missing 50 percent of your life: Numerous studies have reported mind-wandering by sampling participants during everyday life (Killingsworth and Gilbert, 2010; Kane et al., 2007) as well as during experimental task performance (Broadway et al., 2015; Unsworth et al., 2012). Across these studies, the rates of mind-wandering range from 30 to 50 percent, with a high degree of variability across participants. Rates of mind-wandering are known to vary as a function of age (Maillet et al., 2018), time of day (Smith et al., 2018), and how participants are asked about it (Seli et al., 2018).
Killingsworth, M. A., and Gilbert, D. T. A Wandering Mind Is an Unhappy Mind. Science 330, no. 6006, 932 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1192439.
Kane, M. J. et al. For Whom the Mind Wanders, and When: An Experience-Sampling Study of Working Memory and Executive Control in Daily Life. Psychological Science 18, no. 7, 614–21 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467–9280.2007.01948.x.
Broadway, J. M. et al. Early Event-Related Brain Potentials and Hemispheric Asymmetries Reveal Mind-Wandering While Reading and Predict Comprehension. Biological Psychology 107, 31–43 (2015). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2015.02.009.
Unsworth, N. et al. Everyday Attention Failures: An Individual Differences Investigation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 38, 1765–72 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1037/a0028075.
Maillet, D. et al. Age-Related Differences in Mind-Wandering in Daily Life. Psychology and Aging 33, no. 4, 643–53 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1037/pag0000260.
Smith, G. K. et al. Mind-Wandering Rates Fluctuate Across the Day: Evidence from an Experience-Sampling Study. Cognitive Research Principles and Implications 3, no. 1 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235-018-0141–4.
Seli, P. et al. How Pervasive Is Mind Wandering, Really? Conscious Cognitive 66, 74–78 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2018.10.002.
our attention waxes and wanes: Views on why attention is prone to distractibility include evolutionary survival pressures (opportunity costs: Kurzban et al., 2013; information foraging: Pirolli, 2007; attentional cycling: Schooler et al., 2011) and benefits for learning and memory formation (dishabituation: Schooler et al., 2011; episodic memory: Mildner and Tamir, 2019).
Kurzban, R. et al. An Opportunity Cost Model of Subjective Effort and Task Performance. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 36, no. 6, 661 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X12003196.
Pirolli, P. Information Foraging Theory: Adaptive Interaction with Information (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).
Schooler, J. W. et al. Meta-Awareness, Perceptual Decoupling and the Wandering Mind. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 15, no. 7, 319–26 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2011.05.006.
Mildner, J. N., and Tamir, D. I. Spontaneous Thought as an Unconstrained Memory Process. Trends in Neuroscience 42, no. 11, 763–77 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tins.2019.09.001.
commercial value of attention has taken center stage: There is growing awareness, as described recently by Myllylahti (2020) and Davenport and Beck (2001), about the economics of attention as news and social media companies use our attention as their product for sale.
Myllylahti, M. Paying Attention to Attention: A Conceptual Framework for Studying News Reader Revenue Models Related to Platforms. Digital Journalism 8, no. 5, 567–75 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2019.1691926.
Davenport, T. H., and Beck, J. C. The Attention Economy: Understanding the New Currency of Business. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business Review Press, 2001).
Whatever we pay attention to is amplified: Task-relevant information that is attended is enhanced neurally (Posner and Driver, 1992) and phenomenologically in our perceptual awareness (Carrasco et al., 2004).
Posner, M. I., and Driver, J. The Neurobiology of Selective Attention. Current Opinion in Neurobiology 2, no. 2, 165–69 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1016/0959–4388(92)90006–7.
Carrasco, M. et al. Attention Alters Appearance. Nature Neuroscience 7, no. 3, 308–13 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1194.
When we experience stress, threat, or poor mood . . . this valuable resource is drained: Attention is thought to have evolved to prioritize information that advantages an organism’s survival. Yet, this can lead to attention being derailed from the task-at-hand. Both acute and chronic stress are known to degrade attentional performance and perturb prefrontal cortical functioning (Arnsten, 2015). Threat increases mind-wandering (Mrazek et al., 2011) as well as captures attention (Koster et al., 2004). Negative mood and repetitive negative thinking decrease performance on tasks of attention and working memory (Smallwood et al., 2009). The costs of stress, threat, and poor mood in psychological disorders have been attributed to the hijacking of attentional resources to process such content, which drains the availability of these resources for other forms of information processing (Eysenck et al., 2007).
Arnsten, A. Stress Weakens Prefrontal Networks: Molecular Insults to Higher Cognition. Nature Neuroscience 18, no. 10, 1376–85 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.4087.
Mrazek, M. D. et al. Threatened to Distraction: Mind-Wandering as a Consequence of Stereotype Threat. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 47, no. 6, 1243–48 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2011.05.011.
Koster, E. W. et al. Does Imminent Threat Capture and Hold Attention? Emotion 4, no. 3, 312–17 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1037/1528–3542.4.3.312.
Smallwood, J. et al. Shifting Moods, Wandering Minds: Negative Moods Lead the Mind to Wander. Emotion 9, no. 2, 271–76 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1037/a0014855.
Eysenck, M. W. et al. Anxiety and Cognitive Performance: Attentional Control Theory. Emotion 7, no. 2, 336–53 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1037/1528–3542.7.2.336.
To win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill: Sun Tzu. The Art of War (Bridgewater, MA: World Publications, 2007), 13.
We have records of medieval monks in the year 420: Kreiner, J. How to Reduce Digital Distractions: Advice from Medieval Monks. Aeon, April 21, 2019. https://aeon.co/ideas/how-to-reduce-digital-distractions-advice-from-medieval-monks.
The faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention, over and over again, is the very root of judgment, character, and will: James, W. (1890). The Principles of Psychology, vols. 1–2 (New York: Holt, 1890), 424.
The mind’s nature is to forage for information and engage with it: Todd, P. M., and Hills, T. Foraging in Mind. Current Directions in Psychological Science 29, no. 3, 309–15 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721420915861.
Research participants couldn’t continuously pay attention when they were instructed to: They couldn’t do it when the stakes were high or when they were motivated to. They couldn’t do it even when they were paid to. Attention lapses and performance failures occur even when the stakes (Mrazek et al., 2012) and motivation (Seli et al., 2019) are high, as well as when rewards are offered for not lapsing (Esterman et al., 2014).
Mrazek, M. D. et al. The Role of Mind-Wandering in Measurements of General Aptitude. Journal of Experimental Psychology General 141, no. 4, 788–98 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1037/a0027968.
Seli, P. et al. Increasing Participant Motivation Reduces Rates of Intentional and Unintentional Mind Wandering. Psychological Research 83, no. 5, 1057–69 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-017-0914–2.
Esterman, M. et al. Reward Reveals Dissociable Aspects of Sustained Attention. Journal of Experimental Psychology General 143, no. 6, 2287–95 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000019.
escapism along with other mental coping tactics, like positive thinking and suppression . . . don’t help us under high-stress circumstances: Escapism, formally referred to as avoidance, as well as suppression have been found to increase symptoms of psychological disorders such as depression (Aldao et al., 2010). While positive mood can be beneficial (Le Nguyen and Fredrickson, 2018), under high acute stress (Hirshberg et al., 2018) or longer high-stress intervals (Jha et al., 2020), aiming to increase positive emotion can lead to greater mood and performance disturbances.
Aldao, A. et al. Emotion-Regulation Strategies Across Psychopathology: A Meta-Analytic Review. Clinical Psychology Review 30, no. 2, 217–37 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2009.11.004.
Le Nguyen, K. D., and Fredrickson, B. L. Positive Psychology: Established and Emerging Issues (New York: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group, 2018), 29–45.
Hirshberg, M. J. et al. Divergent Effects of Brief Contemplative Practices in Response to an Acute Stressor: A Randomized Controlled Trial of Brief Breath Awareness, Loving-Kindness, Gratitude or an Attention Control Practice. PLoS One 13, no. 12, e0207765 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0207765.
Jha, A. P. et al. Comparing Mindfulness and Positivity Trainings in High-Demand Cohorts. Cognitive Therapy and Research 44, no. 2, 311–26 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-020-10076–6.
how much and what kind of mindfulness practice is most beneficial is a rapidly developing field: There are many studies actively underway examining mindfulness practice. For example, see Birtwell, K. et al. An Exploration of Formal and Informal Mindfulness Practice and Associations with Wellbeing. Mindfulness 10, no. 1, 89–99 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-018-0951-y.
Jha, A. P. et al. Examining the Protective Effects of Mindfulness Training on Working Memory Capacity and Affective Experience. Emotion 10, no. 1, 54–64 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1037/a0018438.
