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Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life

by Winifred Gallagher

3.37 · rating details · 423 ratings · 117 reviews

Winifred Gallagher revolutionizes our understanding of attention and the creation of the interested life

In Rapt, acclaimed behavioral science writer Winifred Gallagher makes the radical argument that the quality of your life largely depends on what you choose to pay attention to and how you choose to do it. Gallagher grapples with provocative questionsCan we train our fo...moreWinifred Gallagher revolutionizes our understanding of attention and the creation of the interested life

In Rapt, acclaimed behavioral science writer Winifred Gallagher makes the radical argument that the quality of your life largely depends on what you choose to pay attention to and how you choose to do it. Gallagher grapples with provocative questionsCan we train our focus? Whats different about the way creative people pay attention? Why do we often zero in on the wrong factors when making big decisions, like where to move?driving us to reconsider what we think we know about attention.

Gallagher looks beyond sound bites on our proliferating BlackBerries and the increased incidence of ADD in children to the discoveries of neuroscience and psychology and the wisdom of home truths, profoundly altering and expanding the contemporary conversation on attention and its power. Sciences major contribution to the study of attention has been the discovery that its basic mechanism is an either/or process of selection. That we focus may be a biological necessity research now proves we can process only a little information at a time, or about 173 billion bits over an average lifebut the good news is that we have much more control over our focus than we think, which gives us a remarkable yet underappreciated capacity to influence our experience. As suggested by the expression pay attention, this cognitive currency is a finite resource that we must learn to spend wisely. In Rapt, Gallagher introduces us to a diverse cast of charactersartists and ranchers, birders and scientistswho have learned to do just that and whose stories are profound lessons in the art of living the interested life. No matter what your quotient of wealth, looks, brains, or fame, increasing your satisfaction means focusing more on what really interests you and less on what doesnt. In asserting its groundbreaking thesisthe wise investment of your attention is the single most important thing you can do to improve your well-beingRapt yields fresh insights into the nature of reality and what it means to be fully alive.(less)

Hardcover, 256 pages

Published April 16th 2009 by Penguin Press HC, The

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Sep 30, 2011

Cori rated it

“Whenever you squander attention on something that doesn’t put your brain through its paces and stimulate change, your mind stagnates a little and life feels dull.” I couldn’t agree more, book! How often do we spend an afternoon mindlessly watching reruns and feel this way?

I heard about this book on the radio a while back. I’m guessing it was NPR, but I could be wrong. It’s been on my TBR list for a while, and after seeing it on the shelf at the library the other day, I thought I’d fin...more“Whenever you squander attention on something that doesn’t put your brain through its paces and stimulate change, your mind stagnates a little and life feels dull.” I couldn’t agree more, book! How often do we spend an afternoon mindlessly watching reruns and feel this way?

I heard about this book on the radio a while back. I’m guessing it was NPR, but I could be wrong. It’s been on my TBR list for a while, and after seeing it on the shelf at the library the other day, I thought I’d finally pick it up.

Is it bad that I had a hard time paying attention and focusing on a book about paying attention and focusing? I think it was more that I didn’t like the narration of the book, and I thought the language was a little too flowery and not enough science-y for this genre (at least according to my own taste). The content, however, was pretty good. It basically boiled down to “you are what you focus on.” Gallagher goes through study after study showing that it is better to live the focused life than one where you just react to what’s happening around you. What you focus on is one of the biggest factors in how you experience life.

Gallagher relates research about how the brain reacts to different types of attention in different situations (very interesting), and even gives some practical tips for living a more attentive life. For example, she says, “If you really want to focus on something, says Castellanos, the optimum amount of time to spend on it is ninety minutes. Then change tasks. And watch out for interruptions once you’re really concentrating, because it will take you twenty minutes to recover.” Interesting! I’ll have to try this when I really need to focus on something.

But overall, the book itself lacked focus. Each chapter felt like it’s own little non-fiction short story and could stand alone. It had a Malcolm Gladwell-feel to it, but I think he is more successful at bringing differing ideas about a topic into a cohesive whole than Gallagher was.

