The Brain Can Only Take So Much Focus

https://hbr.org/2017/05/your-brain-can-only-take-so-much-focus?utm_source=pocket&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pockethits

by lxm • 9 years ago

348 69 9 years ago

hbr.org

AznHisoka• 9 years ago

I can relate as I always feel very fatigued mentally after a long drive, especially if it involves a route I am not familiar with, and there is lots of stop and go traffic.

crawfordcomeaux2• 9 years ago

This is when I practice PCD (I think?). I'll choose a goal (like letting go of something, feeling joy, exploring my emotions, creativity, etc), a song or album I think I can make work for said goal, and then either a specific context (eg. a conflict or project) or to with the story in the song/album. I play it on my phone through an FM transmitter with voice nav on in Google maps. While listening, I'm typically constructing a music video in my head or forcing/mapping thoughts/memories/feelings onto the lyrics.

This also develops the skill of forcing analogies, which helps with keeping an open mind.

zitterbewegung• 9 years ago

I find that I will lose and gain focus throughout the day when I have a task when I don't know what to do next. When I do have energy I will try to push past it. After awhile though I start reading HN. The amount time I will read HN depends on an ever decreasing amount of energy. After about 3-5 times of losing focus and not making progress I will spend increasingly longer on the site.

From the website I am practicing mindfulness throughout the day since I have my Apple watch (through the breath app). I think mindfulness would be good for hackers. On physical tasks you could lift weights but on mental tasks your goal is probably reducing anxiety or frustration. Or preserving flow (Podmoro supposedly does this but I could never get into it).

On the other hand if I get a good flow going and I am uninterrupted I will probably forget to check HN and I will continually work until I do get stuck even if that happens.

grrowl• 9 years ago

I found pomodoros help control the impulse to visit HN (or twitter, news, etc). If it's non-negotiable that you must chip away at your task, even if it's a case of "don't know what's next" -> do supporting tasks until it becomes clear. By the 25-minute mark I'm much more likely to continue into the next pomodoro, and if not there's no problem taking time out without guilt.

terminalcommand2• 9 years ago

The problem I found with sticking to using Pomodoros or longer periods (90 minutes) per work is that they work for a short while. After a couple of days or max. a few weeks I plunge back into my old self.

Using self-discipline techniques help in the short term, but in the long term I find them harmful. Because after a while of dedication, I feel exhausted and kinda burnt-out.

It's true that working for the time you allocated removes guilt. It's true that setting aside a fixed amount of time for working makes you more efficient.

If I could only find a way to sustain this kind of movement. One thing I've seen working is listening to easy-listening music. After quieting down my brain, I have much more self-discipline and focus.

Imagenuity• 9 years ago

Having discovered some of these techniques through trial and error, it is helpful to see some research backing up and expanding on keeping the creativity flowing. Positive constructive daydreaming (PCD), exercise, taking a shower, napping, and more are helpful for getting access to more inspiration than just your conscious thinking can give you.

Others have studied this, including John Cleese, as detailed in his lecture on Creativity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EMj_CFPHYc

alexpetralia• 9 years ago

The science behind "ego depletion" is at very least controversial, namely because the effect has not been reproduced in subsequent experiments.

* Wikipedia provides a good summary of replication attempts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_depletion#Reproducibility_...

* Slate covered the topic here: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/cover_story...

* And here is a recent, large replication study: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/174569161665287...

As a result, I would hesitate before using "ego depletion" as an excuse for rationalizing a lack of self-control (eg. giving into "cheat foods" or being irritable/impulsive). Whether or not "ego depletion" is real, science has not yet adequately validated the theory.

Moreover, there is a risk to accepting the theory as true: because one believes in "ego depletion," one can rationalize a lower degree of self-control, which may have been higher otherwise. This creates a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I think it is fair to assume that, given the current research, "ego depletion" is no more than a reasonable hypothesis. It is possible that willpower may not fit the "finite resource" model at all.

opportune• 9 years ago

I completely agree and I've taken issue with this as well. This is something that is hugely susceptible to confirmation bias for the exact reason you stated: mere exposure to the concept will allow people to rationalize performing the behavior even if they wouldn't before.

