The Liz Moody Podcast - How To Hack Your Focus & Pay More Attention To The Things That Matter with Neuroscientist Dr. Amishi Jha

Episode Date: March 30, 2022

Today we’re getting into focus and attention, which I feel like we don’t talk enough about—being able to focus on the RIGHT things is critical to basically every component of our lives. My guest today is Dr. Amishi Jha, a neuroscientist and professor of psychology at the University of Miami. Dr. Jha’s work has been featured at NATO, the World Economic Forum, and The Pentagon, her Ted Talk, “How To Train Your Wandering Mind” has been viewed more than 5 million times, and her brilliant new book, Peak Mind: Find Your Focus, Own Your Attention, Invest 12 Minutes a Day, is available wherever books are sold. On this episode, we talk about: why it’s so hard to focus why you don’t need to detox from your phone to get your focus back (and what to do instead) how to train your attention AWAY from things causing you distress or anxiety, like the news or phobias exactly where to start if you want to improve your focus or attention span the one specific daily practice that research shows improves your focus the most the difference in results between doing activities mindfully and having a specific meditation practice the number one thing everyone gets wrong about focus (and getting it right will make mastering your attention WAY easier) a pragmatic technique to be a better listener how to use science to KEEP other people’s attention better easy tricks to be a better public speaker how to hack timing to maximize attention span when you need it most the best instant practice to replenish your focus and attention (and the practices that don’t work at all) how to prep for a moment or event you want to be hyper focused for (like a big meeting or speech) what a STOP practice is and why it’ll change your life We would LOVE to hear from you any thoughts, reactions, or takeaways you have as you’re listening, so definitely screenshot and tag me @lizmoody and Amishi Jha (@amishipjha). I would SO appreciate it if you shared this episode or any favorite episodes with someone you love in your life! PS: My Patreon is live! You can join Green Smoothie Society and get access to ALL of my green smoothie recipes and advice! Get all the deets at patreon.com/lizmoody. This episode is sponsored by AG1 by Athletic Greens. Visit athleticgreens.com/healthiertogether and get your FREE year supply of Vitamin D and 5 free travel packs today. This episode is sponsored by Nuzest. You can use the code “LIZM” for 20% off your order on http://nuzest.us/liz. Healthier Together cover art by Zack. Healthier Together music by Alex Ruimy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, friends, and welcome back to the healthier together podcast. I'm your host, Liz Moody, and I'm a cookbook author and longtime journalist. This podcast is all about helping you live your healthiest, happiest life, whether we're sharing tips about how to make friends as an adult, fighting burnout, or learning the best investment strategies. And yes, those are all real episodes. So if any of those topics interest you, scroll back in the archive so that you can listen. Today, we are getting into focus and attention, which I feel like we don't talk about enough. Being a to focus on the right things is critical to basically every component of our lives. I think we talk about it a lot in the realm of productivity and like getting stuff done at work, but in truth,

focusing on the right stuff is the foundation of happy relationships, of enjoying vacations and moments of pleasure, and even of eliminating fears and negative thoughts that preoccupy us by training our focus to move away from them. My guest today is Dr. Amishi Jha, a professor of psychology at the University of Miami. She serves as the Director of Contemplative Neuroscience for the Mindfulness Research and Practice Initiative, which she co-founded in 2010. She received her PhD from the University of California, Davis,

and postdoctoral training at the Brain Imaging and Analysis Center at Duke University. Dr. Jaws' work has been featured at NATO, the World Economic Forum, and the Pentagon, and she's been featured in the New York Times, NPR, Time, Forbes, and more. Her TED Talk, How to Train Your Wandering Mind, has been viewed more than five million times, and her brilliant new book, Peak Mind, Find Your Focus, Own Your Attention, Invest 12 Minutes a Day,

is available wherever books are sold. I really wanted this conversation to get into all facets of focus and attention, and Dr. Jha was so helpful at explaining everything in an easy to understand way, and giving super actionable tips to make real changes. We talk about why it's so hard for us to focus, while you don't need to detox from your phone to get your focus back and what to do instead, how to train your attention away from things causing you distress or anxiety like the news or phobias, the one specific daily practice that research shows improves your focus the most,

a pragmatic technique to be a better listener even if you're listening to somebody who's not talking about something that's of that much interest or importance to you. You know, we have all been there in those conversations, but here's how you can be a better listener even in those scenarios. How to use science to keep other people's attention better, the best instant practice to replenish your focus and attention and the practices that do not work at all, how to prep for a moment or event that you want to be hyper-focused for

like a big meeting or a speech and so much more. Dr. John, I would love to hear your thoughts, what's resonating for you, what you're trying. So definitely screenshot and tag us on Instagram. I am at Liz Moody and she is at Amishi P. Jha. And if you have someone in your life who would benefit from this episode, who would love to be able to focus their attention and feel so much more spacious and happier for it, please send them the link to this episode. They'll love it. I will appreciate it.

It is wonderful all around. If you're new here, do not forget to subscribe. I have amazing episodes coming up, including eight things that get better as you get older. a new edition of healthy cooking secrets and busting myths about exercising and good posture. So trust me, you do not want to miss them. Subscribe, subscribe, subscribe. All right, without further ado, let's hack our focus and get our attention back. All right, Dr. Jha, I'm so excited to talk about focus today.

This is a real problem that I have personally. I feel like I'm always being pulled in a million different directions. So for me and for everybody listening, I appreciate you being here. Oh, so excited to be here with you. Let's start off. What are some of the culprits that are making it so hard for us to focus our attention? Why is our attention being pulled in all of these different directions? The first thing to say is that our attention is it feels like it fails us, but it's actually a success story of human evolution. The fact that we can pay attention is such a useful thing. But in many ways, the way it functions and the success it has is part of the reason. we're feeling so much pain as it relates to our attention. And that seems like a little bit of a strange thing to say. What do you mean it works? It's working and that's why we're having problems. Well, let's think about how attention was designed, like what its purpose was. And the purpose was to essentially like most things that human beings can do today, advantage survival, allow us to

function well and live. What does that mean? That means that we should be able to use that term focus. we should be able to direct our focus. So wherever it is that we direct our focus essentially means that just at the brain level, as a brain scientist, I'll tell you, what it's doing is it's saying whatever it is that right now is within the focus of my conscious experience, it's going to be better processed by the brain. I'm going to use most of the brain now to deal with that information. And that is one of the reasons we think attention developed because the brain ended up running into this problem that there's so much stuff in the world.