Read my full review here: http://letseatgrandpa.com/2011/09/22/boo...(less)

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Oct 06, 2010

Bonnie rated it

Rapt caught my attention after reading an excerpt in the Utne Reader. The thesis was pretty straightforward – what you focus on determines your experience of life. I was intrigued because I had always struggled with paying quality attention to my children, ostensibly the focus of my work as a stay-at-home mother. I wanted to experience my life with them better, and I wanted something more than a simplistic parenting book that suggested setting aside 20 minutes of play without distraction each...moreRapt caught my attention after reading an excerpt in the Utne Reader. The thesis was pretty straightforward – what you focus on determines your experience of life. I was intrigued because I had always struggled with paying quality attention to my children, ostensibly the focus of my work as a stay-at-home mother. I wanted to experience my life with them better, and I wanted something more than a simplistic parenting book that suggested setting aside 20 minutes of play without distraction each day with each child.

Winifred Gallagher covers a lot of ground in the psychological study of attention and focus, from bottom-up attention to your immediate circumstances and needs – the demands of the world to top-down attention that you direct to things that you choose (like your job, family, or hobbies).

Gallagher argues that attention is selective—one can’t focus on everything. Further, emotions guide attention, more often than not to negative places as a measure of self-preservation, and it is up to the individual to guide his attention to more positive emotions that actually expand his ability to focus. Rather than seeking to be happy at all times, Gallagher shows that one must guard what one attends to, with the example that older people are often better able to focus on the simple pleasures of life. She sites research that shows that what one pays attention to shapes her brain and behavior.

One of the more interesting parts of Gallagher’s book dealt with intimate relationships within families. Rapt attention is crucial for these relationships to work, but also important is the ability to see the other person’s world not only from one’s own point of view.

Gallagher advocates identifying those activities to which one can pay rapt attention and reach the state of “flow.” Ideally, if one’s work fell into this category, it would seem not like work at all, but play. Flow is so arresting to the individual that he will continue to challenge himself at the activity to stay in the flow.

The import of attention is also revealed in decision making (we often attend to our memories rather than our experiences) and creativity (great work requires rapt attention). The distractions of modern life – particularly, electronic – and desire to multi-task are shown to impede productivity and real learning in children. Finally, mental and even physical ailments are often grounded in poorly directed attention.

At the end of the book, Gallagher’s sometimes annoying propensity to be politically correct and non-religious gives way to her reverence for particularly Tibetan Buddhism, and the rapt attention to the present that is the end goal of much meditative practice.

Nonetheless, Gallagher’s thoughtful book provides mental fodder for this mother’s desire to focus on the moment with her children, to identify individual motivations that can guide my top-down, chosen attention to that which my remembering (not experiencing) focus has determine to hold the most value in my daily life – my children.
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Oct 12, 2009

Mike rated it

Shelves: character-education, education, poetry

Winifred Gallagher’s Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life readily merits its readers’ sustained attention. Gallagher persuasively shows how whatever we focus on is—quite literally—how we spend our lives. Our attention, in other words, is like currency. So the ways we choose to spend it determine the caliber and character of our experience.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi introduced us to Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience in 1991. New developments in neuroscience have since revealed e...more

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Oct 11, 2009

Courtney rated it

I'm disappointed that this book about attention was not, itself, more sharply focused. Instead of building towards a thesis or providing an organized survey of her theme, author Winifred Gallagher begins and ends "Rapt" with scattered essays that don't seem to be much about focus and attention at all.