Not only that, but think of all the cultures/jobs where it is normal for people to work much more than the typical 40 hour work week we are accustomed to. Do 18 year old Vietnamese fishermen working 80 hour weeks suffer from "ego depletion" the same way 18 year old college students do in the US? Probably not. It may be an element of our culture / upbringing that we put more emphasis on leisure, and not some psychological or neurological "need".

gregatragenet3• 9 years ago

I think you bring up a good example. I think a typical contract web developer in a western country is much more at risk for ego depletion then the Vietnamese fisherman example.

One of the factors of ego depletion is decision fatigue. If the fisherman does not fish that day, he and his offspring go hungry, and if that decision is repeated they will starve to death. So not really a decision, not one that a rational being would make. If the web developer goofs off on reddit today, instead of looking for new contracting work he won't go hungy.. He can probably coast for a little bit.. Actually, he could potentially just go on welfare, but then he'd have to live in a worse part of town. If he moved in with friends he could work less hours a week and have more leisure time, etc. Lots of choices to make.

Novelty is another ego depleter. The fisherman has done it day-in-day-out for years, probably his father and grandfather as well. It's muscle memory and he's on autopilot. The web developer is constantly novelty fatigued, learning new clients' environments and the latest web framework fads which change month by month. His day has no routine.

As a contractor it is much more difficult for me, and probably I'm the most lazy and restless after coming off a project, with a decent balance in the bank. I am much more focused and mentally sure when the bank balance is low and I'm chasing down business because if I don't find something it'll get uncomfortable quick.

Contrast that to when I was in the gulf of Papagayo, miles from shore, on a small sailboat in the middle of a storm. There was no ego depletion. I never thought 'well, should I continue battling the sea to keep this boat afloat and going to my destination?' There's no ego there, only survival.

Does the Vietnamese fisherman have the harder life by most metrics? Absolutely. However there are downsides to the modern western world.

taneq• 9 years ago

The kind of subsistence level jobs done all day every day in third world countries tend to be very mechanistic and/or low intensity. Those fishermen throw out a net and pull it back in after a while. The store keeper working 14 hour days spends most of that time sitting around reading a book. It's more that the lines between work and leisure are blurred than that they have a crazy high work ethic.

rand77763• 9 years ago

I wouldn't call "not working" "leisure". I work 80+ hours a week myself. But I recognize that there are more important things in this world and in this life than just working.

flor1s• 9 years ago

Reading the article it also seems the author has a rather sensationalist approach to interpreting research. Some of the studies he refers to do not seem to make the claims that he extracts from them, nor have a sample which resembles the general public.

The idea that you should intertwine focused thinking with unfocused thinking (and/or relaxation) was the subject of Daniel Kahneman's excellent book Thinking Fast and Slow.

wvbuwvbu2• 9 years ago

I take the point about the non-replication of experiments, but I cannot see how will-power could not be limited.

Our brains have evolved to minimize energy use and all the faculties they manifest: attention, will-power, imagination, creativity, critical-thinking, decision-making etc are parts of a finite budget of energy (glucose), and other resources like metal ions, enzymes & RNAs.

Thinking of will-power as an unlimited resource is a vestige of spiritual-thinking which denies the mechanistic nature of the brain.

There's another way in which will-power is constrained though: the inherited set of parameters that control the rates of production of neurotransmitters. Some people simply cannot ever achieve the levels of focus that others can, no matter how hard they try.

sgt101• 9 years ago

The physical things that you note - well, depleting them would mean death or unconsciousness and collapse, so that is a definite limit on will-power. On the other hand there are many cases of individuals dying while crawling home or resisting torture until death.

In terms of parameter inheritance - is there science on this? Are some humans predisposed to have less will power than others?

jsarasti• 9 years ago

Similarly you can argue that being aware of ego depletion will allow people to work with it better - after e.g. mentally exhausting work it's better to avoid going to grocery store because it will be more difficult than usual to resist buying sweets / junk food etc. Instead postpone it to tomorrow when you are "fully charged" again. By being aware of ego depletion (assuming it's true), you can actually optimize your life better.

guscost2• 9 years ago

Wow, this is a real thing?