Rooks, J. D. et al. “We Are Talking About Practice”: The Influence of Mindfulness vs. Relaxation Training on Athletes’ Attention and Well-Being over High-Demand Intervals. Journal of Cognitive Enhancement 1, no. 2, 141–53 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41465-017-0016–5.
brain imaging research shows that this mental rehearsal activates the motor cortex similar to the way actual physical movement does: Slimani, M. et al. Effects of Mental Imagery on Muscular Strength in Healthy and Patient Participants: A Systematic Review. Journal of Sports Science & Medicine 15, no. 3, 434–50 (2016). https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27803622.
There’s a famous study on attention that goes like this: There have been many studies done on inattentional blindness, akin to the famous “dancing gorilla” study. Simons, D. J., and Chabris, C. F. Gorillas in Our Midst: Sustained Inattentional Blindness for Dynamic Events. Perception 28, no. 9, 1059–74 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1068/p281059.
How much of your brain do you think is devoted to vision?: Hagen, S. The Mind’s Eye. Rochester Review 74, no. 4, 32–37 (2012).
certain neurodegenerative diseases that impair cognition, movement, vision, and more—neurons lose their clear marching orders and stop coordinating the way they’re supposed to: There is growing evidence of not only impaired structural connectivity found postmortem but also impaired resting state functional activity and connectivity indexed with fMRI in diseases such as Parkinson’s (van Eimeren et al., 2009), Alzheimer’s (Greicius et al., 2004), and Huntington’s (Werner et al., 2014).
van Eimeren, T. et al. Dysfunction of the Default Mode Network in Parkinson Disease: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study. JAMA Neurology 66, no. 7, 877–83 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1001/archneurol.2009.97.
Greicius, M. D. et al. Default-Mode Network Activity Distinguishes Alzheimer’s Disease from Healthy Aging: Evidence from Functional MRI. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 101, no. 13, 4637–42 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0308627101.
Werner, C. J. et al. Altered Resting-State Connectivity in Huntington’s Disease. Human Brain Mapping 35, no. 6, 2582–93 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1002/hbm.22351.
if I showed you two faces at the same time, the N170 would suddenly drop to being smaller in amplitude: I am referring to the well-established phenomenon of competitive interactions among visual stimuli for neural representation, especially when these stimuli recruit a common population of neurons (Desimone and Duncan, 1995). This phenomenon is observed with EEG recordings, such as the N170 component in humans (Jacques and Rossion, 2004) as well as in single-unit studies in nonhuman primates (Rolls and Tovee, 1995).
Desimone, R., and Duncan, J. Neural Mechanisms of Selective Visual Attention. Annual Review of Neuroscience 18, 193–222 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.ne.18.030195.001205.
Jacques, C., and Rossion, B. Concurrent Processing Reveals Competition Between Visual Representations of Faces. Neuroreport 15, no. 15, 2417–21 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1097/00001756–200410250–00023.
Rolls, E. T., and Tovee, M. J. The Responses of Single Neurons in the Temporal Visual Cortical Areas of the Macaque When More Than One Stimulus Is Present in the Receptive Field. Experimental Brain Research 103, 409–20 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00241500.
There are actually three subsystems that work together to allow us to fluidly and successfully function in our complex world: Petersen, S. E., and M. I. Posner. The Attention System of the Human Brain: 20 Years After. Annual Review of Neuroscience 35, 73–89 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-neuro-062111–150525.
Attention and working memory work together: Unsworth, N. et al. Are Individual Differences in Attention Control Related to Working Memory Capacity? A Latent Variable Mega-Analysis. Journal of Experimental Psychology General 38, no. 6, 1765–72 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001000.
LeDoux, J. E., and Brown, R. A Higher-Order Theory of Emotional Consciousness. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 114, no. 10, E2016–E2025 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1619316114.
Baddeley, A. The Episodic Buffer: A New Component of Working Memory? Trends in Cognitive Sciences 4, no. 11, 417–23 (2000). https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/S1364–6613(00)01538–2.
heart pumps two thousand gallons of blood per day: “Facts About Your Heart,” MetLife AIG (accessed September 10, 2020). https://tcs-ksa.com/en/metlife/facts-about-your-heart.php.
In a variant of the experiment, we showed the same face/scene images. But every now and then, we’d flicker a different image on the screen: a negative image, something violent or upsetting: In Paczynski et al. (2015), we examined the consequences of negative versus neutral distraction on attention, and found that the presentation of irrelevant negative images reduced the N170 attention effect. It is important to note that there is a well-established “negativity bias” wherein negative information has stronger effects (relative to equally extreme and arousing positive information) on a broad range of functions, such as attention, perception, and memory; motivation; and decision making (see Norris, 2019 for a recent review). In addition to negative external stimuli capturing attention, as proposed to have occurred in Paczynski et al. (2015), there is growing evidence that negative, more so than positive or neutral, content that is internally generated (i.e., negatively valanced memories and thoughts, negative mind-wandering) captures attention to a greater degree. And there is mounting evidence that negatively valanced mind-wandering impairs performance on tasks of attention and working memory (Banks et al., 2016).
Paczynski, M. et al. Brief Exposure to Aversive Stimuli Impairs Visual Selective Attention. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 27, no. 6, 1172–9 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn_a_00768.
Norris, C. J. The Negativity Bias, Revisited: Evidence from Neuroscience Measures and an Individual Differences Approach. Social Neuroscience 16 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1080/17470919.2019.1696225.
Banks, J. B. et al. Examining the Role of Emotional Valence of Mind Wandering: All Mind Wandering Is Not Equal. Consciousness and Cognition 43, 167–76 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2016.06.003.
The neuroscience literature points to three main factors that determine when our attention is deployed: Theeuwes, J. Goal-Driven, Stimulus-Driven, and History-Driven Selection. Current Opinion in Psychology 29, 97–101 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2018.12.024.
Take a look at the graph: In addition to the inverted U pattern of correspondence between performance and stress described initially by Yerkes and Dodson (1908; also see Teigen, 1994) and many other studies since, there is recent evidence as reviewed by Qin et al. (2009) that the precise levels of certain stress-related neurotransmitters, such as norepinephrine (NE), that drive activity in brain regions such as the locus coeruleus (LC) show an inverted U pattern related to performance. Optimal performance is associated with NE levels that result in an intermediate level of LC activity. But when NE levels lead to LC hypoactivity and hyperactivity, performance is impaired. The point here is that it is not that stress is bad or good, but that the consequences are tied to the amount of stress. Distress, as opposed to eustress, is often shorthanded as stress. Tasks that demonstrate this stress-related inverted U pattern are those that require effortful engagement of attention and working memory for successful task performance.
Yerkes, R. M., and Dodson, J. D. The Relation of Strength of Stimulus to Rapidity of Habitat-Formation. Journal of Comparative Neurology and Psychology 18, 459–82 (1908). https://doi.org/10.1002/cne.920180503.
Teigen, K. H. Yerkes-Dodson: A Law for All Seasons. Theory Psychology 4, 525 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1177/0959354394044004.
Qin, S. et al. Acute Psychological Stress Reduces Working Memory-Related Activity in the Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex. Biological Psychiatry 66, no. 1, 25–32 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2009.03.006.
Performance is always worse—lower accuracy, slower and more variable responses—after the negative mood induction: This is describing performance on a task of sustained attention (Smallwood et al., 2009). Note that the relationship between attention, working memory, and mood has been examined using a variety of tasks and a variety of methods for probing mood and affective distraction. Negative distractors presented during the experiment (e.g., Witkin et al., 2020; Garrison and Schmeichel, 2018) as well as dispositional and disordered negative mood are associated with impaired performance on tasks of attention and working memory (Eysenck et al., 2007; Gotlib and Joormann, 2010). See also Schmeichel and Tang (2015) and Mitchell and Phillips (2007).
Smallwood, J. et al. Shifting Moods, Wandering Minds: Negative Moods Lead the Mind to Wander. Emotion 9, no. 2, 271–76 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1037/a0014855.
Witkin, J. et al. Dynamic Adjustments in Working Memory in the Face of Affective Interference. Memory & Cognition 48, 16–31 (2020). https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-019-00958-w.
Garrison, K. E., and Schmeichel, B. J. Effects of Emotional Content on Working Memory Capacity. Cognition and Emotion 33, no. 2, 370–77 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2018.1438989.
Eysenck, M. W. et al. Anxiety and Cognitive Performance: Attentional Control Theory. Emotion 7, no. 2, 336–53 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1037/1528–3542.7.2.336.
Gotlib, I. H., and Joormann, J. Cognition and Depression: Current Status and Future Directions. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology 6, 285–312 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.clinpsy.121208.131305.
Schmeichel, B. J., and Tang, D. Individual Differences in Executive Functioning and Their Relationship to Emotional Processes and Responses. Current Directions in Psychological Science 24, no. 2, 93–98 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721414555178.
Mitchell, R. L., and Phillips, L. H. The Psychological, Neurochemical and Functional Neuroanatomical Mediators of the Effects of Positive and Negative Mood on Executive Functions. Neuropsychologia 45, no. 4, 617–29 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2006.06.030.
