Ep 21: Rethinking Your Thinking: How Cognitive Flexibility Can Improve Your Life and Relationships

Although each and every Executive Function skill is essential for success in today’s world, one that’s too often-overlooked (if not forgotten entirely) is cognitive flexibility. Whether you’ve heard about this skill or not, cognitive flexibility is critical for adapting to difficult situations and just overall feeling like we have control over our lives. I really wanted to explore it in its own episode, so here we are! I’m going to show you why it’s so important for us, talk about how it fits into our lives, and share some tips for helping to develop cognitive flexibility skills of our own and of the kids in our lives. If you’re dying for more information about this after you’re done listening, check out the show notes below:

Learn More About Cognitive Flexibility

Demystifying cognitive flexibility: Implications for clinical and developmental neuroscience

Flexible Thinking Problems in Kids | Understood

Kids Use Flexible Thinking to Learn | Executive Functioning Skills | Understood

Improve your Cognitive Flexibility Skills

What is Flexible Thinking? How to Become a Flexible Thinker

Circle of concern v Circle of control – Discovery in Action

The Importance of Taking the Perspective of Others

Meditation, mindfulness and cognitive flexibility

3 Ways to Improve Your Cognitive Flexibility

Cognitive Flexibility Resources from the Beyond BookSmart Blog

2 Executive Function Skills to Help Parents Beat Back to School Stress

Grit + Executive Function skills = Academic Success

Contact us!

Reach out to us at podcast@beyondbooksmart.com

IG/FB/TikTok @beyondbooksmartcoaching

Transcript

Hannah Choi 00:00

Have you heard of cognitive flexibility?

Hannah's Daughter 00:02

Oh, yeah.

Hannah Choi 00:03

Why??

Hannah's Daughter 00:04

Every day! Cuz I have you as a mom!

Hannah Choi 00:08

So what's cognitive flexibility?

Hannah's Daughter 00:09

It's when you have to change the way you're thinking to get something to work.

Hannah Choi 00:14

Hi, everyone, and welcome to Focus Forward, an executive function Podcast where we explore the challenges and celebrate the wins you'll experience as you change your life by working on improving your executive function skills. I'm your host, Hannah Choi. As you may have gathered from what you just heard, I'm tackling the topic of cognitive flexibility, or flexible thinking in today's episode. That was my daughter, giving you a little insight into what it's like having an executive function coach for a mom. In Episode 19, Dr. Lisa Shulman, and I talked about the impact of grief and emotional trauma on our executive functioning. And she and I agreed that the often overlooked executive function skill of cognitive flexibility is critical for feeling like we have control over our lives and being successful in making positive changes for ourselves. I really wanted to explore it in its own episode. So here we are, I'm going to show you why it's so important for us, talk about how it fits into our lives, and share some tips for helping to develop cognitive flexibility skills of our own, and of the kids in our lives. If you're dying for more information about this, after you're done listening, check out the show notes.

Hannah Choi 00:17

All right, so let's get into this. What is this cognitive flexibility? It is the ability of your brain to switch from one task to another, one situation to another, and to be able to think about things in a new way, by switching from one set of ideas to another. Being able to think flexibly comes in handy in many, many aspects of our daily lives. You heard my daughter say that it can be used to help you problem solve. And here are some other ways we might use it. Okay, so you know, when you find out there's a new and pretty major update to an app you've always used, you now need to use a different set of steps to complete the same task as before. That's cognitive flexibility. If you are a kindergarten teacher, and you're talking with your students about kindergarten, new things, and then your school principal comes into the classroom, you use cognitive flexibility to talk with the principal in a different way than you are just talking with your students. If the way that you studied in high school, or kept track of your homework assignments does not seem to be working as well in college, you'll need to use cognitive flexibility to figure out a new system. And one more because I'm not kidding, cognitive flexibility really does come in handy in all aspects of our lives. Okay, so you're sitting at the dinner table for Thanksgiving and your uncle who has completely opposite political views than you is praising a politician you dislike, Being able to defend and explain your point of view, while also seeing and at least trying to understand how he could believe what he believes, that requires cognitive flexibility. And some patience. My son, who plays the violin in a fifth grade townwide orchestra shared how he used cognitive flexibility the other day.

