Something You Should Know - What Awe and Wonder Do to Your Brain & Why Your Attention Span Is Shrinking

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Starting point is 00:00:30 Today, on Something You Should Know, some great advice to help you sleep better when you're all stuffed up with a cold. Then experiencing that sense of awe and wonder, it turns out to have amazing benefits. We know from a lot of research that a brief dose of awe, even if you plan it and know it's coming, makes you feel less stressed about your daily life. It gives you a greater sense of well-being. Also, how colors can change the way food tastes. And your attention span, it's getting shorter.

Starting point is 00:01:05 We switch our attention more frequently, and that's a problem. When people switch their attention, when they multi-tasked, we know that blood pressure rises. There's a physiological marker that indicates people are stressed. We know that people make more errors when they switch their attention. All this today on Something You Should Know. I want to tell you about a great new podcast I think you'll like. I'm loving it.

Starting point is 00:01:35 So what happens when our passions become obsessions? Well, on David Green is obsessed, one of America's most familiar voices and longtime co-host of NPR's Morning Edition seeks out obsessives of all kinds while unpacking his own fixations. You'll hear David talk to comedian Tignitar, about her complex passion for plant-based food.

Starting point is 00:02:01 Actor David Arquette on his love of Bozo the Clown. Paula Poundstone on her house full of cats. Celebrity chef and author Michael Simon discusses why he just can't quit the Cleveland Browns even though they often make him miserable, and so much more. It's pop psychology disguised as conversations with the world's most fascinating people.

Starting point is 00:02:25 You can listen to David Green is obsessed wherever you get podcasts. Something You Should Know, fascinating intel, the world's top experts, and practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know, with Mike Carruthers. And I've got some really practical news you can use in your life. Hi, welcome to Something You Should Know. This is the time of year when a lot of people get sick with a cold. and when you're sick with a cold, you want to sleep. But that can be hard if you're all stuffed up.

Starting point is 00:03:01 So what do you do? Well, here are some tips from the people at WebMD. First of all, use a nasal strip. You'll be amazed at how they open you up so you can breathe better. Another suggestion is to take a hot shower before bed. The steam and humidity will help clear out your sinuses. A little chicken soup is good. Research shows that eating hot shower,

Starting point is 00:03:25 chicken soup was more effective than sipping hot water to clear out your sinuses. And no one is exactly sure why that is, but it is. Avoid cold drinks before bed, they can actually increase stuffiness. And use a saline nasal rinse or netty pot to clear out your nose. But be careful of over-the-counter nasal sprays. Some of them can have a rebound effect if you use them too much than you get addicted to them. Don't prop up your head with pillows. It causes an unnatural bend in the neck, and that can actually make it harder to breathe.

Starting point is 00:04:03 It's best to use a wedge-shaped pillow that elevates you from the waist up. And that is something you should know. Have you ever been in awe? I'm sure you have. When you watch a beautiful sunset or look across the Grand Canyon or watch a snowfall, you can find awe in so much of life, in big things, and in little everyday things.

Starting point is 00:04:31 And in fact, you probably should find more awe, because awe is good for you. How good? Well, that's what Dacker Kelter is here to discuss. Dackers studies the science of emotion. He is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and he's author of a book called Aw, the new science of everyday wonder and how it can transform your life. Hey, Dacker, welcome. Thanks for coming on something you should know. It's good to be with you, Mike.

Starting point is 00:05:02 So let's start with a definition. What is awe? Aw is an emotion. So it's this mental state that arises when we encounter vast mysteries that we don't understand. So it's a feeling you have most typically when you encounter things that are really vast. in terms of size or meaning and then they're mysterious or the Edmund Burke this philosopher has said they're obscure we can't make them out with our knowledge structure so awe and animates you know acts of creativity and wonder to make sense of