It makes about as much sense as believing that your leg muscles are at risk of being depleted, and deciding to avoid exercise for that reason.

dmd• 9 years ago

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/trump...

austinjp• 9 years ago

People very much have beliefs akin to this. "Wear and tear" of joints, for example, is just not that simple. And avoidance of exercise or any movement in persistent back pain is common.

closeparen2• 9 years ago

Which is entirely correct... on short time scales. You don't run a marathon cold, and you don't think someone is morally weak for failing to run a marathon cold. You train. You build capacity over time. You moderate your progress using rest days to mitigate the risk of an injury that knocks you out of the game entirely for months.

If anything, ego depletion proposes that intellectual work is more like exercise than we might otherwise think.

closeparen2• 9 years ago

It's helped me immensely to move from a moralistic "I'm procrastinating because I have a weak constitution" belief to an "I'm procrastinating because I set up the environment wrong" mindset.

It turns out that I get more done, run faster, and find both intellectual and physical work much easier when I've taken excellent (rather than merely okay) care of baseline needs like sleep, nutrition, exercise, and household chores.

Willpower as a finite but manageable resource is a much more useful belief than willpower as a character trait.

zo72• 9 years ago

It's interesting to see research suggesting that this might be helpful, since I feel like I've stumbled on something similar. Lately I've had several instances where I've been completely stuck on a problem, so I'd stop everything and take a long hike on a trail or through some mountains. After taking a day of just literal wandering, I've found I'd be able to finally make progress on what I was working on once I pick it back up again, where I otherwise felt like I was hitting a wall. It's felt like my mind does some unconscious processing when I allow it to take a break, so it's encouraging to see some evidence to support that.

RJIb8RBYxzAMX9u2• 9 years ago

I'm not a (neuro-, or any other) scientist, but I'm suspicious of the common narrative that sleeping on the problem => unconscious background processing => solution to the problem. IMO, when you're "stuck" you're basically in a local minima that's not good enough. With computers you just restart at a random point and continue, but people are really bad at being random.

Moreover, there's the: don't think about an elephant right now => you just thought of an elephant, "problem". That is, the more you've been thinking about the problem a certain way, trying to force yourself to think differently only reinforces the original line of thought, leading back to the same local minima.

Thus, IMO the more likely mechanism that walking away from a problem and coming back to it later leads to a better solution, is more that you get a better random restart, and you have time to forget the prior line of thought, so you're more likely to think differently / explore a different branch of the search tree.

zo72• 9 years ago

Except that's the point of the article – PCD/napping/etc works because the default mode network of your brain is more active when you're at rest than when it's focusing on something, and that it seems to be doing some "housekeeping" in your brain so to speak.

I don't think it's much like a minima, because I can go home, run some errands, cook dinner, surf the internet, read, etc, but when I'd come back the next morning I'd be just as stuck as the day before. For me it wasn't until I explicitly tried to do nothing (i.e. wander, as opposed to distracting yourself with other tasks) that I made progress.

(of course this is just anecdotal experience – not trying to frame this as The Way but found it interesting that there's some research about it)

stonesixone• 9 years ago

Thus, IMO the more likely mechanism ... is more that you get a better random restart

This doesn't explain the many times (at least in my case, for example) where a solution pops into your head before you "restart." In other words, your mind seems to be working on the problem even if you're not consciously working on it / haven't consciously restarted.

snarf21• 9 years ago

I agree with you and think that is true for me as well. I think of it more as being too constrained in my focus, the proverbial "can't see the forest for the trees". I face the same thing when playing card and board games. Sometimes you get stuck on one approach to your next move and can't break out of the loop. I find that watching someone play the same game and facing the same situation that I'm more able to view all the options and consider those paths. This is also one of the main reasons I always go out to lunch, it gives me an hour of something different to look at and think about and I (almost) always feel my stress decrease and feel more refreshed. I can't even count the number of problems I've "fixed" while in the shower or driving to work when I'm in a state of relaxed contemplation.

marak830• 9 years ago

As someone who is on the last day of a 6 day 14 hours per day straight, oh I can attest to this.

The quality of the meals I'm sending out (plating and decoration wise) is nowhere near as good as it is on Mondays.