Hannah Choi 03:28

Can you think of an example of how you use cognitive flexibility today?

Hannah's Son 03:33

Well, today after school, I had orchestra practice, when I had realized that my music which is in my backpack, we had dropped it off at home, so I didn't have my music. So I was like, oh, no, I don't have my music. But then I realized that I could easily use my stand partners music, and everything would be okay.

Hannah Choi 03:53

Yeah, so your flexible thinking cognitive flexibility helps you relax and realize it's gonna be fine.

Hannah's Son 03:58

Yeah.

Hannah Choi 03:59

Great. I'm so glad that you thought of that. Did you feel better after you thought of it?

Hannah's Son 04:03

Yeah.

Hannah Choi 04:04

Oh, good. Okay, so we can see that cognitive flexibility is helpful in our day to day lives. But are there long-term benefits to being cognitively flexible? Studies have found that greater cognitive flexibility is associated with favorable outcomes throughout our lives, such as better reading abilities and childhood, higher resilience to negative life events and stress in adulthood, higher levels of creativity in adulthood, and better quality of life in older individuals.

Hannah Choi 04:37

Cognitive flexibility does not work on its own. It happens in our brains with the help of some other partner ie if skills, attention, we need to pay attention to what we're doing and also notice what has changed what you were doing before, what you need to do now and how they're different. Working memory, we need to remember the new rules or the new actions that have been created for whatever task needs to be completed. And this could be in school, at work or in our homes. Self-regulation, we need to be able to inhibit or stop doing what we used to do, and now do the new thing. And also being able to regulate our emotions when we're switching to a new way is helpful. Planning and prioritizing skills can help too, we can use them to figure out the best order of the new steps that we'll have to take and see the value in prioritizing the new way of doing things over the old way. And our good old friend metacognition plays a big part in it to being able to understand our own thinking can really help us change it. Cognitive flexibility becomes largely mature by the age of 10. But these skills continue to improve throughout adolescence and into adulthood. And like all the other executive function skills, they reached their peak between the ages of 21 and 30. But as we know, everyone varies and where their strengths and challenges are.

Hannah Choi 06:06

We hear idioms and phrases in everyday language that reference cognitive flexibility. People may say they used mental gymnastics to figure something out, or that they need to wrap their head around something. We also hear references to the idea of cognitive inflexibility or rigid thinking. The idea is that you can't teach an old dog new tricks and describing someone as stuck in the mud. You might be familiar with this rigid thinking as showing up as stubbornness or strong willpower, no anybody like that. If you or your child struggle with cognitive flexibility, you might see or experience things like having trouble understanding others perspectives, arguing the same point over and over, getting anxious when plans change, struggling to take on new and more complicated tasks, or maybe having trouble switching from one activity to another, or getting upset when others don't follow the rules. At times, even as adults we struggle with thinking flexibly. And this doesn't mean that we haven't matured into our fully flexible prefrontal cortexes. Sometimes we just don't want to be flexible, sometimes it feels easier to keep things as they were, because it requires effort, a new way of thinking, changing the way we've done something or admitting that maybe the way that we've done something is not necessarily the best for us, or the situation. It requires us to use all those related EF skills that I mentioned earlier. And this is a lot of work. And it also requires some level of risk taking. If we take the risk of thinking about doing something another way, we might accidentally come up with a new idea that could possibly work, which we'll then have to try to see if it does. And for some people trying new things. And taking those risks thinking differently, can be a little uncomfortable. I notice for me sometimes, especially when I think it's going to be hard.