Starting point is 00:05:38 the vast mysteries of life. You said it's an emotion I've never I guess I've never really thought of awe as an emotion but you would you would know you're the expert on awe and emotions, but I've never thought of awe as an emotion. It's a big question, and it turns out, although it seems simple, it's very hard, what is an emotion? Emotions are these brief states that engage your body and your mind that help you do things that are good for you in the world. And so awe, indeed, is this brief experience that we have in music or encountering people who inspire us or in nature or spirituality, that moves our bodies and changes our minds to help us be part of communities and things that are

Starting point is 00:06:26 larger than the self. So why do you study awe? I mean, it seems awe is very fleeting. It happens when it happens. When you see something, you see something. I can think of wonderful examples of what I think might be awe, but they come, they go, and so what? You know, I study awe for a couple of different reasons and teach it and you know help cultivate it in our culture and you know one is just as a scientist an emotion scientist i've long used the tools of science to understand the human psyche or our minds right in our bodies and i've studied laughter and love and desire and embarrassment and shame and here was an emotion awe there really hadn't been studied until about 10 or 15 years ago and then you know i am involved in the teaching of human well-being and health. And we know from a lot of research

Starting point is 00:07:22 that brief positive experiences of laughter and now awe and other emotions like love or kindness or compassion are really good for you. And in fact, I think there's almost nothing better for a human being for their bodies and minds and relationships than to go out and find a little bit of awe. So give me an example, because we've been talking in the abstract here, give me an example or two of awe. What we did to understand the concrete nature of awe is we actually, believe it or not, gathered stories of awe from 26 different countries around the world, radically different countries, right? You know, countries in Africa, Mexico, South America, Poland, China, India, Japan, et cetera. We just said, like, write about an experience, a concrete experience of when

Starting point is 00:08:15 you encountered a vast mystery and felt awe. And to your question, Mike, what we found is what we call the eight wonders of life that are concrete pathways to awe. We find awe in encountering the moral beauty of other people, their courage and kindness, in nature, in what I call collective effervescence when we move together, dance, cheering a football team. In visual things, paintings, visual designs, music, big ideas give people awe, right? Some people, it might be like free markets or evolution or, and then spirituality. And interestingly, the life and death cycle, right?

Starting point is 00:08:57 People are blown away by the birth of children. When I teach awe to audiences of people who have individuals who are 55 years old or older, they'll often talk about watching someone pass away as a source of awe. So those eight wonders of moral beauty, nature, collective effervescence, visual stuff, music, ideas, spirituality, life and death, those are where we find awe. So what are the benefits, specifically the benefits of experiencing awe? Because it would seem to me that the benefits of awe would be just as fleeting as the experience of awe that, you know, maybe it feels good for a moment.

Starting point is 00:09:41 But you seem to be hinting that there are much bigger benefits. So what are they? Yeah. You know, my studies started to come out about awe that suggested that a brief dose of awe, a brief experience of awe is about as good for you as almost anything you could do. And these are studies in which someone might, in a lab, watch a nature video or watch a video of Mother Teresa or an inspiring, person and they feel awe, right? We've studied veterans rafting on a river and under-resourced high school kids.

Starting point is 00:10:15 There's a lot of research on nature immersion. You go out in nature and find all. There are studies of what is it like to read stories of awe, right, which are so powerful. And I'll just bullet pointed, but, you know, what this research shows is a brief dose of awe, even if you plan it and know it's coming. Makes you feel less stressed about your daily life. It gives you a greater sense of well-being. It makes you feel like you're more strongly connected to other people and you're part of a community and less lonely. It reduces inflammation in your body, which is very problematic for your physical health. It activates what's called the vagus nerve, this large bundle of nerves that lowers blood pressure, slows your heart rate down. It gives you an

Starting point is 00:11:03 expanded sense of time, right, where you feel like, God, all those pressures that I felt, I actually have time to live my life. So I've been teaching happiness for 30 years, you know, gratitude and kindness and mindfulness and all this stuff. And I look at those benefits of awe. And I think, wow, that's about as powerful a set of benefits as anything you might cultivate. And I believe in the science shows this that it's, it's the there for us to enjoy. It's all around us on a walk and listening to people and listening to music, watching a show at night. Find awe. It's very good for you. But are the benefits as fleeting as the awe is? Like you get this rush of benefits for a minute, an hour? What? Well, that's, you know,