It can't fully get all the information. So let's sub-sample. Let's take some information and use the entirety of the brain to process it. And then we'll kind of sample bit by bit. And so the metaphor I like to use often for this process is that attention is like a flashlight. It's like we can direct it. It's narrow. It's limited. And everything that's within that flashlight's focus, we get this nice, crisp access to. Let's go back to your question. Like, why does it feel like we just can't focus on anything? Well, the other thing to remember, we can certainly hold the flashlight and point it. That is part of what attention allows. to do. And it's useful to do that, right? So if you were outside in the dark and trying to, you know, this happens to me when I'm trying to walk my dog at night, a flashlight's really handy, so you don't step in anything you don't want to step into and you know you're on your path, and we know where we're directing it. But if I heard a weird sound while it was walking, for sure, I would take that flashlight. It would go to wherever I thought I heard the sound from. So not only can we direct it, but it can get pulled. And what kind of things pull our attention?

again, things that would be evolutionarily advantageous for our survival, things that are threatening. So the sound that I heard, you know, it's like, that's weird. Things that are novel. Again, never heard that before. You know, oh, that's a peacock. Never thought a peacock would sound like that, whatever it is. Things that are self-related. So if I heard even something that sounded like my name, I would, of course, want to orient to it. And the list goes on and on. But all these things you can tell, fearful, threatening, novel, all these kinds of qualities are things that if we don't pay it, attention to them, it might have cost us to ignore them. So attention will always prioritize those kinds of things. But what that means is if you're walking down the street and you have your flashlight

pointed somewhere and those kind of sounds or strange occurrences keep happening, you're not going to have a lot of success keeping the intentional flashlight pointed where you want. It's going to get yanked around. And so I've been using kind of this metaphor of attention as really for the external environment, but those threatening, fearful, self-related, potentially even sad things that can pull my attention, don't even have to happen in the external environment. They can happen. Well, of course, they can happen like on my phone, for example, if I see something, but it can happen in my mind.

So just the idea that something could be threatening is going to pull my flashlight. The point is, that's what I mean when I say. The thing that makes it so strong and helpful for us is also the thing that now feels like a pain point is we are getting pulled and yanked like crazy now through so many different means, like our social media use or our technology use, but also our. own mind and the kind of worries and catastrophizing or ruminating that can occur. Well, and I think with the social media use, we often think of our lack of focus as like a very modern problem. We're like, oh, we're bombarded by technology and social media. But I found

that monk story in your book to be really interesting. I thought it was really interesting that this has been a perpetual human problem and it's not just necessarily of the modern age. So can you speak to that for a second? I agree with you. So let's say, let's just talk about what that story was. So when we think, like you said, of our problems with attention, usually we'll point to our phone and say, bad. If I could just throw this in the river, never deal with it again, my life would be, my attention would come back and I'd be full of calm and focus. That's where I thought this story of medieval monks was really kind of telling. Because what it describes is essentially back in medieval times, monks who had decided

to devote their life to God, move into monasteries, leave their sort of typical family life, were in these moments that they describe as attention not behaving properly. And they would say things like, I'm supposed to be devoting my mind to prayer and God and all I'm thinking about is lunch. And you're like, they have nothing. Exactly. It's true. It's true. Some things don't change.

But what I love about that is that it really pinpoints this topic I just touched on a moment ago, which is distractions don't need to be external. They can be entirely internal. And that's what the monks were described. that even in the absence of any kind of stimulation, their own minds were not behaving properly and we're pulling them in all sorts of directions that they couldn't really escape their mind. Most of us have to sort of contend with that part as well, is that the mind is not something we can just leave to the side. It's always with us. And figuring out a different way to relate to our mind is going to probably help us deal with the internal distractibility that we experience

and improve our sense of focus. And we're definitely going to get into a lot of those methods, But just to be abundantly clear, what do you think our relationship with like technology or social media needs to be? Do you think we need to be setting boundaries, doing social media detoxes? How much is removing that distraction versus learning to deal with it important in your mind? The reality is we cannot remove our interfacing with technology. And most of us rely on it. Like you might even say, okay, I'm not going to use my phone all weekend. But now you want to go for a hike somewhere and you've got to get to.

to this place. You're going to need your map. So now of a sudden you're in this position where it's not going to go away. I mean, you could try to use an actual map, a physical map, not your phone, but most of us aren't going to do that. You might not even be able to find such a map these days. Who knows? But the point is, I think a approach that is more reasonable and that is probably going to be more useful for us is doing something a little bit counterintuitive, not letting go of the technology, but starting to, the first step would be just observing how, we are engaging with it, really paying attention to how we are using our phones and setting very clear intentions every time we engage with our technology. This can actually then lead to strategies and

approaches that might work for you individually. But this piece of like the urge to just say, I'm never going to deal with my phone. I'm going to spend this whole weekend. It's just probably not going to work. But also it's not going to solve the problem, which is really more of a problem of not being aware of how we are engaging with technology. So, I mean, I guess I'm getting into the solution as part of the conversation, but I would say it's very, very important to keep in mind that we can take better care of paying attention, how we use technology, and doing so is going to be so worth it because it'll give us better ways to moment by moment be able to maneuver with the pull of our technology. So that would be like one answer. But the other answer is that I

think that for sure, the way social media companies work, the model of our attention is the commodity and the goal of social media apps, for example, is to keep us on there as long as possible is not good. I don't think it's, we think of it as sort of like, well, of course they have to do things that way. No, even companies that are available right now, like think about subscription-based services. They don't have that requirement that the more you stay on, the more money they make. You've already paid up front. You're paying for the quality of the engagement. That takes away the everything they'd put in to keep you there for longer. I think that there has to be a real look at how a lot of these very money-making engines of companies are

functioning and whether that's really something we want to tolerate. Because if the way they make their money is by mining our attention and they know how to do that, they know how to yank our flashlight, we're up against a pretty big competitor because it's not just that they know the general features, fearful, exciting, self-related novel, all that stuff to keep us engaged. But they know for us individually. They can curate content because we're giving them all the information about how to get our attention based on what we click, what we linger on, what we click off of, we swipe away. All that stuff is just feeding the intelligence that says, oh, give this person this particular thing. I think there's multiple layers to answering your question, but just saying no to technology

is probably not a good way to approach this whole space. I think the idea with doing something like a digital detox is that a lack of focus begets a lack of focus and in a certain amount of focus begets a certain amount of focus. If you put your phone away for three days, something about how your brain transforms in those three days will make it way easier for you to focus even when you're back on your phone three days later. Is that true? Is that the more we don't focus, the more we won't focus, if that makes sense? Not necessarily, but I would even question the first thing about like when we're not on our phone, we are focused. We're just focused. Well, no, it's not even, like, let's get even more granular. We're focused on the thing in front of us. And that thing may change

from click to click to click, but it is fully keeping us there. And so now let's say we put the phone away, now we're back to this kind of monk scenario where now we don't have anything in front of us that's pulling us in. But it could be that disturbing thought. It could be that worry. It could be that concern. So the fact that the attention system can get looped and stuck on things over and over and over going to get yanked around repeatedly is not going to go away with or without the technology present in some sense. And so both may be highly focused states dysfunctional in some sense, but rapidly shifting focus or both maybe entirely focused states that are sustainable. So I would say we don't know. We don't know. It all depends. And there's no guarantee that not having a phone

in front of us means we're more focused, just as having a phone in front of us means that we will be less focused. I thought it was really interesting how you framed focus in general. I think before I read your book, I really thought of it as like a tool for productivity. Like focus makes you good at work. But for you, it seems like focus is a key to living your fullest, richest, happiest life almost. Can you kind of speak to what you view focus is actually the function of focus being? Well, first of all, I would say it's not really focused. That's the key to living a full and fulfilling life. It's attention. And attention is more than focus. So focus is just one way that the attention system works. And I definitely think that it is a key to both our productivity and our well-being. Because in some sense, what we focus on becomes, like I said, it recalibrates the way the brain functions based on the content. If I am keeping my flashlight on a very negative news story, that is a my experience in that moment. And if I'm focusing on watching puppies run around and play with each other, that is what will infuse my mind in that moment. It's focus is going to impact our moment to moment mood.

