Men who stare at walls

https://www.alexselimov.com/posts/men_who_stare_at_walls/

by aselimov3 • 3 months ago

724 337 3 months ago

alexselimov.com

d--b• 3 months ago

Sounds like someone reinvented mindfulness

predkambrij• 3 months ago

They made instructions for mindfulness direct and unambiguous which is great.

thrownthatway• 3 months ago

I’d subtract a wall and substitute the breathe.

But a wall would probably do just fine as well.

vasco3• 3 months ago

A paper published in 2012 showed that in 2008 the average person was receiving 34 GB of information daily, with a daily information exposure growth rate of about 5.4% per year

The paper linked to justify this just talks about media that people consume which is growing. But that has nothing to do with the point this post is trying to make?

Your eyes "stream 4k video" anytime your eyelids are open regardless if you're watching a movie or looking at a wall? Why would me watching more videos say anything about how much information my brain processes?

beepboopboop• 3 months ago

I’d venture that there’s less to process staring at a wall. Unless you’ve got exciting walls in your parts.

markburns• 3 months ago

I don't think "Sitting in an office you sit in every day" or "Sitting in your living room" are the same amount of bandwidth/storage as "Travelling around the moon". I'm sure we have compression algorithms for this stuff and it's somewhat related to novelty.

I'm aware of an association between perception of time to number of photons received in the eyes.

These relate to both how much time the events appear to take subjectively as well as how well remembered they are or how long they feel retrospectively. As in there is an actual physiological explanation for "time flies when you're having fun".

There probably is something to also be said for attention too. Increased awareness and attention will undoubtedly use up more 'bandwidth' or 'storage' too.

u_fucking_dork• 3 months ago

Obviously the blank wall compresses better

llmssuck2• 3 months ago

I understand your point, but a slightly more positive reading might be that the quantity of information consumed, while perhaps unable to be precisely quantified, can be related to the type of content being perceived.

Staring at wall produces little information in and of itself, perhaps through reflection, but staring at a TV produces a load of information, most of which is useless like names of characters, their favorite dresses, what food is being eaten where, etc. You can learn a lot by just passively observing even "dumb" TV especially if it contains foreign content or skills like cooking or sports. Again, not saying all of it is relevant to your life, but that's a different issue.

vasco3• 3 months ago

I dunno I feel like brains are always going? It's not like if I'm staring at a wall my thoughts slow down vs if I'm watching a movie. If anything I'll be more "focused" on my thoughts so maybe they are more intense than the "shut brain down" effect of mindlessly consuming media? And I gave example of a wall, but what about scrolling tiktoks vs walking in the woods? Am I really processing more information scrolling tiktok than walking in nature? Hard to believe for me!

InMice2• 3 months ago

No thank you, my time on Earth is limited.

MarkusQ• 3 months ago

Yeah, you're only here for a short while, so why not make the worst of it?

k4rli• 3 months ago

Instead of dismissing it, perhaps just give it a try for 15 minutes. Couldn't possibly be worse than watching a mindnumbing 15minute youtube video / tv / reel-type content.

InMice2• 3 months ago

Maybe while riding on a stationary recumbent bike I suppose. I get one life on this earth no one is really going to convince me to spend time staring at walls.

Al-Khwarizmi• 3 months ago

Is this not a form of meditation? I've never been able to keep a meditation habit, but my understanding is that meditation techniques often feature closing your eyes and focusing on breathing, body parts or some other irrelevant thing, it sounds like staring at a wall would serve the same purpose.

saimiam• 3 months ago

After reading your comment, I was reminded of my first and last visit to a zen meditation center where we had to meditate by staring at a wall sitting on some sort special cushion designed for this sort of meditation.

I think your parallel is spot on!

robertclaus• 3 months ago

I was taught to aim for "mind blanking" when meditating, so does seem like it!

hk__2• 3 months ago

This is what I do when trying to sleep, and often wonder what’s the difference with meditation.

ammmir• 3 months ago

staring at a wall is basically the zen practice of shikantaza [1], except you’re not staring, it’s more of an eyes half closed yet alert gaze. you don’t do anything, not even counting the breath. you just sit, that’s the entire practice. in my experience, the more you intellectualize it, the more difficult it becomes!

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shikantaza

ganymedes• 3 months ago

It is, but just sitting can be a little deceiving in its brutal simplicity and I think some thought has to be put on the technique. I would often would just sit and think, not just sit. I wasted a lot of time sitting and thinking I am meditating. It's more like "just sit and be extremely watchful, alert". I also found it useful to have a timer nearby and evaluating how slow the time passes. The emptier the mind, the slower the passing of time. It also helps to tap into feeling the body, I would find that it's completely impossible for me to focus, if I do not have a good sense on feeling my body. Posture also plays a very important role. It's something to note that the average modern day person has posture that would take weeks or even months of focused practice to fix, especially one browsing this site. It's just sitting, but there are many things involved. * If you tell a beginner to just sit, they will drown in their own thoughts. Something more practical is, stare at the timer and try to not think, just perceive each second passing by, do not think, see how long can you last without a single thought **. Shikantaza is basically willful suppression of the thought process and pretty much the opposite of what the wikipedia article describes as a "similar technique" - "Do Nothing Meditation".

As for the article, I am actually doing 1 - 2 min shikantaza regularly while working. I'm staring at an empty screen. I do it multiple times per hour regardless if I feel focused or not.

* Don't try to fix the posture while attempting shikantaza.

** Obviously something even more practical for a beginner is to gain focus by counting breaths and then breath awareness, before trying the most difficult type of zazen. I'm just describing what would be a way for someone that does not practice to imagine what correct shikantaza feels like.

ErigmolCt5• 3 months ago

Maybe the useful framing is: just don't optimize the break

dwd• 3 months ago

It's maybe more along the lines of some of the mindfulness protocols, which are a form of meditation.

There's one where you are at rest and slowly shift the focus of your gaze from near to middle distance to far away, and back.

It's supposed to be a grounding exercise to bring your mind back to a state of rest and just observing.

brandonmenc• 3 months ago

Blanking out is afaik the exact opposite of "mindfulness".

This is almost exactly like Transcendental Meditation, even down the to the length of time of ~20 minutes.

teeray• 3 months ago

Reminds me of the “Wallfacers” in Cixin Liu’s “The Dark Forest.” I believe the term was derived from that meditative practice you refer to.

twilo• 3 months ago

Precisely

reg_dunlop3• 3 months ago

As someone who's maintained a meditation practice since 2013, this is definitely meditation.

And by "maintain a practice", I mean it's more like something I return to with frequency and less a daily compulsion.

Focusing on the breathe or ambient sounds is "easy", and is precisely the reason meditation is seemingly difficult. The mind craves more than simplicity; for some this occurs after a few seconds, for others after a few minutes...it all depends on the day. Learning to observe when the mind wanders is one part of the practice. Labelling the quality of thought that caused the wandering (planning, worrying, visualizing, replaying, etc)and returning to the simpler act of focus on breathe or sounds is another part of the practice.

This article is very much the author discovering some variation of meditation; if they feel the need to "invent" something and share it in a blog post...then here's hoping it promotes more people to give it a shot and maybe it'll lead to at least one person developing a new practice for themselves.

smeg_it2• 3 months ago

I was taught basic breathing meditation from a Vietnamese nun; but I'm not an expert. There are so many variations that I don't understand. I don't know much about Zen or it's take on meditation or mindfulness. On meditation, I know when I do it right, but have trouble helping people learn. I have trouble when I most need it (highly stressed), as I have the most trouble taking the time to relax without feeling too guilty.

As far as "inventing". I know what you (@reg_dunlop) mean but I don't see too much real harm. My father was into a book that talked about "not thinking". It was just a re-framing of part of mindfulness. If it helps... I'm not going to fuss about it.

As far as eyes. I was taught to not close my eyes completely but most of the way. I saw a documentary that explored Tibetan monks and their meditation. From what I recall, one of the monks said to use the eyelids as adjustable window blinds(or a valve... I'm paraphrasing to my understanding of what he was saying) so that if they got a bit sleepy they would open them more.

Personally, I'm a big believer in mindfulness but I do have some questions on some finer points. I might even aspire to teach it, but need further help myself first. Let me know of any resources that helped you (anyone)

bitexploder2• 3 months ago

Staring does something interesting. It does slowly reduce brain waves, but it is harder to hit theta with eyes open. And it works very differently initially. With eyes closed meditation where we, say, follow the breath we use the salience network to slowly chill the DMN for a bit. When you stare at a wall the salience network is what deactivates letting the DMN rip to try and figure what predictions are useful. But it runs out of steam and slowly the state converges with a traditional meditative state. With one important difference: your visual field is still active. Traditional meditation lets you hit theta brain waves. Eyes open is harder to hit theta with but you can definitely hit alpha waves.

So I agree it is meditation, but its quality and mechanism is interesting and different by a bit. It does make me wonder. When we traditionally meditate we grow the salience network (physically). Wall staring trains the brain to simply not seek attention in the first place. Wall staring doesn't strengthen the Salience Network's ability to act as a manager. It recalibrates the Salience Network's threshold for alarm. It trains the dACC to stop firing when nothing is happening.

