Home › Archive for Neuroscience
Blog Archives

Attention Span & Productivity – Book Recommendation

Posted on by by Posted in Achieving Goals, ADHD, Book Recommendations, Creative Thinking, Leadership, Neuroscience, Performance, Academic Achievement, Procrastination, Productivity, Time Management, Resources, tools, Strategic Planning, Business Decisions, Organizational Development, Stress Management
Two goldfish in a bowl, one of them reading a thick book. The other one asks: "You’re reading a book called “Attention Span”? Is this some kind of joke?"

“You’re reading a book called Attention Span? Is this some kind of joke?”

In her book “Attention Span“, Gloria Mark explores the impacts of today’s fast-paced technology on our attention spans, productivity, and happiness. She presents a lot of research done both by her own and other teams. Based on that, she offers advice, not only on how to gain more control over our attention, but also on finding balance between productivity and happiness.

Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity by Gloria Mark (2023). [1]

Here are just a few of the findings and insights I found helpful.

Fun facts about attention and productivity

Have our attention spans really decreased?

Maybe you are feeling it yourself? Or maybe you’ve heard humans’ attention spans compared unfavorably to those of goldfish? Well that was a bit unfair. But is it true it that we are switching our attention more often these days than we used to? As it turns out, indeed we are.

Mark reports dramatic findings from her own as well as other people’s research [1], spanning from the early 2000’s to now. In the early years they shadowed people with stop watches. Later, they used computer logging methods to record precisely how long people’s attention remained on one screen, and when they switched their screens, apps, or websites. The measured average time people spent before switching went down steadily from about two and a half minutes in their earliest studies in 2004, to less than fifty seconds in 2021.

Another change that happened along with attention spans shortening is that people were spending more time at their desks and less time in formal and informal meetings. With that, people were becoming more sedentary during their work hours. (That decline already happened pre-pandemic, when most meetings were in person.)

The three high costs of rapid attention switching

Multitasking has rightfully earned a bad rap. Because our attention cannot be divided into more than one focus, we cannot truly to two things in parallel, unless one or both of the activities require little or no attentional resources. For example, listening to an audiobook while cooking is possible if I cook something that requires minimal thinking. If I’m trying to read and follow a new recipe, I’m quickly going to lose the plot in the audiobook. Similarly, I may be able to speak on the phone while painting, but not while responding to incoming texts or emails. Even if it feels like I’m doing both things at the same time, what I am really doing is switching my attention rapidly between them.

There are three problems with rapid attention switching. All three have been well documented over decades of research:

  1. We make more errors. Whether the switching is voluntary or not, our performance on each task is worse when we switch between them, compared to when we first complete one and then the other.
  2. It takes us longer to complete both tasks (again compared to first completing one, then the other).
  3. It increases stress. Diastolic and systolic blood pressure rises, and heart rate variability increases. Those physical markers are consistent with people’s subjective experience. The faster the switching, the more stressed people report feeling.

How can we improve our attention span and productivity?

What NOT to do:

1. Don’t try to focus as long as possible

Mark aims to dispel several myths in her book. The first myth is that we should try to focus as long as possible in order to be most productive.

It turns out that focusing for lengthy periods of time, especially without breaks, is not natural for most people. Just as we are not able to lift weights all day, we can’t stay focused for long stretches throughout the day without breaks. Sustained focus is associated with stress and can only be maintained for a limited time before our performance begins to decline.

There is a physiological basis in the brain that underlies this. When we focus our attention, the regions of the brain that are involved in that task use more oxygen, and accordingly the carbon dioxide content in the blood increases. This causes blood vessels to dilate to remove that waste from the activated part of the brain. Over time, blood velocity decreases as a consequence. When that happens, and the person remains in that sustained focused state, their performance declines. This change in performance that accompanies decreased blood velocity suggests that cognitive resources are not being replenished fast enough while the task continues. [1]

In other words, our brains hit a physical, metabolic limit, and we need breaks. This leads to another recommendation:

2. Don’t try to eliminate all rote, mindless activities

In line with this, Mark challenges the myth that rote, mindless activities have no value. There is no need to cut out all mindless activity like playing silly puzzle games, browsing the web, watching movies, or other easy and non-productive things.

Mark on the contrary suggests that since our attention is limited, it makes sense to pull away when we feel that we have exhausted our cognitive resources. Letting our minds wander while taking breaks with easy tasks, both online and in the physical world, helps us replenish our scarce cognitive resources. With more resources, we are better able to then focus again and be productive.

3. Don’t feel bad if you can’t get into a flow state at work

Another myth that Mark challenges is that we should all be able to get into “flow states” at work.

Flow, a term coined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, is that optimal state of attention where we are so caught up in an experience that we lose touch with the outside world and are unaware that time has passed. We feel joy and excitement, and are at our utmost creative peak. [1]

While people often have flow experiences with creative pursuits such as art, music, craft, design, or also in problem-solving tasks such as coding, Mark and her collaborators found that it rarely occurs in the knowledge workplace. Much of the nature of knowledge work is just not conducive to this kind of creative experience. This doesn’t mean we’re doing something wrong.

What can we do instead to improve our attention span, productivity, and happiness? 