It's going to impact our ability to think. And it's going to actually impact our ability to connect with other people. Because in some sense, that flashlight, we can obviously shine it on things in our environment. We shine it on other people. And we shine it on their words and the interactions we have with them. And so it's necessary for every single thing that we do. And that's just one aspect of attention, which is this narrowing constraining. When we talk about the other systems of attention, they too add to our direct experience in life and can have sort of beneficial or cost of costly effects on our well-being. The mattress that you sleep on is one of the highest exposures that you have. Like if it's off-gassing, you're breathing that in for basically a third of your life. And

most conventional mattresses are loaded with synthetic foams, flame retardants, microprone, plastics and more. Plus, if it's not comfy, you're going to be tossing and turning, you're going to be really hot. And sleep is the foundation of health. It is so important. Because of all of this, if I were not going to invest in any other part of my house, no other things in my house, I would invest in my mattress. And in fact, I have four years well before I had much money to spend on any of these things because it is such a big needle mover. The birch mattress is incredible. It is made with organic cotton, natural latex, and ethically sourced wool. So it has literally no off gassing. You can not smell anything right when you unbox it. It has no microplastics, no synthetic foams or

flame retardants. And the wool makes it so breathable, which if you've listened to this podcast for more than five minutes, you know that I run very, very hot like I am a furnace. Zach has basically accepted that sleeping next to me is like sleeping next to like a little fire. And the birch mattress has been a game changer for that. It's made me sleep so much better. Like I can see my sleep score going up because I'm not hot all night long. It's also hypoallergenic, which is really worth paying attention to if you find yourself waking up stuffy or congested. Dust mites in a conventional mattress can actually impact your breathing and your sleep quality without you even realizing it. And again, we need to be able to breathe to get good sleep and getting good sleep is

the foundation of our health. And then comfort-wise, Zach sleeps on his back and then I sleep on my side and my stomach. So we have two completely different sleep styles and we both wake up feeling really good, no aches and PINN actually named the Birch mattress, the best mattress for side sleepers. And Wired named it the best organic mattress period. So there you go. Birch has options for every kind of sleeper in your household. They have three firmness layers. I like the Lux Natural, which is the medium one. And then parents, they even have a Birch Kids natural mattress. You're going to your door. It sets up in minutes and it comes with 120 night risk-free trial. So if it is not for you, they will pick it up for free. You have nothing to lose here. I want all of you to enjoy a deep, restful night sleep with a new mattress from Birch.

Go to birchliving.com slash Liz Moody for 20% off. That is birchliving.com slash Liz Moody. And you're going to get 20% off, birchliving.com slash Liz Moody. The number one rule of habits is to make the things that you want easier and the things that you don't want harder. Yet so many of us want to eat healthier, but so few of us actually take the steps to make eating healthier easier. That's where Marley Spoon comes in. What I love about this company and what's different than all of the other companies out there that are doing like stuff in the same arena is that you can customize your choices based on the effort that you want to put in. So if you want them to send you ingredients, so you can make your own 20 minute meal and like get into your,

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That is right, up to 25 free meals with Marley Spoon. That is Marley Spoon.com slash offer slash Liz Moody. So remember to get the offer slash Liz Moody for up to 25 free meals. Okay, so what are some of those other systems of attention? Yeah, the first one that we talked about, which is this flashlight metaphor, really narrowing in, privileging some content over other contents. But in general, this system of attention is all about prioritizing some information over other information. One way we can prioritize is based on what that information is. I'm looking at your lovely face right now.

Everything else is sort of fading away. My flashlight is on you. That's what matters. But another way that we can privilege certain information over other information is not based on the content, but the time. So right now, I'm privileging right now, what's occurring right now. And it doesn't matter what it is that's happening right now, but it's what's occurring in the moment. So this is the brain system called the alerting system. So if we think of even that word alert, it's like we're present to what is happening in this

moment. So the way we use the system, for example, is like you're driving down the road and you see construction signs, right, or flashing lights that say construction coming up. Typically, what that does is it activates the system. Stay alert. I don't know what's going to be coming up here, but I better be cautious because I may need to make a strange turn or watch for construction equipment or people walking in the road. Something weird is going to happen potentially and have to be ready for it. It's almost the exact opposite of that flashlight because it's not about narrowing and constraining. It's being broad and receptive at being broad and receptive in this moment, in the now. I think that gives you a sense of like how different it is and how useful that could be

as well. And another way we actually use that term, pay attention. So that one, that system, sometimes I'll use the metaphor of a floodlight. It's like, you know, I have a floodlight above my garage. It's a motion sensitive floodlights or anything moves in its path. And boom, it's going to illuminate the region. And that's sort of the way the mind works when it comes to alerting. Right now, broad, receptive, whatever's occurring in this moment. And then there's a third way. So the flashlight, the floodlight. And then the third way is not prioritizing like the flashlight does based on content or the floodlight does and this alerting system does based on time, the now. But the third way that we can prioritize some information over other information is tied to our goals.

What is important to us? What matters? This third system called executive control. And that term executive is a cool term because it's like the executive of a company. But it's a function that exists in our own mind. The executive's job is to ensure that the goals that we have or a particular, goal in that moment and the actions that we engage in are aligned. And the executive's job, just like the executive of the companies, not to go in and do every single thing, but to really

oversee, to manage, to monitor goals and behavior are aligned and, of course, correct, if there's a mismatch. So either you have to change your action, so it matches the goal, or you may not have to update your goal because the environment or the circumstances require it. So the metaphor I like to use for this one, I think it's always helpful to kind of have like a little image of what these things are. flashlight is narrow, floodlight is broad, and this third system is what I call the juggler. Essentially, it's keeping all those balls in the air, making sure everything that's supposed to happen, you know, can think of each ball as a task or a goal, and you're managing all of it to make sure the behavior and the goal align and none of the balls drop.

Do you work on each of them? Let's say you're like, I want to improve how I use my attention generally. Would you work on each of those three categories in a different way, or would sort of a general focus, attention, exercise, work across the board. Because these systems constantly hold hands with each other, they kind of pass the baton from one to the other. And they're in the brain, what we call mutually antagonistic, meaning they're constantly battling each other too. In some sense, executive control guides the other two systems, the floodlight and the flashlight. But overall, they're kind of battling each other. So for example, if you think of the last time

you were doing something really focused and you were into it, you were really focused, steady, It could be you were reading a book or you were really generating ideas, but you were fully internal and focused on this content. And somebody walked into the room and started talking to you, we'd probably be like, what? You probably wouldn't even hear them first. And then they'd probably be like, hello, are you listening? And then that kind of-

I get in trouble with my husband for that all the time. Same here. Husband children. Exactly. So you know that experience. And what is happening then? Well, the flashlight was doing great. It was activated.

Executive Control said, yes. stay on this goal, keep it going. And what that did is it essentially dialed down the functioning of the floodlight. So that broad receptivity is sort of dialed down. And so it takes a moment to kind of activate that system, to bring an input from your environmental surroundings. So in some sense, I would say, yes, you can try to do practices that might anchor on each of them. And for example, in my book, I do talk about practices that might privilege each of them. But the best thing to do is to try to make sure that whatever you're doing acknowledges each of them and allows you to use those in your kind of regular day-to-day life in a manner that supports what you're trying to do.

And to be aware of like right now, I'm too broad. I need to get more focused. Or I'm too narrow right now. I need to be broader. Or let's question the goal that I'm holding. Maybe it needs to be updated. Maybe it's wholly wrong. Maybe the story that created the goal is wrong.