If you feel threatened all the time, you aren’t going to be able to engage deeply in any other task or experience: There is growing evidence that threat-related information can capture and hold attention (Koster et al., 2004) and can perturb working memory (Schmader and Johns, 2003), which may impair ongoing task performance (Shih et al., 1999).
Koster, E. H. W. et al. Does Imminent Threat Capture and Hold Attention? Emotion 4, no. 3, 312–17 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1037/1528–3542.4.3.312.
Schmader, T., and Johns, M. Converging Evidence that Stereotype Threat Reduces Working Memory Capacity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 85, no. 3, 440–52 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1037/0022–3514.85.3.440.
Shih, M. et al. Stereotype Susceptibility: Identity Salience and Shifts in Quantitative Performance. Psychological Science 10, no. 1, 80–83 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1111/1467–9280.00111.
they haven’t changed in thirty-five thousand years: Neubauer, S. The Evolution of Modern Human Brain Shape. Science Advances 4, no. 1 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aao5961.
A study on Asian undergraduate women played two common stereotypes against each other: Gibson, C. E. et al. A Replication Attempt of Stereotype Susceptibility: Identity Salience and Shifts in Quantitative Performance. Social Psychology 45, no. 3, 194–98 (2014). http://dx.doi.org/10.1027/1864–9335/a000184.
Many things leaders deal with—high-cognitive demands, evaluative pressure, tense social interactions, uncertainty—are known to degrade attention, as well: Beyond stress, threat, and poor mood, many factors impair performance on tasks of attention and working memory. Blasiman, R. N., and Was, C. A. Why Is Working Memory Performance Unstable? A Review of 21 Factors. Europe’s Journal of Psychology 14, no. 1, 188–231 (2018). https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1472.
In a recent study, participants were told that they might have to give a speech after completing an attentionally demanding task that would take several minutes: Alquist, J. L. et al. What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You: Uncertainty Impairs Executive Function. Frontiers in Psychology 11, 576001 (2020). https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.576001.
drains can take the shape of anything from an uncomfortably low temperature to mortality salience (thinking about your own death): For more on mortality salience and performance decline, see Gailliot, M. T. et al. Self-Regulatory Processes Defend Against the Threat of Death: Effects of Self-Control Depletion and Trait Self-Control on Thoughts and Fears of Dying. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 91, no. 1, 49–62 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1037/0022–3514.91.1.49.
Your job is to say the color of the ink for each cluster of letters, as quickly as you can: Stroop, J. R. Studies of Interference in Serial Verbal Reactions. Journal of Experimental Psychology 18, no. 6, 643–62 (1935). https://doi.org/10.1037/h0054651.
Responses are faster and more accurate for high-conflict trials that follow other high-conflict trials versus those that follow low-conflict trials—which sounds like a good thing: The pattern of better performance after a high- vs. low-conflict trial is referred to as the conflict adaptation effect. It is proposed to result from the dynamic upregulation of cognitive control resources elicited by high-conflict as well as other high-cognitive demands, such as working memory load and distractor interference.
Ullsperger, M. et al. The Conflict Adaptation Effect: It’s Not Just Priming. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience 5, 467–72 (2005). https://doi.org/10.3758/CABN.5.4.467.
Witkin, J. E. et al. Dynamic Adjustments in Working Memory in the Face of Affective Interference. Memory & Cognition 48, 16–31 (2020). https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-019-00958-w.
Jha, A. P., and Kiyonaga, A. Working-Memory-Triggered Dynamic Adjustments in Cognitive Control. Journal of Experimental Psychology, Learning, Memory, and Cognition 36, no. 4, 1036–42 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1037/a0019337.
challenging situations are often “conflict states”: These different mind states are aligned with Buddhist descriptions of the Five Hindrances. Wallace, B. A. The Attention Revolution: Unlocking the Power of the Focused Mind (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2006).
don’t think about a polar bear: “Try to pose for yourself this task: not to think of a polar bear, and you will see that the cursed thing will come to mind every minute” (“Winter Notes on Summer Impressions,” Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1863). This quote motivated a classic study that found that there was a paradoxical increase in the frequency of a thought that was to be suppressed (Wegner et al., 1987; see also Winerman, 2011; and Rassin et al., 2000). There is growing evidence that thought suppression and expressive suppression, which refers to the effortful control of automatic emotional responses, impair working memory (Franchow and Suchy, 2015) and result in poor psychological health outcomes (Gross and John, 2003).
Wegner, D. M. et al. Paradoxical Effects of Thought Suppression. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 53, no. 1, 5–13 (1987). https://doi.org/10.1037//0022–3514.53.1.5.
Winerman, L. Suppressing the “White Bears.” American Psychological Association 42, no. 9, 44 (2011). https://www.apa.org/monitor/2011/10/unwanted-thoughts.
Rassin, E. et al. Paradoxical and Less Paradoxical Effects of Thought Suppression: A Critical Review. Clinical Psychology Review 20, no. 8, 973–95 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1016/S0272–7358(99)00019–7.
Franchow, E., and Suchy, Y. Naturally-Occurring Expressive Suppression in Daily Life Depletes Executive Functioning. Emotion 15, no. 1, 78–89 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000013.
Gross, J. J., and John, O. P. Individual Differences in Two Emotion Regulation Processes: Implications for Affect, Relationships, and Well-Being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 85, no. 2, 348–62 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1037/0022–3514.85.2.348.
researchers ran a study comparing the brains of bus drivers with those of cab drivers: Maguire, E. A. et al. London Taxi Drivers and Bus Drivers: A Structural MRI and Neuropsychological Analysis. Hippocampus 16, no. 12, 1091–1101 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1002/hipo.20233.
fMRI illuminates the ongoing levels of oxygenated blood in different parts of the brain over time: Fundamentally, brain functions occur via electrochemical processes, specifically those that occur during the firing of neurons. fMRI is not indexing electrical activity in the brain but rather the increase in blood flow that accompanies this activity. As such, fMRI is an indirect measure of neural activity. de Haan, M., and Thomas, K. M. Applications of ERP and fMRI Techniques to Developmental Science. Developmental Science 5, no. 3, 335–43 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1111/1467–7687.00373.
Parong, J., and Mayer, R. E. Cognitive Consequences of Playing Brain-Training Games in Immersive Virtual Reality. Applied Cognitive Psychology 34, no. 1, 29–38 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.3582.
A Consensus on the Brain Training Industry from the Scientific Community. Max Planck Institute for Human Development and Stanford Center on Longevity. News release (October 20, 2014). https://longevity.stanford.edu/a-consensus-on-the-brain-training-industry-from-the-scientific-community-2/.
Kable, J. W. et al. No Effect of Commercial Cognitive Training on Brain Activity, Choice Behavior, or Cognitive Performance. Journal of Neuroscience 37, no. 31, 7390–7402 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2832–16.2017.
Slagter, H. A. et al. Mental Training as a Tool in the Neuroscientific Study of Brain and Cognitive Plasticity. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 5, no. 17 (2011). https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2011.00017.
after the retreat, the meditators only mistakenly pressed the space bar 30 percent of the time: Witkin, J. et al. Mindfulness Training Influences Sustained Attention: Attentional Benefits as a Function of Training Intensity. Poster presented at the International Symposium for Contemplative Research, Phoenix, Arizona (2018).
A version of the SART was conducted with live-fire simulation: Biggs, A. T. et al. Cognitive Training Can Reduce Civilian Casualties in a Simulated Shooting Environment. Psychological Science 26, no. 8, 1064–76 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797615579274.
we also conducted studies that let us dig into the subsystems of attention with mindfulness training: Jha, A. P. et al. Mindfulness Training Modifies Subsystems of Attention. Cognitive, Affective & Behavioral Neuroscience 7, no. 2, 109–19 (2007). https://doi.org/10.3758/CABN.7.2.109.
intercepted the University of Miami football team: Rooks, J. D. et al. “We Are Talking About Practice”: The Influence of Mindfulness vs. Relaxation Training on Athletes’ Attention and Well-Being over High-Demand Intervals. Journal of Cognitive Enhancement 1, no. 2, 141–53 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41465-017-0016–5.
something we’d discovered about attention and high-demand periods: everybody degrades: We have found a pattern of performance decline over high-stress intervals in a wide range of groups, from undergraduates over the academic semester (Morrison et al., 2014) and predeployment Marines over eight weeks of training (Jha et al., 2010) to incarcerated youth (Leonard et al., 2013) and football players over preseason training (Rooks et al., 2017).
Morrison, A. B. et al. Taming a Wandering Attention: Short-Form Mindfulness Training in Student Cohorts. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 7, 897 (2014). https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00897.
Jha, A. P. et al. Examining the Protective Effects of Mindfulness Training on Working Memory Capacity and Affective Experience. Emotion 10, no. 1, 54–64 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1037/a0018438.
