Winning the War for Your Attention
Mastering Your Attention to Control Your Inner World and Succeed Under Pressure
Our brain is constantly scanning the environment for objects, threats, rewards, and basically anything that it might want to pay attention to instead of whatever it is we are currently doing. In the time it’s taking you to read this sentence, your brain will have glanced around for something better to pay attention to twenty times, according to research. Our threat detecting machinery is so ingrained, that it’s even ‘on’ when we think we’re ‘off.’ According to research out of Georgia Tech, whenever we sleep in a new place, one hemisphere of our brain stays alert, acting as a night watch. Our brains are threat and opportunity detecting machines, constantly scanning the environment for signals that tell us to martial some sort of behavioral response.
Whenever our brain latches on to something that piques its interest, our attention is not only pointed in that direction, but our brain also up regulates our ability to listen to and process that information. According to the attentional accentuation hypothesis, when we direct our attention towards an object, we enhance the characteristics that are relevant to our current situation. In our brain, a neurochemical called dopamine is released to act as a signal booster. When dopamine hits the regions in the brain that play a role in threat detection, our ability to decipher meaningful sensory information from noise improves. We stop scanning the environment for potentially meaningless data and instead narrow in on the feedback that may actually impact our subsequent behavior. The more experience in a situation and environment, the better we become at deciphering what matters and what’s extraneous information.
According to neuroscientist Adam Gazzaley and psychologist Larry Rosen, attention has two components: enhancement and suppression. Enhancement refers to our ability to shine a spotlight and zoom in on items that seem to matter. Suppression refers to our ability to tune out or ignore things that don’t matter. As they discussed in their book The Distracted Mind, these aren’t opposing forces, but separate skills. In their research, they found that our attention ability wanes as we age, but not because of our inability to focus suffers. “Older adults [focus on] relevant information as well as twenty-year-olds. Where older adults suffered a deficit was in suppressing the irrelevant information… We discovered that their main attentional issue was that they are more distractible than younger adults.” It’s not our ability to shine the spotlight that contributes to our attentional downfall as we age; it’s our ability to filter out irrelevant information.
Toughness is about having the capacity to interrupt this cycle. To make sure that our focus isn’t hijacked by the negative or inconsequential but keeps returning to what actually matters. By developing the capacity to direct our focus and filter, we maintain control over the situation.
If we become enraptured in a feeling, for example, it can influence our subsequent decision. If I focus too much on an area of my body hurting, I transform into a hypochondriac, afraid that any slight sensation of pain means injury or doom. My decision to stop a run, or not even make it out the door, increases several fold. There becomes a tighter bond between the perception (i.e. pain) and the behavior (i.e. stop). The more we direct our attention to that feeling or sensation, the more important our brain thinks it must be. No different than how we’ve sent repeated signals that the most important thing in our life is the rectangular glass object in our pocket, so that the bond between object and action becomes nearly insurmountable to break.
Consider a rookie NBA player thrust into action in the final minutes of the game. His team is down by seven and it looks like they are headed towards a loss. In that moment, our player can focus on the information coming in that tells him that he has no chance. He might look at the score and decide that it’s at minimum a three possession game, or that it’s his first regular season game and not much is expected of him. He might glance into the stands, see some fans leaving, while hearing “boo” ring through his ears. He could look to the older dejected veteran, who seems to have thrown in the towel to save some energy for tomorrow night’s game. He might focus on how his legs feel like trash thanks to the morning lifting session that his strength coach prescribed because no one expected him to play. In any situation that involves stress and uncertainty, there will many negatives that one can focus on. It’s easy to go down the list and convince yourself that it’s not even worth trying.
On the other hand, our player could choose to do the opposite. All of the information and sensations we described above might still ring true. But our player can choose to either not focus on it, or change his interpretation. The dead legs? An opportunity to practice making shots when he’s fatigued. The veteran going through the motions? Time to create a spark of energy that might remind him of what playing the game is all about. Our player can also choose to minimize the time and attention given to this seemingly negative information. Instead of laboring on the score, he can narrow his focus to the play at hand. Trying to win that play, scoring a three, then worry about the next possession when it comes.
