These days our brains are way too cluttered compared to what our brains have ever had to deal with before all smart phones came along to make our lives “easier”. We now have so much information at our fingertips, and there is always more that we can do and learn on our smart phone, that it’s too easy to just try to take in more information.
And even if we feel like we need a break from what we are doing, so many people go straight to a social media scroll. This is actually a busy form of lazy, which again is cluttering our brains, as well as training the reward system in our brains to be addicted to more information coming our way and cluttering our brains even more.
Sitting on public transport, or even travelling 30 seconds in an elevator, people feel compelled to fill that time.
And it doesn’t appear the problem is going away anytime soon.
So why are we doing this to our ourselves?
In many cases, we are cluttering our brains in the pursuit of productivity. “I’ll just squeeze in another podcast while I’m driving or walking”, or “I’ll read an article online as I’m preparing food”. Surely that’s a great use of time, right?
Ironically a cluttered brain does not lead to productivity. In most cases it just leads to an overactive stress response as a result of just feeling busy.
When we feel like we are too busy, often our breath become shorter and more shallow. This sends a message to the brain that we aren’t safe, which results in our stress response being activated. If we keep doing this repeatedly, we eventually lower our tolerance to stress, which again, actually reduces our productivity.
Many people these days are also terrified of just being with their own thoughts. Research is showing that social media is causing an increase in negative automated thoughts. This can be due to feeling inadequate when comparing ourselves to others, as well as the fact that the social media algorithms are designed to keep our eyeballs there as long as possible, and the best way to do that is to show you content that is sad or makes you angry. This is also leading to greater polarity and more anger in society and therefore less tolerance of others.
And so what do many do to avoid being alone with their negative automated thoughts – oh yes – just scroll more social media – ah the spiral!
We need to break this cycle of “productivity fallacy” and “busy forms of lazy” if we actually want to increase our productivity.
So what do we need to do?
Well it’s simple in theory but a little harder in practice. Long story short, our brains actually need stillness to come up with our great and productive ideas, to help us with strategic and creative thinking, and even to consolidate learning.
And overall, if a still brain only helps us to think we are “less busy”, that’s a great result for increasing our tolerance to stress and overall psychological capital.
And how do we do this?
Baby steps. Our ways of operating are addictive and like any addiction, cold turkey can be tricky. So here are a few ideas to just have a play with and see how you feel.
1. Deep breathing.
No need to make this too complicated. Just breathe in for 5 secs and out for 5 secs – longer if you can but if you get to 5 you’ll be doing well. And make sure you are breathing into your diaphragm rather than your chest to send a message to the brain that all is well.
2. “Silent walking”.
So apparently this starting trending on TikTok a while back. Silent walking has been described as intentionally putting your phone away while walking. So no podcasts, phone calls, music etc. Just the sound of your surroundings.
Now hopefully many of you are thinking what I’m thinking – “Isn’t that just walking?” Ah – yes it is. Personally I can’t believe that we have to frame walking in silence as something fancy and out of the ordinary, yet here we are!
And if you feel that walking without any stimulation is just way too weird, try to switch to mindfulness where you are actively taking in your surrounding and trying to notice things you’ve never noticed before, maybe think about some things you are truly grateful for as a more productive way to fill your time. Both of these have been shown by research to have very positive impacts on emotion and brain structure.
3. Stop reaching for your phone every time you have 20 secs.
Maybe we need to call this one “silent waiting”?! Situations like 30 secs when you are in an elevator or when you are waiting for your lunch order. And go on, I dare you, sit on public transport for 5 minutes without looking at your phone!
We are meant to use technology to benefit us, and yet as technology gets smarter it seems like it’s controlling us instead. Awareness of how you are using your phone, or your phone controlling you, is the first trick.
It’s going to take better habits and smarter thinking from us humans to allow our brains to allow our brain the stillness it needs to be productive.
Don’t get caught in the fallacy. Stillness is required to help you to get your best ideas and do your best work.
Of course, if you’d like to find out more about how to improve performance with less effort why not either book a Performance Call or sign up for our next 20/20 session or one of our open workshops here