So both are useful. And provide different neural wiring and myelination.

raincom• 3 months ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trāṭaka

suyash• 3 months ago

Very powerful but takes much practice

timacles4• 3 months ago

it almost is but meditation, is done with more intent.

In Zen Buddhism for example you are always striving to increase awareness, by constantly monitoring your internal monologue, pulling yourself back from day dreaming, expanding from focus on the breath to all near by sensation and phenomena.

True meditation, in the zen sense, is an order of magnitude more difficult to do consistently, and takes intense willpower.

FrustratedMonky3• 3 months ago

But also. Is there really a 'true zen'?

I have heard of zen described as 'just sit down and shut up' and stare at a wall. With no goal, no purpose.

CPLX• 3 months ago

I am a practicing Zen Buddhist and I wouldn’t agree with this description, at least not in my experience and the community that I’ve participated in.

Specifically I would say the concepts of “striving” and “intent” aren’t ones I would use.

What it actually is takes a little more to pin down (famously) but I would consider the concept of surrender to be more applicable. In fact I would say the absence of striving would be a good sign you’re on the right track.

I would consider staring at a wall without intent to be completely compatible with Zen practice.

antiframe• 3 months ago

No need to gate keep meditation. The wall stare does have intent: to increase focus and calm the mind.

cogman10• 3 months ago

it almost is but meditation, is done with more intent.
True meditation, in the zen sense, is an order of magnitude more difficult to do consistently, and takes intense willpower.

There are different forms of meditation and the one with the most evidence is also the easiest to do, mindfulness [1].

Very little intent is needed to get the majority of the benefits from meditation. I don't know that zen meditation offers more benefits, perhaps it does. But I do know that the "fake" forms of meditation are still beneficial.

[1] https://www.apa.org/topics/mindfulness/meditation

adolph• 3 months ago

True meditation, . . . takes intense willpower.

This seems counterintuitive. Maybe I'm doing it wrong but in my newbie practice it seems to be like resistance or cardiovascular training where there is effort in the moment and a sense of one's limits and a sense of unfolding and gains toward more depth and weight and duration. Like the gym it can be disappointing to lose ground after a break but there is also the contentment of regaining strength similar to rereading a familiar book and seeing it in new light.

There have been times that required more purposeful scheduling and preparation that is my default mode and times when whatever was in my head made me just actively hate sitting there and fail to realize that sensation as an ephemeral state. I accepted the door was closed that day and came back the next to pick up at the stopping point.

lanstin3• 3 months ago

The effort to still the mind moves the mind so much. Zen also teaches one to stop fiddling with the mind/body so things unfold into a natural smoothness. One may have stupid thoughts filling the monologue without becoming upset and without having the current moment obscured - busy monologue is just more color like the clouds above or the ants around.

FrustratedMonky3• 3 months ago

I predict this thread will now spiral into a dozen different definitions of meditation.

IAmBroom• 3 months ago

And Zen.

You are correct, in just 4 hours.

nickvec• 3 months ago

Yep. You don’t have to have to have your eyes closed to meditate. You can keep them open to focus on the flame of a candle or something else… in this case, a wall!

dec0dedab0de• 3 months ago

It sounds exactly like meditation, but a boiled down, modern technique that doesn't use the word.

sbretz3• 3 months ago

this is known as trataka meditation in the yogic tradition. trataka falls under the umbrella of kriya (purification) techniques which is why it helps with focus and intention

throwforfeds3• 3 months ago

Is this not a form of meditation?

It could be, but it depends on what you're cultivating. If you're spaced out, day dreaming, then you're practicing distraction. Meditation is practicing the opposite of distraction, to become aware of the mind's true state.

distantsounds• 3 months ago

is meditation just not a form of staring at a wall? i've never been able to keep a staring at a wall habit, but my understanding that staring at a wall often features opening your eyes and focusing on breathing, body parts or some other irrelevant thing, it sounds like meditation would serve the same purpose.

rainmaking• 3 months ago

Definitely.

Interesting twist- notice dark shapes in your color spectrum for a while, then switch to light. Trippy.

TacticalCoder• 3 months ago

... but my understanding is that meditation techniques often feature closing your eyes and focusing on breathing, body parts or some other irrelevant thing

It's more like the opposite. If you think about your breathing, you'll be "controlling" it (which funnily enough is not the case when you don't think about it). Meditation is the opposite: you have to be in a state where you can think about your breathing and yet you're not controlling it.

I can tell that, from doing it since a long time and from talking to people about it, even many people who practice meditation cannot reach that state (thinking about breathing without controlling it).

And you also really don't focus on body parts: you "disconnect" them all until you don't even feel them anymore.

And you also shouldn't focus on irrelevant things: you have to focus on absolutely nothing.

There are many different techniques to "pass on through to the other side": some visualize thoughts ("words" or the "internal monologue") as if it was a sea. The more thoughts, the more hectic the sea (and you want it all calm: no words, no internal monologue). Some imagine a lotus flower opening and when the last leaf opens, you can be in. Some imagine diving.

I meditate on and off since a long time. There are benefits, for example I definitely can lower the intensity of headaches (or at least how I perceive the pain). What I tell my friends is that Buddhist monks are actually on serious trips beating any psychedelic drug that does exist.

aselimov33• 3 months ago

I don’t practice meditation so I couldn’t tell you. I do find that when I do it, there are two regimes.

In the first regime the time goes somewhat quickly and it isn’t as difficult. I call this the zoning out regime. There usually hits a sudden point where zoning out is no longer quite as easy. This is probably the meditative regime where I have to be more mindful about keeping my mind blank.

I set a timer just to train my will, but I don’t prioritize spending a ton of time in that second regime. Just anecdotally, once I’m past the zoning out regime my focus is usually back.

erelong• 3 months ago

I'd consider them to be pretty dramatically different; meditation can be associated with deliberate focus and a kind of religious devotion, while just staring at a wall can be the absence of focusing or any kind of defined practice

feb0120252• 3 months ago

I've never liked the way meditation makes me feel, but I really like doing "guided relaxation". To an extent that I think they have to be different somehow, even though a lot of people would probably say they're the same thing.

I feel like staring at walls is similar.

jakeydus• 3 months ago

How would you describe the difference between them?

throwforfeds3• 3 months ago

I've never liked the way meditation makes me feel

This is common. A true meditation practice brings up a lot of stuff, from general body aches and pains to deep emotional things you may be unconsciously suppressing. With time and persistence, and with the right teacher, it becomes liberating though.

pstuart• 3 months ago

That immediately came to mind (no pun intended but still welcomed).

jeffscottwise• 3 months ago

Yes indeed! These are (or are related to) common meditation techniques. The proper way to understand the practice of meditation is "training your attention." There are many, many ways to do this, but the most direct form is to put your attention on some object and keep returning it to that object over and over again. This builds steadiness of attention (concentration) and has some nice side effects of clarifying the object of attention as well as keeping attention balanced relative to other objects (equanimity). Ideally, the object of attention is non-conceptual. Thoughts and emotions are the main objects that are constantly distorting and interrupting our attention, and ultimately the crux of the "training" is in finding harmonious ways to use/manage/embody them.

Unfortunately, it's very hard to understand how training attention in this manner can provoke dramatic improvements in attitude, happiness, and even conventional life goals. This is where a lot of the work in modern Buddhism is being done, and I personally believe we need to integrate these techniques into our everyday systems and ways of living. Otherwise, it's perfectly reasonable to dismiss them since good, objective evidence of their efficacy is hard to come by.

Perhaps a useful framing for readers on here is in reprogramming your self. We often accept that we cannot change or even that we want to change. By training our attention, we can focus it on the way the mind itself functions, and this eventually gives us the power to rewrite or rework core parts of our selves. The body contains the source code to our perception of reality, and when we can truly let go we find that we are free to be the person we want, and it is in fact our destiny.

perfmode• 3 months ago

zazen is often practiced eyes open facing a wall

vidarh• 3 months ago

A creation myth of Zen meditation and Shaolin Kung Fu claims that Bodhidharma meditated for 9 years facing the temple wall, and eventually caused the wall to crack.

ErigmolCt5• 3 months ago

Yep, I think it's basically meditation with the branding stripped off

klik99• 3 months ago

Literally regular Zen practice, in fact where I used to go we always called it “sitting and staring at the wall”, to remove any woo associations or any idea that you’re doing something grand.

I remember sitting in an intro session and the teacher asked everyone for what they expected - one of the guys there was a dude bro who was obviously there because his girlfriend dragged him. He said all the fancy things about reaching higher consciousness, like he thought the whole thing was stupid but he was playing along. Then after sitting for 15 minutes he was more into it than his GF. He clearly had an experience and excitedly struggled to find the words to describe it. I honestly think the less you expect out of sitting, the more likely you are to get something, weirdly.

dkenyser• 3 months ago

Yes. I swear every day I see a "new" fad targeted at fixing one's attention and every time they're doing so much mental gymnastics to not use the word "meditation."

strken2• 3 months ago

The problem with the word meditation is that, if this counts as meditation, then I meditate every time I take a long train trip or go for a walk.

That might actually be true! But there are people who claim they cry, or experience infinite bliss, or that meditation gave them long lasting mental health problems and is dangerous. When I've emptied my mind and let the trees and houses fly past on train trips, I've neither cried nor experienced infinite bliss nor broken down mentally.