So that's part of the reason I want everybody to know about these systems because it's just like now your toolkit is greater. It's like, oh, I know the brain has these different modes of being. And I can now with that awareness, be able to see how I'm using them. And maybe I'm using the wrong system. And maybe I can switch over to using this system. So the common theme across all of the systems is something I just said, which is awareness of what is going on moment by moment. And that sort of overlays what's going on with each of the systems themselves.

So there are ways in which you can train our mind that benefit all three. and then there are ways you can go in and train each of them separately. Okay, can we start by maybe some of the ways that benefit all three? If I just came to you and I said, I want to improve how I'm using my attention, is there one thing that you would start me off with? Well, I would say even before I would give you a set of practices, the first thing I would say is like, okay, this is a great, this is great. You know, we'd want to find out what the pain points are.

What is making you say I want to improve my attention? What is happening in your life that makes you say, that. And a lot of times it'll be like, I just can't, I keep getting pulled by my phone. I just feel like my thoughts are just flying away from my mind. I just don't, I feel so distractible, right? So I would say the first step that is part of a broader umbrella of improving our attention is to pay attention to it. And sounds a little bit like I'm copping out of giving your real answer, but it's true. Let's just do an inventory. How are we using our attention? Where is it most of the time, let's just kind of take a look at it and then notice like, oh, wow, when a text message comes in,

no matter what I'm doing, I always pick up the phone. Do I need to do that? Or even when I'm on my phone, I notice that I'm not even staying on the app. I'm like hyperclicking to all these different things. So just taking an inventory of what's going on to try to get a sense of what the pain points are in your particular ways, not even pain points. Just how are you using your attention right now? And then I would say, let's actually engage in brain training to improve all three. And part of that means toning in on how to actually even be able to pay better attention to our attention. And what we came to in my lab, I'll just kind of foreshadow this, is we tried a lot of different

things. We didn't know. You know, the notion that you could train your brain to improve your attention is a pretty new idea. The notion that the brain can change something called neuroplasticity in a direction that's beneficial, not just protecting us or recovering from some kind of illness like stroke or injury, but if we're healthy to improve beyond that, it's a pretty new notion. And then there's a big question mark of what do you actually want people to do that could improve attention in a way

that we can track through brain imaging, for example, and through taking assessments of their attention. And we tried many different things in my lab. We tried sort of technological solutions, light and sound devices. We tried mood manipulation. we tried what would classically be called brain training games. None of it was really great at consistently improving attention. And one of the things that we saw was that it might improve it. So you'd play a brain training game, like some kind of game where you have to remember information

or version of Tetris or something like that. And people get better and better at the game. So for sure, there's something going on. But now you give them a different kind of same notion of a brain training game, but different look and feel. They fall apart again. So the brain just kind of gets better. at that one thing, but it doesn't have what we call generalizability. So something that will carry over

now, I trained in proving my attention, and now I'm better at listening to my spouse, or I'm able to write that work email without getting distracted. They wouldn't carry over into new contexts. And the only thing we found that was effective at having generalizable benefits, which surprised me, and it was not something I was going and thinking we would find, was mindfulness meditation training. And that was the only form of mental training where we saw not only was it protective across multiple different kinds of tasks and situations, but it could protect against vulnerabilities and attention that come from demanding high stress circumstances. So that's what we've been pursuing. And so ultimately, if you came to me and asked me that, I would probably set you on a path

to have you learn a series of mindfulness training. So is mindfulness meditation different than other forms of meditation. I know that meditation has, there's so many different types that are kind of floating around that people are trying out. Is there a most effective type in terms of brain training? Let me just, okay, so I think it's a great question. What is mindfulness medicine? We do hear this term a lot, right, a meditation and even mindfulness. So the way that I think about it is think of meditation as the umbrella term, like the word sports, right? So when I say sports, you're like, okay, I think I understand what that means, but really it's not, are you talking about gymnastics? Are you talking about printing or are you talking about bodybuilding or are you talking about golf?

So the specifics do matter, but that's what these two terms are. They're an umbrella broader category. And then we could think the parallel to different sports as different forms of meditation. And the way that I define the term meditation is pretty much like from a brain training perspective. So engaging in specific mental practices to cultivate specific mental qualities. Of course, this term comes from the world's wisdom traditions. And the world's wisdom traditions had lots of.

of specific ways that you would do stuff to get a certain result. For example, you would practice certain kinds of focusing on the suffering of other people and having a concern to alleviate that suffering. That would be called compassion meditation. And so the practices would have you do certain things and the result, the mental quality would be, I'm more compassionate. Or you could have something like transcendental meditation. I'm going to repeat these phrases and connect with something larger than the self. I'm going to have a transcendent quality that will be cultivated in my mind. For my mindfulness meditation, it has to do with cultivating present-centered, non-judgmental awareness. So that's a kind of a mouthful.

So just really what we're talking about with mindfulness is paying attention. That's why as an attention researcher excited about it, paying attention to our present moment experience, being in the here and the now, without a story about it or without editorializing about it. We're not on the sidelines explaining what's going on. we're actually in the moment experiencing what is happening without any kind of story overlaid on it or even emotional reactivity. Sometimes I talk about it as like you're getting the raw data of the moment as moment-to-moment

conscious experience transpires. So just like there's specific things you do to become more compassionate or more self-transcendent, there's specific things you can do to have more present-centered, non-elaborated attention. And that's what the suite of practices that are part of what we're doing in my lab and a lot of other labs now are exploring is what are the consequences of doing that. In terms of what's better or worse, you know, now you can already see like what's better to be a gymnast or a golfer. Depends on what you want to do, right? So in some sense, there's no better. It's just matter of what qualities you want to cultivate.

And for the pain points of attention that we've been talking about, that sense of distractibility, feeling like your moments go by and you have no idea what's occurred. or not having ownership or agency with regard to your own mind. Mindfulness seems a pretty good way to go because we are getting more to our present-centered experience and becoming more aware of what is happening in our mind moment by moment. It's a great way to, as I said at the outset, pay attention to your attention. Do you do a mindfulness meditation and like a compassion and what's your practice look like? I like to have options. What I typically do because I'm a researcher and we are constantly doing research studies,

It's just as solidarity with our participants. I'll call it kind of follow wherever they are in the sequence. So in our programs, and this is in the book as well, I have a series of practices that are offered, and there are four main ones? And you were asking me earlier, like, are there specific things you can do for each system? And like I said, yes. So we've got something practice that I call the find your flashlight practice, which is essentially figuring out where that flashlight of attention is and then

being practicing willfully directing it. And then we've got another one that's about being open and receptive, one that has to do with having more loving, having more loving kindness, having more of the intentionality of beneficial effects, which touches more on that compassionate side. I will do what, in terms of my own prescription, I'll do whatever the sequence is happening in the lab with various participants. But all of them are beneficial. And that's why we've included them in our training programs and in the research studies we do. And that's why I included them in the book as well, because it's sort of like you'd never want to only have armed day and skip leg day, right? I mean, in some sense, you want to have

the balanced. wholeness of wellness and cultivate different aspects of your attention because all of them are going to be important at some level. Do you think that we need to kind of sit down and do a practice of mindfulness to reap these benefits? Or is it the kind of thing where I can mindfully wash my dishes and be really present as I'm doing that or mindfully go for a walk and mindfully brush my teeth? Yeah, I love that question. I think it's such a great question because it's like in some sense, If I could integrate it within my activities, it's a twofer. I get the dishes done and I've already have my mindfulness practice. So I always encourage people to do that. In some sense, taking that