Starting point is 00:11:56 one of the limitations of psychological science is we tend to study people just for a couple of minutes or an hour or so forth. And so we don't have rock solid answers to your question. And I think it's one of the most important questions for the field to ask. What I will tell you is, you know, we did an awe study with veterans and high school kids who are from really tough schools. And both of these groups that people are really stressed out, two to three times the stress, anxiety, depression, trauma as an average American citizen. And they went rafting for a day. It felt awe, and what we found is profound benefits that lasted for a week. Our veterans, for example, showed a 30% drop in PTSD, you know, the constant vigilance and anxiety of that kind of condition.

Starting point is 00:12:49 So that's not bad. That's a week. We've done other work with health care providers showing, you know, an awe program really reduces anxiety and depression over the course of a month. the next challenge or the next frontier is what you're talking about, which is, wow, if I have this transformative experience, you know, listening to music at a concert, does it last for a year? And I will tell you, you know, it's really interesting. Molly Crockett at Princeton University and her colleagues have been publishing studies about going to music festivals makes people more kind and altruistic for a year, right? So there's this interesting possibility that the benefits

Starting point is 00:13:34 of awe actually last years, right? So that we have to figure out. We're talking about the power and benefits of experiencing awe. My guest is Dacre Kelter. He is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and author of the book, Aw, the new science of everyday wonder and how it can transform your life. Of the Regency Era, you might know it as the time when Bridgeton takes place, or it's the time when Jane Austen wrote her books. The Regency Era was also an explosive time of social change, sex scandals, and maybe the worst king in British history.

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Starting point is 00:15:29 so Dacker when I think of awe yeah I think that there has to be an element of surprise in it that when you feel it like I wasn't expecting that

Starting point is 00:15:47 you know when we write about like the mystery that's at the scent the essence of awe, right? Mystery is about catching us off guard, not fitting our expectations, not fitting our knowledge structures, surprising us. Surprise is about unexpected things.

Starting point is 00:16:07 And awe is a close relative of surprise, but it's different, right? Surprise is more about everyday things. Aw is about vast things. And it does have this critical property of catching us off guard astonishing us sort of not fitting

Starting point is 00:16:26 how we ordinarily perceive the world can something do you think be awesome boy there's an overused word isn't it tell me about it can something be awesome more than once

Starting point is 00:16:40 there are certain myths out there about all and in fact the opposite is true which is with the right mindset you can feel more intense awe with the same thing over time. You know, people who love the stars or wines or certain artists or a certain musician, the more they know and experience that source of awe, the deeper it tends to

Starting point is 00:17:10 get. And we actually proved that in a study where we had people who were 75 years old or older once a week go out and do what we called an awe walk, you know, where they go find some awe on the regular walk, in the control condition, they just did their regular vigorous walk. And we found over time, even though you know you're doing this, I'm going on my awe walk now, you feel more awe. And it actually helped people feel less stress over the course of the study. But it would seem to me that you can't force awe. If something doesn't inspire awe, you could go for a walk, an awe walk and not get awed.

Starting point is 00:17:52 I think, Mike, you're pointing out this deep philosophical puzzle about human emotion more generally and then awe more specifically, which is in some sense, they do have to surprise you, especially in emotion like awe, they have to, you can't force it. You can't force pleasure. You can't force a laugh. You can't force the sense of hilarity. And you can't just go find awe, you know, forcing it in any context. But, You can open up your mind to it, right, and say, for this time period, I'm just going to allow myself to wander and not be on schedule. For this time period, I'm going to not listen to my words that categorize things, and I'm just going to see what I see, right? I think there are mental mindsets or orientations that allow us to feel awe in almost any context. And that's what we developed with the awe walk and the instructions, which was, you know, go try somewhere new, don't have any expectations, try to keep your mind open, don't worry about time, give yourself the chance to wander. And once you do that, you know, and Mike, we have a lot of different studies showing

