Tag: attention

Posted in Life & Happiness

May I Have Your Attention Please

Posted on by Jinavie

We live in the Information Era, where we have all of the knowledge of humanity, breaking news and updates from the lives of others at our fingertips in the form of smartphones and the internet. Thanks to big data, artificial intelligence and algorithms, we even have tailor-made playlists of music and videos delivered directly to us.

But along with convenience came a price. Entertainment is a business of attention. Companies constantly try to better capture our attention in the form of ads, algorithms and simple user interfaces. Our brains – as complex and wonderful they may be – much prefer the easy route than what is good for us. We have unfortunately become victims of those who wish to exploit this fact, to convert our attention and time into revenue.

Because of this, we now have shorter attention spans. Think about it: when is the last time you finished reading a book for leisure? When is the last time you sat and thought deeply about something with no distractions? When is the last time you laid on the ground and stared up at the sky, without checking your phone?

Everything comes to us now in small, bite-sized pieces. We have less tolerance for long pages of text or even videos longer than 5 minutes without being distracted by something else. Many people would have already closed this page, distracted by a notification from their phone or because they could not focus long enough to read 875 words on a page.

Our short attention spans result in us being less productive, less detail-oriented and thinking and feeling less deeply in general. We also engage in “unintentional leisure“, where we passively and mindlessly consume content and waste much more time than we intended. Instead of spending time on our hobbies and interests, our loved ones or productivity and creativity, we end up wasting a lot of time due to our fractured attention.

More importantly, the hallmark of being human is our ability to think. Because we have less attention and we feel like we need to constantly fill our time and attention with something new, we reserve less time to ponder and daydream. Instead of indulging in the luxury of idleness and letting our mind wander to explore the nooks and crannies of our brain and soul, we constantly crave a new distraction.

So how do we fight back and reclaim our attention? As highlighted above, one of the biggest threats is the internet and smartphones. One of the best ways to improve your attention span is to reduce the amount of screen time, by using apps that remind you how much time you’re spending online or on the phone, or specifically setting a blackout period where you do not use your phone for a set amount of time, whether it be an hour or a week. This forces you to engage in other activities such as picking up a book you had been meaning to read, starting a pet project or going on a walk with a friend.

Another tip is to find a passion that can engage your brain. We know from psychology that flow state – the state in which you are challenged and engaged at just the right balance – is one of the keys to happiness, because you can enter “the zone” where you are truly focussed and living the present. By getting involved in an activity such as reading, writing, music, sports, gaming, pottery or journaling, you can help train your brain to focus on a task for a prolonged time. This is particularly easier if you are actively interested in your passion, because you won’t be able to stop thinking about it.

Lastly, like any attempt at positive human behaviour change, you need systems. Determination will only last so long, but systems and habits let you change your life for the better in a permanent way. Use timers, reminders and apps to actively push you to do the above activities. Force yourself to go somewhere without internet access, such as going on a nature walk or going to a cafe with just a notebook, and tell yourself that for that time period, you can only do one thing such as thinking, reading or writing. Even if you do not accomplish much in that time period, it is the habit formation that is the crucial part.

Focussing and attention are the skills that have allowed humanity to progress as a species, letting us achieve monumental tasks such as figuring out how the forces of nature interact, solving global-scale problems, and developing seemingly magical technology such as getting us to the Moon and back. It would be such a shame to lose this wonderful, innate ability just so some company can generate more ad revenue.

Now that you have shown that you can focus on reading 875 words, what is something you want to focus on? Whether it be reading an entire book, starting and finishing a DIY project or starting a healthy habit such as gymming regularly or writing a blog, pick something to focus on and train your attention span.

You will find that life is so much better when you can utilise your time in a meaningful, productive manner.

(Image source: Puuung http://www.grafolio.com/puuung1)
Posted in Psychology & Medicine

The Centipede’s Dilemma

Posted on by Jinavie

In 1889, British zoologist E. Ray Lankester published an article on the work of the motion of animals in the prestigious journal, Nature. He concluded his article with a poem (which he admitted in not knowing the author of, but commonly attributed to Katherine Craster). The poem goes as follows:

A centipede was happy – quite!
Until a toad in fun
Said, “Pray, which leg moves after which?”
This raised her doubts to such a pitch,
She fell exhausted in the ditch
Not knowing how to run.

The allegory of the centipede illustrates a strange yet hilarious psychological phenomenon, which has been called the centipede effect to honour the poem. Most of the time, we do not put much thought into day-to-day activities such as breathing and walking. We do not have to give much thought because they have become habits – a handy mechanism nature devised to let us do more while using our brain to think about more important things. Habit automatises tasks to reduce attention, but it comes at the cost of the centipede effect, where conscious thought and attention impairs the ability to do that task, much like the centipede tripping on her own leg.

For example, even a professional golf player or violinist will make mistakes the more they thinking about their individual swings or notes they play. A simple experiment you can do is thinking about your breathing. Just by reading that sentence, you consciously divert your attention to your breathing and you will find it difficult to breathe “normally”. Similarly, you can cause considerable distress and time-wasting if you point out a tiny error in someone’s habits, making them overanalyse what they are doing wrong and hyper-reflecting.