Leonard, N. R. et al. Mindfulness Training Improves Attentional Task Performance in Incarcerated Youth: A Group Randomized Controlled Intervention Trial. Frontiers in Psychology 4, no. 792, 2–10 (2013). https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00792.
Rooks, J. D. et al. “We Are Talking About Practice”: The Influence of Mindfulness vs. Relaxation Training on Athletes’ Attention and Well-Being over High-Demand Intervals. Journal of Cognitive Enhancement 1, no. 2, 141–53 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41465-017-0016–5.
Many studies on mindfulness practice suggest that if you accept and allow instead of resist: Lyndsay, E. K., and Creswell, J. D. Mindfulness, Acceptance, and Emotion Regulation: Perspectives from Monitor and Acceptance Theory (MAT). Current Opinion in Psychology 28, 120–5 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41465-017-0016–5.
A recent survey of social media use in the workplace reported that while it can help provide a “mental break,” fifty-six percent of employees said it distracts them from the work they need to do: Lampe, C., and Ellison, N. Social Media and the Workplace. Pew Research Center, June 22, 2016. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2016/06/22/social-media-and-the-workplace/.
We conducted a study with undergraduate students at the University of Miami: Cameron, L. et al. Mind Wandering Impairs Textbook Reading Comprehension and Retention. Poster presented at the Cognitive Neuroscience Society Annual Meeting, Boston, Massachusetts (April 2014).
Other experiments have found the same thing with easier parameters: See, for example, Zanesco, A. P. et al. Meditation Training Influences Mind Wandering and Mindless Reading. Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice 3, no. 1, 12–33 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1037/cns0000082.
people fail to immediately notice that the words are meaningless thirty percent of the time . . . before they realize the text they’re reading is actually gibberish: Smallwood, J. et al. The Lights Are On but No One’s Home: Meta-Awareness and the Decoupling of Attention When the Mind Wanders. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 14, no. 3, 527–33 (2007). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03194102.
Esterman, M. et al. In the Zone or Zoning Out? Tracking Behavioral and Neural Fluctuations During Sustained Attention. Cerebral Cortex 23, no. 11, 2712–23 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhs261.
Mrazek, M. D. et al. The Role of Mind-Wandering in Measurements of General Aptitude. Journal of Experimental Psychology General 141, no. 4, 788–98 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1037/a0027968.
Wilson, T. D. et al. Just Think: The Challenges of the Disengaged Mind. Science 345, no. 6192, 75–7 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1250830.
referred to as a need for cognitive closure: Webster, D. M., and Kruglanski, A. W. Individual Differences in Need for Cognitive Closure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 67, no. 6, 1049–62 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1037//0022–3514.67.6.1049.
load theory: Lavie, N. et al. Load Theory of Selective Attention and Cognitive Control. Journal of Experimental Psychology 133, no. 3, 339–54 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1037/0096–3445.133.3.339.
and the vigilance decrement: The vigilance decrement, also referred to as time-on-task effects, is the behavioral pattern of reduced performance with longer periods of engagement in a task. There is debate regarding the causes of this phenomenon, from resource depletion to attentional cycling, and consideration of opportunity costs. See Rubinstein (2020) for discussion as well as Davies and Parasuraman (1982).
Rubinstein, J. S. Divergent Response-Time Patterns in Vigilance Decrement Tasks. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 46, no. 10, 1058–76 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1037/xhp0000813.
Davies, D. R., and Parasuraman, R. The Psychology of Vigilance (London: Academic Press, 1982).
Participants sit at a computer screen that shows them a different face every half second: Denkova, E. et al. Attenuated Face Processing During Mind Wandering. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 30, no. 11, 1691–1703 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn_a_01312.
You experience “perceptual decoupling”: Schooler, J. W. et al. Meta-Awareness, Perceptual Decoupling and the Wandering Mind. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 15, no. 7, 319–26 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2011.05.006.
Mind-wandering, it turns out, potentially happens at the same rate when someone’s sitting on the couch reading a magazine as when they’re performing brain surgery: While mind-wandering can occur in many real-world contexts, real-world rates of mind-wandering and performance- and laboratory-based rates may not always be aligned across individuals (Kane et al., 2017) and factors such as self-imposed effort to concentrate, task demands, and other individual differences may result in a misalignment in mind-wandering and working memory in real-life vs. laboratory contexts. Kane, M. J. et al. For Whom the Mind Wanders, and When, Varies Across Laboratory and Daily-Life Settings. Psychological Science 28, no. 9 1271–1289 (2017). https://doi.org/10.11 https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797617706086.
You amp up your stress: Crosswell, A. D. et al. Mind Wandering and Stress: When You Don’t Like the Present Moment. Emotion 20, no. 3, 403–12 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000548.
the moment afterward is going to be riddled with a little bit of negativity: Killingsworth, M. A., and Gilbert, D. T. A Wandering Mind Is an Unhappy Mind. Science 330, no. 6006, 932 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1192439.
We call this phenomenon the inhibition of return: Posner, M. I. et al. Inhibition of Return: Neural Basis and Function. Cognitive Neuropsychology 2, no. 3, 211–28 (1985). https://doi.org/10.1080/02643298508252866.
Mind-wandering may have ultimately been selected over the course of human evolution to maximize opportunity costs: Ward, A. F., and Wegner, D. M. Mind-Blanking: When the Mind Goes Away. Frontiers in Psychology 4, 650 (2013). https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00650.
attentional cycling: Some studies have suggested that slow temporal fluctuations in performance and brain activity patterns may reflect the cycling of attention to various goals one after another. Smallwood, J. et al. Segmenting the Stream of Consciousness: The Psychological Correlates of Temporal Structures in the Time Series Data of a Continuous Performance Task. Brain and Cognition 66, no. 1, 50–6 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandc.2007.05.004.
They did improve: Rosen, Z. B. et al. Mindfulness Training Improves Working Memory Performance in Adults with ADHD. Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, Washington, DC (2008).
Multitasking—or, more specifically, task switching: Rubinstein, J. S. et al. Executive Control of Cognitive Processes in Task Switching. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 27, no, 4, 763–97 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1037/0096–1523.27.4.763.
But also: monotask as much as possible: Levy, D. M. et al. The Effects of Mindfulness Meditation Training on Multitasking in a High-Stress Information Environment. Proceedings of Graphics Interface, 45–52 (2012). https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/2305276.2305285.
You’ll miss less, make fewer errors, and (science suggests!) stay happier: Etkin, J., and Mogilner, C. Does Variety Among Activities Increase Happiness? Journal of Consumer Research 43, no. 2, 210–29 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucw021.
topic of working memory: Working memory is a cognitive system that allows for the short-term maintenance of information in a highly accessible state and the manipulation of this information in the service of goals. There are several prominent models of working memory. For example, whereas Baddeley’s model (Baddeley 2010) emphasizes the component structure of working memory, Engle’s model (Engle and Kane, 2004) emphasizes an individual differences approach and the role of executive control (akin to the central executive system of attention) in accounting for individual differences in working memory capacity.
Baddeley, A. Working Memory. Current Biology 20, no. 4, R136−R140 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2009.12.014.
Engle, R. W., and Kane, M. J. Executive Attention, Working Memory Capacity, and a Two-Factor Theory of Cognitive Control. In B. Ross (ed.), The Psychology of Learning and Motivation 44, 145–99 (2004).
Directing the flashlight of your attention to the contents of your working memory essentially “refreshes” that content: Raye, C. L. et al. Refreshing: A Minimal Executive Function. Cortex 43, no. 1, 134–45 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1016/s0010–9452(08)70451–9.
certain prefrontal brain regions were much more active when participants were doing the 3-back task: Braver, T. S. et al. A Parametric Study of Prefrontal Cortex Involvement in Human Working Memory. NeuroImage 5, no. 1, 49–62 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1006/nimg.1996.0247.
They showed participants a series of adjectives while they were in the scanner: Many studies have been done with event-related fMRI comparing activation during adjective judgments for self and for close “others” versus famous or unfamiliar persons. Activation is greater in key nodes of the default mode network such as the medial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate cortex, and the precuneus during judgments regarding self and close “others” versus famous or unfamiliar persons.
van der Meer, L. et al. Self-Reflection and the Brain: A Theoretical Review and Meta-Analysis of Neuroimaging Studies with Implications for Schizophrenia. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews 34, no. 6, 935–46 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2009.12.004.
Zhu, Y. et al. Neural Basis of Cultural Influence on Self-Representation. NeuroImage 34, no. 3, 1310–6 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2006.08.047.
Heatherton, T. F. et al. Medial Prefrontal Activity Differentiates Self from Close Others. Social Cognitive & Affective Neuroscience 1, no. 1, 18–25 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsl001.