Starting point is 00:19:11 if you find the right context and just relax and open your mind of it, you can feel a lot of awe about a lot of things. But if you feel a lot of awe, then doesn't it become less? It would seem that awe needs to be fairly rare because if you're always awed, then that's just your normal state. So there's nothing awesome about that. Yeah, I mean, that's a, you know, that's another, what I would call a misconception of awe, which is that it has to be rare. That's really where its essence is or its power. And in fact, you know, what we find, Mike, we've done this kind of research where it's called Daily Diary Studies, where you ask an individual to report on at the end of the day whether they felt awe. Did they encounter a vast mystery that surprised them?

Starting point is 00:20:07 We've done this in China and Japan and Spain and other countries, the United States, Canada, and so forth. And what we find is people feel awe two to three times a week. So it's not rare. They are feeling awe every couple of days. They stop in their tracks and like, wow, that sunset's awesome. Or look at those kids playing in their voices. That's awesome.

Starting point is 00:20:33 man, that piece of music that I heard when I was a teenager, that it's so awesome to hear that and to feel my mind be transported back in time. There is a lot of awe around us. And I think one of the misconceptions that I worry about, frankly, is this idea that you need to feel awe. And it kind of is the Instagram idea of like, I've got to have a lot of money,

Starting point is 00:20:58 fly on a private jet, land in a resort, you know, on the barrier reef to feel awe. But in fact, it's all around us to enjoy. So I can think of people who seem unawable, you know, kind of grumpy, cranky, nothing really is it. So it seems like, you know, awe only exists if you look for it and are willing to confirm it. Yeah. Yeah, you know, I think that's a profound question, Mike. And, you know, we live in an era in this pandemic era.

Starting point is 00:21:39 The pandemic has led to rises in depression and anxiety of 30%. Those hard mental states and conditions make us less able to feel awe and compassion and laughter and gratitude, all the great positive emotions. And I actually was in an unawable or aweless state where I had lost my younger brother. I was in a profound state of grief and unawable. Everything that used to bring me awe, you know, food and people's kindness and nature, I just didn't feel it. And I went in search of awe. I did a lot of the things we're talking about here.

Starting point is 00:22:25 I listen to music that mattered to me. I went out in nature a lot. I did some spiritual inquiries and so forth. And so, yeah, you know, life can make us unawable, but that's problematic. And we need to develop ways to cultivate this more because I really believe, like Albert Einstein and Jane Goodall and Tony Morrison and Renee Descartes, the philosopher, and others, that this emotion of awe is really the most human. emotion. It makes us connect to people. It makes us share. It makes us create. And when we're unawable, it's a sign that we really need to change our lives, which is important. So very specifically, if I were to go out my door on an awe walk, what are the things that I might

Starting point is 00:23:17 likely see that I would see awe in? Well, what I would recommend is that you go to Gigi cia. berkeley.edu where the greater good science center has created a bunch of awe practices that you can cultivate awe right now right without spending a dime or and one of them's the awe walk you know and i do this when i walk to work is like suddenly if i allow myself a little a bit of that openness to awe suddenly i hear oh there's somebody playing music that really is inspiring or i notice how incredible the leaves, the fall leaves are on the ground that I'm walking on and that feels me with awe and the leaves falling to the ground. And then I see a little group of preschoolers who are holding hands, you know,

Starting point is 00:24:06 falling down, walking somewhere. So it's just about opening your eyes to what's really inspiring and mysterious about human beings and our... I've often found that when I see other people experiencing awe, that that in itself is kind of awesome. Yeah, yeah. That, you know, your observation, by the way, it just gave me goosebumps because it's such a fascinating phenomenon.