What we can learn from The Centipede’s Dilemma is that overthinking never helps. The more we think about something, the more we look at the trees rather than the forest and we get lost in the details. This means we cannot see the overall big picture, which may turn out to be very simple. So the next time you are stuck on a problem in life, stop and take a breath. Clear your mind and let your gut feeling do its thing. Your mind can build so many roadblocks by overthinking – clouding your judgement and crippling your ability to do things. But just remember, all you have to do is drive through those roadblocks and let your heart do what it wants.

Thinking Ahead

(Image source: http://xkcd.com/439/)

Posted in Psychology & Medicine

Symptom Reporting

Posted on by Jinavie

Some people always complain of symptoms, claiming that they are sick, while some people never seem to complain even if they have a whole list of symptoms. Why is there a difference in symptom reporting between people? For example, women are more likely to recognise symptoms and report them compared to men. This is because men are generally under the social pressure of needing to appear strong and healthy, so they become stoic and less sensitive to pain and disease. Women are usually more sensitive to internal bodily changes and worry more about their health.

According to a psychological theory called the competition for cues hypothesis, there are two signals that compete for attention when we recognise symptoms. The first is bodily changes, i.e. internal cues, while the other is external stimuli from what happens around us. Awareness of symptoms follows a ratio between these two signals: if there is a strong internal cue such as severe pain, we notice symptoms more quickly, while if there are many distractions, we may not notice the symptom. For example, according to a study people can run faster when listening to music and running through a forest with plenty to see. This is because music and the scenery distract the runner from internal cues. As we can only process a certain amount of information at a given moment, the more distractions there are the less sensitive we become to signals from inside our body.

Another factor that affects symptom reporting is illness labelling. The more information we have about a disease, the more we search for those symptoms. For example, if you yawn or scratch yourself, people around you will do the same. This is because they see you yawning and subconsciously believe that they should yawn too. This can be a powerful effect, as seen in mass hysteria. This strange phenomenon occurs when a person observes a sick person and their brain believes they are sick too, beginning to show symptoms despite being healthy. A similar example is seen in medical student disease, where medical students, with their extensive knowledge of diseases, match their own symptoms to symptom lists of rare diseases. For example, they might think that their high blood pressure is due to a phaeochromocytoma or renal artery stenosis, rather than just hypertension.

However, the opposite can occur where people fail to notice important symptoms and suffer serious consequences as a result. For instance, not all cases of heart attacks (myocardial infarction) cause unconsciousness and a patient may believe they are fine when only chest pain occurs. Failure to get treated as soon as possible at a hospital may result in ventricular fibrillation, leading to sudden death.

Posted in Psychology & Medicine

Munchausen’s Syndrome

Posted on by Jinavie

Some people are known to overreact regarding their health, such as a hypochondriac thinking that she has kidney failure because her urine looks slightly frothier. However, some people far surpass the level of hypochondrias to the level of psychiatric disease.
Münchausen’s syndrome patients are known to exaggerate or create symptoms so that the doctor would pay attention to them. When the doctor investigates, treats and sympathises with the patient they gain satisfaction from all the attention they are receiving.
Although this may sound like hypochondrias, Münchausen’s is far more serious.

A Münchausen’s patients are known to cause symptoms just to get attention from others. For example, a common manoeuvre used is the injection of insulin to induce a hypoglycaemic seizure. When their symptoms are “treated”, the patient will most likely invent another factitious disease to be treated for a longer time. They will also seek out many different doctors when the attending doctor catches on to their act. In fact, a Münchausen’s patient will do almost anything to prolong medical care, even accepting unnecessary and risky procedures such as surgeries.

The key difference between Münchausen’s syndrome and hypochondriasis is that the patient is aware that they are not actually sick (hypochondriacs actually believe they are sick). The fundamental basis for Münchausen’s syndrome is the desire for attention. Thus, the main risk factor for developing Münchausen’s is childhood experience of seeing someone close (typically a family member) suffering a debilitating disease. For example, if a girl sees her sister suffering from leukaemia and receiving all the attention of everyone around her, she may develop feelings of jealousy and later try to duplicate the scenario. As a patient, the person feels safe and comfortable and this feeds their addiction to medical care.

As Münchausen’s patients are very proficient liars and act completely like an actual patient, doctors must rule out any diseases before suspecting that their patients have a psychiatric problem. However, some signs such as the patient being overly keen on receiving procedures such as biopsies or continuously developing random symptoms may indicate Münchausen’s.

Interestingly, a similar condition called Münchausen’s syndrome by proxy also exists, where a caregiver (e.g. mother) convinces a doctor that the person they are caring for (e.g. child) are sick. Unfortunately, as these patients actually cause illness in the child, it is considered a form of child abuse. Common “symptoms” include: growth problems, asthma, allergies, vomiting, diarrhoea, seizures and infections. This may lead to the child developing Münchausen’s syndrome in the future.