Tough individuals learn to use their focus like a spotlight. Highlighting the information that supports their decision-making, and tuning out that which does not help. That doesn’t mean they fall into the cult of positivity, focusing only on the good and ignoring the bad. Instead, it means they pay attention to anything that will help them make the best choice. Tough individuals are not only better at directing their attention, but also deciphering what the feedback means.
Using Attention to Help Us Cope
When we are in a situation that demands toughness, our inner world is chaotic. Feelings swirl, our thoughts spiral, and before you know it we are pressing the panic button. We want to quit, to find the easy way out, to do whatever it is we can to quiet our inner world. One tool we have to wrestle back control when we are spiraling is directing our attention. We can turn up or down the volume of our inner world based on where we shine the spotlight of attention. Here are three strategies that help train your attention, and gives you the power to cope with whatever discomfort you face.
1. Scanning
2. Zooming
3. Reframing
1.Scanning
If you're sitting in a chair or lying on a bed reading this book, your brain is being bombarded by a slew of sensory information. Most of it's background noise that doesn't need to reach conscious awareness. The pressure of the chair on your back isn't pertinent information, unless you have a sore lower back, then you might be well aware of the signals of pain coming from that area. There's an array of senses that you aren't aware of, from sounds and smells to tension or pressure. Scanning is about shifting your attention and seeing what information you pick up from the environment.
During scanning, the goal is to nudge your attention towards different sensations. Direct it towards your lower back, shoulders, or legs. Feel the tension or lack thereof. In this exercise, the goal isn't to judge it or change it, just to notice how when you direct your attention towards something, the volume gets turned up. You can scan internally, seeing how different parts of your body feel, or external, maybe listening to the faint buzz of the air conditioner in the distance. Scan the environment and notice.
See this as an extension of mindfulness training. Now, you see the impact of the attention spotlight you carry around. First, practice shifting that light when simply sitting in a quiet room. Then, progress towards scanning and shifting when on a walk, cooking dinner, or playing a sport.
This exercise teaches us the connection between attention and what we pick up from the world inside and outside of us and to develop the ability to let go of one sensation and direct it towards another. Toughness is not only about directing attention, but having the ability to pick up relevant information from the environment and let go of that which doesn't impact your decision. Scanning and shifting train that capacity.
2. Zooming
The next step in developing your attention and cognitive coping capabilities is to go from noticing to impacting. Zooming is all about turning the noise up or down on a thought or feeling. This can be accomplished in a number of ways. You can focus on a thought or sensation while practicing mindfulness, or you can look at pictures that tend to evoke emotions (i.e., cute puppies or bloody injuries) and try to turn up the volume on the emotion connected with the picture. If you are struggling with the abstractness of pictures, squeeze an ice cube in your hand, and try to hone in on or blunt the sensation it triggers. We're moving from observing to doing; training our cognitive control capacity.
While practicing zooming, you are simply experimenting with turning the volume dial on your experience. The specific way you are accomplishing this goal is of secondary importance. At first, it will be hard to know if you are distracting, suppressing, or ignoring to accomplish the goal of turning the volume down. That's fine. Over time and with practice, you'll notice differences between strategies that once seemed intertwined.
Once you've trained to zoom in and out, the next step is to go from simple exercises to doing it under stress, a topic we will cover in the next chapter.
3. Reframing
Reappraisal is a slightly more complicated strategy that requires first focusing on an item, then changing your appraisal of it. Take the nerves or anxiety that arise in the minutes leading up to just about any performance. We can interpret those feelings as debilitative, a sign that we aren't prepared to walk up on stage. Or we can see it as excitement, a sign that adrenaline is rushing through our body so that our mind and body are sharp and ready to go. We might experience the same sensation, but the meaning we take from it differs.
Reframing also holds true for thoughts and goals. We can see negative self-talk filled with doubts as a sign that we aren't ready to go or as a signal that what we are about to do will challenge our body. That doesn't mean we aren't able to handle what's to come. It merely means that we are about to do something difficult. A fact we already knew. Similarly, we can reframe our goals from outcome orientated ones to process orientated goals. If our performance is lagging in the middle of a race, for example, reframing our goals from running a certain time to executing our strategy or helping a teammate, can keep us from spiraling downwards.