Starting point is 00:24:33 Well, you know what, and here's my, here's, I just saw this the other day and I had just seen that, you know, we were going to talk and this to me was absolutely pure awe in its like just crystal clear, pure form. It was a YouTube video of this little girl, little tiny, you know, girl. who obviously had very very bad eyesight and she was fussy and crying and her mom put glasses on her for the very first time and she saw the world the way she's supposed to see the world and the look on her face was awesome yeah there's another example of i think it's a when a young child her here's her mom's voice for the first time through hearing devices and you watch it and you can't help

Starting point is 00:25:27 but tear up and feel how extraordinary to your point earlier these simple things are like a mom's voice that's feel that's part of it all of life and how awesome it is so what's the big message here I mean obviously you're very into this and what's the what's the takeaway you want people to get what I learned and I think it's going to be one of the real important themes of this awe movement if you will is it's really good for us when we're when we're in the midst of the hardest stuff of life you know trauma and depression and the like because it not only did I see that in the science we've talked about benefiting anxiety depression the like but but also in my life you

Starting point is 00:26:10 know that that this is an emotion that brings out our best in the hardest of times and not only is there a lot of delight and creativity and imagination that comes out of awe, but there's also a lot of meaning when we're going through tough times. Well, this has been awesome talking about awe. And I've been talking about awe with Dacker Kelter. He is a professor of psychology at the University of California at Berkeley. And the name of his book is awe, the new science of everyday wonder and how it can transform your life. And there's a link to that book in the show notes. Thanks, Dacker. Well, thank you, Mike. Thanks for the great questions. Snap Up Ancestry DNA's lowest price ever in our incredible cyber sale.

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Starting point is 00:27:28 Not the cute, sweet versions of the fairy tales that your children have heard so many times. No, we tell the real grim fairy tales. They're funny, they're weird. Sometimes they're a little bit scary. But don't worry, we rate every episode grim, grimmer, or grimist, so you, your child, your family can choose the episode that's the right level of scary for you. Tune in to Grim, Grimmer, Grimmist, and our new season, available now. I bet you've heard people talk about the fact that our attention span is shrinking,

Starting point is 00:28:04 that in today's world, with all the distractions, it's difficult to keep focused on any one thing continuously for a long period of time. The implications of that are many, as you might imagine, hard to be productive if you can't stay focused. It's hard to think really deeply about something if you can't stay focused. And it gets worse. Here to talk about this and reveal how we can all improve our attention span is Gloria Mark. Gloria is a professor at the University of California at Irvine

Starting point is 00:28:36 and author of a book called Attention Span, a groundbreaking way to restore balance, happiness, and productivity. Hey, Gloria, welcome. Thank you. So first, is that true? Is it true that our attention span is shrinking? It is true, according to our measurements. I started measuring this back in 2004, and at the time, we found that people would spend

Starting point is 00:29:04 on average of about two and a half minutes on any screen before switching. Then around 2012, it went down to about 75 seconds. In the last five or six years, it's reached roughly a steady state averaging about 47 seconds on any screen. It's not just my research. Others have done independent studies, and they've found results that are within a few seconds. So it seems to be a fairly robust result. So we've gone from minutes to seconds in our attention span.

Starting point is 00:29:43 Why do you suppose that is? Well, there's a lot of reasons. There are, of course, notifications, notifications for email, social media. But there are many, many other reasons as well. For example, it turns out we are just as likely to self-interrupt as we are to be interrupted by something external to us, like a notification. What do I mean by self-interrupt, I mean that a person might be working, you know, let's say you're typing in a word document, and then for no apparent reason, that person suddenly stops and goes and checks social media or checks email or checks their phone, they switch of their own accord. There are social factors that compel us to check social media and Slack and email. And there's also emotional reasons as well. So it's not a simple answer.

Starting point is 00:30:53 But the average is going down. The average seems to be going down, although perhaps it's already reached its nadir. You know, this might be the low point, but we don't know. And so is it safe to assume that if that's what's happening with the tension span And as it relates to screens, that's what's happening to attention span in other areas of life? I am an empirical researcher, so I can't make that claim unless I actually study it. So the short answer is we don't know.