“default mode network”: Raichle, M. E. The Brain’s Default Mode Network. Annual Review of Neuroscience 38, 433–47 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-neuro-071013–014030.
the attention network was “online”: Weissman, D. H. et al. The Neural Bases of Momentary Lapses in Attention. Nature Neuroscience 9, no. 7, 971–8 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1727.
emotionally charged thoughts can capture attention just as powerfully as someone shouting your name: Andrews-Hanna, J. R. et al. Dynamic Regulation of Internal Experience: Mechanisms of Therapeutic Change. In Lane, R. D., and Nadel, L., Neuroscience of Enduring Change: Implications for Psychotherapy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020), 89–131. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190881511.003.0005.
Working memory is critical for social connection and communication: Barrett, L. F. et al. Individual Differences in Working Memory Capacity and Dual-Process Theories of the Mind. Psychological Bulletin 130, no. 4, 553–73 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1037/0033–2909.130.4.553.
And it’s where you experience emotion:
Mikels, J. A., and Reuter-Lorenz, P. A. Affective Working Memory: An Integrative Psychological Construct. Perspectives on Psychological Science 14, no. 4, 543–59 (2019). https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691619837597.
LeDoux, J. E., and Brown, R. A Higher-Order Theory of Emotional Consciousness. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 114, no. 10, E2016–E2025 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1619316114.
One study had participants come in and watch a disturbing movie: Schmeichel, B. J. et al. Working Memory Capacity and the Self-Regulation of Emotional Expression and Experience. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 95, no. 6, 1526–40 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1037/a0013345.
frontal lobes were springing forward: Klingberg, T. Development of a Superior Frontal-Intraparietal Network for Visuo-Spatial Working Memory. Neuropsychologia 44, no. 11, 2171–7 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2005.11.019.
And you can “open” three or four of those channels at once and still keep them separate from each other: Noguchi, Y., and Kakigi, R. Temporal Codes of Visual Working Memory in the Human Cerebral Cortex: Brain Rhythms Associated with High Memory Capacity. NeuroImage 222, no. 15, 117294 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.117294.
“The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two”: Miller, G. A. The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information. Psychological Review 101, no. 2, 343–52 (1956). https://doi.org/10.1037/0033–295x.101.2.343.
the time it takes to say seven numbers in English is roughly the “time buffer” of our auditory working memory: Lüer, G. et al. Memory Span in German and Chinese: Evidence for the Phonological Loop. European Psychologist 3, no. 2, 102–12 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1027/1016–9040.3.2.102.
“Cognitive offloading”: Morrison, A. B., and Richmond, L. L. Offloading Items from Memory: Individual Differences in Cognitive Offloading in a Short-Term Memory Task. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications 5, no. 1 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235-019-0201–4.
the opposite: blanking: Kawagoe, T. et al. The Neural Correlates of “Mind Blanking”: When the Mind Goes Away. Human Brain Mapping 40, no. 17, 4934–40 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1002/hbm.24748.
Another hypothesis is that there is a “sudden death” of neural activity: Zhang, W., and Luck, S. J. Sudden Death and Gradual Decay in Visual Working Memory. Psychological Science 20, no. 4, 423–8 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467–9280.2009.02322.x.
This temporarily cuts off access to working memory and impairs any functions that rely on it (like long-term memory, social connection, and emotion regulation): Datta, D., and Arnsten, A. F. T. Loss of Prefrontal Cortical Higher Cognition with Uncontrollable Stress: Molecular Mechanisms, Changes with Age, and Relevance to Treatment. Brain Sciences 9, no. 5 (2019). https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci9050113.
In 2013, our lab collaborated on a large-scale study: Roeser, R. W. et al. Mindfulness Training and Reductions in Teacher Stress and Burnout: Results from Two Randomized, Waitlist-Control Field Trials. Journal of Educational Psychology 105, no. 3, 787–804 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1037/a0032093.
Colleagues at the University of California, Santa Barbara, had the same hunch and tested it out in a clever experiment: Mrazek, M. D. et al. The Role of Mind-Wandering in Measurements of General Aptitude. Journal of Experimental Psychology General 141, no. 4, 788–98 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1037/a0027968.
Rumination is one of the most potent forms of mental time travel: Beaty, R. E. et al. Thinking About the Past and Future in Daily Life: An Experience Sampling Study of Individual Differences in Mental Time Travel. Psychological Research 83, no. 4, 805–916 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-018-1075–7.
But this time, we put the brain cap on our participants while they did the experiment, and we only gave them one face to remember: Sreenivasan, K. K. et al. Temporal Characteristics of Top-Down Modulations During Working Memory Maintenance: An Event-Related Potential Study of the N170 Component. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 19, no. 11, 1836–44 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn.2007.19.11.1836.
They are able to allow the ink to fade when it’s appropriate for it to do so, selectively: Visual working memory capacity is tied to the efficiency with which distractors can be filtered.
Vogel, E. K. et al. The Time Course of Consolidation in Visual Working Memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 32, no. 6, 1436–51 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1037/0096–1523.32.6.1436.
Luria, R. et al. The Contralateral Delay Activity as a Neural Measure of Visual Working Memory. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews 62, 100–8 (2016). https://doi.org//10.1016/j.neubiorev.2016.01.003.
memory for experiences, involves selective encoding of only those aspects of experience that were most attended to and held in working memory: Recent studies suggest that working memory capacity is moderately to strongly related with measures of long-term memory (Mogle et al., 2008; Unsworth et al, 2009). Working memory may serve as a scratch space for long-term memory where information can be manipulated (that is, reordered, organized, integrated; see Blumenfeld and Ranganath, 2006) for more efficient storage. Yet, there is still active debate regarding the dissociable neural systems that may or may not uniquely have a role in working memory and long-term memory (Ranganath and Blumenfeld, 2005).
Mogle, J. A. et al. What’s So Special About Working Memory? An Examination of the Relationships Among Working Memory, Secondary Memory, and Fluid Intelligence. Psychological Science 19, 1071–7 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467–9280.2008.02202.x.
Unsworth, N. et al. There’s More to the Working Memory–fluid Intelligence Relationship Than Just Secondary Memory. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 16, 931–7 (2009). https://doi.org/10.3758/pbr.16.5.931.
Blumenfeld, R. S., and Ranganath, C. Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex Promotes Long-Term Memory Formation Through Its Role in Working Memory Organization. Journal of Neuroscience 26, no. 3, 916–25 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1523/jneurosci.2353–05.2006.
Ranganath, C., and Blumenfeld, R. S. Doubts About Double Dissociations Between Short- and Long-Term Memory. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 9, no. 8, 374–80 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2005.06.009.
Yes, we remember negative information better than positive information: Spaniol, J. et al. Aging and Emotional Memory: Cognitive Mechanisms Underlying the Positivity Effect. Psychology and Aging 23, no. 4, 859–72 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1037/a0014218.
the things that are outliers are more privileged—they become more salient in our memory: Schroots, J. J. F. et al. Autobiographical Memory from a Life Span Perspective. International Journal of Aging and Human Development 58, no. 1, 69–85 (2004). https://doi.org/10.2190/7A1A-8HCE-0FD9–7CTX.
Forgetting is a good thing: Forgetting is often studied using directed forgetting paradigms. Williams, M. et al. The Benefit of Forgetting. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 20, 348–55 (2013). https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-012-0354–3.
A 2018 social media study set out to investigate an important question: Tamir, D. I. et al. Media Usage Diminishes Memory for Experiences. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 76, 161–8 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2018.01.006.
studies have found that media use in the classroom: Allen A. et al. Is the Pencil Mightier Than the Keyboard? A Meta-Analysis Comparing the Method of Notetaking Outcomes. Southern Communication Journal 85, no. 3, 143–54 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1080/1041794X.2020.1764613.
H. M. received an experimental brain surgery to treat his epilepsy: Squire, L. R. The Legacy of Patient H. M. for Neuroscience. Neuron 61, no. 1, 6–9 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2008.12.023.
Those attention-grabbing thoughts have as their raw materials long-term memory traces: Andrews-Hanna, J. R. et al. Dynamic Regulation of Internal Experience: Mechanisms of Therapeutic Change. In Lane, R. D., and Nadel, L., Neuroscience of Enduring Change: Implications for Psychotherapy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020), 89–131. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190881511.003.0005.
It pumps out content like memory traces and other mental chatter generated by raw memory input: Mildner, J. N., and Tamir, D. I. Spontaneous Thought as an Unconstrained Memory Process. Trends in Neuroscience 42, no. 11, 763–77 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tins.2019.09.001.
called autonoetic consciousness: Wheeler, M. A. et al. Toward a Theory of Episodic Memory: The Frontal Lobes and Autonoetic Consciousness. Psychological Bulletin 121, no. 3, 331–54 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1037/0033–2909.121.3.331.
Another study involving participants taking photographs of artwork in a museum: Henkel, L. A. Point-and-Shoot Memories: The Influence of Taking Photos on Memory for a Museum Tour. Psychological Science 25, no. 2, 396–402 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797613504438.