Instead of falling for these myths, Mark suggests we aim for balance and well-being by finding a good rhythm for our attention and productivity.

1. Designing your day:

Design your day based on your own rhythm of attention, knowing that you have peak times for focus. Take advantage of these. Most people have peak focus times around 11 a.m. and midafternoon, but your own peak focus may differ from that. Save your hardest tasks for your peak hours.

When designing your day, recognize the value of “negative space”. In art, negative space refers to the area around a figure and is recognized as an essential part of the art work. In Japanese, the term “yohaku no bi” refers to the beauty of empty space. Design your day to include negative space, which is just as important as the work itself because it helps you achieve a sustainable balance.

2. Coping with external interruptions

Having control over interruptions helps people be more productive.

A good time to intentionally redirect your attention is when you reach a break point in a task, such as finishing writing a chapter or completing a budget—natural places to pause.

It that’s not possible and you do need to interrupt a task: externalize your memory of that unfinished task. For example, write a note about your most important unfinished tasks and a plan for the next step. Mark cites a study by Michael Scullin and colleagues, who found that people who wrote down their unfinished tasks fell asleep significantly faster than the other group. In fact, the more detailed their notes, the faster people fell asleep. [1] This finding can be explained by the Zeigarnik effect: as people lay in bed, unfinished tasks agitated around and around in their minds, stirring up tension.

3. Coping with internal interruptions

It is important to acknowledge that interruptions to our attention can be external as well as internal. We tend to self-interrupt, even when there are no outside triggers that would prompt us to switch attention.

Practice meta-awareness (awareness of your awareness). This means being conscious of what you are experiencing while it is unfolding, for example of the moment you choose to switch screens from work to opening your news browser.

Once you have that awareness, you can ask yourself: what value will I gain by interrupting my work and checking the news? If you’re already on the news site by the time you reach that meta-awareness, you can ask: How much time have I spent here already? Am I gaining any value by staying here? When you have meta-awareness, you can switch your frame of mind from being a passive to an active user of your attention.

Developing the ability to use meta-awareness takes practice. The better able you are to gain a meta-awareness of your behavior, the more intentional you can be in your actions.

Practice forethought by imagining how your current actions might affect your future. For example, before you go on social media or play an online game, spend a moment to think ahead and imagine what your end of the morning might look like if you indulge. The more detailed your visualization is, the easier it is to take an action to course-correct if you need to.

Increase friction: make it harder for your attention to switch. For example, if you know that you like to play a certain game, hide the app in a folder so that it’s harder to get to. Having to search for it will make you pause and increase the chances you’ll become aware and get the chance to make a conscious choice.

Best practices for organizations: increasing employees’ attention spans and productivity

Finally, some changes can only be accomplished on an organizational level. Two recommendations stood out to me in particular:

  • Reducing email
  • Designating quiet time, where responses are not expected

It took Gloria Mark six years to find a company that was willing to cut off email for a full work week as an experiment. When email was cut off, heart rate monitors revealed significantly less stress by the end of the week, and more enjoyment of social interactions. What’s more, people’s attention spans were significantly longer while working on their computers. In other words, they switched their attention less frequently. With the caveat that this was a quasi-experiment in the field, rather than a randomized controlled study, this finding nonetheless offers plausible evidence that email may cause attention spans to decline.

Based on her findings, Mark suggests cutting off email as a no-brainer. However, individuals alone cannot solve the email problem by simply cutting off from it. Email is a problem that needs to be tackled at the organizational and even societal level.

Disappointingly (and surprisingly to me) Mark found that batching email does not help. People who read email in batches showed no difference in stress levels compared to people who checked their email continually. In fact, batching even led to more stress, rather than less, for highly neurotic people. However, simply decreasing quantity helped. People who spent less time daily on email were less stressed—even after controlling for their job demands and job autonomy.

Final note

What I presented here is not meant to be a book summary. I selected only a few insights I gained from the book, and gave my notes a different structure than the book did. I hope you find some of it memorable and applicable.

If you would like to discuss how you or your organization could put some of these suggestions into practice, please let me know.

"Get in Touch" Button to Schedule a phone call or coaching session with Ursina Teuscher

 

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR

 

Picture Credits:

Image created with the assistance of OpenAI DALL-E and Microsoft Designer

 

Reference:

[1] Mark, G. (2023). Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity. Hanover Square Press.

Note: Gloria Mark cites many studies in her book, some of which I mentioned here. I have not read those original studies and am therefore not listing them as direct references for this post.

 


Effects of sleep deprivation on decision making

Posted on by by Posted in Achieving Goals, Health Decisions, Neuroscience, Performance, Academic Achievement, Procrastination, Productivity, Time Management, Risk and Uncertainty, Stress Management
How does a lack of sleep affect our judgment? Does it really lead to poorer choices?

"Drowsy drivers use next exit": warning sign on Interstate 15 in Utah Unfortunately, the answer is many times yes. In my research into the topic, I’ve found at least eight ways how a lack of sleep affects different aspects of our judgment and decision making.

Sleep deprivation affects us both physically and mentally, and decision-making is a complex process that requires the orchestration of multiple neural systems, such as emotion, memory, and logical reasoning. It is therefore not too surprising that sleep deprivation would take a toll on many fronts.