Starting point is 00:31:29 All I can say is this is what we found when people use their devices, which happens to be a good portion of the day. and let me add this to it, that if you look at how often shot lengths in film and TV change, those have also decreased in length down to an average of about four seconds. And people are on some kind of screen, whether it's their computer phones, whether they're watching TV or film, roughly about 10 hours a day. So people are on their screens a good portion of their day. So when I listen to you talk, and I think when most people hear what you're saying, the assumption is that this is a bad thing.

Starting point is 00:32:22 Is it a bad thing? It is a bad thing in the sense that, you know, there have been decades of research in the laboratory that shows that when people switch their attention to doing different activities when they multitask. We know that blood pressure rises. There's a physiological marker that indicates people are stressed. When people are asked subjectively their experience, they report psychological stress. We know that people make more errors when they switch their attention.

Starting point is 00:33:02 There have been studies done with physical. physicians and nurses and pilots. And we know that people make errors when they're switching their attention. So I would say it's a bad thing. And my research also shows that there is a correlation with frequency of switching your attention and stress. So the faster the shifting, the higher is the stress as measured by heart rate monitors. In your research, when you watch people, as you were describing, working on a word document, and then all of a sudden, right in the middle for no apparent reason, they go check social media, and you ask them why they did that, what do they say?

Starting point is 00:33:51 Oh, there are a lot of reasons. People can be bored. People might find that the tasks they're working on is just too hard. people have some memory that they, or curiosity that they want to satisfy, they have this impulse, this urge that they need to check. It's hard to, you know, contain that impulse. Sometimes people do it to take a break. So there are lots of reasons. But attention span, when I think of attention span, I don't think of it as necessarily just one thing because I can be easily distracted, but boy, I can also laser focus when I have to.

Starting point is 00:34:38 And those seem like very different things to me. Yes. And remember, we're talking about averages. And if we talk about the median, that might be a better way to think about it. The median is the midpoint of our observations. And the median is 40 seconds. that means half of all of our observations showed attention spans to be less than 40 seconds, but half of them were longer than 40 seconds.

Starting point is 00:35:08 So sometimes, yes, sometimes people can focus for longer periods of time. But, you know, half the time we're seeing this kind of rapid shifting. And, you know, it averages out to be 47 seconds. Well, you know what I wonder is when it is time to focus for a longer period of time, does the fact that you're not focusing for a longer period of time much of the time make it harder to focus when it is time? I believe so. I can actually give you an example. So we looked at the data of when people were externally interrupted. That means you're interrupted by something outside of yourself like a notification. a phone call. And we also looked at the data when people self-interrupted, right? They're interrupting themselves. And we looked at the data on an hourly basis, and we found that when the external interruptions decreased, when they declined, the internal interruptions began to increase. So

Starting point is 00:36:18 So if you're not getting interrupted by something outside of yourself, you begin to interrupt yourself. And this suggests to me that people are conditioned to interrupt themselves. They're conditioned to have short attention spans. When people are distracted, they know they're distracted. I know when I'm having a day where I'm having a lot of distractions, and I find it frustrating sometimes. People must have a sense that this is a problem. We do find a relationship, a correlation. The more that people switch their attention, the lower is their self-assessed

Starting point is 00:37:03 productivity for that day. We haven't talked about email, but email is really one of the biggest factors for interruptions, whether it's externally or whether you interrupt yourself. And we also find a correlation. The more time spent on email, the lower a person assesses their productivity for that day. From a practical standpoint, you know, every time you switch your attention, you incur what's called a switch cost. And this is literally the amount of time that it takes for you to reorient and get back on track to this new task. or activity that you're switching to. And so when we think in terms of productivity,

Starting point is 00:37:52 you can add up all these switch costs. And that's time lost. I wonder if people sometimes think that this kind of distraction is helpful. And so here's an example. So you're sitting at your desk and you're doing something and you're not feeling like you're being particularly productive. So you go play solitaire because maybe that'll, you know, distract you and a bright idea will pop into your head. Is that some of the reasoning that people