Christoff, K. et al. Mind-Wandering as Spontaneous Thought: A Dynamic Framework. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 17, no. 11, 718–31 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn.2016.113.
Fox, K. C. R., and Christoff, K. (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Spontaneous Thought: Mind-wandering, Creativity, and Dreaming (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018). http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190464745.001.0001.
Traumatic memories can feel indelibly written: There is controversy regarding whether traumatic memories are different than other memories and the mechanisms by which that may be so.
Geraerts, E. et al. Traumatic Memories of War Veterans: Not So Special After All. Consciousness and Cognition 16, no. 1, 170–7 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2006.02.005.
Martinho, R. et al. Epinephrine May Contribute to the Persistence of Traumatic Memories in a Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Animal Model. Frontiers in Molecular Neuroscience 13, no. 588802 (2020). https://doi.org/10.3389/fnmol.2020.588802.
There is growing evidence that clinical treatments involving mindfulness can help PTSD patients: Boyd, J. E. et al. Mindfulness-Based Treatments for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: A Review of the Treatment Literature and Neurobiological Evidence. Journal of Psychiatry & Neuroscience 43, no. 1, 7–25 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1503/jpn.170021.
Confirmation bias is common—it happens when people essentially “see what they expect to see,” discounting any information that doesn’t line up with their expectation: Kappes, A. et al. Confirmation Bias in the Utilization of Others’ Opinion Strength. Nature Neuroscience 23, no. 1, 130–7 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-019-0549–2.
We are incessantly concocting narratives: Schacter, D. L., and Addis, D. R. On the Nature of Medial Temporal Lobe Contributions to the Constructive Simulation of Future Events. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 364, no. 1521, 1245–53 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2008.0308.
mental models that guide our thinking, decision making, and actions:
Jones, Natalie A. et al. Mental Models: An Interdisciplinary Synthesis of Theory and Methods. Ecology and Society 16, no. 1 (2011). http://www.jstor.org/stable/26268859.
Johnson-Laird, P. N. Mental Models and Human Reasoning. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 107, no. 43, 18243–50 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1012933107.
Emotion is how the brain determines the value of something (say, an event or a choice): Verweij, M. et al. Emotion, Rationality, and Decision-Making: How to Link Affective and Social Neuroscience with Social Theory. Frontiers in Neuroscience 9, 332 (2015). https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2015.00332.
Studies on the impact of advertising have shown that vividness is what grabs people’s attention and convinces them to buy: Blondé, J., and Girandola, F. Revealing the Elusive Effects of Vividness: A Meta-Analysis of Empirical Evidences Assessing the Effect of Vividness on Persuasion. Social Influence 11, no. 2, 111–29 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1080/15534510.2016.1157096.
“Our eyes are not only viewers”: Maharishi International University. Full Speech: Jim Carrey’s Commencement Address at the 2014 MUM Graduation [video]. YouTube, May 30, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V80-gPkpH6M.acce.
referred to as maladaptive repetitive thought: Andrews-Hanna, J. R. et al. Dynamic Regulation of Internal Experience: Mechanisms of Therapeutic Change. In Lane, R. D., and Nadel, L., Neuroscience of Enduring Change: Implications for Psychotherapy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020) 89–131. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190881511.003.0005.
brain science suggests that we have little to no conscious awareness of it: Ellamil, M. et al. Dynamics of Neural Recruitment Surrounding the Spontaneous Arising of Thoughts in Experienced Mindfulness Practitioners. NeuroImage 136, 186–96 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2016.04.034.
stepping out of your simulations and mental models “decentering”: Bernstein, A. et al. Metacognitive Processes Mode3l of Decentering: Emerging Methods and Insights. Current Opinion in Psychology 28, 245–51 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2019.01.019.
in the early months of the COVID-19 crisis, we ran a study offering mindfulness training to older adults: Barry, J. et al. The Power of Distancing During a Pandemic: Greater Decentering Protects Against the Deleterious Effects of COVID-19-Related Intrusive Thoughts on Psychological Health in Older Adults. Poster presented at the Mind & Life 2020 Contemplative Research Conference, online (November 2020).
But many other studies that have offered participants specific instructions on how to decenter found the same beneficial effects and more: Kross, E., and Ayduk, O. Self-Distancing: Theory, Research, and Current Directions. In J. M. Olson (ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 55, 81–136 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.aesp.2016.10.002.
In one study, researchers prompted people to call up negative memories from their past: Kross, E. et al. Coping with Emotions Past: The Neural Bases of Regulating Affect Associated with Negative Autobiographical Memories. Biological Psychiatry 65, no. 5, 361–6 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2008.10.019.
Hayes-Skelton, S. A. et al. Decentering as a Potential Common Mechanism Across Two Therapies for Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 83, no. 2, 83–404 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1037/a0038305.
Seah, S. et al. Spontaneous Self-Distancing Mediates the Association Between Working Memory Capacity and Emotion Regulation Success. Clinical Psychological Science 9, no. 1, 79–96 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1177/2167702620953636.
King, A. P., and Fresco, D. M. A Neurobehavioral Account for Decentering as the Salve for the Distressed Mind. Current Opinion in Psychology 28, 285–93 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2019.02.009.
Perestelo-Perez, L. et al. Mindfulness-Based Interventions for the Treatment of Depressive Rumination: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology 17, no. 3, 282–95 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijchp.2017.07.004.
Bieling, P. J. et al. Treatment-Specific Changes in Decentering Following Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy Versus Antidepressant Medication or Placebo for Prevention of Depressive Relapse. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 80, no. 3, 365–72 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1037/a0027483.
my team’s research findings on offering a program called Mindfulness-Based Attention Training (MBAT):
Jha, A. P. et al. Bolstering Cognitive Resilience via Train-the-Trainer Delivery of Mindfulness Training in Applied High-Demand Settings. Mindfulness 11, 683–97 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-019-01284–7.
Zanesco, A. P. et al. Mindfulness Training as Cognitive Training in High-Demand Cohorts: An Initial Study in Elite Military Servicemembers. In Progress in Brain Research 244, 323–54 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.pbr.2018.10.001.
Studies are finding that mindfulness training can indeed help people act in less-biased ways: Lueke, A., and Gibson, B. Brief Mindfulness Meditation Reduces Discrimination. Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice 3, no. 1. 34–44 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1037/cns0000081
Simulations create mental models that lead to decisions: Endsley, M. R. The Divergence of Objective and Subjective Situation Awareness: A Meta-Analysis. Journal of Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making 14, no. 1, 34–53 (2020). https://doi.org/10/ggqfzd.
we call this goal neglect: Recent studies suggest a correspondence between neglecting one’s goals, working memory capacity, and mind-wandering. McVay, J. C., and Kane, M. J. Conducting the Train of Thought: Working Memory Capacity, Goal Neglect, and Mind Wandering in an Executive-Control Task. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 35, no. 1, 196–204 (2009). 218
Meta-awareness is the ability to take explicit note of and monitor the current contents or processes of your conscious experience: Schooler, J. W. et al. Meta-Awareness, Perceptual Decoupling and the Wandering Mind. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 15, no. 7, 319–26 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2011.05.006.
We brought 143 undergraduate students into the lab to test their awareness of their own mind-wandering: Krimsky, M. et al. The Influence of Time on Task on Mind Wandering and Visual Working Memory. Cognition 169, 84–90 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2017.08.006.
The human brain may simply be designed to cyclically pull away from the task-at-hand: Some studies have suggested that slow temporal fluctuations in performance and brain activity patterns may reflect the cycling of attention to various goals one after another. Smallwood, J. et al. Segmenting the Stream of Consciousness: The Psychological Correlates of Temporal Structures in the Time Series Data of a Continuous Performance Task. Brain and Cognition 66, no. 1, 50–6 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandc.2007.05.004.
as mind-wandering was going up, meta-awareness was going down. We are mind-wandering more and more over time, and growing less and less able to catch ourselves doing it: Krimsky, M. et al. The Influence of Time on Task on Mind Wandering and Visual Working Memory. Cognition 69, 84–90 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2017.08.006.
But if the task demands suddenly rise, and performance starts slipping, attentional resources will be diverted back to the task-at-hand. Your own mind cues you: During challenging activities requiring concentration and effort, higher-working memory capacity (WMC) subjects maintained on-task thoughts better, and mind-wandered less, than did lower-WMC subjects. Kane, M. J. et al. For Whom the Mind Wanders, and When: An Experience-Sampling Study of Working Memory and Executive Control in Daily Life. Psychological Science 18, no. 7, 614–21 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467–9280.2007.01948.x.
ADHD patients tend to have high mind-wandering—so high that it can lead to detrimental real-life outcomes. A recent study found that . . . the “costs” of mind-wandering were abated in patients who were more meta-aware: Franklin, M. S. et al. Tracking Distraction: The Relationship Between Mind-Wandering, Meta-Awareness, and ADHD Symptomatology. Journal of Attention Disorders 21, no. 6, 475–86 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1177/1087054714543494.