Here are eight effects of sleep deprivation on decision making:

1) What’s perhaps best known is that it impairs attention and working memory, leading to slower reaction times, reduced vigilance, and more mistakes. This is why the risks of driving while sleepy are considered at least as dangerous as the risks of driving under the influence of alcohol [1]. For example, being awake for 17 hours leads to impairments equivalent to having a BAC of 0.05%, and being awake for 24 hours to having a BAC of 0.10%.

For people with ADHD, sleep deprivation leads to even more focus-related problems, such as disproportionately more errors and slower reaction times. In addition, lack of sleep decreases the effectiveness of some ADHD medications [2]. (Unfortunately, ADHD also makes it harder stick to a good sleep routine. Here are some tips on how to deal with this problem.)

2) But it also affects long-term memory. Sleep deprivation affects the brain’s ability to learn and recall information [3]. In fact, lack of sleep seems to be a risk factor for (not only correlated with) dementia, probably for a number of reasons [4; 5; 6]. For one, during REM sleep the brain processes information and consolidates memories from the previous day. Sleep also plays a large part in regulating the availability of neurotransmitters. Lastly, sleep deprivation leads to an increase in beta-amyloid. This is the protein that occurs in abnormally high levels in brains with Alzheimer’s disease, where it clumps together to form plaques that collect between neurons and disrupt cell function.

3) Logical reasoning ability also suffers. Namely, sleep deprivation increases rigid thinking, perseveration errors, and difficulties in processing and using new information [7]. In other words, complex tasks and innovative decision-making do suffer from a lack of sleep.

4) Self-awareness is another aspect of our judgment that’s essential for making smart choices. Unfortunately, self-evaluation of cognitive performance is also impaired by sleep deprivation. In one study [8], during 36 h of sleep deprivation, research participants became more confident that their answers were correct as the wakefulness continued. Confidence was even stronger when the answer was actually wrong.

5) Lack of sleep makes us more risk prone. For example, in gambling tasks, sleep deprivation led to both higher expectations of rewards for risky choices, as well as diminished responses to their losses [9].

6) In addition, many studies show that sleep deprivation leads to more impulsive behavior and a lack of inhibition [e.g., 10; 11]. Note that impulsivity is not the same issue as the risk attitude from the previous point. These two aspects of decision making are independent – you can be deliberate about taking high risks (e.g., choosing an aggressive investment portfolio), and you can be impulsive about avoiding risks (e.g., giving into irrational fears or shying away from discomfort). But of course the combination of impulsivity and risk-proneness is a particularly dangerous cocktail that can lead to reckless behavior.

7) Sleep deprivation has negative effects on many aspects of mood, such as depression, anger, and anxiety [e.g., 12 – 15]. While some studies only show correlations over time [12]., others do show a causal effect [13; 14]. One study examined the effects of sleep deprivation in healthy adolescents, comparing depression, anger, confusion, anxiety, vigor, and fatigue across days. They found that all mood states significantly worsened following one night without sleep. Female participants showed a greater vulnerability to mood deficits following sleep loss, with greater depressed mood, anxiety, and confusion [14]. Another study examined a cohort of medical residents over their first postgraduate year and found that mood disturbances, lowered empathic capacity, and burnout increased over the year, and were associated with decreases in sleep amounts and increases in sleepiness [12].

Here, too, if we keep in mind that increased impulsivity will be added to this mix of bad mood, it won’t be surprising to learn that bad behavior follows. For example, one study looked at abusive supervisory behavior in managers across a variety of industries. They showed that daily sleep quality was negatively related to leaders’ self-control, and that those who were more sleep deprived were rated as significantly more abusive and toxic in interpersonal interactions [16].

8) Finally, sleep deprivation affects our hormones and metabolism. It leads to decreased glucose tolerance, decreased insulin sensitivity, increased evening concentrations of cortisol, increased levels of ghrelin, and decreased levels of leptin [17]. While cortisol is a biomarker of stress, ghrelin and leptin regulate our appetite. Ghrelin increases our appetive, while leptin decreases it. In other words, sleep deprivation leads to increased hunger and appetite on both the ghrelin and leptin fronts. Add to that again a lack of inhibition, and it becomes clear that our eating choices will be affected by a lack of sleep. Indeed, there is growing evidence both from epidemiological and laboratory studies showing an association between sleep loss and increased risk of obesity [18].

How can you get enough sleep in your busy life?

Most of all, make sleep a priority. This will most likely require some sacrifices, because it means giving up some of your waking hours. But if you’re taking into account how much better those waking hours will be if you’re fully rested, the trade-off will be well worth it.

For practical tips as to how to get into a better sleep routine, google “sleep hygiene” and follow all the advice you’ll find. As an example of that, a recent study at a boarding school found that a regular routine and no mobile devices at night helped teenagers get more sleep [19].

If your have troubles falling asleep despite good sleep hygiene, here are some interesting tips. Or, google “visualization falling sleep” and you’ll find cornucopias of techniques. I’d encourage you to try one after the other, until you find one that works for you.