Starting point is 00:38:22 do this or it's just much more unconscious than that? There are a lot of reasons why people do these kinds of simple activities. And I actually argue that doing these kinds of simple but engaging activities can actually be beneficial for us if we do them strategically. And here's what I mean by that. There's a common narrative that we should try to have sustained focus as much as possible throughout the day because that's when we can be most productive. But we can't hold sustained focus for a long time in the same way that we can't lift weights for an extended period without getting exhausted. Right. We have limited attentional resources and these can drain. They drain when we're, you know, being focused on something, doing hard work, being challenged,

Starting point is 00:39:23 exerting mental effort. And so it's important to step back and take a break and replenish these resources. And one way we can do that is by doing these kinds of simple activities, because they keep our minds engaged, you know, lightly engaged, like playing solitaire. And there's really very little mental effort. And so it gives you a chance to just replenish and step back. And, you know, when you step back and you do something that's not requiring much mental effort, but yet it's engaging, it actually provides solids for people and actually makes people happy.

Starting point is 00:40:08 And we found that in our research. when you study people and look at how distractible they are and how much they switch from one thing to another do they recognize it like do they when you tell them you know this is what you did they go wow that i had no idea or is it yeah i know that i think that most people do recognize that they do uh they may not recognize it that they're switching as fast as they think they are I certainly didn't, at least for myself, when I first started studying this. But I think most people are quite self-aware that they are switching their attention. And, you know, they talk about it.

Starting point is 00:40:59 And I think most people actually want to do something about it. They don't want to be switching as much as they do. But I think they're quite self-aware. that they do. Yet they could turn off notifications. They could turn off their phone. They could make it easier to not be distracted pretty simply, and yet they don't. Sure. And a lot of people do turn off notifications. But that doesn't solve the problem that people are just as likely to self-interrupt as to be interrupted by something like a notification. There are these internal urges inside of us that compel us to change screens, to go to social media, to work on a

Starting point is 00:41:49 different task even. That's something that turning off notifications doesn't solve. So is this an issue that can be addressed? Or is this just something that's kind of interesting to watch as our attention span shrink and we'll see what happens? You know, I'm very much influenced by the work of a very famous social psychologist Albert Bandura who was very interested in studying how to help people achieve self-efficacy in their behavior. So he helped people with, you know, stopping smoking, stopping substance abuse. And I think that we can draw on his work to help people control their attention behavior. Bandura talks about becoming more intentional. You know, during the pandemic, I took a course in mindfulness. And it occurred to me

Starting point is 00:42:48 that we could practice a similar kind of behavior when we're using our devices. And I call this meta-awareness, which means being aware of the actions you're doing as it's unfolding. And the idea here is to probe yourself and observe yourself and try to understand the reasons why you have urges to say go to social media or check your email and you can ask yourself what why are you doing this are you bored uh is the task too hard uh and and if you once you start to understand these reasons, it gives you a tool to be able to do something about it. And so I practice this on myself. And I ask myself, okay, if I have an urge to go to social media, will I really get value from it? I'll give you another quick example. The idea of practicing forethought. And what that

Starting point is 00:43:58 means is imagining how our current actions will impact our lives later in the future. And I think the best time frame is to think later in the day. So if I go and read the news, and I am a news junkie, and if I end up spending a half hour reading the news, what's my life going to be like at 10 p.m. Right? If I have a deadline today to work on, am I still going to be up working on that deadline? or would I be able to watch a show, read a book, relax, have a glass of wine? And so practicing forethought is also a really good exercise. I imagine, though, that people could convince themselves. Well, the reason I need to check the weather is because, you know, I need to check the weather.

Starting point is 00:44:49 And, well, I got to check my bank balance because I really need to check my bank balance. Well, maybe, but maybe not. Maybe you don't need to. Maybe you're just trying to convince yourself you need to. Right. You really don't need to do any of those things. However, why not do them at the beginning of the day, right? So we find that it takes people a period of time to ramp up to get into a state of focus.