Graziano_M• 3 months ago

One of the top comments on the video is "Bro accidentally discovered meditation"

jimbokun• 3 months ago

The Three Body Problem has the Wallfacer project, named after a form of Buddhist meditation.

dr_kiszonka2• 3 months ago

Look up "wall-gazing meditation".

Cthulhu_2• 3 months ago

I think there's many forms of meditation in that regard, some intentional, some cultural, some spiritual. Going to church on sunday can be considered a moment of meditation, no tech around etc.

NDizzle• 3 months ago

The same video showed up on my feed last week. I didn't try wall staring, but I did try a day (last Tuesday) with only a single screen active for the entire work day. I was extremely productive that day... but, and I know this is bad, I don't want set expectations too high. So here I type to you on a screen / device that should be turned off.

Insanity2• 3 months ago

I went from a single monitor setup to triple monitor a decade ago, and then back down to single monitor.

It helps me focus to have just one active “feed”. And I put my phone away when I work to eliminate that screen as potential distraction.

Where I still kinda “fail” is during natural downtime. Like if I’m waiting somewhere, e.g the Dr office, I’ll pull out my phone and browse mindlessly.

dktp• 3 months ago

Loosely related, though I don't think Benjamin Bennett's intention was ever to improve focus/productivity

But it never ceases to amaze me the consistency and time spent sitting and smiling and other similar endeavors by Benjamin - https://www.youtube.com/@BenjaminBennetttt/streams

Cider9986• 3 months ago

That is insane.

amelius• 3 months ago

In case someone wants to look at a wall:

https://unsplash.com/photos/red-bricks-wall-XEsx2NVpqWY

bsza• 3 months ago

Nice find. I'm going to print this and put it on my wall.

rankdiff• 3 months ago

haha, great one.

NDlurker3• 3 months ago

I live in an old warehouse converted into apartments. The walls are made of yellow brick and they're nice to look at because of the variation in texture/wear/color

swah3• 3 months ago

Is this fair game? Looking at the details of the texture? Or wall here means "something plain, without characteristics".

shmeeed• 3 months ago

Honestly, looking at this photo even for one second only triggers intrusive thoughts about how badly it needs to be corrected for distortion...

But maybe that's exactly the lesson.

keyle• 3 months ago

Instead of a wall may I recommend trees, fresh air, and just enjoying it away from anything electrical.

I had a same issue and I found it helped to just step away and blank out in nature.

Also try delaying your first coffee to after the first hour of being awake.

uean• 3 months ago

Thanks for saying this. I live in a small, bleak, brown town just recovering from winter, and even despite this, getting out into nature and staring at the water flow past in the local river gives so much benefit.

Reading this article is a great reminder that we all need to disconnect and ground ourselves again. My brain (and likely most of ours) just can't handle 100% up-time all day and needs that break.

Tangent - I used to go cycling a lot, and required a lot less wall/river-staring then. Of the people I knew who I cycled with, 95% of us were coping with some kind of mental health issue in some way and had found our fix on the bike. I miss it.

arnorhs• 3 months ago

this sure seems like meditation.

it could probably work as well to close your eyes instead of staring at a wall.

i've always found meditation types revolving around focusing on one thing (candle, wall etc), or nothing (empty mind) to be really hard. my mind just wanders and i end up super anxious, frustrated, and exhausted - resulting in me giving up pretty quickly

What I've found is that focusing on "everything" - ie sitting still and trying to observe your surroundings, your body, all sounds simultaneously seems to work much better. It's easier to get to a calm state this way.

Also, doing this while walking can also work - but perhaps easier to accidentally start thinking about something else

47282847• 3 months ago

The idea as far as I understand it is that it’s the point exactly to sit with and process whatever comes up in your mind when you don’t distract yourself. The more often you do it, the more present you become, and the more ability you develop to discriminate between what really is there and what is your imagination/unprocessed memories of the past. The object you focus on merely serves as a still reference point from which you look at what else is showing up (feelings, thoughts, memories).

There will always be anxiety, otherwise you would have processed it already and not hurried away into other activities. It sure feels life-threatening, but as long as you don’t give in to the illusion and remind yourself that it is not, there is no rational reason to jump away. Breathing is a typical way to remind yourself that you are safe in the present environment. And the gift you receive is more and more clarity and a relaxed base state from which to face what’s next.

diogenes_atx• 3 months ago

Seems like it would be better and easier to just take a walk instead. Whenever you feel information overload, it's time for a break: step outside, get some fresh air, stretch your legs, etc. Not a panacea, obviously, just common sense. Staring at a wall while forcing your mind to "think of nothing"... maybe try it once and see how it goes.

cwnyth• 3 months ago

Going for a run helped formulate so many of my best ideas and solved so many tricky problems I was facing. It was always one of three places: on a run, in the shower, or right before falling asleep.

steveBK123• 3 months ago

Seems like it would be better and easier to just take a walk instead.

Unfortunately for many, and few managers will admit it even though it's true - there is a performative aspect to physical presence at work. Being away from your desk, idle on slack, etc to go take that walk is a problem in many work environments.

Probably one reason why SWEs are disproportionately interested in FIRE.

Aurornis• 3 months ago

Probably one reason why SWEs are disproportionately interested in FIRE.

SWEs are disproportionately interested in FIRE because it is (or was) an easy way to get a high paying job without an extended education period like becoming a doctor or lawyer. You could go straight into a six figure job after 4 years of college and even wear shorts to work, while your med school and lawyer friends were just getting started and had years of grunt work ahead of them and debt to pay off. SWEs are also disproportionately represented on online spaces like Reddit and forums where FIRE was popularized.

SWE jobs have been the most flexible I’ve had and seen across my career. I also had a manager who would police time spent in seats, but at every other job going for a walk was not an issue.

Contrast that with many of my friends in other careers who, still to this day, have stories about their managers imposing dress codes or forbidding headphones in the office. The average SWE is spoiled in workplace flexibility, even if there are exceptions.

SoftTalker• 3 months ago

Getting outside/walking can be good but there's still a lot of activity hitting your senses. People, cars, animals, sounds, or all of the above. If you can find a quiet park bench to sit and sort of defocus it might work. But more than just taking a break, when you "stare at a wall" you are engaging in deliberate sensory deprivation, which might be a better reset for your analytical mind. All that said, if taking a walk works for you, great!

sublinear2• 3 months ago

Yup. It activates the parasympathetic nervous system because of the mild exercise. It also levels out your hormones such as insulin and cortisol.

Aperocky• 3 months ago

What I didn’t expect was how difficult it would be. Sitting for 5-10 minutes staring at a wall without thinking of anything is hard! I relate it somewhat to the feeling I have with working out.

So why not combine working out directly instead of staring at a wall? Ride a stationary bike at low zone 2/lower in my experience allow for uninterrupted focus during that time at work. While on bike, the mind shuns distraction and focus on "what's next" in the workstream (distraction includes HN, evidently I haven't gotten on the bike yet).

My homeopathic theory is that I have a total mental energy that is the sum of focused energy and a distracting energy. This distracting energy can be temporarily used at task at hand but it results in mental exhaustion, or left alone it leads to distraction seeking behavior. While on the bike, distracting energy is fully consumed by riding, allowing for focused energy stay focused. If I go above low zone 2, it starts eating into focused energy and I lose efficiency.

iterateoften• 3 months ago

Zen meditation for an hour staring at a wall is a marathon that at the end results in a semi-psychedelic state for me.

Exercising and sitting b meditating are two related but seriously different things. Which is why there are many other types of meditation to practice (walking, working, silent, etc) but zen mostly considers sitting and looking at a wall the OG

cubefox• 3 months ago

See also:

Show HN: Improve cognitive focus in 1 minute (oneminutefocus.com) 741 points by junetic on Feb 7, 2024 | 287 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39288039

https://oneminutefocus.com/

yahway• 3 months ago

John Fogerty used this method to write his early CCR albums. I thought it odd. Maybe I will try this!

zafka• 3 months ago

I have to say that the reworded title is what made me read the article. It is almost poetic. I could see it being a title of a campy movie.

zug_zug• 3 months ago

I feel like this is on to something. I remember earlier in my career whenever I hit a really, really hard problem I'd have an instinct to try to stare of into the far distance (especially if there's like a distant skyline) and sort of zone-out. It was like shower-thinking or almost sleeping, and then come back with a deeper understanding of the problem.

Psychology research backs this up -- I think there are studies that show students who have a break between two classes before better in both classes (it's called interference).

Anyways it felt weird to me that our work never accommodated this, I think peak performance requires tuning the environment to the human biology, not management optics.

latortuga• 3 months ago

It's funny you said "shower-thinking" because showers are one of the few places where it's not practical to use a device and you really are alone with your thoughts. A normal day to day activity that is the same sort of "stare at walls" state that the OP describes.

poulpy123• 3 months ago

Theta re reinventing meditation from first principles

Lerc• 3 months ago

I could never do this. I would forget that I am staring at a wall within 30 seconds.

The suggestion of going for a walk at least means when you get absorbed by something in your mind, you are still out on a walk, You can't just turn around and start working on some new idea if you are out on a path somewhere.

sigbottle• 3 months ago

Totally agree with the absorption thing. I've always found myself at a great calm, ever since I was a kid, from sitting en transit and looking out the window. A train ride is great for this reason. I think about things. I actively think about things. These things are often not daydreams, hard problems, rumination. I know what those feel like, and they are definitely different from depressive rumination or furiously working through tasks.