All this is easier said than done of course! If you’d like to get some help along the way–from deciding how to shift and re-balance your priorities, to developing strategies, and getting support as you’re putting your priorities into practice–I’d be excited to talk to you.

"Get in Touch" Button to Schedule a phone call or coaching session with Ursina Teuscher

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR

 

Picture Credit:
Phil Konstantin. Photo released into the public domain via hhttps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:UtahSignByPhilKonstantin.jpg

References:

[1] Powell, N. B., Schechtman, K. B., Riley, R. W., Li, K., Troell, R., & Guilleminault, C. (2001). The Road to Danger: The Comparative Risks of Driving While Sleepy. The Laryngoscope, 111(5), 887–893. https://doi.org/10.1097/00005537-200105000-00024
[2] Waldon, J., Vriend, J., Davidson, F., & Corkum, P. (2018). Sleep and Attention in Children With ADHD and Typically Developing Peers. Journal of Attention Disorders, 22(10), 933–941. https://doi.org/10.1177/1087054715575064
[3] Alhola, P., & Polo-Kantola, P. (2007). Sleep deprivation: Impact on cognitive performance. Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment, 3(5), 553–567. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19300585/
[4] Berglund, J. (2019). The Danger of Sleep Deprivation. IEEE Pulse, 10(4), 21–24. https://doi.org/10.1109/MPULS.2019.2922564
[5] Lack of sleep may be linked to risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease. (2018, April 13). National Institutes of Health (NIH). https://www.nih.gov/news-events/lack-sleep-may-be-linked-risk-factor-alzheimers-disease.
[6] Lack of sleep in middle age may increase dementia risk. (2021, April 27). National Institutes of Health (NIH). https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/lack-sleep-middle-age-may-increase-dementia-risk.
[7] Harrison, Y., & Horne, J. A. (1999). One night of sleep loss impairs innovative thinking and flexible decision making. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 78(2), 128–145. https://doi.org/10.1006/obhd.1999.2827
[8] Harrison, Y., & Horne, J. A. (2000). Sleep loss and temporal memory. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. A, Human Experimental Psychology, 53(1), 271–279. https://doi.org/10.1080/713755870
[9] Venkatraman, V., Chuah, Y. L., Huettel, S. A., & Chee, M. W. (2007). Sleep Deprivation Elevates Expectation of Gains and Attenuates Response to Losses Following Risky Decisions. Sleep, 30(5), 603–609. https://doi.org/10.1093/sleep/30.5.603
[10] Anderson, C., & Platten, C. R. (2011). Sleep deprivation lowers inhibition and enhances impulsivity to negative stimuli. Behavioural Brain Research, 217(2), 463–466. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbr.2010.09.020
[11] Demos, K. E., Hart, C. N., Sweet, L. H., Mailloux, K. A., Trautvetter, J., Williams, S. E., Wing, R. R., & McCaffery, J. M. (2016). Partial sleep deprivation impacts impulsive action but not impulsive decision-making. Physiology & Behavior, 164, 214–219. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physbeh.2016.06.003
[12] Rosen, I. M., Gimotty, P. A., Shea, J. A., & Bellini, L. M. (2006). Evolution of Sleep Quantity, Sleep Deprivation, Mood Disturbances, Empathy, and Burnout among Interns. Academic Medicine, 81(1), 82–85. https://doi.org/10.1097/00001888-200601000-00020
[13] Scott, J. P. R., McNaughton, L. R., & Polman, R. C. J. (2006). Effects of sleep deprivation and exercise on cognitive, motor performance and mood. Physiology & Behavior, 87(2), 396–408. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physbeh.2005.11.009
[14] Short, M. A., & Louca, M. (2015). Sleep deprivation leads to mood deficits in healthy adolescents. Sleep Medicine, 16(8), 987–993. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sleep.2015.03.007
[15] Pires, G. N., Bezerra, A. G., Tufik, S., & Andersen, M. L. (2016). Effects of acute sleep deprivation on state anxiety levels: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Sleep Medicine, 24, 109–118. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sleep.2016.07.019
[16] Barnes, C. M., Lucianetti, L., Bhave, D. P., & Christian, M. S. (2015). “You wouldn’t like me when I’m sleepy”: Leader sleep, daily abusive supervision, and work unit engagement. Academy of Management Journal, 58(5), 1419–1437. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2013.1063
[17] Leproult, R., & Van Cauter, E. (2010). Role of Sleep and Sleep Loss in Hormonal Release and Metabolism. Endocrine Development, 17, 11–21. https://doi.org/10.1159/000262524
[18] Beccuti, G., & Pannain, S. (2011). Sleep and obesity. Current Opinion in Clinical Nutrition and Metabolic Care, 14(4), 402–412. https://doi.org/10.1097/MCO.0b013e3283479109
[19] Lushington, K., Reardon, A., & Agostini, A. (2022). O025 Boarding school students sleep better than day-student peers. The positive effects of bedtime routine and restricting technology use at night. Sleep Advances: A Journal of the Sleep Research Society, 3, A9–A11. https://doi.org/10.1093/sleepadvances/zpac029.024. 