mindful approach has so many beneficial effects. You're not raging against the fact that you've got to do all these dirty dishes. That's very beneficial because you're not approaching this task with a negative mood in mind. You're neutral. You're playing attention to the sensations, the sopiness, the feel of the water. You can do this, you know, like you said, almost any activity you can do mindfully. And it in fact, the whole reason we want to practice mindful meditation is because we want to live our lives mindfully in some sense. We want to have access to our own minds in that way. But I would say there is a benefit to practicing with what we call like a stillness approach. So without anything else going on. And the reason to do that is because it's almost like in some sense,

we really have to face the content that gets generated in the mind. If you're sitting and following the breath. It's pretty, pretty quote unquote boring. I mean, and we're not doing it to become Olympic level breath followers. Nobody cares if we could follow the breath. It will never be useful in my life if I can follow the inhale and exhale in any other context. But when I do that, and because the nature of this particular target for my attention is relatively like not that in intrinsically interesting. Of course, if you can't breathe, that's when the breath becomes super interesting. But whatever mental content gets generated or other experiences that get generated, are such good way to kind of have, I would say it's like endurance train because there is no feel of

the water or the soapy bubbles. There's just you, your breath, your mind. And so you will develop a type of, I mean, in some sense, and I felt this completely myself when I started practicing, I'm like, if I can deal with the, pardon my French, asshole that I am to myself, and I can tolerate it, I can probably tolerate a lot. Because unlike in terms of the actual, utility. When you notice that disturbing thought or that self-punitive view of yourself or judgmental thing you might have all arising in the bubbling of the mind, you've got to take a look at that. You might notice that it comes back over and over again and you have to move on to the next moment. So now if I'm, you know, a lot of times I'll get asked like, can I just include my mindfulness

practice in my run? Because then I'll just pay attention and I'll, while I'm running, go for it, do it. But just remember, the next time you're in a very difficult conversation or you're very sad or disturbed in some way, going for a run may not be an option for you, especially like in the context of a conversation or a heated discussion, right? There's something happening right now. You've got to be fully here right now. You cannot go somewhere else. You cannot do anything other than fully be here. And you want full access to your attention. So practicing that alone can be so helpful because I can tolerate distress that's generated in my own mind. And yes, distress is here. This is troubling. This is a difficult situation. And I'm here for it. When you think about strength and

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Although some of the ones it sounds like that you talk about in the book are actually conducive to being kind of like habit stacked. I know you talked about doing a body scan in the shower, which I love because I just feel like we have such a limited amount of time in the day. So anything that really naturally fits on top of something we're already doing is really nice. Is that true? Are there ones that kind of lend themselves more to doubling up?

For sure. And I would say double up as often as you can. Why not? We're busy people. But note that there is a value to doing the stillness practices as well. That's all I'm saying. And yeah, there could be weeks where there's just no, I have not. I do not have 12 extra minutes. But I'm taking a shower every day. Might as well get it in. It's like we want to be very practical about these things, not rigid and self-punitive. Like we didn't get it done. We should just be mad at ourselves. No, that's totally counter. But when you can, know that it will help multiple folds if you are able to get that time in.

Can you just briefly talk through, so everybody listening isn't like, wait, what is the body scan at the shower? Can you talk about what that would look like or what that would be? Yes. Let's just talk about it in the shower. Let's just talk about like a body scan practice, right? That you could do as when you're anywhere. You can do it. I recommend it just if you're doing it as sort of this stillness perspective when nothing else is going on, you're just going to find a quiet, comfortable location where you can, you know, I would even suggest people, get on the ground.

Get your body flat on the ground. You can do it that way. Often I'll do it with people just seated. And what you're doing is you're taking that. that flashlight of your attention and essentially guiding it through the entirety of your body. So we could start. We're sitting in a comfortable posture. The intention for this body scan is to pay attention to body sensations that arise in the different parts of the body that we are attending to in that moment. And we do the same thing we would do with other kinds of focused attention

practices. When the mind wanders away from those bodily sensations, to some other thought or an itch somewhere else or a loud sound or whatever it is, notice that your mind has wandered away and gently bring it back. So often the way I'll guide it. It all depends on time. You can do a body scan that could take 45 minutes to an hour where you start with the big toe, then you move toward each individual toe on your foot all the way up to the ankle. And you can get very granular, but think of it as really taking that flashlight and shining it

and then really hanging out and noticing the arising of body sensations in that particular. spot as you scan through the entire body. And you could do this like you were saying earlier, you could do this while you're in the shower. You could do it while you're in the shower and put it and soaping up different parts of the body. So you can do whatever way you want. And I encourage people to get creative about it. But part of the reason we do it with nothing else going on is that you really then have to pay attention to that what's going on in that particular body part. And you might even notice some very cool and interesting or sometimes even surprising and maybe not that great news for yourself. Like, you know, I just had that thought and that worry about.

something and I noticed all of a sudden my stomach is tense or God I'm clenching my jaw and you know and so you start noticing this relationship between body sensations and different mental states and then now you've got a lot of information because now if you're in the middle of doing something else or middle of a conversation you realize ooh chest is getting a little tight oh I can you know what's going on here oh that typically feel that when there's a lot of anxiety and just a little self-caring moment of like yeah You're feeling anxious right now. And just understanding more of what's going on in you moment by moment can be very helpful because the body's giving you information that typically we just ignore or power through.

I also think it's interesting the way that you described it because it's so non-judgmental. I think a lot of people when they meditate or when they're mindful, they feel that if their attention drifts, they've done it wrong. And it seems like for you, the way you describe it, it's like, yeah, your attention's going to drift and you notice it and you bring it back. And like that is the practice. The practice isn't just trying to narrowly be in the whole time. Yeah.

And I would say it's not just me. It's the misunderstanding of the nature of the mind. I mean, to think that your mind is capable of just putting that flashlight in and never moving is wrong. It just, I've found zero instances where, where that can happen in laboratory settings and in real life. The mind is designed to be distractible. It was advantageous for us, again, our evolutionary inheritance is to have a mind that scans, that moves and moves to the past and the future. And so don't fight that or don't have a wrong expectation that that's not going to occur, accept it. Wandering mind is the mind's nature.

So knowing that now when my mind drifts away, instead of beating myself up, which is just make it drift away for longer, I can just say, ah, success. I noticed it was wandering away. I can now, now that I know where it is, I can bring it back. If I didn't know I was wandering, I would have never been able to bring it back. It's such a different notion of what, success in a mindfulness practice looks like. And I really like redefining it that way because it makes it so much more accessible and just so much like less self-berating, you know? Oh, yeah. Why would we want to take 12 minutes a day to yell at ourselves? Okay. So you just mentioned 12 minutes a day. And your book says you can reach peak mind in just 12 minutes a day. Is 12 minutes a day? We're very

interested in like minimum viable dose. We only have so much time in our lives. Is 12 minutes a day of the actual sitting in stillness where you guys started to see the best results in your research? Yeah, and I'll just start by saying we asked them to do a lot more. You know, in most research studies that are offering mindfulness programs,

45 minutes a day. Work with active, it is. I'm like, I don't know many people that are what they would, you know, self-describe busy professionals that could do that. In our work with pre-deployment military service members, we asked them to do 30 minutes a day.

