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ideas.ted.com

Rebekah Barnett
9-11 minutos

Mengxin Li

“I think, therefore I am distracted.”

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If Descartes were writing today, this is what his famous aphorism

might have become. We’re living in an age of distraction, battered
by our own customized waterfall of notifications, alerts, texts,
videos, bingeable TV, and more. It’s not surprising our minds often
feel like a jumble.

But it turns out we’re not at the mercy of our runaway minds. Amishi
Jha (TED Talk: How to tame your wandering mind), an associate
professor of psychology at the University of Miami and the director
of contemplative neuroscience for the UMindfulness Initiative,
studies the brain’s attention mechanisms, and she’s found there are
specific exercises we can do to strengthen our ability to pay
attention. Here, she explains how you can get your wandering mind
back under control.

Our attention is fragile. Jha likens our attention to a “a flashlight

you can direct to whatever you choose.” Since research indicates
our mind wanders 50 percent of our waking hours, it means most of
us are walking around with darting, flickering flashlights. Internal
distractions — everything from job stress to a craving for alcohol —
and external distractions — like a thunderstorm weather alert on
our phone screen — easily disrupt our attention. Whether the
interruptions are significant or silly, they are “a basic hijacking of our
attentional resources away from the task at hand,” she says. This
lack of attention has serious consequences for all of us, but
especially for people in high-stakes fields like medicine, the military
and criminal justice.

So, how do we gain control of those flickering flashlights and

achieve focus? “That’s where mindfulness training comes in,” says
Jha. She describes this training as a “portable brain fitness routine
to keep our attention strong.” She has tested the effects of such

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training on subjects in high-stress groups, like athletes and military

personnel. Her research has found that the attention of someone
who hasn’t had mindfulness training declines when they’re under
intense stress, but in people who’ve had training, their attention
remains stable. What’s more, in people who regularly do
mindfulness exercises, their attention actually gets better over time
— even when they’re under stress. According to Jha, researchers
have started to uncover other benefits associated with mindfulness,
including reduced anxiety, protection from depression relapse, and
improved working memory.

What is mindfulness? It’s about paying attention to the present

moment with awareness and without emotional reactivity. “It doesn’t
require any particular worldview or spiritual or religious belief
system,” says Jha. Mindfulness training can be broken down into
two major categories: focused attention and open monitoring.
They’re very different, yet complementary, practices.

Focused attention exercises cultivate your brain’s ability to

focus on one single object, like one’s breath. To do mindful
breathing, sit in a comfortable, upright position and focus all your
attention on the sensation of breathing — “for example, the
coolness of air moving in and out of your nostrils or your abdomen
moving in and out,” says Jha. “Focus on something that is tied to
your sensory experience. When your mind wanders away from that
sensation to internal mental content or an external distraction,
gently return it to the breath-related object.” Don’t be surprised or
disappointed if you find yourself retrieving your mind hundreds of
times during a 15-minute session. Think of your brain like a puppy
you’re training to walk on a leash. Gently redirect it every time it
darts away.

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Another focused-attention exercise is mindful walking. Notice

the sensations of walking — “your feet on the ground, the wind
caressing your skin, sounds in the air,” says Jha. Walking can take
place either indoors or outdoors. You might find this activity easier
than mindful breathing; go with whatever exercise works best for
you.

One final focused-attention exercise is the body scan.

Remember the idea of your attention being like a flashlight? “A
body scan is essentially taking that flashlight and directing it
systematically through the entire body,” Jha says. Start by focusing
your attention on your toes, taking note of whatever sensations
might be there. Tightness? Tingling? Warmth? Cold? Next, you can
move on to the soles of the feet and the heels, then the legs,
stomach, and so on, slowly moving your flashlight up your body.
After you have a good grounding in focused attention practice and
can keep your attention on a particular object or set of sensations
for a period of time, you can move on to open monitoring.

Open monitoring helps you learn to pay attention to what’s

happening around you without becoming attached to it. This
practice is not about paying attention to a particular object or
objects. Instead, it’s about remaining open to any experience —
internal or external — that arises, and allowing it to wash over you.
“You don’t process it, you don’t think about it,” Jha says. “You just
notice its occurrence and allow it to dissipate.” To do this, sit in a
comfortable, upright position and try to be aware of any sensations,
thoughts or emotions that emerge, without holding on to them. It
might help you to label what comes up by using words like
“planning,” “worrying,” “judging,” “remembering.” You can do this
silently or out loud. After you name it, let it go. Think of what you’re

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doing as like watching clouds move in the sky and observing the
different shapes they make — but in this practice, you’re watching
your thoughts travel through your mind. And yes, there will be times
when you feel like you keep getting hooked on a particular thought
or sensation and can’t seem to drop it. Says Jha, “If you find you’re
so lost in thought that you can’t do the open monitoring practice, go
back to doing a focused attention exercise to steady yourself
again.”

People generally start to see benefits when they practice for

about 15 minutes a day, 5 days a week, for around 4 weeks. “If
you do more, you benefit more,” she says, “but if you do less than
12 minutes a day, we don’t really see any benefits.” If you try any of
these exercises and have trouble keeping your mind still, know that
that’s a common experience. Jha urges people not to feel
discouraged — as with any new activity or sport, you need to
practice. “The mind will wander, and that’s completely fine. It’s not
about not letting the mind wander; it’s when the mind wanders, to
gently return your attention,” she says.

Start small. “Begin with whatever you consider a reasonable goal

and cut it in half, and make a commitment for some period of time,”
says Jha. Your goal might be as simple as vowing to stop every day
and take the posture of one of the practices, says Jha. Chances
are, once you sit (or walk), you’ll decide to stay for a while.
Whatever your initial goal, commit to that for a month — and
congratulate yourself for making it! — and then gradually increase
your practice time until you’re doing it for 15 minutes, 5 days a
week. Finding a mindfulness community, whether virtual or in
person, can help you stick to the activity. What’s most important,
says Jha, is to make sure “you really support yourself to create the

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habit of practicing,” whether that means setting multiple reminders

for yourself or finding a quiet spot and time at your home or
workplace to sit.

Jha has seen the positive impact of mindfulness training on

the many people she’s worked with over the years. One thing
that struck her is how much the military personnel say it has
improved not just their ability to work under pressure but also their
home lives. Many told her that they’d struggled to be present with
their families after returning from deployment. But after mindfulness
training, they found they were better able to be present with their
loved ones — which is something most of us would like to do, too.
“This idea of being present to the people around us when we really
want to be present — it often escapes us how to do this,” says Jha.
By reclaiming our own attention, we can more fully connect with the
people who matter to us.

To see a list of mindfulness resources from Jha, go here. To help

you get started, she suggests trying the apps Insight Timer,
Headspace and 10% happier. Additional resources for online and
in-person mindfulness courses can be found at the Center for
Healthy Minds, the Penn Program for Mindfulness, the
Contemplative Sciences Center, Duke Integrative Medicine, Osher
Center for Integrative Medicine at UCSF, the UCSD Center for
Mindfulness, the UMass Center for Mindfulness, the UCLA Mindful
Awareness Research Center and the Osher Center for Integrative
Medicine at Vanderbilt.

Amishi Jha

brains

mindfulness

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neuroscience

TEDx

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