BY: JOHANN HARI
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4 THOUGHTS
1. Why Slowing Down Leads to Better Attention and Feels So Good
“But when you practice moving at a speed that is compatible with human nature—and you build that into your daily life—you begin to train your attention and focus. ‘That’s why those disciplines make you smarter. It’s not about humming or wearing orange robes.’ Slowness, he explained, nurtures attention, and speed shatters it.”
(Inset quote from Guy Claxton)
One of the experts Johann Hari interviewed for this book, Guy Claxton, has reviewed a broad range of studies on how slowing down affects our focus. He discovered that basically any kind of slow practice improves our attention—whether it’s breathing, yoga, or tai chi.
Here, we learn why he thinks they all work: when we do these practices, we move at a pace “compatible with human nature.”
This is one more reason why conscious breathing consistently improves focus and cognitive function: Slowness nurtures attention. Speed shatters it.
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P.S. Another fascinating idea Hari shares around this topic is how we consume information. As part of this book, he took an internet-less retreat to write and focus. He read traditional newspapers and books instead of digital headlines and Twitter. He concluded: “I was—for the first time in my life—living within the limits of my attention’s resources. I was absorbing as much information as I could actually process, think about, and contemplate—and no more.”
I think this is another reason why slowing down our breath feels so good. We are literally absorbing the optimal amount of air we can process—and no more.
2. How to Deal with Distraction: A Method that Actually Works
“I realized then that to recover from our loss of attention, it is not enough to strip out our distractions. That will just create a void. We need to strip out our distractions and to replace them with sources of flow.”
When we talk about eliminating distractions, we hear a lot of the same advice. Put away your phone. Delete apps. Use airplane mode. It’s your own fault; you just need more discipline.
However, Hari provides a compelling case for why these tactics don’t work for most people (of course, if you’re reading this, you’re not “most people,” lol). But one of the solutions he gives is powerful for everyone.
Instead of trying to eliminate distraction, try to create flow.
As Hari tells us, “Seeking out flow, I learned, is far more effective than self-punishing shame.”
How do we do this? We can simply ask ourselves a few questions when we feel distracted. What could I do right now that would be meaningful? Or, could I create meaning in the task I need to complete? Maybe I can set a time limit to make it more challenging and engaging?
Or, my favorite, we can perform a few minutes of a focusing breathing technique (I like alternate nostril breathing) to reset and recharge.
Remember: Don’t shame yourself for lack of discipline. Instead, create flow.
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Related Quote: “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” – Howard Thurman
One More: “Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.” – Rumi (I found this one in the Daily Delight newsletter)
3. Safety, Focus, and When “Just Breathe” is Bad Advice
“She believed she had uncovered a key truth about focus: To pay attention in normal ways, you need to feel safe. You need to be able to switch off the parts of your mind that are scanning the horizon for bears or lions or their modern equivalents, and let yourself sink down into one secure topic.”
Safety is an essential consideration for focus (and, as you’ll see in the life-changing thought, for mind wandering too).
Fortunately, almost any slow breathing technique will activate the calming parasympathetic nervous system, acting as a biological hack for feeling safe. This will set you up to focus (which is why I practice them before making these 411s).
However, there is an important caveat to this idea. Here’s how Dr. Jon Jereidini, one of the experts Hari interviewed, puts it:
“if you are in a dangerous environment, selective attention [where you focus on just one thing] is a really dumb strategy. What you need instead is to evenly spread vigilance around your environment, looking for cues for danger.”
Thus, if you’re in a stressful or dangerous environment, focusing is actually “a really dumb strategy.” Beating yourself up and telling yourself to “just breathe” would be bad advice.
Lastly, a caveat to the caveat. If the stressful environment is one you created in your head (guilty here), then slow breathing can certainly help you feel safe again and prepare you for focus.
4. Practice What You Preach: Tech Companies vs. Gandhi
“When I met with several of these tech dissidents, it struck me how young they were—like they were almost children who had invented toys and watched their toys conquer the world. Everyone was scrambling to meditate in an attempt to resist the programs they had invented. He realized ‘one of the ironies is there are these incredibly popular workshops at Facebook and Google about mindfulness—about creating the mental space to make decisions nonreactively—and they are also the biggest perpetrators of non-mindfulness in the world.’”
(inset quote form Aza Raskin)
I’ve often thought it was cool to hear that (insert any big tech company) had meditation pods or mindfulness events. How neat, right?
Well, maybe not, as this passage points out. These companies are the “biggest perpetrators of non-mindfulness in the world.” (I’d never thought of it like that before). It’s kind of like if tobacco companies provided their employees with resources to quit smoking, but still spent billions ensuring the rest of the population stayed addicted.
Of course, no one person or one company is perfect—we’re all just trying to do the best we can. But, as Gandhi says, “One man cannot do right in one department of life whilst he is occupied in doing wrong in any other department. Life is one indivisible whole.”
So here’s to trying our best to live up to our values in all domains of our lives.
1 LIFE-CHANGING IDEA
Mind-Wandering is a Superpower (and How to Do It Correctly)
“In fact, when you look back over the history of science and engineering, many great breakthroughs don’t happen during periods of focus—they happen during mind-wandering.
‘Creativity is not [where you create] some new thing that’s emerged from your brain,’ Nathan told me. ‘It’s a new association between two things that were already there.’ Mind-wandering allows ‘more extended trains of thought to unfold, which allows for more associations to be made.’”
(Inset quote from Nathan Spreng, Professor of neurology and neurosurgery at McGill University)
Mind-wandering is a real-life superpower. It’s when new connections are made and when novel ideas are formed (Hari provides several excellent case studies of this, too). If we’re always looking at our phones, stimulated, learning, etc., we can never fully integrate that wisdom into our own lives in our own way. We need to mind wander a little bit.
However, here is a crucial point to remember about mind wandering:
“In situations of low stress and safety, mind-wandering will be a gift, a pleasure, a creative force. In situations of high stress or danger, mind-wandering will be a torment.”
I’ve implemented this concept by using mind wandering right after a slow breathing session, when my body feels safe and is primed for connecting ideas.
I’ve also added mind-wandering into the first ~10 minutes of my sauna sessions, when I just feel warm and relaxed.
How about you? How can you build mind-wandering into your life? Find a time when you are safe and relaxed, and use it to let your mind do what it does best.
1 STACK OF MEMORABLE QUOTES
“I wondered if the motto for our era should be: I tried to live, but I got distracted.”
“When you are unable to pay sustained attention, you can’t achieve the things you want to achieve.”
“We know, at some level, that when we are not focusing, we are not using one of our greatest capacities. Starved of flow, we become stumps of ourselves, sensing somewhere what we might have been.”
“Charles believes that—as he said to another interviewer—'every time we turn on a light, we are inadvertently taking a drug that affects how we will sleep.’” (Inset Quote from Charles Czeisler)
“Every day, as a direct result of his invention, the combined total of 200,000 more human lifetimes—every moment from birth to death—is now spent scrolling through a screen. These hours would otherwise have been spent on some other activity.”
“I have changed the way I respond to my own sense of distraction. I used to reproach myself, and say: You’re lazy. You’re not good enough. What’s wrong with you? I tried to shame myself into focusing harder. Now, based on what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi taught me, instead I have a very different conversation with myself. I ask: What could you do now to get into a flow state, and access your mind’s own ability to focus deeply?”
“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” – James Baldwin
“Depth takes time. And depth takes reflection. If you have to keep up with everything and send emails all the time, there’s no time to reach depth.” - Sune Lehmann