To practice reframing, put yourself in situations where you experience moderate stress or negative thoughts, and then work on altering your perspective. Put yourself in a situation that takes you out of your comfort zone, and then ask how you could see the situation differently. In the moments when nerves take hold, pause, take a moment and work on seeing the feelings through a more positive light. For reframing self-talk, creating a diary often helps. Write down negative self-talk that you've recently used, and then rewrite the message so that it becomes neutral or positive.
The key here is to practice with situations that slightly challenge, not overwhelm you. Reframing takes effort. You need to build the mindful muscle before tackling more complex problems or scenarios.
Tips on Directing Attention
1. Check In, Don’t Control Ingrained Processes
Monitoring or controlling processes that are automated or deeply ingrained can make you less efficient, impacting performance. What would happen if you focused on every step of the process when shooting a basketball? You’d likely go from a smooth fluid shot to a disjointed segmented one. That doesn’t mean we should shift our attention to automatic processes, but we should do so only when disruption is needed. As a golfer, if you are practicing where your thumb is placed on the putter, then by all means focus on it. Or if you have pre-game anxiety, and you focus on your breath, you’re utilizing a focus on a different internal sensation to disrupt the feeling of anxiety. As a rule of thumb, focus on automatic processes when you want to disrupt a pattern, not when you need them to perform.
2. Check the Instruments, Don’t Stare at them
Be the pilot who does a quick glance of her instrument panel every once in a while, not the one who stares at them, and misses danger on the horizon. Research shows that elite endurance athletes check-in periodically to different sensory stimuli, but they don’t latch on to any piece of information. Remember, if you spend too much time with the spotlight of attention on a feeling or thought, it’s value increases. Spend too much time on a thought and you ruminate; too much time on a feeling and you can turn a molehill into a mountain. Check the instruments, and then move on.
3. Remember the Goal
When things get hard, research shows that we shift from being goal-driven to stimulus driven. We lose sight of what we’re trying to accomplish and instead our focus shifts to every sensation, thought, or distraction that enters our sensory milieu. To re-center our focus, mantras or reminders works well. They can serve as a cue to pull your mind back from distraction or despair, and return the focus to accomplishing your goal. One year, the women’s cross-country team I coached wrote a short phrase on their hand before races. When the pain and doubts began to mount, they’d glance down at that phrase and remember that they weren’t alone; they had a whole team behind them going through the same thing.
4. Break it Down- Shifting the Goal Posts
Goals can backfire if they go from achievable and within your control, to beyond your reach and something that you have no influence over. Once your brain feels like there’s not hope, it will go into protective mode. What’s the point of going through the stress if you aren’t even going to achieve the goal? To combat this natural tendency, it helps to have multiple goals, both process and outcome orientated. Additionally, being able to shift to mini-goals during a performance can help. Chunking–breaking down items into manageable pieces– is an appropriate tactic. Make it to the next tree during a race, or write 250 words instead of the whole article. Breaking it down helps boost motivation and keep you engaged when the task seems too daunting. Enacting small goals, helps shift our mind from broad to narrow, which will influence thoughts, and feelings along the way.
5. When the going gets tough…
When whatever we are doing is easy, novices tend to zone out or use distractions. When the going gets tough, experts tend to switch towards more active regulation strategies. They know that too make it through a difficult patch, they’ll need to use their arsenal of strategies to get through it.
6. Flipping the Switch…
If you spend too much time directing and regulating attention at the beginning, you have no tricks up your sleeve in the end. Attention is a resource. The well can run dry. When something becomes difficult, we need more of our attention resources to deal with the increase demands of the task. Knowing when to hone in and engage on the task at hand, and when you can step back and distract or monitor, is key to achieving peak performance.
7. Recharge with Nature
Research shows that positive distractions, like letting your mind wander to the beautiful scenery on a walk through the forest, can help refill your attention bucket. The soft gauze of spending time out in nature is restorative. If you find your attention abilities lacking, or you can’t stay focused, head outside for a nice walk in the woods.
-Steve
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