Hannah Choi 08:03

One thing that can make it a little easier is having someone along for the ride. If cognitive flexibility is difficult for you, I suggest finding someone who can support you, meeting you exactly where you are, I believe it can really, really helped to make those uncomfortable new decisions a little easier. And sometimes give you that gentle push, you need to get out of your own way. This person could be a friend, a colleague, a teacher, a sibling, or parent, or an executive function coach or a life coach. We can ask for advice or hear shared experiences, run our new ideas by them or brainstorm some when we're having trouble thinking of any. We can also ask them to provide feedback and some accountability. This makes me think about something that my former client Andrew shared with me, you might remember him from our ADHD Awareness Month episode,

Hannah's Son 08:53

What you said about having somebody on your side, the value of that in and of itself cannot be overstated. That was one of the most meaningful parts of coaching was just knowing that I could show up as I am. And you met me exactly where I was. There was no expectation that I was supposed to be anything other than what I was at that moment in time. And we were going to meet there. And then we were going to figure out where we wanted to go. And then we would make some plans to get there.

Hannah Choi 09:30

So basically, I'm saying that making positive changes to our habits and in our lives often is hard. So having some confidence to do this, to take these risks can really help. In order to find that confidence. We must find things that truly work for us. To find these things. We must be able to use our cognitive flexibility access it to imagine that things can even be done differently than we're currently doing them. And we don't have to do this hard work alone. Let's all make sure we've got got someone to support us.

Hannah Choi 10:01

In addition to making changes to how we do things, cognitive flexibility can help us in other major areas of our lives. It helps with resolving conflict by helping us be able to see other people's perspectives, remember the uncle at the Thanksgiving table, and figure out how to compromise by imagining a solution to a common goal. This compromised solution may require giving up some of our own desires. But cognitive flexibility helps us to see how even without the desires that we had to sacrifice, we can still reach some kind of agreement. Cognitive flexibility also helps us cope with major changes and stressors by giving us the powerful tool of self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is the ability to feel like we have control over our lives and our choices. When we're in the middle of a major life change, such as a divorce, or the loss of a spouse or a major cross country move, feeling like we have some control makes a huge difference. When thinking flexibly comes easily to you, it can make all of these changes much easier to handle. Dr. Shulman shared some great ideas about this. So if you haven't listened to the conversation yet, highly recommend checking it out.

Hannah Choi 11:20

Okay, so we now know what cognitive flexibility is, we know what the related EF skills are that support our ability to think flexibly. And we've learned how cognitive flexibility can support us in various aspects of our lives. But how do we get better at it? How can we reinforce the development of those skills in ourselves, and if we have kids in our lives, in them, too. I think the first thing we can do is try to make sure that we're taking care of ourselves. It's much easier to access our own flexible thinking when our own needs have been met as much as possible. And I know that this is asking a lot. We have a billion daily challenges, frustrations, limitations, that can make it difficult for us to put on our own oxygen masks, nevermind the masks of those in our care. But at least thinking about this and attempting to address some or even just one of our own self care needs first can help.

Hannah Choi 12:22

Also, learning about cognitive flexibility is super important. So yay for you for listening to this episode. It can really help to understand that all people, including ourselves, are at their own personal level of ability to think flexibly and make change. As Andrew said, it truly is helpful having someone supporting you through who understands how you feel about making changes, and how much flexibility you are able to access at the time. By understanding the differences in people's abilities, it is easier to meet them where they are in their readiness to think flexibly. And working on our own cognitive flexibility can help ease friction between ourselves and other people in our lives. Whatever age they are, and whatever relationship we have with them. Even as an EF coach, I find that I still need to practice this. I have a client who's a freshman in college, and I was having trouble understanding why he did not want to put specific times to study on his calendar. When I asked him to explain his thinking to me, he shared that he's learned that if he does schedule it, and then let it slide even just once. It's like a slippery slope, and then he'll start letting the other things slide too. For me, this is not the way I work. I love scheduling work time, I had to think flexibly to understand his perspective. This kind of stuff happens all the time with my own kids too. But by having that conversation, figuring out the difference and thinking and working together to understand each other's perspectives, it can make a big difference. And in and also reduce some of that friction and frustration that we feel when we butt heads with our kids. You might argue back that my client should use cognitive flexibility to try out my way of scheduling his study times. But he knows himself, he knows that it won't work. So I needed to give him the autonomy and the space to make that decision to do it his way. If he did not know himself so well and just didn't want to try it. I might have encouraged him to at least just try it once and see how it felt. But ultimately, it would be up to him. His own flexible thinking will develop on his own timeline.

