Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long

by David Rock

At rest, the brain is noisy and chaotic, like an orchestra warming up, a cacophony of sound. When you pay close attention to something, it’s like bringing the orchestra together to play a piece of music. Many neuroscientists now think of attention as being a type of synchrony, of the brain getting in tune and working as a unit.

when you pay close attention, many brain regions become connected up in a larger circuit to complete a specific task. As they form this larger circuit, a gamma band electrical wave often occurs in the brain, the fastest possible frequency of electrical activity across the brain.

When different circuits fire synchronously, you invoke Hebb’s Law, which says that “Cells that fire together, wire together.” Putting all this together, you get an explanation for how paying close attention to an idea, activity, or experience helps create networks in the brain that can stay with you, wired together, sometimes forever.

Studies of stroke patients have since shown that regaining the use of an arm requires focusing attention closely on rehabilitation activities, not just doing movements.

changing the way you pay attention can change the circuitry of the brain not just over months, but even within a few weeks, enough to show up on a brain scan. “The power is in the focus,”

“The act of observing, in and of itself, makes a difference, in the material world,” Schwartz explains.