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Failure to drop one focus and move on to others can, for example, leave the mind lost in repeating loops of chronic anxiety.
The power to disengage our attention from one thing and move it to another is essential for well-being.
Deep thinking demands sustaining a focused mind. The more distracted we are, the more shallow our reflections; likewise, the shorter our reflections, the more trivial they are likely to be.
Voluntary attention, willpower, and intentional choice are top-down; reflexive attention, impulse, and rote habit are bottom-up
Adults with ADD, relative to those without, also show higher levels of original creative thinking and more actual creative achievements.
“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant,” Albert Einstein
Open time lets the creative spirit flourish; tight schedules kill it.
When we turn such full attention to our senses, the brain quiets its default chatter. Brain scans during mindfulness—the form of meditation the lawyer was trying—reveal it quiets the brain circuits for me-focused mental chatter.3
This capacity to think in ways that are independent of an immediate stimulus—about what’s happened and what might happen in all its possibilities—sets the human mind apart from that of almost every other animal.
The more our mind wanders, the less we can register what’s going on right now, right here. Take
Noticing that our mind has wandered marks a shift in brain activity; the greater this meta-awareness, the weaker the mind wandering becomes.
But when conditions are right, those with ADD can have keen focus, fully absorbed in the activity at hand. Such conditions might arise more often in an art studio, basketball court, or stock exchange floor—just not in the classroom.
Our subtle physiological reactions reflect the sum total of our experience relevant to the decision at hand.
Robert Burns, the Scottish poet, praised this pathway in verse: Oh that the gods The gift would gi’e us To see ourselves As others see us.
“I am what I think you think I am.”
research has found that when people receive negative performance feedback in a warm, supportive tone of voice, they leave feeling positive—despite the negative feedback. But when they get positive performance reviews in a cold and distant tone of voice, they end up feeling bad despite the good news.4
Neuroscientists see self-control through the lens of the brain zones underlying executive function,
Anything we can do to increase children’s capacity for cognitive control will help them throughout life. Even Cookie Monster can learn to do better.
The mere presence of a loved one, studies show, has an analgesic property, quieting the centers that register pain. Remarkably, the more empathic the person who is present with someone in pain, the greater the calming effect.
The corollary: The more you care about someone, the more attention you pay—and the more attention you pay, the more you care. Attention interweaves with love. PART IV THE BIGGER CONTEXT
One cognitive capacity that continues to increase as the years go on is “crystallized intelligence”: recognizing what matters, the signal within the noise. Some call it wisdom.
Focusing on what’s wrong about what we do activates circuitry for distressing emotions.
When we are motivated by positive emotions, what we do feels more meaningful and the urge to act lasts longer. It all stays longer in attention.
“For long-term change you need sustained action,” Weber added. “A positive message says, ‘Here are better actions to take and with this metric you can see the good you’re doing—as you keep going, you can continually feel better about how you are doing.’ That’s the beauty of handprints.”
Smart practice always includes a feedback loop that lets you recognize errors and correct them—which is why dancers use mirrors. Ideally
Daydreaming defeats practice; those of us who browse TV while working out will never reach the top ranks.
Paying full attention seems to boost the mind’s processing speed, strengthen synaptic connections, and expand or create neural networks for what we are practicing.
The experts, in contrast, keep paying attention top-down, intentionally counteracting the brain’s urge to automatize routines.
“The more time expert performers are able to invest in deliberate practice with full concentration, the further developed and refined their performance.”5
Optimal practice maintains optimal concentration.
A rule of thumb in cognitive therapy holds that focusing on the negatives in experience offers a recipe for depression.
This sunny outlook shows up in attitudes: for example, that moving to a new city or meeting new people is an adventure opening up exciting possibilities—wonderful places to discover, new friends—rather than a scary step.
A focus on our strengths, Boyatzis argues, urges us toward a desired future and stimulates openness to new ideas, people, and plans. In contrast, spotlighting our weaknesses elicits a defensive sense of obligation and guilt, closing us down.
“You need the negative focus to survive, but a positive one to thrive,” says
enhance our memory power, or listen better, the core elements of smart practice are the same: ideally, a potent combination of joy, smart tactics, and full focus.
Although video games may strengthen attention skills like rapidly filtering out visual distractions, they do little to amp up a more crucial skill for learning,
Kids who can ignore impulse, filter out what’s irrelevant, and stay focused on a goal fare best in life. There’s an education app for that. It’s called “social and emotional learning,” or SEL.
Companies with a winning strategy tend to refine their current operations and offerings, not explore radical shifts in what they offer.
how others were reacting. “They offered an appealing selection of goods, one with a point of view. Their target customers