Again, I want to emphasize, that in none of these are you explicitly practicing the act of leashing in your mind.

All in all, I think the popular conception of meditation, Youtube-ized since the 2010s, has more nuance. Maybe people see this distinction and think it's obvious. To me, as someone who unironically feel like I'm net negative from self-help content than net-positive, this matters to me, personally.

If you want to get mystical, there are plenty of stories of deep Eastern masters practicing their craft every day. They certainly are thinking about their act - they are not trying their best to "get rid of all their thoughts". These are different activities, each with their own merits, both much different states than the common state of the modern man today.

That being said, meditation and the surrounding ideas have helped me overall, if not just because the specific influencers that I do hold as valuable had a good attitude when approaching it. But nowadays I'd imagine it's been silently incorporated into the very underlying forces they were trying to avoid (I have to meditate because it makes me a more improved human being compared to my peers!)

ninalanyon• 3 months ago

You can't just turn around and start working on some new idea if you are out on a path somewhere.

Eh? I'm retired now so I don't need to work but when I did I often went for a walk when a problem seemed insoluble. After a while I might feel that I have the solution to that and I'd start working on another problem as I continued my walk. You don't need to be in front of a screen with your fingers on a keyboard to do some work.

jerf• 3 months ago

A lot of people are referencing meditation. Ultimately that's not a terribly well-defined word. It may match some broad ones, but there's a lot of narrow ones that it wouldn't.

If staring at a wall helps then don't let me stop you but I've sometimes done something very similar by just sitting in a chair without any cell phone, book, electronic item, etc. until I'm very bored. Not like "gritting my teeth, come on we can do another 15 minutes let's goooooo" like an exercise push, but definitely waiting past the first couple of twitches of boredom until it's a constant. It's kind of an interesting way to start a vacation, really helps disconnect from work very quickly. It can be some hours, though.

I do find that this only happens for me if I'm "doing nothing". I see others suggesting exercise, or something else, and those are absolutely good in their own way. But they are not the same thing as just doing nothing. It's still trying to do something and "use the time productively".

The downside is that the family just sees a guy sitting there "doing nothing" and can find a dozen reasons to interrupt... it's hard to do this when there are any other people around, and while I'm not an absolutist about a plan that can be summed up as "sit until you can't" without much loss, the interruptions do very quickly diminish the utility. There's a huge difference between sitting uninterrupted for an hour, and sitting for 15 minutes, putting away the dishes, sitting for 15 minutes, getting up to help reach something, sitting for 15 minutes, explaining that yes you really are sitting there just doing nothing would you please just let me do that, and sitting for 15 minutes.

This particular thing doesn't match "meditation" to me, because I'm not even doing the minimal thing meditation involves; I'm not concentrating on breathing, not trying to "not think", not trying to do anything. If the mind races, let it race until it is done racing[1]. In this point in particular this certainly doesn't match a lot of specific meditation traditions. If the thought of doing something occurs to you, that meditation technique of letting it pass through you until it disappears can be useful.

If meditation is a deliberate attempt to slow down, or a deliberate attempt to concentrate on some particular thing, or a deliberate attempt to empty one's mind, it still has a deliberative goal. If you're willing to broaden the term to encompass not even having that much of a plan, then I have no objection. But this feels to me too low level to even justify the term meditation as most people use it. If you're "trying" to do anything at all, then this isn't really what I'm talking about here. I'm not saying this is "better" than meditation, I'm more saying I'm not sure this even rises to that level, as low as some of them may be. It's really just "rest", a concept our century and culture has largely lost track of.

(Of course the obvious semantic argument about "well are you trying to not try, hmmmmmm?" is there and you are free to debate that in your own head, because like I said, I'm not trying to be absolutist about this. This isn't a program I'm proposing so much as an experience report. You do whatever and call it whatever and argue about definitions as much as you like.)

[1]: If your mind literally never stops this may not work for you... that said, in the 21st century, are you sure your mind never stops racing if you just let it run itself to exhaustion? Have you ever tried? It could be some hours, plural. Again, I fully acknowledge that some people reading this can say "yes". I acknowledge the existence of great neurodiversity. But if you've never tried just letting it run itself to exhaustion you may be surprised what happens if you can find the time to let it.

sailfast• 3 months ago

Goddamn this post reads like my daily challenge / struggle cycle just about every day. I’m gonna go stare at some walls!

jareklupinski• 3 months ago

a large piece of modern / abstract art works just as well, without it needing to be a blank wall

delis-thumbs-7e• 3 months ago

It’s amazing how people recommend very quickly: ”Go to walk in a forrest amongst green leaves, talk to the squirrels…” instead of practice you can do anywhere anytime that cost nothing.

Like do you understand that everyone is not rich working home next to a nice park or great forrest? Like many, many, many in this world people have to travel 1,5h to work middle of an urban metropolitan area with almost no trees and definitely no fresh air, and their living conditions are no improvement? But this practice or other types of meditation you can do even during your remote, or even in a solitary confinement? And if you get good at this hou can do small few minute/seconds of meditations or “wall staring” during the day?

I am very privileged and there’s deers walking 5min from where I live, but I don’t have the audacity to think everyone in this world are as lucky.

ToucanLoucan• 3 months ago

Whenever people describe the living conditions of your average person all I can think is what a colossal failure our system is, to imprison so many millions in such an utterly shit existence.

Like yes it's cool to have air conditioning and basically any food anywhere at any time, and many have transportation that can take us across the country at a moment's notice. There are marvels now that our ancestors would die of shock trying to comprehend. That said, it seems still that we've made a remarkably awful place for the vast majority of people to live and work in, more the latter than the former, while a handful of people basically live in a never-ending theme park.

sph• 3 months ago

Is having a park or woods nearby a symbol of wealth? Do you live in the middle of the Sahara desert?

Detrytus• 3 months ago

Well, how about downtown Chicago? Or any big city in the US for that matter?

Procrastes• 3 months ago

@aselimov3 Thank you for the reminder! This is something I used to do all the time when I was younger, and I have gotten away from it. Very helpful.

cpa• 3 months ago

I thought it'd be the male version of https://www.thehairpin.com/women-laughing-alone-with-salad/

Rendello• 3 months ago

In a lot of these there could logically be someone sitting across from them making them laugh, but the woman with the cherry tomato in her fingers is just smiling for the love of the salad.

cramsession• 3 months ago

I've always done this. As I got older I found out that I have really bad astigmatism. It takes a lot of work to keep my eyes in focus. It feels great to just zone out and "stare" at nothing, it's like a bunch of tiny muscles in my skull get to relax.

giancarlostoro3• 3 months ago

Extrapolating that trend, we would be at about 87 GB worth of data today.

Throw in YouTube Shorts / TikTok etc and it makes me wonder if that estimate is drastically too low. We went from the information age, to the brainrot overload age, to let's both have brainrot and let computers think for us.

lowdude• 3 months ago

If that trend really wants to measure the quality of video etc. as well, it would definitely be way more. But that assumption seems very flawed to me, e.g. watching a full 4K movie would amount to way more data than scrolling through memes, even though the latter is way more of an attention-stealing activity.

giancarlostoro3• 3 months ago

I'm not a subject matter expert, but I'm wondering if all the context switching of short form video counts as way more drain on the brain, would be an interesting study. I have to think the brain eventually gets tired of all the short dopamine hits.

HocusLocus• 3 months ago

A wall or a goat?

Dilettante_• 3 months ago

A cat is fine, too.

immanuwell• 3 months ago

basically reinventing breathing practices and calling it "wall staring" is peak 2026, but honestly - whatever gets you off the doom-scroll and into something resembling rest, go off

whatsupdog• 3 months ago

The title could have been "People who stare at walls". The subtle patriarchy of hacker news users peeps up it's head once in a while.

XargonEnder• 3 months ago

I think it's supposed to be a riff on "men who state at goats".

Ntrails• 3 months ago

But then it would not have been a "Pune" or "play on words"

lbrito2• 3 months ago

I don't get this productivity hacking mindset.

You're suffering some sort of burnout, and you want to try some hack to be _more_ productive? Looking at a wall so I can crank out _more_ work? No, screw that. If I'm ever feeling that way, I'm going to try and work _less_ and take _more_ breaks.