I need more chef's :-p

theprop• 9 years ago

I'd like the authors to try Vipassana's 10 day retreats -- it's free and for ten days you meditate, don't speak, and don't use any electronic devices. Not sure if there's any more focus than that! You'll survive...and afterwards probably thrive :-D.

crawfordcomeaux2• 9 years ago

Do you suppose the results you predict are from learning how to "unfocus" and naturally interweaving the skill with focused time back in the daily grind?

qarioz• 9 years ago

Vipassana meditation emphasis is not on focus. Samatha meditation purpose is solely focus.

akvadrako• 9 years ago

Huh, when I did it there was a strong focus on focus. First focus on the breath, later on a general part of the body and finally on a pinpoint.

m3kw9• 9 years ago

In other words, rest.

markpapadakis• 9 years ago

"Focus is a matter of deciding what not to do" --John Carmack

cammil3• 9 years ago

Don't believe a word of this. Test your own mind.

Don't make conclusions. Only ask questions and observe. This stuff cannot be explained. And it cannot be logically thought about. It must be seen and experienced.

Don't doubt what i have to say. Go check for yourself.

cammil3• 9 years ago

I should have known better.

Dylan16807• 9 years ago

"cannot be explained" just means you're bad at explaining, sorry.

aaimnr3• 9 years ago

There's so many things wrong in this article... They should just leave the 'take a nap' advice.

If the focusing drains energy from the mind, it's the wrong kind of focus. Real concentration (buddhists call it samadhi) doesn't come from forcing your other parts of mind to do what "you" (the small, narrative mind-process) want, but rather to unify the whole mind around single intention. This state is not only stable, it's more efficient, because there's just one thing to do rather than tens of conflicting intentions.

It's more efficient and calm than Default Network Mode, which is basically a garbage can for the mind.

You don't even have to get into buddhism, there's a lot that science already knows about eg. the flow state, which is a mini-samadhi. Also, Judson Brewer discovered that DNM is not fundamentally 'default', as it doesn't activate for long-term meditation practitioners. Such people (some of them really high functioning) report that great thoughts just come to them out of nowhere. Clinging to the thought forcefully only reinforces the illusion that 'we' are thinking it, which is not true and counterproductive, as it obstructs the dynamics of the mind. Just let the mind figure the problem out and let you know when it's done. DMN is an impostor that pretends that everything done by the various diverse mind processes is done by the narrative fiction centered around the feeling of 'I'. It's not, it's highly distributed, there's no driver and no center.

The more we think otherwise, the more force we have to put to make the mind obedient.

wruza2• 9 years ago

(Didn't read tfa)

In my experience, flow state tends to be toxic and socially harmful with time. After weeks of practicing, once you're in, there is no easy way to exit it without sleeping (in the morning you're at risk falling in there again). I discussed this effect elsewhere and it confirmed. Sometimes I forcefully retain my mind in normal mode with "expensive" focus, because further plans require to be communicable and alive. It is not "for free" to me in neither way.

Am I using it wrong? Is meditation and samadhi a better version of the flow in this regard?

throw_away_elec• 9 years ago

There is a concept called "laya" or "mano laya". If you are stuck in this, it might lead to stuff like this.

Samadhi is completely different - referring to a deep meditation state without particularly concentrating on anything.

Flow results from deeply being engaged in something or concentration.

aaimnr3• 9 years ago

One possibility is that the awareness is to narrow, and you just don't notice the harm you're doing, being to stuck on the pleasure coming from concentration. Sampajanna is the 'clear comprehension' aspect of mindfulness (sati) responsible for alertness, receptivity.

I like how Tucker Peck (https://meditatewithtucker.com/, recommended, he has an online group) phrased it: when there's samadhi with not enough sampajanna, you're happy asshole. When there's sampajanna without samadhi, you can clearly see what's going on, but you can remain sad (not enough flow-induced pleasure, leaving the mind not strong enough).

In such case there's just enough mind unification to create the pleasure from the flow state, but not enough to expand the awareness and notice wtf is going on around (and for the mind to notice introspectively what it's doing).