The meat of the book is sandwiched in the middle, where the author guides the reader through the leading research on focus and attention. We learn that attention can be diffus...more

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Jul 13, 2009

Maggie Dijkstra rated it

Shelves: non-fiction

overall this book was worth reading. many details review what is already known; some details are on recent research results on the brain and its ways and means of attention; many anecdotal elements were included and added to the chapters theses; a few thoughts were new and which i would not have otherwise known. overall a good book if you've got the spare time; otherwise, common sense can inform us almost as much as this book does.

but one thing it does do is to remind us how much ou...more

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May 26, 2009

Clara rated it

Shelves: 2009, dc-public-library, read-it-in-dc

Rapt provides a survey of a wide breadth of research on attention, yet manages to obfuscate more than it reveals. In one chapter, attention and conscious experience are synonymous; in another, implicit learning is the apogee of well-directed attention. The author broaches claims with no substantive evidence, such as the idea that perpetual interactions in a multimedia context breed superficial brains. Such claims are bereft of the surveyed research because there is no research to back them up...more

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May 09, 2009

Andrea marked it as to-read

interesting idea:
from a blog i follow:

"'Rapt’ Gains Attention from NYT

Are library buyers multitasking too much to keep track of Winifred Gallagher’s new book, Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life? It’s jumped to #26 on Amazon.com after a New York Times “Science” section story by John Tierney on “The Science of Concentration,” and by critic Laura Miller in Salon. Yet the libraries we checked showed low ordering (in some cases, no copies; in others, a single copy agai...more

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Mar 13, 2010

Gordon rated it

This is a truly wonderful book. The author set out on this book-writing project in the aftermath of a major bout of cancer, seeking to turn her mind to something other than battling with disease. Her choice of theme is a fascinating one, which really takes her into the heart of the philosophical issue: can you choose your own life? Her answer is, yes indeed you can, by choosing what to turn your attention to. How to do that? Mindfulness-based meditation is, to her, the single most important...more

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Jun 14, 2009

Marsha rated it

I really liked this book, and thank you to my sister Amy for recommending it. It made me think about how our lives are defined by what we pay attention to. Also, I appreciated the chapter on ADHD, since I see that a lot at work. A lot of the science in this book is also mentioned in Malcom Gladwell's Blink and Jonah Lehrer's How We Decide, but each of the books offers a different perspective.

I think decision making and focusing our attention are the challenges of our age. We have so...more

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Jun 01, 2009

Bookmarks Magazine rated it

Shelves: july-aug-2009

Gallagher's fascinating book, which analyzes the latest research in psychology and neuroscience, easily translates difficult concepts into layman's terms. She includes contemporary and historical examples of men and women, including Mozart and Tiger Woods, whose ability to concentrate led to their successes. Gallagher's writing is engaging and accessible, and her suggestions for a more focused life range from the mystical (meditation) to the ordinary (separating oneself from distractions.) Criti

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Jul 15, 2009

Laura rated it

Shelves: nonfiction, psychology

This is a quick and pleasant read but ironically, given that the subject matter is attention, the author seems to flit from topic to topic often moving on just as things were starting to get really interesting. In cases where I'd read more about the original studies (e.g. the Joshua Bell busking experiment) I felt her summaries were superficial and misleading; this led me to question her versions of studies I was not familiar with. Similarly, she refers to "Asian culture" as if dozens ...more

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Jun 03, 2009

MsSmartiePants ...like the candy... rated it

Could be my mindset, but the thoughts "uh, gotta slog through that new book before I can get another one...." and "uhg, don't like the reader.....overly clever writing....must finish, have to finish..." kept coming to mind. Who says I must slog through and finish before moving on? Oh, that was only me!

After listening to 3.1 (out of 7 or 8) CD's, I happily returned this book and checked out another. Not that I didn't learn anything. Well I didn't. I might have ...more

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May 19, 2009

John rated it

Shelves: science

You are what you pay attention to.

Winifred Gallagher was a mother of two young girls when she was diagnosed with a cancer that had a great chance of ending her life. Understandably, her mind was full of dread and terror that she would leave her girls motherless. Since she might be living her final days, she decided to focus on, and pay attention to, the things that gave her joy. Her children, a sunset, her family....