Ifkaluva• 3 months ago

What are you talking about? Dude is literally describing a break, just not a type of break that feeds the attention economy. Are you opposed to that?

ekjhgkejhgk• 3 months ago

I've noticed it's become fashionable to HN over the past few years to advocate for working less.

lbrito2• 3 months ago

Sure, but he is advocating for a break so that he can work more and "waste" less time on "unproductive" breaks. He is promoting a productivity-enhancing break.

orev• 3 months ago

They’re not describing any kind of burnout; just fatigue from working or being overstimulated. Taking a break a the exact remedy for this condition, but many people take breaks in a way that’s not actually restorative (phone scrolling, etc.)

outside1234• 3 months ago

I do not stare at walls, but when I get in this state I go for a 30 minute walk, with what sounds like the same effect.

asow922• 3 months ago

Sounds like this might be activating the default mode network? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Default_mode_network

dublinstats• 3 months ago

It may be the opposite of that, trying to inhibit the default mode network.

asow922• 3 months ago

Yes, that sounds right:

Additionally, during attention demanding tasks, sufficient deactivation of the default mode network at the time of memory encoding has been shown to result in more successful long-term memory consolidation.[33]
Studies have shown that when people watch a movie,[34] listen to a story,[35][36] or read a story,[37] their DMNs are highly correlated with each other. DMNs are not correlated if the stories are scrambled or are in a language the person does not understand, suggesting that the network is highly involved in the comprehension and the subsequent memory formation of that story.[36] The DMN is shown to even be correlated if the same story is presented to different people in different languages,[38] further suggesting the DMN is truly involved in the comprehension aspect of the story and not the auditory or language aspect.
The default mode network is deactivated during some external goal-oriented tasks such as visual attention or cognitive working memory tasks.[7] However, with internal goal-oriented tasks, such as social working memory or autobiographical tasks, the DMN is positively activated with the task and correlates with other networks such as the network involved in executive function.[8] Regions of the DMN are also activated during cognitively demanding tasks that require higher-order conceptual representations.[10] The DMN shows higher activation when behavioral responses are stable, and this activation is independent of self-reported mind wandering.[39] Meditation, which involves focusing the mind on breathing and relaxation, is associated with reduced activity of the DMN.[40]

krzat• 3 months ago

DMN starts when you are doing something trivial and start thinking about something completely unrelated.

It's kinda like falling asleep, except more coherent.

cfors• 3 months ago

The spirit of this is correct, but a better approach to this is going for a walk with just your thoughts.

Yes, that means no phone, no headphones, just you and your brain enjoying a walk. Let your mind wonder and be free.

aselimov33• 3 months ago

There’s a lot of research on restorative environments (usually nature/outside)being good for focus. I definitely try to spend as much time outside as I can, but for some reason the wall works better for that 5-10 minutes. Being outside is much more enjoyable though haha

Sir_Twist• 3 months ago

I remember first hearing about this from the book Deep Work: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_restoration_theory

HerbManic2• 3 months ago

It depends on who you ask.

Some Zen teachers think that it is impossible to meditate while walking as it keeps the mind moving rather than still. These are the folks that go against any kind of seasoning in food for the same reason. I always thought that was a very restrictive way to box in and needlessly constrain what meditation can be. If it works for you, great but don't sell it as the only path. That is the thing with a lot of folks, to try and overly define 'the only way', the smarter ones know there is a thousand paths to the top of the mountain.

Thích Nhất Hạnh used to swear by walking meditation, others would scoff at that. Each to their own.

'There is a thousand paths to the top of the mountain, the view is the same for all at the peak'

dgb232• 3 months ago

Rumi (the Sufi mystic) apparently walked and turned in circles in order to contemplate. The tradition merges music and movement with philosophy and religious mysticism.

Walking, dancing or manual labor (for example gardening or cleaning) can all be done in a meditative way.

But these are likely different types of meditation that have different effects. Even just a calm, sitting meditations might be vastly different from another, depending on the meditation object.

Of course there are people who lean into specific types over the others as you describe, but I think many of these activities share a common core and experience.

MiDu163• 3 months ago

"a walk with just your thoughts" can lead you to many places include good and bad places. A mediative walk is to focus on nothing else but your body including your breath, your arms, your steps, the sensation of skins, the smell you breath in and out, the sound you hear. You don't need to focus on all of these at once but you can just pick one and focus on it for a period ideally as long as possible, but you can switch between them at the start. All of these is very difficult but not impossible if you do in a crowded city when everything changes very fast and you're exposed to many things that you tend to like or dislike. Of course, if you're a zen master, you can meditate everywhere but personally I feel I'm very far from it. The fact that I struggle to focus even in quiet places tells a lot about how much I need to practice.

NDlurker3• 3 months ago

If you're the type of person who can fall asleep quickly, wouldn't a nap be better? I go out to my car and take a 10-15 minute nap when I'm struggling with something at work. I wake up with a clearer head and sometimes a solution to whatever the problem was.

elAhmo• 3 months ago

Why not a walk? No podcasts or music, just walk.

liquid_thyme• 3 months ago

Does sitting and closing eyes not do the same thing? That's what I do when I'm overwhelmed.

proee• 3 months ago

When I was a kid, I would often sit on my bed and stare at the wall. My Dad would walk by my room and ask if everything was ok. I would always say "yeah", since I was literally just thinking.

It's a great feeling to just stare at a wall and think.

My first thought is usually, "If I could think about anything right now, what would it be?" And this frees my mind up to think about what I want to think about.

tomwheeler• 3 months ago

When I was a kid, I would often sit on my bed and stare at the wall. My Dad would walk by my room and ask if everything was ok. I would always say "yeah", since I was literally just thinking.

Me too. And all I wanted was a Pepsi.

gosub100• 3 months ago

Great reference.

patatino• 3 months ago

I sometimes went to bed early just to think! I was excited about it and looking forward to it. I don't do that anymore, but going for a walk without smartphone, no music, no audiobook reminds me of that time.

ErigmolCt5• 3 months ago

A lot of "doing nothing" advice gets framed as clearing the mind, yet sometimes the valuable part is finally letting the mind choose its own direction

kelseyfrog• 3 months ago

Shamatha/Zhine practitioner here. The wall staring practice described is not too unlike these. The main difference being that while practicing Zhine, I'm counting breathes.

I really want to point out that the purpose is not to concentrate so hard that focus remains. It's simply to be aware of attention drifting, and gently bring it back. Repeatedly, over time, this becomes easier and easier.

There is a sense of unwrinkling the mind that I achieve after a session. The inner voice drawing me toward the anxieties of life becomes quieter and quieter. The ability to choose to disregard thoughts and move on becomes stronger and stronger.

tamimio• 3 months ago

Just go for a walk in nature or outside for 10min or so, get a fresh air, walking will activate many positive things, hell, you might actually cross path with someone who might have a better job for you than staring at screens and walls.

analog83742• 3 months ago

Shikantaza here. It's a big deal.

Consider:

We all know about "paying attention". Pay attention in class. Pay attention to the movie you're watching. Pay attention to where you're walking. Etc. It's important and we do it all the time.

Take that to the next level. Pay attention to a thing for a while. AKA Concentration. That's important too. Deep thinking, careful doing, science, engineering, art. It's necessary for all that.

And then there's meditation. It's more stuff to do with your attention.

Samatha (AKA concentration meditation) is concentration taken to the next level. All that deeper thinking etc that you got from concentration, this takes it further. Possibly much further. There are weird depths. And also, you become very familiar with the ways of attention. How it moves and how it affects the rest of your world and what you can do with it.

And then there is Shikantaza (AKA formless meditation, meditation without a seed...). it's a hard left turn. Serious sci-fi. I'll leave it at that.

analog83742• 3 months ago

Some of us "stare" at our breath instead. That is, you put your attention upon the feeling of breath in the tip of your nose (or something like that).

It's nice because your eyes don't need to be open for it, so they don't get all dried out and itchy.

squirrelon• 3 months ago

I think this is actually valid, if you think about it. Some days I go by with constantly thinking be it about work, in messages, or simply on social media. Taking the time to stare at walls actually provides ability to step back, calm down, and actually random thoughts will start appearing out of which some can be insightful.

neilv2• 3 months ago

If you get in the habit of doing this when thinking, it can bomb interviews with interviewers who don't know that's something that some people do.

In-person interview: the majority of people want you to be making frequent eye contact, and are less comfortable when you aren't. Some people also hear folk myths that looking a certain direction is a tell for deception or fabrication. ("Up and to the left means lying; up and to the right means hungry.")

On videoconf interview: if you look away when thinking, people might think you're looking at (or listening to) AI output or a human collaborator, to cheat.

(OTOH, you might be better off finding thoughtful colleagues already familiar with introvert and neurodiverse thinkers, who are aware that many great engineers are also nerds, and who include that within "culture fit".)

tolerance• 3 months ago

Exactly! Bomb the interviews.

I would also push back on the idea that this sort of behavior could be unique to "introvert and neurodiverse thinkers". Must there not be social and/or "neurotypical" people with idiosyncrasies?

neilv2• 3 months ago

As the philosopher Depeche Mode put it, "people are people".

longtimelurker1• 3 months ago

Huh, I just realized I’ve been doing a version of this for the last decade or so.

When I’m tired or distracted at work, I do a “magic eye” with my keyboard: I bow my head down close to the keys, then focus my eyes to infinity, and gradually bring my focus closer to “snap” to different focus depths.

When I worked in an office, my coworkers found this disconcerting. Really helps me reset though!

LZ_Khan• 3 months ago

Much needed advice. Thank you!

w10-1• 3 months ago

Staring at a wall, or relaxing, is not meditation or a cure for losing focus.

Losing focus could be e.g., (1) lacking the attention span (ability, fatigue, disinterest), (2) lacking the working memory to hold the problem; (3) distraction (by more important or interesting things); (4) focusing too hard on the wrong things (and getting no where); etc.

Solutions differ, but like talk therapy, most any approach will have some positive effect just via escape from oblivious continuance or self-defeating (mental) behaviors, if not development of insight (i.e., self-observation).