Event Series: Procrastination and ADHD Follow-Through

Posted on by by Posted in Achieving Goals, ADHD, Career Development, Coaching Practice, Neuroscience, Performance, Academic Achievement, Procrastination, Productivity, Time Management, Resources, tools

Free webinar series with Vicki Lind (MS) and Ursina Teuscher (PhD) on Procrastination and ADHD.

Banner for Webinar Series on Procrastination and ADHD with Vicki Lind and Ursina Teuscher

Do you procrastinate? Do you have ADHD? Stalled on a project? 

Start 2023 with a clear plan and support by joining my colleague Vicki Lind and me in a webinar series and support hub. Do you struggle with procrastination or ADHD, or know someone who does? Learn more about procrastination and how to beat it, and get the support you need to follow through on your plans.

Vicki and I will teach three free interactive webinars together in January. Each week has a different focus:

Tue Jan 10, 9-10am PST: Support from Your Heart & Head
Tue Jan 17, 9-10am PST: Support from Others: Co-working, Bookending & Rewards
Tue Jan 24, 9-10am PST: Support from Your Tools: Your Calendar, Lists & Rewards

Following this series, Vicki will offer a February Support Hub, beginning on Jan 31st, Tuesday at 9 am. If you attend two webinars (in the past or now), you are invited to join Vicki and four other members in regular co-working sessions and ongoing encouragement as you carry out each clear, concrete task.

In our first webinar on January 10th, you will:

  • Identify the thoughts that get you off track and learn how to replace them
  • Understand some things about the brain, and what they mean for best practices
  • Get support for one or two essential action items that fit you
Are you ready to spend an hour with us to move ahead?

​Reserve your spot: vicki@aportlandcareer.com or 503-575-8217 or sign up with the form above

Vicki Lind, MS, Speaker at the Webinar on Procrastination and ADHD Ursina Teuscher, PhD, Speaker at the Webinar on Procrastination and ADHD

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR


Performing under Pressure

Posted on by by Posted in Achieving Goals, Book Recommendations, Career Development, Coaching Practice, Neuroscience, Performance, Academic Achievement, Procrastination, Productivity, Time Management, Stress Management
Have you ever choked when you needed to perform under pressure?

We all know what it feels like: you’ve been building your skill – whether it’s in academics, in your career, in sports, in performing arts – but when the big moment arrives, nothing seems to work. You hit the wrong note, drop the ball, get stumped by a simple question. In other words, you choke under the pressure.

Here, I will review a book by Sian Beilock about this topic, along with additional research, and I’ll highlight some findings that can help you perform at your own very best, even under pressure.

A book review and practical applications

Dr. Sian Beilock, an expert on performance and brain science, examines in her book “Choke” why we sometimes blunder and perform at our worst precisely when the stakes are highest. What happens in our brain and body when we experience the dreaded performance anxiety? And what are we doing differently when everything magically clicks into place?

[👆TED Talk by Sian Beilock, author of “Choke: The Secret to Performing Under Pressure.”]

Beilock reveals surprising similarities among the ways students, athletes, performance artists, and business people choke. She examines how attention and working memory guide human performance, how experience and brain development interact to create our abilities, and how stress affects all these factors. The findings she present give us helpful pointers to how we can overcome debilitating performance anxiety, and how to succeed despite the pressure.

What does it mean to “choke” under pressure?
Choking under pressure is poor performance that occurs in response to the perceived stress of a situation. In other words, choking is not simply poor performance. Choking is suboptimal performance. It means that that you perform worse than expected given what you are capable of doing, and worse than you have in the past. It also doesn’t merely reflect a random fluctuation – we all have performance ups and downs. Choking occurs specifically in response to a highly stressful situation.
What are the reasons we choke? Why do we sometimes perform worst in precisely the moment when we care most about a top performance? 
Beilock writes a lot about the effects of an overloaded working memory on performance. While she doesn’t make the following distinction in her book, the findings she presents make more sense to me if we acknowledge that there are two types of performances:
1) There are some skills we have practiced so well that we don’t have a conscious understanding anymore of what we are doing.

The skills of top athletes or musicians are obvious examples here, but we all experience this for skills that require no conscious attention from us, such as running down a flight of stairs. If you suddenly direct explicit attention to exactly what you’re doing with your feet while running, chances are it won’t go so well anymore. This sudden focus on your own movements can happen during a peak performance, and is a well-documented reason for choking. For example, athletes’ tendency to overthink their performance is one big predictor of whether they will choke in important games or matches. In those situations, it helps to add an unrelated thinking task (such as counting backwards) that will distract the performer just enough so that they can’t overthink their performance anymore.

2) On the other hand, there are skills that will always require our full attention, no matter how practiced we are: solving math problems is such an example.

For this type of skill, our performance suffers if we get distracted, because we do need our working memory at its full capacity in order to perform at our best. Worrying about your performance is precisely such a distraction: it takes up precious resources of your usual brain power. When math-anxious people do math, all their worries – about the math, about their performance, about looking stupid – capture a big part of their working-memory, and they are left with less brainpower to focus on the math itself.

When you worry while doing math, something gets sacrificed.
Unfortunately it’s not the worries, but the math.