Maybe you could try to be continuously aware of the pleasure (or rapture, to be more precise - piti) in your mind, and how the mind is clinging to it. It leads to realising that the rapture is still quite a growse and still somewhat stressful state of mind (it feels a bit like happy anxiety) and with time causes the mind to let it go and leave just the mental pleasure (sukha) or at least to make the piti component more integrated and refined. That's the idea of the Jhanas progression, but not many people know that samadhi is equally possible in day-to-day life, not just with eyes closed. Good for you :)

BTW please take what I'm saying with a grain of salt, I'm not hugely experienced.

PS. A great piece about it: http://dharmatreasure.org/wp-content/uploads/Meditation%20an...

gurkendoktor• 9 years ago

Wow, I think I'm experiencing exactly the same issues. I've never successfully picked up meditating, but I do optimise for flow (home office, instrumental music at exactly my pace etc.)

I've decided to roll with the punches and just work all-day, but take more days off. That way I can just go straight from flow to bed (with a few walks throughout the day). But I'll try to make sense of the sibling comments as well. Or maybe I just need to get better at napping again (right after work - a great reset button).

If you have links to other discussions of this, please share :)

qwer• 9 years ago

I find physical exercise gets me back out even easier than napping. It took me a while to figure that out, but it's been really helpful.

petra2• 9 years ago

> but rather to unify the whole mind around single intention.

If that's the road to samadhi, inherently it's long and maybe painful - because our intentions depend on our memories - and a single intention means something like clearing or integrating all of the other intentions/memories. Or is there possibly a different way to achieve that?

On the other hand, i believe the view from neuroscience is that meditators created a network that can silence the default-mode network on command, and than the task-mode network automatically becomes the only one activated, hence focused on a single intention. So maybe that's the shortcut, maybe it could be accesseible by science ?

And BTW: Judson brewer recently published an interesting paper, showing how EEG could enable neurofeedback on deep brain structures related to meditation("effortless awareness") - which could have significant practical implications for meditators:

http://web.stanford.edu/~msacchet/pdfs/16_vanLutterveld_NI_i...

majewsky• 9 years ago

Uh, this looks very promising indeed.

I'm currently trying to get into meditation, and that "silencing the default-mode network" part is really really hard.

aaimnr3• 9 years ago

> but rather to unify the whole mind around single intention. If that's the road to samadhi, inherently it's long and maybe painful - because our intentions depend on our memories - and a single intention means something like clearing or integrating all of the other intentions/memories. Or is there possibly a different way to achieve that?

Wow, did you get this idea now, just by thinking about consequences of centering around one intention? Because it's not obvious and to some extent definitely true. Yes, there is a stage of integration where 'difficult stuff' comes up in the mind. In Culadasa's stages of concentration development it corresponds to stage 4 mostly (laid out in details in his Mind Illuminated book).

However:

- When you're doing it right, it's happening almost automatically, there's often pleasure of concentration that eases things significantly, and the relief that comes up... it's worth it. With time you almost yearn for such difficult things to come up from the depths, knowing the relief and completely new perspective that the integration will bring about.

- Saying that "I don't want to integrate the difficult parts" is a bit like "I don't want to be completely happy". Unifying the mind is like unifying the world - no conflict, completeness, content, everything you want and love is right there with you.

- Integrating the difficult parts is not just getting over them. Sometimes it results with ability to transform difficult relationships, to forgive, to reach deeper levels of communication with eg. difficult parents etc. What's mind changing is world changing.

With all that said there's so many examples of meditation gone wrong, of doing things that are counterproductive etc. - there definitely are less and more smart ways to do it. And hopefully the marriage of Buddhism and the Western thought will result in further advances.

I'm almost sure that neurofeedback will be of some help - we learn so much quicker if we have tight feedback loops, with immediate feedback it's almost like a game. Even in the paper you cite, the best results were achieved during the 'free play' phase, were one could play around interactively with the graph.

In the meantime I recommend Culadasa's method because it's very precise, driven by joy and the articulate, clear style expands to the whole community, which can be helpful when someone gets stuck.

fyolnish• 9 years ago

Is "psychological halloweenism" a thing?

appleflaxen• 9 years ago

This is basically just an advertisement for pseudoscientific nonsense by a medical doctor that should know better.

How can the Harvard Business Review publish this kind of hocum without flagging it as an advert?

vorotato• 9 years ago

Can only take so much focus until what? What happens? Do I go insane? Die?

The Brain Can Only Take So Much Focus

Related Stories