How to Up Level Your Performance?

6min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

Michael Wolraich: Attention is not a bug in the system, it's a feature. If we could only ever focus our spotlight on one thing, that would probably not be good,. It's good to kind of bounce around cause of external threats that could pop in from anywhere. The fluidity with which we're able to us when we want to broaden, when we need to monitor whether our behaviouris aligned with our goals, these are all ways in which our attention functions. And doing that fluidly, dynamically, responsive to the environmental inputs we have, responsive to our own evolving thoughts, that's what makes us uniquely capable as human beings.

Research shows we are missing 50 percent of our lives because we aren’t paying attention. Many of us often feel mentally foggy, scattered, and overwhelmed. Why is it that no matter how hard you try, you seem to find yourself somewhere else — if you’re even aware you’ve drifted off to that place.

In this conversation with the acclaimed neuroscientist Amishi Jha, she recounts what her neuroscience research revealed, and shows why whether you’re simply browsing, talking to friends, or trying to stay focused in an important meeting, you can’t seem to manage to hang on to your attention.

Shermer and Jha discuss: the neuroscience of attention; what attention evolved to do; how stress, attention bias, negativity bias, thought flooding, and active listening affect attention; multitasking; the “flashlight” metaphor; mindfulness and well-being, and more…