Her life changed. While she dealt with bad news on the ...more

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Apr 29, 2010

Beth rated it

Recommends it for: those interested in how we tick, anyone looking for some guidance to getting on top of their life

Recommended to Beth by: Lifehacker.com

Shelves: liked, influential

There were certainly tidbits of new information, references to studies I hadn't heard of before, but the real win of this book was that it focused my attention toward a subject of interest to me, and got me to examine it far more closely than I have before. Yes, it was a bit of a recursive experience, focused reading and thinking about focus and attention. :)

I learned a lot about myself by *actively* reading this book, and got some insights into why I do certain things and how I might ...more

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Aug 09, 2009

Joseph rated it

Shelves: fbpl

In Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life the author, Winifred Gallagher, does an excellent job of covering the relevant neurological and psychological knowledge of how attention works. But I was hoping for more "attention" to the "Focused Life" part of the book's subtitle. Still, there is a lot of good stuff in the book.

Gallagher starts by explaining the latest research on how attention works. She notes that attention is regulated in two ways. Top down attention is r

...more

Gallagher starts by explaining the latest research on how attention works. She notes that attention is regulated in two ways. Top down attention is regulated by your will. The other, bottom up attention, is more reactive. Attention is multiplicitous. You can think of it as a series of "sensory dials" that allow you to "adjust the volume" of sensory information. For example, you can "turn down" visual information while "turning up" aural information, like when you close your eyes in order to listen more closely. Gallagher also stresses that attention generates a mental model of reality, meaning your experience of reality is one step removed from actual reality. She goes on to discuss how emotion influences attention. Our brains are more sensitive to negative stimuli than to positive stimuli, likely due to evolution. This phenomenon is called the negativity bias. On the other hand, there is a positivity offset, the tendency for us to more often remember positive events despite your attending more closely to negative ones. There are also a number of attentional styles along that vary along different axes. First is in what direction attention is focused, outwardly (extroversion) or inwardly (introversion). Second is on what type of events generally receive more attention, positive events or negative events. (This appears to be temperamental and independent of the negativity bias.) Finally, attention can be respondent, rapt attention to sensory experience, or instrumental, goal oriented attention.

After discussing the mechanics of attention, Gallagher goes on to make a number suggestions for improving your life based on knowledge of these mechanics. I was disappointed somewhat by this part of the book. Many of her suggestions are facile. However, there is something to be said having them explicitly suggested. The suggestions that most caught my eye were:

<ol>
<li>Meditation can improve your ability to control your attention. This is possible due to brain plasticity, the fact that your brain can be physically changed by your experiences and actions.</li>
<li>Pay attention to your family. Gallagher cites statistics that show the woeful inattention with which we treat each other.</li>
<li>To make good decisions, be sure to pay attention to the right things. More specifically, Gallagher cites The Paradox Of Choice by Barry Schwartz and reiterates his suggestion of "satisficing." Satisficing is the difficult art of making a choice that satisfies you without over analysing or searching for the perfect choice.</li>
</ol>

Ultimately, what I got out of Rapt was the admonishment that controlling your attention can have a positive impact on your life. The Vietnamese Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh has a wonderful metaphor. What you pay attention to nourishes the seeds in your mind. If you pay attention to positive things in your environment, you will nourish the beautiful flowers of your mind. However, if you pay attention to negative things around you, you will nourish the rank weeds of your mind.

If you are interested in cognitive science or the mechanics of attention, you might enjoy reading this book. If, however, you are looking for some practical advice, it still might be worth a read, but is more likely better skimmed.

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Jun 24, 2009

Scott Key rated it

This book has changed the way I work. Author Winifred Gallagher has marshaled quite a bit of research into fourteen chapters and has made it approachable with a good takeaway at the end of each chapter that can be integrated into several areas of life where attention is important. If you have read Malcolm Gladwell and John Medina, much of what you read here will not be new.