We're like, they're busy people. Let's just ask them to do 30 minutes. Very few people did 30 minutes a day. But because it was a research study, I could say, well, look, we asked you to do 30 minutes. Let's just be honest. What did you actually do? Because we give them these guided practices. And they could stop it and walk away whenever they wanted, right? They didn't have to keep listening. Or they can have a play and still walk away. So we said be honest. And we noticed that, well, first of all, the more people practiced. And by the way, it's not just one 12 minute shot a day. It's daily, meaning you're doing it over multiple, multiple days. about a month is when we start seeing benefits.

But when they practiced more daily, they benefited more, just like physical activity, right? And we know that if you're going to do an intensive cardio workout, the more you do, the more you benefit. Obviously, there's upper limits where you might be injuring yourself. No, no more near that with mindfulness, asking them to do 30 minutes a day. But the more they did closer to the 30 minutes a day, the more they... But then my question was, like you said, a very reasonable one, which is like, okay, but what's the least they can do and still see benefits?

And that number looked like about 12 minutes a day. We started seeing that they're benefiting. So in subsequent studies, we didn't even ask them to do 30 minutes. We just said, we're going to give you a 12-minute recording. Just follow that. And we noticed many more people were willing to comply. We asked them to do it every single day of the week. And many did not.

And so then we said, well, how many days a week should you do this 12 minutes? And we noticed it was about three to five days a week. So now we say 12 to 15 minutes a day, three to five days a week. And that's a prescription that if you follow, four, this four-week interval, we will typically see beneficial effects in attention and stress protective effects in attention. And that's, I think, both are very important. What was on the recording that you gave them in this study? Very similar to what I was describing to. You'd have like a focused attention, breath awareness practice, you have a body scan, something we call it open

monitoring and then loving kindness. So in my book, I just have all the words. But actually, we're developing an app right now to have a compendium to what's in the book, but just guided practice guiding people along so they can listen to the actual practices. So you mentioned stress reduction, and then we've talked a lot about kind of like being able to be more conscious of where your attention is going. Just because I think we've all heard that we should be doing mindfulness practices, that we should meditate, I think the more benefits that we can speak to, the better, because it's still just a hard hurdle for people to overcome.

So if you say, if you do 12 minutes a day, three to five times a week, in the most simple terms, what are the benefits that we will? will be experiencing from that. What we've seen over and over again are things like improvements in attention. So you're able to keep your flashlight focused where you want it to be. You're more aware of mind wandering. You catch it. You mind wander less so that, you know, you're just not spending as much time. And now this is in people's like real lives, not while they're practicing, just in their regular lives. Also things like improvement in positive mood, more experience of positive mood, a reduction in negative mood, less perceived stress. But really when we think about the world of

mindfulness training, there are benefits in almost every domain of what we call the human dimension. So we see benefits in the body, reduction in, for example, the experience of chronic pain or reduction in cardiovascular symptoms, growing of what's called telomeres, the end caps of your chromosomes that determine your life expectancy. So the longer the telomere, the longer your life. If we see that more practice can increase the telomeres. So lots of benefits for the body. Benefits of the mind already described. It could be cognitive benefits like improvements in attention, improvements in mood,

brain changes that look like a healthier brain. So we've got body, mind relationships is another feature. The ability to have better teams, team cohesion, better interpersonal relationships, better marital relationships, family dynamics, workplace relationships. And then performance, academic achievement, medical errors and medical professionals. For our work with the military, we find that even their ability to do what are called shoot, no shoot drills. So like shooting at the right target and not shooting at the wrong target, which as you can imagine,

is of huge interest to a lot of people in policing. So this is like the scope of what this field of mindfulness research is now finding. And it makes you think, oh, wow, if I was going to spend 12 minutes doing something and I'm going to get like multiple benefits, this might be a decent thing to do. And really, it hinges on because all of these things, our ability to perform, you know, our ability to attend to the body to think, feel, connect, and our ability to perform in the world are all infused by our attention. So being able to do that fundamental set of things better, the flashlight, the floodlight, the juggler, feeds or fuels improvements in all these different domains. And I'm curious, a lot of what we're talking about is putting your focus where you want it to go.

Is it the same process when you want to take your focus off something? So rather than putting your focus on something, I'm thinking about when I'm on a plane, I'm afraid of flying. And all I can think about is like the plane crashing, the plane crashing, the plane crashing. Would I be using the same or people who are stuck to the news and just reading negative news over and over and over? Is the same process going to help us remove our focus from those things that are so sticky and so pervasive and can kind of like get a foothold in our brain. Yeah, yeah.

Great. You're asking such wonderful questions. I really appreciate it. So you can try an approach where you're going to, you know the flashlights over here and you're going to like pull it away and put it on this other thing. But good luck, because if it's a very strong and potent distractor, it's going to go right back. And there is this kind of thing called sort of the white bear phenomenon. So if I say, don't think about a white bear.

Don't think about a white bear. Liz, don't think about a white bear. The one thing I don't want you to think about, white bear. What are you going to think? Yeah, a white bear. So it's that sort of thing. There's this very counterintuitive thing that occurs, that the thing you're trying to not attend to actually becomes the focus of your attention

in your effort to not pay attention to it. So I would say in that case, when you've got very potent distractors, trying to put your attention somewhere else, it's not going to be the best thing you can do. But there are some things you can do that really still involved using your attention. What I would suggest doing when you have that same, like whether it's the flying or some thought that's other thought that's very sticky, I would say you can zoom out or you can zoom into the body. So let's talk about the zooming out.

The zooming out is where essentially you're going to use the floodlight now. So the flashlight's doing its thing and it's got a grip on you. But you're like, ah, I'm stuck. I'm stuck on this thought, right? So you have that awareness. Boom, awareness. Now what you're going to do is going to say, I'm going to get into what we call a decenter. mode. I'm going to actually zoom out. I want to visualize myself as being in a traffic helicopter

above me sitting in this room and I'm going to report what's going on. And I'm going to use the third person. And I'm going to be very granular about the report. But I'm going to try to do it not by making more stories up about it, just reporting what I'm seeing. Ah, right now, you know, Amishu's feeling nervous about flying. Amish is having that thought over and over again, an anxious thought. She's feeling tension in her compression in her chest. She's feeling her jaw clench. So what is how happening in that moment. In some sense, because attention cannot be in two places at once, you have sort of allowed the flashlight to weaken because you can't be fully immersed in the experience of anxiety about flying when you are actually also over here watching what's going on.