This is also a well-documented phenomenon. An example of this is the performance hit that is often observed when people are aware of a “stereotype threat”. Namely, bringing up negative stereotypes about how your sex or racial group should perform can be enough to send people into a spiral of self-doubt that uses up valuable brain resources that could otherwise work on the task at hand – resources that are already scarce in high-stakes situations. The mere awareness of these stereotypes can lead to choking under pressure.

So how can you prevent choking, and instead perform at your best when you’re under pressure?

Here are my top five practical tips, based on the science I’ve seen so far (the research findings are taken mostly from Beilock’s book, but see a list of additional references below).

1. Know whether your task requires your full attention or not, and “load” or “unload” your working memory capacity accordingly:

If your task involves fully automated “muscle memory” skills, such as an athletic or musical performance, it may help you if you can distract yourself, in order to avoid focusing your attention on your own movements and getting – perhaps literally – tripped up by your unhelpful focus.

If, on the other hand, your task does require your full attention, such as an academic test, try to “unload” your worries in order to free up working memory. For example, writing about the stressful events in your life on a regular basis can decrease the occurrence of intrusive thoughts and worries. This can bolster your cognitive horsepower. Think of a computer analogy: if a computer is running several programs at once, each one of these programs will run that much slower and be more prone to crash. Getting your worries out on paper eliminates the unnecessary programs from running and helps you focus on the task at hand.

2. Practice under the gun:

Of course, practice makes everything easier, but in particular, make your practice situation as similar as possible to the performance situation. For example, if you need to give a presentation, practice it in front of people, or in front of a camera. Different studies, one with golfers and one with with musicians, showed a very similar effect of this kind of practice: those who had practiced while being video-taped performed better in front of an audience than those who had practiced in isolation.

3. Prepare, don’t worry:

Preparing is not the same as worrying! People thinking about an upcoming presentation while lying in a brain scanner got more nervous, the longer they spent anticipating the stressful event. So, prepare well, but don’t keep thinking about the stressful event more than necessary. Once you are well-prepared, it may serve you better to focus your attention on something other than the upcoming performance.

4. Social support – a mixed bag:

Men who were able to spend time with their spouses before having to prepare their speech showed less of a stress response (cortisol increase) in anticipation of a stressful public speaking assessment than those who didn’t spend time with their spouse. However, the same was not the case (in a different study, but with the same stressful public speaking test) with women: women’s cortisol levels went up when their boyfriends were present beforehand. Before generalizing this finding too much, I would like to emphasize that these were different studies and may have included people in different stages of their relationships.

So then, what to conclude from these mixed findings? Of course, you know it: surround yourself with the kinds of people who make you feel calmer, rather than adding more pressure, when you’re stressed out.

5. Focus on values (not goals):

Interventions that asked students to write a paragraph about their values before a task performed better and were less affected by stereotype threats. This may sound like a weird intervention, but it does make sense. Focusing on values may re-affirm your self-worth and integrity, and direct your focus away from your own flaws and onto the bigger picture.

Note that values are not the same as goals: several studies showed that focusing on goals had no effect on performance, for example in soccer players and race car drivers. This is also not too surprising, since goal setting is a motivational technique, rather than one one that optimizes attention, and motivation is already high enough, if not too high, when we choke under pressure.

What next?

Do you need help with your own performance under pressure?

Are you, or is someone you love, struggling with performance anxiety? Would you like to try some of the here discussed or other evidence-based interventions? I would love to help you think about how to apply these and other ideas to your specific situation. Here you can schedule a coaching session or a phone call to discuss options.

Set up an appointment with Ursina Teuscher to discuss Performance Coaching
I look forward to talking to you!

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR


References:

J. Aronson et al., “When white men can’t do math: Necessary and sufficient factors in stereotype threat,” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 35 (1999), 29–46.
M. H. Ashcraft and E. P. Kirk, “The relationships among working memory, math anxiety, and performance,” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 130 (2001), 224–37.
S. Beilock. Choke: What the Secrets of the Brain Reveal About Getting It Right When You Have To. Atria Books.
S. L. Beilock and T. H. Carr, “On the fragility of skilled performance: What governs choking under pressure?” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 130 (2001), 701–25.
G. L. Cohen, J. Garcia, N. Apfel, and A. Master, “Reducing the racial achievement gap: A social-psychological intervention,” Science, 313 (2006), 1307–10.
B. Ditzen et al., “Adult attachment and social support interact to reduce psychological but not cortisol responses to stress,” Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 64:5 (2008), 479–86.
A. J. Fiocco, R. Joober, and S. J. Lupien, “Education modulates cortisol reactivity to the Trier Social Stress Test in middle-aged adults,” Psychoneuroendocrinology 32 (2007), 1158–63.
P. Gröpel & C. Mesagno (2019) Choking interventions in sports: A systematic review, International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 12:1, 176-201
C. Kirschbaum et al., “Sex-specific effects of social support on cortisol and subjective responses to acute psychological stress,” Psychosomatic Medicine, 57 (1995), 23–31.
K. Klein and A. Boals, “Expressive writing can increase working memory capacity,” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 130 (2001), 520–33.
E. H. McKinney and K. J. Davis, “Effects of deliberate practice on crisis decision performance,” Human Factors, 45 (2003), 436–44.
C. M. Steele and J. Aronson, “Stereotype threat and the intellectual test performance of African-Americans,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69 (1995), 797–811.
T. D. Wager et al., “Brain mediators of cardiovascular responses to social threat: Part II: Prefrontal-subcortical pathways and relationship with anxiety,” Neuroimage, 47 (2009), 836–51.
C. Y. Wan and G. F. Huon, “Performance degradation under pressure in music: An examination of attentional processes,” Psychology of Music, 33 (2005), 155–72.