Smallwood, J. et al. Segmenting the Stream of Consciousness: The Psychological Correlates of Temporal Structures in the Time Series Data of a Continuous Performance Task. Brain and Cognition 66, no. 1, 50–56 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandc.2007.05.004.
Polychroni, N. et al. Response Time Fluctuations in the Sustained Attention to Response Task Predict Performance Accuracy and Meta-Awareness of Attentional States. Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice (2020). https://doi.org/10.1037/cns0000248.
we know that some things cause meta-awareness to tank—like cigarette cravings and drinking alcohol: Sayette, M. A. et al. Lost in the Sauce: The Effects of Alcohol on Mind Wandering. Psychological Science 20, no. 6, 747–52 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467–9280.2009.02351.x.
reduced default mode activity:
Brewer, J. A. et al. Meditation Experience Is Associated with Differences in Default Mode Network Activity and Connectivity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 108, no. 50, 20254–9 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1112029108.
Kral, T. R. A. et al. Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction-Related Changes in Posterior Cingulate Resting Brain Connectivity. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 14, no. 7, 777–87 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsz050.
Lutz, A. et al. Investigating the Phenomenological Matrix of Mindfulness-Related Practices from a Neurocognitive Perspective. American Psychologist 70, no. 7, 632–58 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1037/a0039585.
The force applied is minute but the results enormous: Sun Tzu. The Art of War (Bridgewater, MA: World Publications, 2007), 95.
There is a concept in Buddhism called the “Second Arrow.” It comes from a famous parable: Bhikkhu, T. (trans.). Sallatha Sutta: The Arrow. Access to Insight (BCBS edition), November 30, 2013, https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn36/sn36.006.than.html.
One important node in the brain network for meta-awareness is located at the very front of the prefrontal cortex—it also happens to be part of a brain network for social connection: McCaig, R. G. et al. Improved Modulation of Rostrolateral Prefrontal Cortex Using Real-Time fMRI Training and Meta-Cognitive Awareness. NeuroImage 55, no. 3, 1298–305 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2010.12.016.
Loneliness and social isolation are risk factors for poor health as well as accelerated mortality: Perissinotto, C. M. et al. Loneliness in Older Persons: A Predictor of Functional Decline and Death. Archives of Internal Medicine 172, no. 14, 1078–984 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1001/archinternmed.2012.1993.
Conversations rely on shared mental models:
Alfred, K. L. et al. Mental Models Use Common Neural Spatial Structure for Spatial and Abstract Content. Communications Biology 3, no. 17 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-019-0740–8.
Jonker, C. M. et al. Shared Mental Models: A Conceptual Analysis. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 6541, 132–51 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-21268-0_8.
Sadly, a recent study examining parental behavior and working memory capacity found that parents with lower (vs. higher) working memory capacity were more likely to engage in verbally or emotionally abusive behavior toward their children: Deater-Deckard, K. et al. Maternal Working Memory and Reactive Negativity in Parenting. Psychological Sciences 21, no. 1, 75–9 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797609354073
While you’re actively suppressing, it leaves less cognitive bandwidth to do much else:
Franchow, E. I., and Suchy, Y. Naturally-Occurring Expressive Suppression in Daily Life Depletes Executive Functioning. Emotion 15, no. 1, 78–89 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000013.
Brewin, C. R., and Beaton, A. Thought Suppression, Intelligence, and Working Memory Capacity. Behaviour Research and Therapy 40, no. 8, 923–30 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1016/S0005-7967(01)00127-9.
A growing body of research has been examining the effects of this practice on the brain and body: These papers provide comprehensive reviews of findings across numerous studies.
Dahl, C. J. et al. The Plasticity of Well-Being: A Training-Based Framework for the Cultivation of Human Flourishing. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 117, no. 51, 32197–206 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2014859117.
Brandmeyer, T., and Delorme, A. Meditation and the Wandering Mind: A Theoretical Framework of Underlying Neurocognitive Mechanisms. Perspectives on Psychological Science 16, no. 1, 39–66 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691620917340.
in those who briefly practiced loving-kindness meditation (versus a comparison group that did not), there was a reduction in implicit racial bias: Kang, Y. et al. The Nondiscriminating Heart: Lovingkindness Meditation Training Decreases Implicit Intergroup Bias. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 143, no. 3, 1306–13 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-015-9514-x.
Cooper uncovered a strong correlation between aerobic exercise and heart health: Cooper, K. H. The History of Aerobics (50 Years and Still Counting). Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport 89, no. 2, 129–34 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1080/02701367.2018.1452469.
And when it comes to better attention: Prakash, R. S. et al. Mindfulness and Attention: Current State-of-Affairs and Future Considerations. Journal of Cognitive Enhancement 4, 340–67 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41465-019-00144–5.
the brain networks that are tied to focusing and managing attention, noticing and monitoring internal and external events, and mind-wandering are all activated: Hasenkamp, W. et al. Mind Wandering and Attention During Focused Meditation: A Fine-Grained Temporal Analysis of Fluctuating Cognitive States. NeuroImage 59, no. 1, 750–60 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2011.07.008
Brandmeyer, T., and Delorme, A. Meditation and the Wandering Mind: A Theoretical Framework of Underlying Neurocognitive Mechanisms. Perspectives on Psychological Science 16, no. 1, 39–66 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691620917340.
Fox, K. C. R. et al A. Functional Neuroanatomy of Meditation: A Review and Meta-Analysis of 78 Functional Neuroimaging Investigations. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews 65, 208–28 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2016.03.021.
they’d shown improvements in sustained attention and alerting. They also had better working memory encoding, reduced mind-wandering, and greater meta-awareness: There are several studies from other research groups (e.g., Lutz et al., 2008, for review; Zanesco et al., 2013; Zanesco et al., 2016) reporting benefits on attention as a function of participation in longer-term retreats. The specific benefits on SART performance (Witkin et al., 2018) include improvements in sustained attention performance, reductions in self-reported mind-wandering, increases in meta-awareness, improvements in alerting (Jha et al., 2007), and improvements in working memory encoding (van Vugt and Jha, 2011). These were all studies conducted at the Shambhala Mountain Center. The study by Witkin et al. (2018) was conducted in collaboration with Naropa University with my colleague Jane Carpenter Cohn. In addition to studies examining cognitive effects of mindfulness retreats, many studies have been conducted examining other benefits (McClintock et al., 2019).
Lutz, A. et al. Attention Regulation and Monitoring in Meditation. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 12, no. 4, 163–9 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2008.01.005.
Zanesco, A. et al. Executive Control and Felt Concentrative Engagement Following Intensive Meditation Training. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 7, 566 (2013). https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00566.
Zanesco, A. P. et al. Meditation Training Influences Mind Wandering and Mindless Reading. Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice 3, no. 1, 12–33 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1037/cns0000082.
Witkin, J. et al. Mindfulness Training Influences Sustained Attention: Attentional Benefits as a Function of Training Intensity. Poster presented at the International Symposium for Contemplative Research, Phoenix, Arizona (2018).
Jha, A. P. et al. Mindfulness Training Modifies Subsystems of Attention. Cognitive, Affective & Behavioral Neuroscience 7, no. 2, 109–19 (2007). https://doi.org/10.3758/CABN.7.2.109.
van Vugt, M., and Jha, A. P. Investigating the Impact of Mindfulness Meditation Training on Working Memory: A Mathematical Modeling Approach. Cognitive, Affective & Behavioral Neuroscience 11, 344–53 (2011). https://doi.org/10.3758/s13415-011-0048–8.
McClintock, A. S. et al. The Effects of Mindfulness Retreats on the Psychological Health of Non-Clinical Adults: A Meta-Analysis. Mindfulness 10, 1443–54 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-019-01123–9.
Jha, A. P. et al. Minds “At Attention”: Mindfulness Training Curbs Attentional Lapses in Military Cohorts. PLoS One 10, no. 2, 1–19 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0116889.
Jha, A. P. et al. Examining the Protective Effects of Mindfulness Training on Working Memory Capacity and Affective Experience. Emotion 10, no. 1, 54–64 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1037/a0018438.
Service Members:
Jha, A. P. et al. Bolstering Cognitive Resilience via Train-the-Trainer Delivery of Mindfulness Training in Applied High-Demand Settings. Mindfulness 11, 683–97 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-019-01284–7.
Zanesco, A. P. et al. Mindfulness Training as Cognitive Training in High-Demand Cohorts: An Initial Study in Elite Military Servicemembers. In Progress in Brain Research 244, 323–54 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.pbr.2018.10.001.
Military Spouses:
Brudner, E. G. et al. The Influence of Training Program Duration on Cognitive Psychological Benefits of Mindfulness and Compassion Training in Military Spouses. Poster presented at the International Symposium for Contemplative Studies. San Diego, California (November 2016).