Hannah Choi 14:38

There are a lot of activities and tools that are helpful for practicing flexible thinking. I'll share some here but check out the show notes for more ideas. As we coaches always say to our clients, when you're trying something new, start small. Maybe if you always cook the same few meals, you could try a new recipe. You could try driving it Different way to work or a new route on your morning run. This reminds me of the conversation I had with Rachel Holstein low in Episode 12. We talked about how you can practice mindfulness by doing something in a different way than you usually and automatically do. So you could brush your teeth with your other hand, or dry yourself off with a towel in a different order than you normally do. The practice of mindfulness has been shown in studies to help in many ways, including improving your attention and your ability to think flexibly.

Hannah Choi 15:32

A tool that I really like to use is called zooming out, or the 30,000 foot view. This tool works by challenging yourself to look at a situation from different perspectives. For example, my daughter was feeling really stressed out by an upcoming math midterm exam. Because she was in it and feeling completely overwhelmed. I tried to support her cognitive flexibility by encouraging her to zoom out to the day of the test and imagine how she'll feel. Then I asked her to consider how she'd feel if she zoomed out even more to the week after the test. And then to this coming summer, and then even more to when she's graduating from high school. This exercise helped her get out of her current state of thinking, and helped her see that yes, in this moment, it feels like everything. But truly, it's just a blip a fraction of her life.

Hannah Choi 16:31

Another thing that can be helpful for supporting cognitive flexibility is the concept of a growth mindset. A growth mindset is a belief that intelligence and our abilities are not fixed, that we can change, we can learn we can grow as humans, especially when we learn to think flexibly and find out what areas we are strong in and what areas might need some extra support, and what areas maybe we should completely avoid. I may have wanted to be a doctor growing up, but memory and word recall are not my strong points. So being a doctor would probably not have been the best career choice for me.

Hannah Choi 17:11

There is a great activity that supports the development of cognitive flexibility from Stephen Covey called the Circles of Concern, Influence and Control. Okay, so if you can imagine a target with three concentric circles, the outer circle represents things you are concerned about. The middle circle are the things you have some influence over. And the small center circle represents the things you actually have control over. thinking flexibly here helps you figure out where the various aspects of your life fit into this target. During the lockdowns or the pandemic, you might have placed the spread of COVID 19 as something that concerned you, but you had no true influence or control over it at all. If you worked from home, you would have had some influence over your workspace by setting up a nice desk in a separate area of the house. But you would not have been able to control any potential interruptions completely. Washing your hands frequently. And wearing a mask when you went out for groceries could go in the middle circle as something that you could control. Learning to be flexible in your thinking here can ease some of the anxiety and pressure we may feel when we're trying to control things that we actually only have influence on or perhaps cannot control at all.

Hannah Choi 18:38

For younger kids, you could play a divergent thinking game, find objects around the house and think of things that the objects could be other than what they truly are. This cup is not a cup. It's a swimming pool for a fairy. This pencil is not a pencil. It's a balance beam for the caterpillar Olympics. And that tree is not a tree. It's a portal to another world.

Hannah Choi 19:04

And that's our show for today. I hope you are able to find your portal to a new world of possibilities using your newfound or more developed cognitive flexibility skills. Thank you so much for taking time out of your day to listen. Help us help others to learn about executive function skills such as cognitive flexibility. By sharing our podcast with your colleagues, your family and your friends. You can subscribe to focus forward on Apple and Google podcasts, Spotify or wherever else you get your podcasts. If you listen on Apple or Spotify give us a boost by giving us a five star rating. Sign up for our newsletter at beyond booksmart.com/podcast. We'll let you know when new episodes drop and we'll share information related to the topic. Thanks for listening