To me the key is that thoughts are motivated (interesting) and amplified (concerning or exciting); the key is to recognize that you are the source of that energy, and learn to notice and decide whether this energy is helpful in the situation. Usually that means letting it go, but sometimes you need to raise it (e.g., to address an instance of ongoing injustice). Then focus is a function of having the energy needed for a given situation - no more or less.

Olshansky4• 3 months ago

I hope people see this comment.

Meditation is to mental training and focus, as going to the gym is to physical training.

Socials killed our attention span. Agents are literally making us context switch even more.

Putting aside the whole "I am at piece and one with the world" part of meditation, it is extremely hard.

I'm also no expert. When I'm waiting for something to finish (agent, compilation, etc), I've found that staring at a wall ends up in a net positive in productivity rather than replying to a message, going on X, or kicking off another agent.

ErigmolCt5• 3 months ago

The hard part is that the training looks like nothing from the outside, so it's easy to dismiss (in a way)

Olshansky4• 3 months ago

This is great. Puts Rick Rubin's appearance into perspective.

HerbManic2• 3 months ago

One thing I do point out to folks is that meditation comes in many shapes, there is no one size fits all. For some it is silent sitting Zazen style, for others it is walking mediation, or a sort of physical almost martial arts type thing. There is a thousand different style in between that. Do what works for you. If that is staring at walls, neat!

Olshansky4• 3 months ago

Thanks for mentioning this.

dr_kiszonka2• 3 months ago

I am a pretty peaceful person, but working with agents frequently (daily) makes me furious. I wonder if the context switching you mentioned leads to more fatigue, which makes me much more irritable.

Olshansky4• 3 months ago

That's the case for me.

I still use agents for everything, but started on doing my best to single-task.

Think or plan while it's running.

Feels wasteful, but it's powerful.

oersted• 3 months ago

Much like the gym, meditation seems to me like an artificial alternative to an actually healthy lifestyle. Perhaps it is necessary to have such explicit and focused "exercising" to really get what you need nowadays, there may be merit to that.

But why not just go for a nice walk with no headphones?

joseda-hg• 3 months ago

Depending on who you ask, that is a form of meditation (or at the very least, a meditative activity).

And like the gym, it isn't necessarily orthogonal to a healthy lifestyle; sometimes, it’s just a way of focusing efforts toward a specific goal.

Some people get so much stimulation even when walking normally that it breaks the kind of focus they’re looking for (or they don't live in a zone particularly conducive to walking.) It is what it is

jonaustin• 3 months ago

This is pretty much literally what the originator of Zen, Bodhidharma did for 9 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodhidharma

sarmike31• 3 months ago

Even better, stare into the distance to adjust your focus and help them recover from staring at screens. Makes them relax looking at something far away or at least flex them into another state for a little.

hgomersall2• 3 months ago

I've recently realised that the biggest problem with smartphones is not that they steal your attention (which is bad enough), but that they steal your disattention

I don't know of a better word for it than disattention. Perhaps downtime? But it's not so structured. It's just those moments where you'd previously let your mind wander. Gone forever.

alexperry00• 3 months ago

I believe boredom might be the word you're looking for.

pavel_lishin• 3 months ago

I recently watched this video (on my phone, naturally) about the need for boredom: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orQKfIXMiA8

layman512• 3 months ago

You reminded me of a post I had read on a math-related website. I think it was a math association where different authors could post articles, but it was one about a series of advice columns by people pursuing PhDs or graduate studies in math.

Anyway, the article I'm thinking of was about a guy who had advice along the lines of "keeping up your hygiene" or "maintaining your cleanliness habits" and his anecdote was about being stuck for a while in making progress on a problem, but he would have a habit of taking a daily shower. There was a detail he shared about getting an insight and then being able to write some ideas on the window with the condensation.

I wonder if I can find it again.

adezxc• 3 months ago

Good Things Come to Those Who Shower by Robert Allen, perhaps?

gostsamo2• 3 months ago

I remember an Asimov short story about a guy who wished that he never waits on queues or for a taxi or for something to happen. He had his wish granted and deeply regretted it for it stall from him the moments of contemplation where his best ideas were coming from.

pmg101• 3 months ago

An incredibly prescient parable for the modern information overload age, if so. Do you recall the title? I'd love to give it a read. Asimov was a master.

Insanity2• 3 months ago

'boredom' is how I'd call it but it has a negative connotation. Being bored is useful, it lets your mind wander and it's where real creativity can happen.

I read "Non-Things: Upheaval in the Lifeworld" recently and since reading that I make an effort to not pick up my phone as much. I'd recommend reading the book, if you're looking for something to do instead of doomscrolling.

aselimov33• 3 months ago

Thanks for the suggestion. I’ll check it out!

herbertl• 3 months ago

This resonates with me! In a blog post, I wrote, "It has never been easier to avoid boredom. Distraction is all around you, offering to cover up the painful things you’re avoiding that boredom can sometimes be a gateway to.

Yet without boredom, there can be no inspiration. Boredom is the mud from which the flower of imagination blossoms. Your next creative idea is just one boring moment away." https://herbertlui.net/deliberate-boredom/

SimonPStevens• 3 months ago

It's called default mode thinking. Or the default mode network [1].

And I agree, not letting your mind do this from time to time results in higher stress and less ability to focus.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Default_mode_network

MassPikeMike• 3 months ago

"All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone." -Blaise Pascal

sersi3• 3 months ago

And mostly reduced creativity.

I'm addicted to reading, I take my kindle and phone everywhere, so will grab them when I'm walking, taking a shower, waiting in line, going to the restroom... Between my kindle and my phone, I read a lot more books than I ever did but I don't digest the information as much as I used to. I also don't make as much associations between what I read and things going on in my own life. So, in a way, despite reading a lot more, I don't think I benefit as much from it.

Now, I'm purposefully forcing myself not to reach to my kindle when taking a walk so that my mind can wander as much as I do.

ethbr12• 3 months ago

At some point on William Gibson's now defunct micro blog*, he's about to embark on the book tour for Pattern Recognition (so circa 2003).

I'll butcher his insightful phrasing, but he remarks to the effect of

I think I'm going to stop blogging. The act of sitting at a laptop and writing these posts seems incompatible with my life as it exists on a book tour. The only free moments available for it to occupy would be ones where I'm sitting, momentarily caught between two scheduled activities and staring off into space. I have a suspicion these moments are crucial for my soul. So, until we meet again.

The comingled ambiguousness and specificity of the observation stuck with me.

* https://web.archive.org/web/20070123212506/http://www.willia...

giancarlostoro3• 3 months ago

When I go on vacation on cruise ships I never pay for internet and my phone is only used for tracking time and photos. Why be on vacation just to doom scroll?

SeriousM4• 3 months ago

I put my phone in the safe until the vacation is over. And for the mind I do Sudoku at times and collect all my new ideas. It's like a harvest time!

soperj• 3 months ago

Gone forever

I mean, just shut your phone off. You're likely just missing text messages anyway.

conception• 3 months ago

John Cleese had an amazing talk on this - https://youtu.be/nvKeu46jgwo?si=vIRHSJWXff8Kyf2l on being creative

jvican• 3 months ago

What a gem! Thank you for sharing.

Otterly99• 3 months ago

I also immediately thought about his book on creativity. Thanks for the talk. For me, instead of staring at a wall, I just take a short walk. I think doing any activity with low mental load helps creativity.

jcul• 3 months ago

Reminds me of the Beatles lyric:

I'm fixing a hole where the rain gets in
And stops my mind from wandering
Where it will go

jgalt212• 3 months ago

The best thing about getting older / presbyopia is it's harder for me to use my phone as much as I once did. Also, I won't get an unlimited data plan for the same reason.

disattention• 3 months ago

I feel like this is my time to shine

negura• 3 months ago

diffuse attention is the technical name. it's contrasted to focal attention

baxtr• 3 months ago

While I don’t want to downplay the toxicity of smartphones, couldn’t the same be said for books and newspapers?

dbdr• 3 months ago

When you are reading a book, you certainly need to use your attention. However, you stay in a given topic/world for a sustained amount of time. This feels very different and much less tiring than scrolling on your phone jumping from topic to topic. Especially social media feeds that have been optimized to keep using it as long as possible (dopamine hits and all).

Newspapers are probably an intermediate between those two, to various degrees depending on the specific newspaper (trash vs deeper analysis).

hgomersall2• 3 months ago

Yes, but you tend to carry around a smartphone all the time and the temptation to whip it out whenever there's more than a 5s window can be very strong.

whywhywhywhy• 3 months ago

The both have an end and limited novelty.

inatreecrown22• 3 months ago

A smartphone, at least with a connection to the internet, is always new. There is always something new to see and hear.

nyeah• 3 months ago

I think it can. In extreme cases (say grad school) I've had books and "book learnin'" suck the life out of my life.

"All I can do is read a book to stay awake And it rips my mind away but it's a great escape." - Blind Melon

jclardy• 3 months ago

I think reading is the difference. People didn’t whip out a newspaper when they had less than 30 seconds available. The smartphone has filled these gaps with an infinite amount of content.

Also, community. In a doctors office reading a paper - it is the same thing your neighbor is reading so you can talk about it. With smartphones, this is lost unless there is a pressing global event.