How to Nurture Your Brain

Posted on by by Posted in Health Decisions, Neuroscience

I’m happy to announce the publication of a literature review from a collaboration with my colleagues Raffaella Misuraca and Silvana Miceli from the Università degli Studi di Palermo, Italy:

Misuraca, R., Miceli, S., & Teuscher, U. (2017). Three effective ways to nurture our brain: physical activity, healthy nutrition, and music. A review. European Psychologist, 22 (2), 101–120.

[Full text available from ResearchGate]

How to Nurture Your Brain

ABSTRACT: A growing body of research suggests that physical activity, healthy eating, and music can, either directly or indirectly, have positive effects on our brain and cognition. More specifically, exercising and eating seem to enhance cognitive abilities, such as memory, creativity, and perception. They also improve academic performance and play a protective role from many degenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease. Concerning music, research has shown that there exists a general positive relation between music aptitude and cognitive functioning. Furthermore, the presence of music seems to create a positive mood and a higher arousal, which translates into better performance in many cognitive tasks. This literature review provides an overview of the major empirical findings in this domain. Studies on both healthy and clinical individuals are reviewed and discussed. We conclude with suggestions for educators, policymakers, people in helping professions, and any others interested in making informed decisions about possible ways to nurture their own brain or the brain of the people they are trying to help. We also provide suggestions for additional research on this important topic.
© 2017 Hogrefe Publishing.

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR

Tags:

Infographic: Increase Your Productivity Without Burning Out

Posted on by by Posted in Achieving Goals, Coaching Practice, Neuroscience, Procrastination, Productivity, Time Management, Resources, tools

Here is a two-sided infographic. Together, the two pages give you a visual summary of my workbook: “Increasing Productivity in Healthy and Sustainable Ways”.

The first page provides an overview of important neurological and psychological findings. Based on those, I suggest best practices grouped along five broad principles.

The second page presents a framework for assessing your own work-habits, trouble-shooting your problems, and developing new habits.

Infographic: Increase Your Productivity in Healthy and Sustainable Ways

Infographic Productivity: Mastering Own Interventions

Find more information about the workbook here, or on Amazon, where you can look inside, read a sample, and see reviews. You can also order the workbook directly from the publisher on Createspace.

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR


Book Recommendation: Your Brain at Work

Posted on by by Posted in Achieving Goals, Book Recommendations, Neuroscience, Procrastination, Productivity, Time Management

David Rock. (2009). Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long.

This book gives very useful insights into how our brain works, and what we can do to make it work better. So far, it has been one of the most influential books for my own work in helping people be more productive in healthy and sustainable ways.

David Rock does a wonderful job bringing together a vast amount of research on cognitive neuroscience, and in helping us understand why our brains work better in some situations than others. Recognizing the limitations of our brain, he suggests very practical steps we can take to optimize our work days and maximize our brain’s potential.

He presents his advice through a series of anecdotes and stories of the “meet Emily and Paul” type. I am not the biggest fan of that style of story-telling in a popular science book: I prefer to read fiction in entirely separate–actual fiction–books, but that is entirely a matter of personal taste. For those who are like me: the stories are easily skippable and do not detract from the very well-researched content.

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR

 


Decision Fatigue: Time for a Break Now?

Posted on by by Posted in Achieving Goals, Health Decisions, Intuition, Neuroscience, Performance, Academic Achievement, Procrastination, Productivity, Time Management

It turns out that making decisions is tiring and wears us out, more so than other (similarly difficult) mental tasks. At this point, a large body of research shows that whenever we make many choices in a row, the quality of our decisions gets worse over time.

 Examples: one study looked at more than a thousand parole decisions made by experienced judges at an Israeli prison. At the beginning of the day, the judges were likely to give a favorable ruling about 65 percent of the time. As the morning wore on, the likelihood of a criminal getting a favorable ruling steadily dropped to zero. After the lunch break, however, the likelihood of a favorable ruling would immediately jump back up to 65 percent. And then, as the hours moved on, the percentage of favorable rulings would fall back down to zero by the end of the day. Regardless of the crime, a prisoner was much more likely to get a favorable response if their parole hearing was scheduled either early in the morning or immediately after a food break, than if it was scheduled near the end of a long session. In other words, the outcome of a decision was highly influenced by how many decisions the judges had already made previously.
Experimental studies have also shown that people are less able to exert self-control after making a series of choices. In one experiment people made choices among consumer goods or college course options, whereas others thought about the same options without making choices. Making choices led to many different forms of reduced self-control afterwards: less physical stamina, reduced persistence in the face of failure, more procrastination, and poorer performance on math problems. It is noteworthy that making actual decisions seemed to wear people out a lot more than just thinking about options. 