Gallagher learned about the power of attention for ill or for good when she was diagnosed with cancer and de...moreThis book has changed the way I work. Author Winifred Gallagher has marshaled quite a bit of research into fourteen chapters and has made it approachable with a good takeaway at the end of each chapter that can be integrated into several areas of life where attention is important. If you have read Malcolm Gladwell and John Medina, much of what you read here will not be new.

Gallagher learned about the power of attention for ill or for good when she was diagnosed with cancer and decided not to let it "monopolize [her:] attention" as it wanted but instead to "focus on [her:] life instead." As she endured treatment for the illness, she began paying attention to the present, realizing that it was all she had. The experience was a catalyst to the writing of Rapt.

Her thesis, and the realization she got during treatment was that "life is the creation of what you focus on -- and what you don't."

There is much here on attention and how it works and how we are misusing technology to our detriment and to the detriment of those around us.

By and large, we are not multitaskers. Some repetitive or physical actions can be done together -- the proverbial act of walking and chewing bubblegum. However, we aren't programmed to do things such as talk and check email or to drive and text. One activity or both will suffer as a consequence.

In fact, it is hard to be truly productive unless you enter the "flow" state, which requires focused concentrated effort ninety to one hundred twenty minutes. Any interruption, even if for a minute or less (consider the little guitar noise on outlook telling you about a new message, or the siren call of the blackberry's buzz even when you don't actually read the message), is a derailing event requiring about fifteen minute's total recovery time. As a result, an entire day can pass with the result of no substantively completed work but with lots of emails read even if not answered.

Her chapter on creativity is equally compelling. In short, a spark of creative inspiration is the result of hours of contemplation or study. If you constantly short-circuit attention, you are not likely to be the next Wordsworth or experience some sort of creative spark no matter your chosen profession.

Finally, the chapter on relationships and quality of life is worth the read. How you frame the action of those around you shapes fundamentally how successful you are in your friendships, lovelife, and career. It all comes down to showing up and attending to what is on your agenda day in and day out, focusing positively on those around you, and framing the people and events you encounter with a focus on the positive. Most significantly, it comes down to being fully present moment to moment.

Such is the difference, Gallagher suggest between a life lived fully and a life lived that is a nightmare from which you will hopefully wake up (think the buddha's enlightment)before it is too late.

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Jan 31, 2011

Jesse Wattenbarger rated it

This was a hard book to rate. I didn't love it, but I didn't hate it. And, I love the subject matter. Gallagher isn't a bad writer, but the organization is weird and she is very repetitive. She wanders and often leaves you wanting more of the meaty bits instead of the fluffy bits that she offers up in spades. It isn't a bad read, though and the subject matter is very interesting. It's a short, easy read, even if just for a survey of the subject matter. You should read this if:

A....more

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Jun 11, 2010

Herb rated it

Gallagher is a pretty clunky writer, but she's gotten hold of some pretty compelling cognitive research about the fact of attention, and how what we attend to changes our attitudes. I read one of her early books 15 years ago (The Power of Place), and that wasn't very good either. At least for this one, she's got stronger material to work with.

The fact is that we're all moving at full speed all the time, barely allowing our attention to land anywhere before flitting off again to the...more

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May 30, 2010

Darlene rated it

Shelves: non-fiction

A good reminder to pay attention to the things that make you happy. I particularly liked the descriptions of bottom-up and top-down attention. It has quite a bit of relatively new research in it, although having recently read the brain that changes itself and blink, there wasn't a great deal new for me. However I found it valuable to make me aware of my habitual mode of focussing and practical ways to control my attention. I might even try meditating. I'm not sure I agree that the state of rapt ...more

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Jan 26, 2012

Ronald Barba rated it

Shelves: self-analysis, skillbuilding

I mean...I feel like everything covered in this book can be found in every other self-help book. I guess in this regard, it wasn't what I expected.

Key take-aways:

1) Get absorbed in whatever task is at hand, and try to battle distraction and boredom by further looking at your current project/work and try seeing it from a different perspective. Can you approach it in a more creative way?
1a) This "respondent" or "experiential" way of focus is the kind ...moreI mean...I feel like everything covered in this book can be found in every other self-help book. I guess in this regard, it wasn't what I expected.