Starting point is 00:45:17 So do all these things at the beginning of the day. Get them out of the way. There is this researcher over 100 years ago. her name was Bluma Zygarnik, and she found that when people have something unfinished, like an unfinished task, it stays in their mind, and they can't get it out of their mind. And so checking your bang ballots, do it at the beginning of the day, get it out of your mind. Otherwise, it nags you, it stays with you, and it could be a source of self-interruption. But there's also that recommendation, and we've talked about it,

Starting point is 00:45:56 We've had people on talking about it here. You know, don't check your email first thing. That that's a waste of your, you know, resources. You're probably best in the morning and you're wasting it on email. Check it. And see, I could no more wait until 10 o'clock to check my email than I could fly to the moon. I have, if I'll do what you're talking about, I'll be wondering what I'm not seeing. Let me mention another result we found that people actually,

Starting point is 00:46:26 actually have rhythms for when they're focused. So there are certain times of the day when people are at their peak in focus. For most people, it's usually mid morning, late morning, and also mid-afternoon. And for most people that we studied, they don't start their day with peak focus. They have to ramp up. And so doing some of these road activities or doing things to, get them off your mental plate so you don't think about them. It's not a bad idea.

Starting point is 00:47:03 You know, I bet there are things that we, I know I do this, you distract yourself because you think these distractions are actually important and maybe they seem important in the moment, but in the big picture, maybe not so important. You know, you can do an experiment with yourself. So check your email first thing in the morning. and then check it again at the very end of the day, nothing in between, and see how many problems have been taken care of. So things that seemed of utmost urgency, you know, maybe you go back and

Starting point is 00:47:40 look at your emails and at 11 o'clock, someone had this pressing problem, and then when you check it again at, say, 5 o'clock, you see, oh, the problem was solved. And check your email in reverse chronological order. And then you'll see exactly how many problems have already been solved. So I think you're right. What seems to be urgent at the moment can be taken care of with time. Well, I know for myself that when I'm switching screens or checking Facebook or email or whatever, a lot of the time it's just mindless. I'm not really thinking about it so much. I'm just doing it. And listening to you, it seems clear that maybe being a little more. intentional about what you're doing can help you stop wasting time and instead focus better on

Starting point is 00:48:31 what needs to be done. I've been speaking with Gloria Mark. She's a psychologist and professor at the University of California at Irvine and author of the book, Attention Span. A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness, and Productivity. And there's a link to that book in the show notes. Thanks, Gloria. This was fun. Thanks so much, Mike. I really enjoyed this. The color of the mug or bowl or plate can actually make whatever you're eating or drinking taste sweeter or saltier. Research in the journal Perception found that people who ate cookies or cake made with less sugar served on a red plate rated them just as sweet as the sweeter version on another plate.

Starting point is 00:49:18 Vanessa Harror, whose author of the study, explains that our brains associate red with sweet ripening fruit, and food or beverages surrounded by red taste richer and more luscious. The same trick works with blue plates and salt. Volunteers were convinced that popcorn served in a blue bowl had more salt than there actually was, and the popcorn in the red bowl tasted sweeter to them. And that is something you should know. Hey, how about leaving us a rating or review? It's easy to do, and it really does help us. So whether you

Starting point is 00:49:53 you listen on Apple Podcasts or whatever platform, if they have a way to leave a rating and review, which most of them do, please leave us one. I'm Mike Her Brothers. Thanks for listening today to something you should know. The Infinite Monkey Cage returns imminently. I am Robert Inns, and I'm sat next to Brian Cox, who has so much to tell you about what's on the new series. Primarily eels. And what else? It was fascinating, though, the eels. But we're not just doing eels, are we? We're doing a bit. We're brain computer interfaces, timekeeping, fusion, monkey business, cloud, signs of the North Pole, and eels. Did I mention the eels? Is this ever since you bought that timeshare underneath the sagas OC? Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your

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Something You Should Know - What Awe and Wonder Do to Your Brain & Why Your Attention Span Is Shrinking

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