I was placed on hold by the baggage claims department of Air Canada. It is quite simple. Here's the trick: if you want to kill time, phone baggage claim instead of reservations. You will have to wait for hours, if you are connected at all. I counted as many zeroes as I could in the first 10,000 on day 19,the pi-digits. Oh no. On day 24, I spent an hour watching a clock tick away. and 27 other events this month. Jeez. I still reflect on the past. Curiously, though, I observed the identical results as in the smartphone experiment. My mind required around a week to become used to a newer, lower level of stimulus. This is interesting because research indicates that it takes our minds eight days to completely relax and rest, such as on a vacation. We must take longer vacations than we do now. However, I also observed an increase in my attention span. Because there were fewer distractions around me, I was able to concentrate even more easily.