Key take-aways:

1) Get absorbed in whatever task is at hand, and try to battle distraction and boredom by further looking at your current project/work and try seeing it from a different perspective. Can you approach it in a more creative way?
1a) This "respondent" or "experiential" way of focus is the kind where vegan artists' balls drop after touching some glorious statue that they admire, or the kind of focus that WASPy women have when they linger at a picture of an AIDS-plagued child in Africa and become so "moved" that they decide to create another AIDS fund.

2) Top-Down VS. Bottom-Up Attention: Top-Down is attention with a purpose; you concentrate on a certain task like keeping an eye on the women in the blue dress across the mall and observing her every activity. Bottom-Up attention concerns involuntary deviation from your current state of mind--you see a bright red thing flying from the corner of your eye. The goal is to aim for top-down attention that is aimed solely at what you want to accomplish in the current state.

3) When your mind is focused on a negative thought or negative emotion, you have to battle that by focusing on something positive. This attentional-attitudinal adjustment works as a reset button on your mindset.
3a) You must involve yourself in a cognitive appraisal of emotions, focusing more on a response to a situation than the negative implications of the event itself (i.e., the snowstorm has blocked all roads; instead of getting pissed that you can't go out and eat at TGIFriday's, you can stay in all day and watch all the porn you want).
3b) When you are trying to accomplish a task, there is a tendency to do so poorly when left in this negative state of mind. Positive thoughts equal higher-quality results.

4) In order to create a "peak experience," we must do something that's not only enjoyable but one that is manageable. Too hard and we'll get frustrated and just PeaceTFO; too easy and we get bored.
4a) Try to make a game out of what you're doing if you get too bored. Add some challenge to it...somehow.

5) We have a tendency to focus on the wrong things. These "cognitive illusions" motivate us to take on a different path simply because we mistakenly find them to be the right thought (e.g. you're so convinced that we belong at Princeton that you fail to realize the many benefits/pros of Berkeley until after you transfer).

6) Meditate like there's no tomorrow. Seriously. The last three chapters of this book focus on the meditation and how it's necessary for us to get control over our (in)ability to sit still and focus merely on our breathing and our existence. (less)

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Mar 20, 2010

Summer Derrick rated it

I just found this book at the library with no recommendations. I usually don't have a lot of success when I do this, but this time I actually found a winner. Although the book itself could have been more "focused" and better organized, I really loved the concepts provided. I felt like this book simplified a concept I read about in "A New Earth" by Eckhart Tolle, this author was also mentioned in the book.

As the author does, I feel like focus is the key to many ...more

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May 27, 2009

Aaron rated it

Recommended to Aaron by: Salon.com

Like most people who read Rapt, I came to the book prehooked. I've never been much of an ace at focus – I was a poor student all the way through college, when I not so much snapped suddenly to attention as graduated to a curriculum based more on a few large tests than endless worksheets to be turned in on the hour – and I was suspected of ADHD more than once as a child and teen. Like many, I never really got a conclusive answer. I certainly didn't feel like I had an attention problem, just th...moreLike most people who read Rapt, I came to the book prehooked. I've never been much of an ace at focus – I was a poor student all the way through college, when I not so much snapped suddenly to attention as graduated to a curriculum based more on a few large tests than endless worksheets to be turned in on the hour – and I was suspected of ADHD more than once as a child and teen. Like many, I never really got a conclusive answer. I certainly didn't feel like I had an attention problem, just that a lot of stuff that I was expected to pay attention to was boring. While I've spent much of life feeling scattered, forgetting to do things and demonstrating a definite overcommitment to considering how bored I'll be as the foremost consideration in most of my major life decisions, I've always managed to get through everything okay. Until recently. It came to me at work, 25 browser windows open at a time, that I wasn't actually doing any one thing for longer than seven minutes or so. After becoming aware of this mostly unconscious trend in my task management, I tried to make it stop and failed completely. Focus never came, and I could almost feel a frantic buzzing to do something else at the very moment I tried to exert myself. Once I became aware of it at work, I quickly noticed I was doing the same thing at home.