And the way that you're orienting to the experience is what we call a psychologically distanced perspective. So you're watching it instead of experiencing and using concepts that continue to grow that. So that's a really handy thing to do. And what we notice is that people will say, as they're continuing to do this sort of, I like, you know, this traffic reporter kind of thing is that the experience changes. Oh, her chest is now not as tighter. We notice that it can dissipate because we're pulling ourselves away instead of continuing to feed the direct experience. So that's the zooming out. The zooming in is to say, ah, I'm gripped, I'm stuck. I'm going to check in with my body right now. And I'm going to report to myself what's going on. I've

practice the body scan, I know how to check out what's going in the body, you might do that. Like, just sit for a moment and think, what is the, what is, what is, what is the most prominent physical sensation I have right now and really try to watch what's going on? And they're like, oh yeah, I can definitely feel it in my chest, my back. My feet feel kind of tingly too. Like so, but notice that you're doing the same sort of thing. You've weakened the hold on your flashlight because you are attending to something else, but you're doing it much more of the floodlight perspective. You're not trying to yank the flashlight somewhere else. You're broadening out. And remember, we talked about these brain systems having an antagonistic relationship. If you are

broad, it is hard to be focused. So I would, I would be curious. Give it a try. The next time we got fly and just report back. How does it, how to feel? Yeah. I will. I have a flight in two weeks that I'm working towards. So I will try that on the on the plane. Can we talk about a few more sort of like real life scenarios? Absolutely. Okay. So you. mentioned a big benefit of attention is better relationships. I'm curious if there's specific tools or techniques that we can use to be a better listener in the moment. Like, you know, when you ask your partner, you ask somebody about their work project, and then you find yourself just kind of drifting away as they're talking through it. Is there a way we can

actually be great listeners to our partners? Yeah, yeah. And in the same way, we want to train our flashlight to be able to hold it, steady it, notice when it's drifted away, those same processes can be used where now the target for your attention is the person that you're listening to. So as you're listening, you're actually noticing where you're both listening, you've got the flashlight pointed, but you're also noticing where it is. And then the moment, the micro excursion you've taken away from them, you can bring it right back. That's the really useful part of this. Again, we're not doing it so that we can just pay attention to the body and notice the same. sensations or pay attention to the breath. We're doing it so that in our real life, we are more there

for it. We are more there to listen when we want to listen and we're more there to be receptive to what's happening around us, which is part of what leads to that sense of fulfillment and wellness. So in the moment, is it about noticing like, oh, my attention has drifted and then just keeping on bringing it back and bringing it back to the person who's talking? Yeah. My intention is to focus on this person speaking to me in this conversation, it's important to me. That's the goal, executive. Which is the goal part that you talked about, like getting very clear on that. Exactly. That's my goal. Executive control. The juggler's like, yep, now it's time to listen to this. Then the flashlight kicks in and says, keep your attention on the words being said on this

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That is branch basics.com and use code Liz Moody. I'm genuinely confused how masterclass gets literally the absolute top people in every single field to teach every single one of their classes. I use it when I want to learn things directly like the cooking class from Thomas Keller has all of the wisdom that you would normally have to go to culinary school for. But also, I'm being honest, this is like a use case I don't hear a lot of people talking about. I'll just watch it for entertainment when I want to do something that's far more interesting than scrolling. Christina Aguilera taught me to sing.

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all for just $10 a month when billed annually, and you get unlimited access to every class on the platform so you can learn at your own pace whenever you want on your phone, your computer, or even in audio mode, like a podcast. If you're looking to stop scrolling and start consuming entertaining content that makes you feel excited and helps you learn, masterclass is it. And the best part, every membership comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee

so you can start learning risk-free. Right now our listeners get an additional 15% off any annual membership at Masterclass.com slash Liz Moody. That's 15% off at Masterclass.com slash Liz Moody, masterclass.com slash Liz Moody. What if on the flip side you want to keep somebody's attention? I'm thinking either in person, are there techniques that we can draw that flashlight towards us or even in sort of like online marketing?

or things like that. Like, how do we break through? Oh, yeah. Those are very well, very well established. Not really something I deal with because I'm more on the side of people owning their own attention. Instead of trying to grab other people's attention. But essentially, it's all the things that we find are we're vulnerable to, threatening, highly salient, novel, self-related stuff. There's a reason social media apps have us put our name at the top. And when they talk to us, they say, Amishi, what are your thought? It's grabbing us. Bright, shiny things, things are moving. There's like so many things that are known regarding what grabs attention.

And if you look at successful TED talks or PowerPoint presentations or marketing strategies, you will see that those same features appear over and over again. And what social media has been able to do is take all of that knowledge that we've known about for decades and put it into these handy little apps that keep us hooked and keep us re-engaging over and over again. And so I would say that's not where I would say we, that's a different type of learning that we could definitely use. But if we just pay attention to what grabs us, we're getting a lot of cues on what tends to grab people. I also thought it was interesting that you talked about kind of how you could use these techniques in the context of public speaking in your book because public speaking is like one of those fears that people, it's apparently the number one fear people have. It's like higher than death, which is wild to me.

I don't love public speaking, but I'm far more afraid of death. But are there, how can we harness our attention to be better at public speaking or times that we have to kind of like overcome fears and speak in front of a crowd? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think that it's essentially another type of sticky mental content, right? Notice what is the self-talk happening that is leading to the growing anxiety you have about the public speaking event? I'm not going to succeed. It's self-related and it's threat, maybe it's threat to your reputation, it's fear about being judged. It's got all those qualities of the thing that can grip our flashlight and yank it over and over again.

So in the same way that we were talking about what to do with an anxiety like the fear of flying, we can go granular and go in where we're connecting to body sensations in the moment, or we can zoom out and watch what's going on. And I think that these kinds of grips that we can get on our mind, whether it's public speaking or some other anxiety, can really start dissipating a bit. Is there a limited amount of attention that we have in any given day? Do we start with a certain amount, even with all the practices, even with all the tricks and tips and kind of like use it up as the day goes on? It's interesting. Yes, definitely attention is a limited capacity system. We only have so much of it. And it looks like when you track people that they have less and less available to them over time. Okay. So for example, let's not even say the day. I give you a 15 minute task you're supposed to do. So you come into the lab and I say, okay, Liz, for the next 15 minutes, stare at the screen and you're going to do this task. If I just tracked your performance, it would go down over time. And that's totally normal.

it wouldn't mean that there's anything wrong with your mind. It's a very healthy, healthy mind, but you'd still show what's called the vigilance decrement, which many people said is attention getting tired. But the story is more complex than that. So, for example, what we did in one of our studies is we had people do a demanding task, but in addition to them doing the task, we stopped them every now and then, and we said, where is your attention right now? Is it on the task or is it somewhere else?

And we tracked that over time. And what we saw was that the performance got worse over time. But they're mind wandering, this off-task thinking, got more over time. So in some sense, we think it's probably something like we're doing some kind of calculation of like, is this worth my continued energy and effort right now? We experience it as boredom, like, I don't want to do this anymore. I think boredom is a feedback system that says, go do something else. So what may feel like fatigue is actually just a built-in mechanism that says,

time to invest your energy doing some other thing. And sometimes we've listened to that. we don't. It's like, yeah, I'd rather be doing something else right now, but I've got to get this report written. But understanding that sometimes it means just switching out of that mode for a few minutes to come back and you don't need to have the rest of the day off, it could be take a walk, you know, 10 minutes, come back and you will feel a little bit more capable of returning to the task. So my answer is a little bit mixed where yes, it is limited, but there is complexity regarding what's actually going on that makes us feel fatigued and bored sometimes.