Firefighters:
Denkova, E. et al. Is Resilience Trainable? An Initial Study Comparing Mindfulness and Relaxation Training in Firefighters. Psychiatry Research 285, 112794 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2020.112794.
Community and Workplace Leaders:
Alessio, C. et al. Leading Mindfully: Examining the Effects of Short-Form Mindfulness Training on Leaders’ Attention, Well-Being, and Workplace Satisfaction. Poster presented at The Mind & Life 2020 Contemplative Research Conference, online (November 2020).
Accountants:
Denkova, E. et al. Strengthening Attention with Mindfulness Training in Workplace Settings. In Siegel, D. J. and Solomon, M., Mind, Consciousness, and Well-Being (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2020), 1–22.
Jha, A. P. et al. Comparing Mindfulness and Positivity Trainings in High-Demand Cohorts. Cognitive Therapy and Research 44, no. 2, 311–26 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-020-10076–6. We note that positivity training is known to have beneficial effects when offered in other contexts, typified by normative levels of distress and challenge, particularly those suffering from dysphoria.
Becker, E. S. et al. Always Approach the Bright Side of Life: A General Positivity Training Reduces Stress Reactions in Vulnerable Individuals. Cognitive Therapy and Research 40, 57–71 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-015-9716–2.
In the next study, we ran two simultaneous courses: both eight weeks long, both with thirty minutes of “homework” per day, both taught by the same trainer: Jha, A. P. Short-Form Mindfulness Training Protects Against Working Memory Degradation Over High-Demand Intervals. Journal of Cognitive Enhancement 1, 154–71 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41465-017-0035–2.
this is what I want to encourage you to do: practice twelve minutes a day, five days a week: To determine if there is a “minimum effective dose” of mindfulness training, we first needed to examine if dose matters. To do so, we examined if there are dose-response effects, which refer to patterns in which the magnitude of a response varies as a function of the dose of exposure to something. In our studies, the “dose” was the actual amount of time that healthy participants engaged in mindfulness training exercises outside of the formal time they spent in a training course with a qualified trainer. The “response” was their performance on our evaluation metrics of attention and working memory after (versus before) the formal training interval. We have observed dose-response effects on cognitive task performance in many of our studies in high-stress cohorts. Many other research teams have reported dose-response effects in noncognitive domains as well (Lloyd et al., 2018; Parsons et al., 2017). The benefits of mindfulness training are greater in those with more (versus less) practice engagement.
A key point about “dose” in studies of mindfulness training is that assigning participants a specific amount of practice time each day does not mean that they will adhere to these requirements. In fact, in our studies in high-stress cohorts, we have found that there is considerable variability in adherence to assigned practice. Learning this suggested that determining what a “minimum effective dose” is by experimentally prescribing dose (assigning subgroups of participants in the mindfulness training or comparison training conditions to different amounts of daily practice) was unlikely to be fruitful, since we would likely find variability in actual self-reported practice engagement in all the practice subgroups. Instead, we opted for a data emergent approach using the participants’ self-reports of how much they actually practiced. Specifically, participants were median split into high-practice and low-practice subgroups based on their self-reported practice. We then statistically tested to see which of these two groups significantly differed from each other as well as from their respective active-training comparison or no-training control groups, which were also part of these studies.
In our initial studies (Jha et al., 2010; Jha et al., 2015), we assigned thirty minutes of practice every day for the entire eight-week training interval. Very few participants reported engaging in this dose. No significant differences were found when we compared the entire training group (which comprised those with low and high practice) to the no-training control group. But after parsing the training group into high- and low-practice subgroups, we found that the high-practice group’s performance was significantly better than the low-practice and no-training control groups. The high-practice group in this study practiced an average of twelve minutes daily. We used this number to guide our next step. In our next large-scale study (Rooks et al., 2017), we preset practice at twelve minutes a day for the duration of a four-week training interval (the guided practice recordings each lasted twelve minutes and participants were encouraged to complete the entire recording). Once again, there was variability, with some participants practicing only a few days per week, and some practicing more. And again, we did not find that the mindfulness training group as a whole significantly differed from the comparison group, which received relaxation training. We parsed each training group into high- and low-practice subgroups. We found that for those who received mindfulness training, performance was significantly better in the high-practice vs low-practice subgroup. The mindfulness high-practice group also performed significantly better than the relaxation high-practice group. The mindfulness high-practice group engaged in twelve minutes of practice, on average five days per week. In two follow-up studies (Zanesco et al., 2019; Jha et al., 2020), we constrained the practice requirements to five days a week instead of requiring them to practice every day throughout the entire training interval as our previous studies had required. In addition, we slightly increased the daily dose to fifteen minutes by providing fifteen-minute recordings (instead of twelve) because we were now relying on the trainers we had quickly trained instead of expert trainers. In both of these studies, participants largely adhered to the assigned practice, and the mindfulness training group as a whole performed significantly better than the no-training control group at the end of the training interval. These studies suggested that practicing for four to five days a week benefited cognitive performance.
Thus, collectively these studies suggest that a minimum effective dose for benefits to attention and working memory over high-demand intervals in healthy participants is twelve to fifteen minutes a day, five days a week. We acknowledge that many more studies are required to further explore this prescription and that these results may differ for other metrics and other types of groups. Nonetheless, through these series of studies, we seem to have landed upon a recipe that many participants are willing to adhere to. In addition, it opens up many fascinating new lines of research regarding factors (such as personality, prior life experiences, current life demands, and so on) that may determine how much time people are willing to practice. For example, in our initial studies with Marines we found that those with openness as a personality trait and those who had been previously deployed were more willing to practice than others. And finally, it is critical to keep in mind that any research-informed prescription is based on statistics that rely on aggregate data such as averages, trends, and correlations. As such, it is entirely plausible that any one individual may experience beneficial effects of mindfulness training without conforming to this or other research-derived prescriptions.
Lloyd, A. et al. The Utility of Home-Practice in Mindfulness-Based Group Interventions: A Systematic Review. Mindfulness 9, 673–692 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-017-0813-z.
Parsons, C. E. et al. Home Practice in Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy and Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Participants’ Mindfulness Practice and Its Association with Outcomes. Behaviour Research and Therapy 95, 29–41 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2017.05.004.
Jha, A. P. et al. Examining the Protective Effects of Mindfulness Training on Working Memory Capacity and Affective Experience. Emotion 10, no. 1, 54–64 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1037/a0018438.
Jha, A. P. et al. Minds “At Attention”: Mindfulness Training Curbs Attentional Lapses in Military Cohorts. PLoS One 10, no. 2, 1–19 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0116889.
Rooks, J. D. et al. “We Are Talking About Practice”: The Influence of Mindfulness vs. Relaxation Training on Athletes’ Attention and Well-Being over High-Demand Intervals. Journal of Cognitive Enhancement 1, no. 2, 141–53 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41465-017-0016–5.
Zanesco, A. P. et al. Mindfulness Training as Cognitive Training in High-Demand Cohorts: An Initial Study in Elite Military Servicemembers. In Progress in Brain Research 244, 323–54 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.pbr.2018.10.001.
Jha, A. P. et al. Bolstering Cognitive Resilience via Train-the-Trainer Delivery of Mindfulness Training in Applied High-Demand Settings. Mindfulness 11, 683–97 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-019-01284–7.
There are other programs out there incorporating mindfulness as part of a treatment plan for psychological disorders like depression, anxiety, and PTSD: There are many resources on mindfulness-based stress reduction (Kabat-Zinn, 1990) and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for stress and symptom reduction (Segal et al., 2002), as well as meta-analyses on the stress and health benefits of these programs (Goyal et al., 2014).
Kabat-Zinn, J. Full Catastrophe Living: How to Cope with Stress, Pain and Illness Using Mindfulness Meditation (New York: Bantam Dell, 1990).
Segal, Z. V. et al. Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression: A New Approach to Preventing Relapse (New York: Guilford, 2002).
Goyal, M. et al. Meditation Programs for Psychological Stress and Well-Being: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. JAMA Internal Medicine 174, no. 3, 357–68 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41465-017-0016–5.
One way to think about mindfulness practice, and its utility in moments like these: Nila, K. et a. Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Enhances Distress Tolerance and Resilience Through Changes in Mindfulness. Mental Health & Prevention 4, no. 1, 36–41 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mhp.2016.01.001.
Like a bird’s life, [the stream of consciousness] seems to be made [up]: James, W. Principles of Psychology (vols. 1–2). (New York: Holt, 1890). 243.
The instructions are informed by current science on behavior change: Start with extremely small goals, achieve them: Fogg, B. J. Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2020). http://tinyhabits.com.
Be calm to get calm: Personal communication from Walt Piatt (October 4, 2018), conveying quote from Cynthia Piatt, referring to the need and value of emotionally regulating oneself, prior to requesting or requiring it of others.