How to Increase Your Attention Span: 4 Secrets from Neuroscience
The human brain is the most amazing thing in the universe. It got us to the moon, built the pyramids, cured smallpox . . . And it also can’t seem to go 6 minutes without checking Facebook.
How long can students focus without switching to something fun like social media or texting? 5 minutes. Tops.
From The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High-Tech World
Published in 2017, The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a Hight-Tech World, neuroscientist Adam Gazzaley and psychology professor Larry D. Rosen explain why our brains aren't built for multitasking, and they suggest better ways to live in a high-tech world without giving up our modern technology. Citing one of their studies on attention span, they write:
Regardless of age, students were able to stay focused and attend to that important work only for a short period of time—three to five minutes—before most students self-interrupted their studying to switch to another task.
And that was under lab conditions when the students were specifically instructed to focus as long as they could on something they were told was important. This suggests that our attention spans are evaporating and that focus is a lost art. Current research has revealed that we check our phones up to 150 times a day — about every six to seven minutes that we’re awake. In fact, we’re so distracted we’re walking into things.
So how do we steal back our attention spans? Luckily, Gazzaley and Rosen have answers.
Attention Span 101
First off, stop blaming technology. It’s not your phone’s fault; it’s your brain’s fault. Tech just makes it worse. Our brains are designed to always be seeking new information. In fact, the same system in your grey matter that keeps you on the lookout for food and water actually rewards you for discovering novel information.
Gazzaley and Rosen write:
The role of the dopamine system has actually been shown to relate directly to information-seeking behavior in primates. Macaque monkeys, for example, respond to receiving information similarly to the way they respond to primitive rewards such as food or water. Moreover, “single dopamine neurons process both primitive and cognitive rewards, and suggest that current theories of reward-seeking must be revised to include information-seeking.”
But if your brain is so good at seeking out new information, why is it so terrible at follow through? Because the information-seeking part is much stronger than the cognitive-control part that allows you to complete tasks. The authors continue:
Our cognitive control abilities that are necessary for the enactment of our goals have not evolved to the same degree as the executive functions required for goal setting. Indeed, the fundamental limitations in our cognitive control abilities do not differ greatly from those observed in other primates, with whom we shared common ancestors tens of millions of years ago.
So, from an evolutionary standpoint, realizing there was a lion behind you was far more important than sticking to whatever task you were busy with before Simba showed up.
And focusing isn’t the only activity that taxes our grey matter. FMRI studies of the brain show that ignoring irrelevant stimuli is not a passive process. Just like noise-canceling headphones need batteries, your brain has to expend precious resources in order to filter distractions around you. So doing the same task is harder in environments with more tempting or annoying stimuli.
So how exactly do you go about increasing your attention span? First step: don’t waste what little you have…
1. Stop Multitasking
Juggling multiple activities not only divides your attention among the tasks, but you also pay a cognitive “penalty” on top of that to manage the switching. This results in more errors and makes things take longer than they would have if you had done them each separately. Many people feel good when they multitask, but feeling good and efficiency are not the same thing. Gazzaley and Rosen point out that multitasking meets our emotional need to do something new and exciting—while also slowing our brain down and increasing errors:
The reason behind the constant task switching is a desire to feed emotional needs—often by switching from schoolwork to entertainment or social communication—rather than cognitive or intellectual needs.
2. Exercise
Strengthen your body and you strengthen your brain. In fact, Gazzaley and Rosen reveal that cognitive control is measurably better after just a single exercise session:
Boosts in cognitive control abilities occur even after engagement in a single bout of physical exertion, as assessed in healthy children and those diagnosed with ADHD, with benefits extending to academic achievement. Interestingly, it seems that the impact on the brain is greater if an exercise program is also cognitively engaging. Similar training benefits of acute and chronic exercise on cognitive control have been shown in both young adults and middle-age adults. There is also a very large body of research on the cognitive benefits of physical exercise in older adults.
3. Call on Mother Nature
Exercise strengthens your attention muscles, while spending time in nature recharges those muscles when they’ve been exhausted. The effect is so powerful that merely looking at a picture of nature has restorative effects, according to Gazzaley and Rosen:
A 2008 paper described a significant improvement in [subjects’] working memory performance after a nature walk, but not after an urban walk. Similar beneficial effects of nature exposure have been shown to occur in children with ADHD and young adults with depression, and amazingly even in response to just viewing nature pictures.
Ever get to the end of a day and think, “I don’t want to make any more decisions”? Treat yourself to a Google Image search for “nature.” Yes, it’s that simple.
4. Reduce Interference
You can improve your ability to focus by changing your brain or changing your behavior. And it’s best if you do both. We talked about changing your brain. And the best way to change your behavior is to make sure that anything that might distract you is far away. Simply put, make your environment as boring as possible when trying to focus. Research shows even having a phone in the room can be distracting.
A recent study by Professor Bill Thornton and his colleagues at the University of Southern Maine demonstrated that when performing complex tasks that require our full attention even the mere presence of the experimenter’s phone (not the participant’s phone) led to distraction and worse performance. In the same study, the presence of a student’s silenced phone in a classroom had an equally negative impact on attention.
Gazzaley and Rosen recommend that you, if at all possible, “batch” all email checking, texting, and social media into three pre-designated times. Then turn off all notifications:
Results indicated that when participants—a mixture of college students and community adults—checked only three times a day they reported less stress, which predicted better overall well-being on a range of psychological and physical dimensions.
And taking breaks is not only okay; it’s also beneficial. Try gradually extending the amount of time between breaks to further build those attention muscles.
Summary
Stop multitasking: You wouldn’t try to lift 5000 pounds. Your body can’t do that. So, don’t try to do your best work while checking email, texting, and posting to Instagram. Your brain can’t do that.
Exercise: You know it’s good for your body, and your brain is part of your body.
Call on mother nature: Looking at a picture of a tree is like a deep tissue massage for your brain.
Reduce interference: Remove anything from your environment that might distract you. Batch email and social media. Extend the time between breaks to build your attention muscles.
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