INTPenis• 3 months ago

I used to be addicted to cannabis and one quote that snapped me out of it, and made me move on with life, was Randy Marsh in South Park saying something along the lines of "Weed makes it fun to do nothing and be bored".

That's the same with smartphones and those scrolling apps, they make it fun to do nothing and be bored.

el_oni• 3 months ago

I wouldn't even say they make it fun, they make it "rewarding" they make it feel like you did something, but I feel worse after scrolling, like some vital essence has been drained from me.

I can't find the motivation to do anything at the moment. But if reddit or facebook get opened up i'll just scroll. It's almost like i've replace doing things with watching other people do things and that somehow makes me less likely to work on my hobbies because i'm not as good or far along.

AI has added to this, almost like, why bother bettering myself when I could probably shit out my idea in a handful of prompts? I need a dopamine fast or something. Might try staring at a wall

anitroves• 3 months ago

Quite true

khafra• 3 months ago

A wise man once noted that the word "amusement" has the same structure as "deforestation."

(@stevenkaas on twitter).

sublinear2• 3 months ago

If I've had enough I will go inside my own mind and daydream involuntarily. It's as inevitable as taking a breath.

I can have the phone in my hand and my eyes will choose the wall instead. Only a call or text could possibly bring my attention back to the phone.

rigonkulous• 3 months ago

biggest problem with smartphones

Disattention is happening because the user isn't actually in control of the smartphone, the smartphone is in control of the user, because that control is a commodity upon which a grand economy has been built. That control is only possible because the smartphone itself represents an extraordinary degree of managed control in the way it works, a fact which is used to obviate the users own agency over the product they supposedly own.

So I think the biggest problem with smartphones is that significant parts of the smartphone product no longer belong to the user, but they are in fact rented and leased out to other third parties for the exclusive use of attention-gathering.

We wouldn't have third party applications stealing our social media property as individuals - indeed they wouldn't be necessary anyway, in a functioning operating system - if the operating system of the smartphone was designed to make the user able to do social media without requiring a third party.

But smartphones are, literally, sanctuaries for third party economics, against a captive user. They have been designed, as such. Third-party social media is necessary because the operating system vendors are no longer designing operating systems for the users - but for themselves, and others, for which they are handsomely rewarded ..

noveltyaccount• 3 months ago

I go for walks or runs--without headphones. If I listen to music or a podcast, my mind doesn't wander. I need that quiet for processing.

swah3• 3 months ago

Thats why people use shows and podcasts for falling asleep - is that bad?

lucy_hnatchuk• 3 months ago

Nice observation. A word that might fit: "idle mind" — but you're right, nothing quite captures it.

gweinberg• 3 months ago

Is the title a reference to "Men Who Stare at Goats"? If so, I think few people got it.

croes• 3 months ago

I think so, given that the first picture in the article is George Clooney in Men who stare at Goats

Phelinofist• 3 months ago

I was thinking of Three Body Problem

hatradiowigwam• 3 months ago

If staring at walls doesn't do it - try playing guitar instead. Works for me and it's more fun than a wall IMHO.

sharadov• 3 months ago

Why not just take a quick stroll, if you are close to anything green - park, nature even better. Nature soothes like nothing else.

ErigmolCt5• 3 months ago

I've found the same thing with short walks without headphones. The first few minutes feel almost irritating, like my brain is looking for something to latch onto. Then after a while the mental noise settles and work feels less aversive again...

bad_username• 3 months ago

John Cleese suggested something similar when solving hard problems that require creativity.

https://youtu.be/Pb5oIIPO62g?si=qML6bM5brI_XES9l

moffkalast• 3 months ago

Ah yes, when healthy people discover disassociation. Creativity is easy when you spend half of your day on autopilot daydreaming about random ideas just to avoid dealing with reality.

ZeidJ• 3 months ago

This reminds me of an app we made awhile back with the sole purpose of finding 'Boredom'.

TLDR on the app is that you join real time 'boring' livestream rooms with random people.

The app never did really take off, but I still would love some fresh ideas around combatting information overload (outside of the 1000's of screen/content blocking type apps)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47926461

zem2• 3 months ago

ugh, this is definitely a great thing to do but it's quite off-putting to see the "improve your focus and productivity" framing. that's uncomfortably target oriented for something that is fundamentally about appreciating and cultivating the mental state in which you enjoy your mind's inner resources and let it wander down serendipitous paths.

I don't stare at walls personally because I find that state easiest to access in a moving vehicle, so my equivalent is sometimes daydreaming rather than reading or scrolling my phone when I'm on a bus or train.

profstasiak2• 3 months ago

It seems you have caffeine problem not scrolling problem :) join us at r/decaf

tbossanova• 3 months ago

I’ll often use a quick brain break like this to do a tiny bit of exercise, e.g. walk on the spot, plank. This means staring at a wall (or the floor) anyway plus you get the blood flowing. Most appropriate would probably be wall sit while staring at the opposite wall!

tiffanyh• 3 months ago

I use to listen to podcasts to fill in time (while driving, showering, walking) … and also realized it was info overload for my brain, making me feel exhausted & tired.

I’m now so much more relaxed and mentally rested by literally having no music/podcast on while driving/walking/showering these days.

Your brain needs quiet time.

jconley• 3 months ago

This was the name of my blog, back when I wrote one. I often do that when I need to think deeply. https://blog.jdconley.com

thatguymike• 3 months ago

Tech Guy reinvents meditation

TheGRS• 3 months ago

Kind of just an unstructured meditation routine no?

And I should really meditate more.

LowLevelKernel• 3 months ago

Isn’t that similar to Transcendental Meditation?

Zone3513• 3 months ago

Reinventing meditation from first principles

pkress2• 3 months ago

I never expected to encounter such an appropriate time to link to this song... https://open.spotify.com/track/2CODrD7ncpPCyGeKqDKpE7?si=uZN...

charlie0• 3 months ago

Bonus focus points if you paint the wall and watch it dry.

tolciho• 3 months ago

“All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” ― Blaise Pascal, Pensées

saidnooneever• 3 months ago

meditation helps empty hippocampus. its pretty close to what sleep does. 15 mins a day is plenty.

its good to realise its called a practice since u practice it. no one every really things of nothing

psidebot• 3 months ago

For me it's driving. My best thinking and my best zoning happens on the road, especially if it's limited access highway with low traffic.

dgb232• 3 months ago

Apparently movement plus focus on the distance has a calming, clearing effect on the mind.

Do you have a similar experience when walking or running (deliberately)?

jbethune• 3 months ago

This is extremely true. The instinct to fill every bit of downtime with a quick bit of doom-scrolling is very hard to kick. It's something I have made a point of working on; giving my mind space to just do nothing and let all sort of mental detritus process itself.

croisillon• 3 months ago

i thought it was called "rawdogging" these days

contubernio• 3 months ago

I have wondered if one of the issues with mobile devices might simply be physiological - using them appears to require constant eye movement that rest does not require. I haven't seen this addressed.

a96• 3 months ago

More on the topic of the post, devices require a tight focus on details on a small object. That's the poison. Tight focus means stress for humans. You need time where you're not focusing on things (in all senses of the word, ideally) to recover and lower stress.

BubbleRings• 3 months ago

I’m sorry, could you repeat that? I got distracted by the large animal with the tusk, over by the kitchen door.

Try zero caffeine for a while. It will not be easy, for the majority of people. After 3 months the worst of it will be over, and most people are withdrawal symptom free by 6 months.

Btw free means no decaf, no chocolate, no tea.

bashkiddie2• 3 months ago

An ADHD brain may work better without stimulating caffeine, YMMV.

justaman123• 3 months ago

Discovering meditation from first principles

iammrpayments• 3 months ago

Who ever wrote this has no understanding how eye muscles work.

If you keep looking for hours at a short distance, you should instead take breaks looking at a distance for long term eye health.

That’s why I prefer working next to window or a big open space, not a cubicle where I can stare at a wall.

sebastiennight• 3 months ago

While your point is very helpful ("stare through a window instead"), you're adding a second-order improvement while the article is suggesting a solution to a first-order problem (dread, overwhelm, depression, burn-out).

(Also, even on the second-order of "what about your eyes", I would guess that staring at a wall several feet away is already an improvement over staring at a screen in your hand.)

To play along as we crowdsource a combined solution to more than this narrow problem, I'll add my own 2nd-order suggestion as well (for fitness and health), and suggest staring at the horizon while walking outdoors for a few minutes

cbracketdash• 3 months ago

This can be fixed by relaxing your eyes and staring through the wall. This is equivalent to looking into the distance.

nobodywillobsrv• 3 months ago

Would be interesting to understand if walls and short focus vs trees and natural stuff further out is preferable.

When I was working more vision was always a bottleneck ... Staring at yet more close things would be less useful than staring at far away things

lasftew2• 3 months ago

OP mentions they are a coffee drinker, and use caffeine a lot to fight tiredness and brainfog. While the suggested methods to refocus are great, maybe there is some improvement potential by looking at root causes?

As a former heavy coffee consumer, I experienced varying degrees of tiredness over my workday, and inconsistent sleep patterns.