Decisions that are especially taxing are those that involve self-control. For example, when people fended off the temptation to eat M&M’s or freshly baked chocolate-chip cookies, they were then less able to resist other temptations later on.
Nourishment and Recovery
Self-control tasks and decisions also require more glucose in the brain than other mental tasks. Low or hypoglycemic levels of glucose lead to impaired decision making, poor planning, and inflexible thinking. In contrast, simple psychomotor abilities, such as responding quickly to certain cues, seem relatively unaffected by glucose levels.

Rest and Sleep

This pattern is in line with other things we know about impulsive behavior and typical self-control problems. For example, research on addiction and criminal behavior suggests that self-control failure is most likely during times of the day when glucose is used least effectively, and when people are tired. We also know, for example, that alcohol reduces glucose throughout the brain and body and likewise impairs many forms of self-control.

 What is it about decision-making and self-control in particular that makes them so susceptible to glucose? 
Prefrontal CortexThe answer to this question is still somewhat controversial. One reason is probably that since self-control processes are so costly, requiring larger amounts of glucose than other tasks, they’re also be the first to be impaired when glucose drops. Another reason could be that when glucose drops, the brain functions that are most central to survival (e.g., breathing, physical coordination) have first dibs on available glucose, not leaving enough for more advanced mental operations.Both of these ideas are consistent with the general rule that abilities that developed last are the first to become impaired when resources are limited. Self-control, planning and decision-making are all processes that involve the frontal areas of the brain – the pre-frontal cortex, to be specific. This area is the most recently developed part of our brain in evolutionary history, and it is also the part that takes longest to mature fully in human adolescents and young adults. 

What does this mean for us?

While metabolically healthy adults can fast without their blood glucose levels being affected, they still need rest to recover from decision fatigue. Sleep and rest replenish the ability to exert self-control.

The finding that that our psychomotor abilities are not as easily impaired as our abilities for judgment and decision-making suggests that we may often not realize our impairment, because the very capacity (judgment!) that we would need to recognize it is the first one to be impaired. This means planning is essential!

  • Get enough breaks, rest and sleep
  • Avoid making important decisions when tired
  • Plan ahead to get into healthy routines

by Ursina Teuscher at Teuscher Counseling, LLC

References:
Baumeister, R. F. (2002). Ego Depletion and Self-Control Failure: An Energy Model of the Self’s Executive Function. Self and Identity, 1(2), 129– 136.
Boksem, M. A. S., Meijman, T. F., & Lorist, M. M. (2005). Effects of mental fatigue on attention: An ERP study. Cognitive Brain Research, 25(1), 107– 116.
Danziger, S., Levav, J., & Avnaim-Pesso, L. (2011). Extraneous factors in judicial decisions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(17), 6889–6892.
De Jonge, J., Spoor, E., Sonnentag, S., Dormann, C., & van den Tooren, M. (2012). “Take a break?!” Off-job recovery, job demands, and job resources as predictors of health, active learning, and creativity. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 21(3), 321–348.
Gailliot, M. T., Baumeister, R. F., Nathan, C., Maner, J. K., Ashby, E., Tice, D. M., Brewer, L. E., & Schmeichel, B. J. (2007). Self-control relies on glucose as a limited energy source: Willpower is more than a metaphor. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(2), 325–336.
Gailliot, M. T., & Baumeister, R. F. (2007). The Physiology of Willpower: Linking Blood Glucose to Self-Control. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 11(4), 303–327.
Hagger, M. S.; Wood, C.; Stiff, C.; Chatzisarantis, N. L. D. (2010). Ego Depletion and the Strength Model of Self-Control: A Meta-Analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 136 (4), 495–525.
Henning, R. A., Jacques, P., Kissel, G. V., Sullivan, A. B., & Alteras-Webb, S. M. (1997). Frequent short rest breaks from computer work: effects on productivity and well-being at two field sites. Ergonomics, 40(1), 78–91.
Jansen, N. W. H., Kant, Ij., & Brandt, P. A. van den. (2002). Need for recovery in the working population: Description and associations with fatigue and psychological distress. International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 9(4), 322–340.
Landrigan, C. P., Rothschild, J. M., Cronin, J. W., Kaushal, R., Burdick, E., Katz, J. T., … Czeisler, C. A. (2004). Effect of Reducing Interns’ Work Hours on Serious Medical Errors in Intensive Care Units. New England Journal of Medicine, 351 (18), 1838–1848.
Lieberman, H. R. (2003). Nutrition, brain function and cognitive performance. Appetite, 40 (3), 245–254.
Lim, J., Wu, W., Wang, J., Detre, J. A., Dinges, D. F., & Rao, H. (2010). Imaging brain fatigue from sustained mental workload: An ASL perfusion study of the time-on-task effect. NeuroImage, 49 (4), 3426–3435.
Vohs, K. D., Baumeister, R. F., Schmeichel, B. J., Twenge, J. M., Nelson, N. M., & Tice, D. M. (2008). Making choices impairs subsequent self-control: A limited-resource account of decision making, self-regulation, and active initiative. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94 (5), 883–898.


Top

Privacy Policy - Terms and Conditions