And just to get kind of granular on what the task switching looks like in a productive way, like why is a walk good? And is there anything else that would be bad? Like if we take our task break and we go scroll on Instagram, is that worse than taking a walk to replenish that focus and energy? Oh my gosh, such a good question. Now, like, I don't know of any studies that have head-to-head compared Instagram scrolling versus taking a walk. But here's my hunches. When we are taking a walk, why is that the thing I said? I said it because in some sense, the intention would be that when we go for a walk, we have no particular goal and we have no particular agenda. We're going to let the mind roam anywhere it wants. In some sense, we're in a floodlight mode. We're giving this flashlight a

break that's been focusing in and we're in this broad, receptive stance, whatever pops up, in my mind, no problem, right? And that will kind of be a different mode that the brain spent some time in. And then we come back and we can use that flashlight again, because we've kind of given that system a little bit of a break, would be one way to understand it. If instead we go on Instagram, in some sense, now the flashlight's still engaged, but now it's getting pulled by whatever content that we're scrolling on. Even if you say, well, I'm just really not paying attention. I'm just scrolling mindlessly. Then I'd say, okay, why don't you just get up and scroll mindlessly by looking around your block instead of just mapping your finger move. Because if you're truly

checked out and you are in a floodlight mode, you could set your phone down and be in a floodlight mode. So even to be aware that when you think that you're engaging in something to get a rest, really get that rest. And what the rest you're seeking is no task, task-free, spontaneous, mental content, just coming and going with no agenda, which can be extremely positive mood generating. And really, I would say, give you the experience of sort of being mentally, refreshed. Would that same technique work if you were trying to prepare for something you wanted to be really focused for? Like if you had a really important meeting or you had a really important conversation, would it be good to activate the floodlight mode, like take a walk for 10 minutes

beforehand? Can be. Yeah, for sure. Especially if there's preoccupation about the event that's coming on. Is there anything else that you would do if you had something coming up that you just wanted to be like hyper-focused, hyper-present for that you would do to prepare right before? I mean, you could, you know, this is where I would say I leave it to people to have, I like to provide the tools and let people kind of see what works best for them. For me, I would, if I have something very, very demanding to do, my go-to practice, and this is going to sound strange. And I don't have like specific research data on this, but I'm just telling you for my own experience, especially if it's demanding and it's consequential for me in what I want to get done and the way I look in the world, it's something that I want to be successful because it matters to me, right? So there's that pressure and it's consequential from my sense of success. And I know I have to be focused.

Let's just add that to it. I have to be focused. Instead of doing a practice where I would have to practice focusing or even broadening, my go-to is a loving kindness practice. And in some sense, what that allows us to do is really remember that we wish ourselves well, that we care for ourselves with a deep, a deep-hearted connection to our well-being. And we wish it. It's like, it's like sending out like, you know, like a birthday wish, but it's like, I wish you safety. I wish you health. I wish you ease. I wish you peace. Whatever it is that our

phrases are during a loving kindness practice, it's just such a good reminder that ultimately what I want for myself in whatever happens next is is those good things. I wish that for myself. And it does something very surprising for me. It just sort of like, it just kind of makes me feel more supported, even though I'm just sitting there wishing it for myself. And that, sense of support. I mean, it does a couple of things, right? So I feel supported. But I'm also not engaging in all that other mental dialogue that may be undermining my potential for success, because now I'm going in a ruminative mood about all the other times I've done this and things that have gone wrong, or they're going to really yell at me this time, or they're not going to like what I'm saying.

All that stuff isn't happening, but we're attending to this other thing that is quite important and powerful for us. So I think there's multiple reasons that could be helpful, but I'm just telling you that's my go-to. And that's just kind of like sitting there and repeating in your head, phrases that you said. That's interesting. I've never, that is a tip before and I like that. I'll try that next time I have something important coming up. Can you leave us with just maybe one more tool, maybe something that we haven't discussed yet, a homework assignment that we can all use starting today to improve our attention or focus in some way? Yeah, yeah. And I think one thing I would say you can do, you know, we talked about having some formal period of time to do a stillness practice

or being efficient with our time and doing a body scan while we're in the shower. But one thing we can all do because we walk around in the world and we're going to encounter this is something called a stop practice. And the stop practice is a stop is an acronym. And you could do it, by the way, anytime you're stopped. So stopped in a line, stopped at a stop sign, stopped at a stop light. Like we stop all the time. Stop waiting for an elevator.

When we actually are stopped, it's like a cue. Like, oh, I'm stopped. I can do this little stop practice. not even 30 seconds to a minute. Quietly, nobody's going to know you're doing this. But it's like getting in like a micro-mindfulness practice multiple times throughout your day. And so the acronym is just stop. Like, you're stopped anyway.

Just stop. Like feel the energy of stopping. T, take a breath. And that's with this sort of mindful awareness. Just, oh, observe. What's happening right now in that receptive kind of floodlight way? Reserve. External environment, internal environment.

And then P, proceed, move on your way. I love that because I think sometimes for me, the poll of social media happens in those interstitial moments like the waiting in line or stopped at a stoplight or just these little tiny moments where you're not going to like pick up a book or engage in something else. And I love the idea of having like a tiny practice that I can fit into those moments that's actually beneficial. Yeah, yeah. You might notice that you've already have your phone in your hand as you notice that you're going to approach. You're going to be like, I'm going to pull my phone. It's going to be holding it. Yeah.

But just remember, even just even if your phone is in your hand, you can still do the stop practice. I'm a little phone zombie. I love that you're just like, you might wake up and realize that you actually have it in your hand already. Well, I'm speaking from a lot of experience. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it doesn't mean we can't do it. Like we might even give a little giggle to ourselves. Like, there I am doing this autopilot thing.

But I can actually stop right now. And again, I just, just to really emphasize this point, as you've said a number of times, that doesn't mean anything is wrong with you or you're doing anything bad. That is just the way that our brain is designed to work. I think that is probably one of the most important things I want people to take away. There's nothing wrong with your brain. It is designed for distractibility. All we're doing through these techniques is trying to add more tools to our toolkit to help us.

Amazing. Well, I'm going to talk all about your book at the beginning of the episode, but if there's anything you'd like to say in your own words or anything else that you might be working on that I might not know about, I would love for you to do that now. I think the one thing I'd want to say is just that for people to kind of understand that, and this is part of like my passion, is that, you know, we've known for a long time now because there's been so much study around 300 and over 300,000 articles published on this, that we need daily physical activity to stay physically fit.

Like that is known, right? We don't know that at least it's not part of a popular cultural understanding, that we need daily mental exercise to stay psychologically well. And the work that I'm doing here and what I've tried to offer and everything we've been talking about is for people to get that understanding that the mind, just like the body, needs a daily exercise to stay fit. And we now know what we can offer people and that we can do ourselves to promote that fitness. And so what I want to offer people is that just remember that the culture will catch up. We already know what people can do daily to help themselves. And all we need to do is give it a try.

Start today. All right. I'm convinced I'm going to go do my tour. 12 minutes of mindfulness. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Dr. Ja. This was amazing. Oh, absolutely.

Thank you. You asked such great questions. I had a lot of fun. I hope you loved this episode with Dr. Ja. I've been like in and out of my meditation practice for years, and she definitely convinced me to stick to 12 minutes a day, which is just so doable.

Also, I will be using that walkout side trick to replenish my focus, especially in the middle of the afternoon when I get just like so slumpy and tired. And also, I am definitely going to. to try the decentralization, the reporting thing from above, from above my body and self on my next flight. I have my next flight in a little bit less than two weeks. I will try that trick and I will let you all know how it goes. So fingers crossed for me, I really want to have a good flight. If you are, if you have flight anxiety like me, I have a how to overcome fear of flying episode, which I've personally been listening to on repeat. It's helping so much. But my fear of flighting is

just like, ah, it's so bad. It's out of control. So I need. need every single trick in the book. And I'm so excited to add this to my toolbox as well. If you love this episode, please send it to someone that you think would benefit. And I would also so appreciate a really quick rating or review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. They're all such wonderful ways to support the podcast and they are so appreciated. Also, make sure that you are subscribed or following on your favorite podcast platform. And I will see you next Wednesday on the next episode of the Healthyer Together podcast. Have a beautiful week.