So I came to Rapt, like many, in the posture of supplication. And Rapt has a great hook. It is, I'm sure, selling like prohibition whiskey. Feel distracted? Have trouble focusing? Wonder if all of this multitasking is having an effect on your brain chemistry? Buy my book! I can dress your attentional problems up in The Omnivore's Dilemma style science-lite and fix you right up! The book practically sells itself on premise alone. It's a much closer question whether it actually delivers.

Gallagher is quick to identify the trifecta of major attentional issues: ADD, the proliferation of electronic devices, and the possible overdiagnosis of hard pharmas like Ritalin to children who are just distracted, moody or overly enthusiastic, not “ADD”. Unfortunately, her positions on these issues aren't very interesting. Drugs are helpful when used correctly, electronic devices are doing something to our brain chemistry, and we are probably overmedicating children. With the issue of Ritalin in particular, Gallagher doesn't tack too close to taking anything approaching a position – she gives us a few cautionary tales of the spread of recreational use and abuse of these drugs as study aids and professional “helpers” for adults, but stops short of taking a real stand against their use.

The book is probably best in the early going – the pseudo-science of perception and focus is well dissected with cute but effective analogies about birds, the distinction between top-down and bottom-up attention is well-integrated into our experience of a hectic, electronic world, and the lengthy discussion about the essential elasticity of brain activity – that it learns through repetition and is profoundly altered by focus and conscious awareness – is laid out with enough precision to justify its position at the center of Gallagher's ultimate argument that only a mindful life can ever be a good or complete life.

And if this sounds like a Buddhist trope repackaged as neurology mated with self-help, you're already well ahead of the game – after a lot of discussion about ADHD, drugs, perception and some terrible digressions into cultural relativism (Asians are like this, Americans are like this, it's very hard to be an American, what with all this noise and toys), Gallagher ultimate arrives at the fairly complete conclusion that meditation is the answer. For everything. She has the good sense to seem a little embarrassed that this is the sum total of what she has to show for all of the build-up, but that hint of ambivalence actually gives the book a lot of its strength. You can almost see her spreading her hands and shrugging a little in front of a cadre of confused publishers and saying “Yeah, I'm surprised too, but this meditation thing really does seem to work, like, look at these EKG scans/assorted neurological mumbo jumbo! I'm as wowed as you guys are!” I wasn't quite able to talk myself into setting the book down, grabbing a pillow, lighting some incense and focusing on my breathing, but that's what she's ultimately asking us to do and she believes, and has some statistics to prove, that focusing on your breathing and expanding that into a mindfulness of your activity might be the crucial key to a focused life.

Oh, and turn off your goddamn E-Mail.

My big gripe with this isn't the meditation bit – there are literally thousands of years of empirical evidence sitting solidly at her side on that claim, and I'm glad the science and the practice have come around to the same felicitous conclusion, especially when the other option is Ritalin – but rather on the idea that focus is the key to a healthy life.

Absent from her lauding statements about Asian (I'm almost tempted to say Oriental here, her distinctions are that sweeping) vs American capacity for focus is the seemingly obvious problem of obsessiveness, Japanese and Korean students committing suicide in the face of poor exam scores, the overwhelming social pressures that create that singular focus and the various physical and psychological problems that come in with it. And even this is fairly culturally nuanced, but there's really no excuse for the omission of a serious discussion about the perils of focus, from anorexia, depression, stalking and megalomania all the way down the line to how profoundly we're effected by losing our hair. I am willing to accept that meditation is good, that mindfulness can be empowering and that focus, more than talent, ultimately dictates much of what we accomplish. But hell, lady, I could just as easily be focusing obsessively as focusing mindfully, and meditation doesn't quite cover what you skipped over.(less)