Ever since I stopped drinking it, my energy levels have been far more predictable and decrease rather linearly until bedtime. There is definitely no more "hitting the wall" in the early afternoon! Living caffeine free has generally been a considerable QOL improvement (after initial withdrawal).

profstasiak2• 3 months ago

same experience here. I had similar hitting the wall problem in early afternoon. After stopping caffeine it's exactly as you describe

hellohihello135• 3 months ago

Do you have any advice on how to quit? I would love to try not drinking caffeine but it just seems too hard.

scrivna• 3 months ago

Switch to decaf, same habit and ritual and mixes things up from plain water all day (which I enjoy).

lasftew2• 3 months ago

I quit cold turkey about two years ago. It wasn't enjoyable at all, as I felt dizzy and very unproductive for weeks. I was also suffering from prolonged headaches and slept two hours more per night than usual.

The upside of this though was that it showed me how heavily dependent I was on caffeine to just function. Which helped me to endure the withdrawal, and I guess that's the only advice I have: Turn it into positive energy and let that insight power your determination to get your body into a more natural state. After a few days, I definitely noticed that I got better, which also helped.

Now I feel better, fresher and more balanced than ever. Waking up in the morning is much easier, and have no reason or intent to ever go back to cafeinated life.

quietbritishjim• 3 months ago

A couple of observations from when I quit coffee (after being only a pretty mild drinker):

- I'd still get the feeling of "oh shit it's 4pm and I've not really started doing anything productive today". But then I'd look at the clock and it would be 10am and it turns out I still have the whole day ahead of me. The day passes so much slower that, even if it feels like your pace of work is a bit slower, you still get much more done overall.

- I'd get to sleep much faster (measurably because I would fall asleep before my partner, having previously got to sleep reliably after her). That applied even compared to days where I'd have coffee only before lunchtime. The idea that late-day tiredness from caffeine withdrawal helps get you to sleep is nonsense.

Having said that, I've relapsed back to a few cups a day. Logically I know I need to quit again.

ifh-hn• 3 months ago

I thought this might have been about zazen, but it's not and no comment seems to mentioned it. I practiced zazen for a while, I want to get back to it. Maybe I will now I've finished studying.

kristjank• 3 months ago

A lot of these self-improvement sort of hacks stop working when employed at a large scale, repeatedly, so one must keep it in check enough to not overdo it.

However, a lot of my mental performance has become intertwined with the concept of breaking the mental work pattern with some light physical activity like taking a short walk, or just mental inactivity like going outside for a smoke (which also includes a positive chemical reinforcement, coupled with some light environmental stimulation), which might yield itself somewhat similar to the staring at a wall routine, though much less dull.

misja111• 3 months ago

I have been doing this for years already after finding out by myself that it worked. Staring at anything works, even staring at your screen as long as you make sure you focus out.

namblooc• 3 months ago

Bro discovered meditating and gave it a fancy title.

Tade02• 3 months ago

Stay up late because I’m wired on caffeine and dopamine from scrolling.

I wish people didn't overuse certain terms. Dopamine has a half life of 2 minutes in the body. It can't possibly keep you up at night.

It's just the caffeine, which in turn has a half-life of several hours. Also below a certain level it's eliminated approximately exponentially, so there's a long tail of residual caffeine.

MrOrelliOReilly• 3 months ago

It’s just the caffeine

Fair enough if the use of “dopamine” is imprecise, but excessive screen time / doomscrolling / shitposting is definitely enough to wire you awake on its own, without caffeine.

bashkiddie2• 3 months ago

Dopamine has a half life of 2 minutes in the body.

May be true.

But doing "rewarding" work encourages your body to emit more dopamine. Some people call it "the flow", others "hyperfocus", but it is a constant stream of dopamine that keeps you doing what you currently do. And you can interfere with the emittance and absorbtion by using caffeine.

H8crilA• 3 months ago

Dopamine is more like a particular type of a transistor in a large semiconductor. What this type of a transistor does heavily depends on the area of the circuit. And it's never the only thing that's responsible for an entire high level feature, not by a mile. There are some common correlations, but that's about it.

I have never understood why people feel the need to use terms like "dopamine" in very pop culture and highly unscientific way, instead of just describing the state that they are talking about.

fragmede• 3 months ago

Dopamine has a half life of 2 minutes in the body.

That's for IV dopamine, used in extreme circumstances. Natural dopamine lasts shorter than that!

pcblues5• 3 months ago

As a software developer, when I used to smoke, I would go outside for 5-10 minutes and talk shit with other regulars who had nothing to do with my work. It was a break that would fix my fading focus (probably for more than one reason :)

I could only keep peak thinking/designing/developing for about an hour or so. That's peak matrix level with edge cases identified and documented on the way.

I could do OK for a lot longer, but the same quality wasn't there.

The non-smokers would resent us for it, but most of them would go for a half to one hour coffee instead.

I going to try this. Thanks!

instalabsai• 3 months ago

As a non-smoker I always took smoke breaks when I worked at an office. It’s the place where you can get the juiciest gossips and insights about the company.

James_K• 3 months ago

Meditation from first principles.

shamash2• 3 months ago

Why do people always have to reinvent the wheel?

Just do Zazen, my dude.

shamash2• 3 months ago

Why do people constantly have to reinvent the wheel?

This is just Zazen but with less thought put into it...

If you're tired of corpo meditation, go to a Buddhist monastery and learn how to do the real thing. You don't need to pick up the religion, just learn how to reach the kind of deep concentration that leads to joy.

muzani• 3 months ago

My and my partner made an app where you stare at yourself in the mirror for 5-30 minutes. You'd record how you feel after.

It's not "scientifically proven" to work but it's quantifiable that there's a clear improvement. We tried to scientifically prove it - the scientists were incredibly offended, lol.

So it can't be proven, but there's data. We started quantifying it because corporations asked for data. Nobody wants to buy an app where you record yourself staring at a mirror, so we don't charge for that. We end up charging for the data reporting, anonymization, data handling, etc.

There's some interesting data, like we find people who are highly stressed will get all kinds of diarrhea, vomiting, and angry if they crank it up to 30 minutes. So we designed it to start at 5 min/day for a week, then 10, then 15, slowly up to 30.

Staring at a mirror is a little different to staring at a wall, but I'd imagine the results are similar.

michaelteter• 3 months ago

No mention of exercise. Shame.

But for staring at walls, I like to do that in the sauna. My mind sorts out so much stuff in that hot room that is like magic. Showers used to be that way for me, before I cared about water use.

subarctic• 3 months ago

Is staring at a wall somehow better for productivity than looking out a window at something far away? Because the latter is much better for your eyes as far as I know

randallsquared• 3 months ago

I think the idea is that it should be as featureless as possible, so you're not distracted by watching specific things happen or go by.

SplendorP• 3 months ago

This is just a form of meditation, keeping focus on something deliberately for a long time.

luxuryballs• 3 months ago

Staring at trees in a forest is the same but better I’d wager, read a study on the benefits of looking at trees in the brain once, combine with this wall technique and my own anecdotal experience of walking in the woods to solve complex computer problems, plus the physical movement of the hike gets your blood flowing.

guest__user• 3 months ago

i think some cultures call this meditation

MiDu163• 3 months ago

this is similar to Kasina meditation, one of the oldest concentration practices in the Buddhism. You focus on one of 10 subjects including Earth, Water, Air, Fire (elements), Blue, Red, Yellow, White (colours) and Space, Lights. These subjects can be found anywhere and most importantly neutral so you won't or unlikely to have sensual attachments and association. This is considered an entry to mediation. It's easier than focusing breathing because breathing is movement and very natural so you're likely to lose focus. The biggest advantage of breathing to 10 entry subjects of Kasina meditation is it's everywhere. Effort or single-mindedness or focus is one of 8 noble paths in Buddhism. And meditation is to improve focus/concentration. At least that one of the purposes of meditation.

Edit for grammar

DoctorOetker• 3 months ago

This reasoning seems flawed:

This calculation includes audio, visual, and text data and incorporates quality into the measurement, i.e. 10 minutes of HD video has more information than 10 minutes of 480p video.

From a video compression or storage perspective this is of course correct. But I argue it results in the opposite direction when it comes to mental taxation:

Consider how actors/agents/brains process information: we subconsciously model the world around us. Imagine you drop a tiny screw on a carpet, you really need it, its part of a digital caliper and helps align the capacitive PCB's... With high visual acuity, you quickly find the screw. With low visual acuity uncertainty increases and you need to model a "superposition" of multiple possible worlds: is this glint the screw? (ah no thats one of many solder blobs that fell from the table), is that glint the screw? (ah no thats one of the many clipped leads that fell on the carpet)... having more information in and of itself lowers the lack of information (entropy). entropy is logarithmic in number of states. number of possible alternative states is exponential in entropy. clearly having better acuity allows to track things more effectively and resolve detected doubts more quickly, decreasing the stack of mental "TODO's".

Its just a criticism of that sentence and its reasoning, I am of course not denying the effects of using deep learning and mass collection of user behavior to increase addictivity and "user metrics". That can explain continual increase of mental overload. But a mere increase in detail for the senses should actually decrease mental overload...

jpfromlondon• 3 months ago

This reminds me of David Foster Wallace's The Pale King in which a presumed jesuit guest lecturer tells an audience of college students that true heroism is enduring boredom, that there is no higher calling, that it is key to a successful life.

Men who stare at walls

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