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Oct 04, 2011

Teri rated it

I love the ideas in this book, which cull from others' original research in an easily digestible format. Some of the take-aways have been around for a while (meditation increases mindfulness), but others were new and insightful (more women succeed in school settings because of their built-in attention patterns). The author explores different flavors of attention and their work/life benefits -- both those we can work to enhance and those that still remain somewhat of a mystery. I find myself b...more

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Dec 02, 2009

Joe rated it

This is a great book that covers the different angles of the idea of being present in what where you are and what you do. I like the tone because it strips the subject of the usual ornamental tags and frilly spiritual outfits that you normally get with this topic. But at the same time it is very readable and not clinical - a great balancing act for a topic like this.

It covers various areas such as mindfulness, meditation, Buddhism, psychology, philosophy, the medication nation, etc...more

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Oct 30, 2011

Fatima rated it

Winifred Gallagher does a great job of summarizing the state of the science on attention and its relationship to success and health. This book is easy to read. I didn't really learn much that I didn't know already but it served as a useful reminder of some basic points, such as:
1. We are happier when we are feeling relaxed and focused.
2. We accomplish more when we feel like we are able to pay attention.
3. Feeling focused reduces stress and improves health.
4. Attention span c...more

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Mar 15, 2011

Qi Zeng rated it

· review of another edition

This is a rather engaging book about a focused and attentive life. This book draws much research in neurological field to discuss about how "multitasking" is damaging our ability to learn, and to truly experience the daily living experience. The author also talked a lot about meditation and yoga, and ADHD type of fast paced life where we pay partial attention to multiple things around us. "The garden of life is perhaps just an asphalt pavement for those who are talking on their ce...more

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May 19, 2010

Jon rated it

For such an important topic, I found his book a disappointment. It skimmed the topic from many perspectives. Kind of a mile wide and an inch deep, and Gallagher seemed far too interested in annotating the work of others. So much so that in some sections literally every paragraph was an annotation. This may be great for an academic paper, but it made the book jumpy.

Gallagher is onto something really important here, and I'm certain she knows it, but I kept feeling like this book was rushed. I...more

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Oct 02, 2011

dayna bateman rated it

Greatly enjoyed reading Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life. A mashup of cognitive science and self-help, Gallagher's book left me keenly aware of the importance of paying full attention to the moment I'm in and whatever it is that I've chosen to give my attention to in that moment. It also woke me up to the importance of choosing well where I will direct my attention next.

The whole of it can be summed up in the Zen expression: "When walking, walk. When eating, eat.” Mindfulness ...more

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Aug 04, 2009

Connie rated it

You become what you focus on. That's the primary point of this book about attention. In the first part of the book the author discusses the importance of fully losing yourself in some project or pursuit -- achieving that wonderful feeling of being so wrapped up in something that you forget time. Although I got some insights from this book, oddly, I felt like it lost focus towards the end. The section on meditation seemed like a rehash of conventional wisdom about meditation but didn't really off...more

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Feb 20, 2011

Jonathan rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: paperback-picks, library

This is an excellent little book on attention. If you haven't read much about what happens inside your head when you're paying attention, and especially if you aren't sure what it means to pay attention, this book is for you.

The book's author doesn't really speak from a position of any authority. By all appearances, the work that went into this book was as follows:

1) Select an area related to attention (EXAMPLES: creativity, relationships).

2) Interview some e...more

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Quotes from Rapt: Attention and th...

“Temperamentally anxious people can have a hard time staying motivated, period, because their intense focus on their worries distracts them from their goals.” — 18 people liked it

“Because you actually might not know what activities truly engage your attention and satisfy you, he says, it can be helpful to keep a diary of what you do all day and how you feel while doing it. Then, try to do more of what's rewarding, even if it takes an effort, and less of what isn't. Where optimal experience is concerned, he says, "'I just don't have the time' often means 'I just don't have the self-discipline.” — 6 people liked it

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