Archive for category General Interest
What is the single best thing we can do for our health?
December 18, 2011Posted in: Blog, General Interest0 Comments
This is one of the most interesting videos I have watched in YouTube in a long time. I encourage virtually all my clients to watch it.
Dr. Mike Evans answers the old question “What is the single best thing we can do for our health” in a completely new way.
Keeping busy makes us happier
June 21, 2010Posted in: General Interest0 Comments
Have you ever been forced to wait for fifteen minutes at the airport luggage carousel? You’ve probably felt miserable and irritated. Now think about how you would have felt if you’d spent the same waiting time walking to the carousel. Wouldn’t you be far happier?
In a recent study, Hsee and colleagues conclude that we’re happier when busy but that –unfortunately– our instinct is for idleness. That means that unless we have a reason for being active we choose to do nothing.
Hsee offered 98 students a choice between delivering a completed questionnaire to a location that was a 15-minute round-trip walk away, or delivering it just outside the room and then waiting 15 minutes, and offered either the same or different types of chocolate snack bar were offered as a reward at the two locations. If the same snack bar was offered at both locations then the majority of students chose the lazy option, delivering the questionnaire just outside the room. By contrast, if a different (black vs. white) bar was offered at each location then the majority chose the far away ‘busy’ option. This was the case even though earlier research showed both snack bar options were equally appealing. In other words, Hsee said, the students’ instinct was for idleness, but when they were given a specious excuse for walking further, most of them took the busy option. Crucially, when asked afterwards, the students who’d taken the walk reported feeling significantly happier than the idle students, consistent with Hsee’s theory that we’re happier when busy.
In a variant of this first study, students asked to evaluate a bracelet had the option of either spending fifteen minutes waiting time sitting idle or spending the same time disassembling the bracelet and rebuilding it. Those given the option of rebuilding it into its original configuration largely chose to sit idle – consistent with our having an instinct for idleness. By contrast, those told they could re-assemble the bracelet into a second, equally attractive and useful design tended to take up the challenge – again, an excuse, however superficial, for activity seems to be all it takes to spur us on. As before, those who spent the fifteen minutes busy subsequently reported feeling happier than those who sat idle.
Given that being busy makes us happier but that our instinct is for idleness, there appears to be a case for encouraging what we may call ‘futile busyness,’ that is: busyness serving no purpose other than to prevent idleness.
To me, this kind of studies reinforce my view that, if possible, we should remain as active as possible as a way to achieve or maintain a healthy mental status. Even if we cannot hold a regular job, choosing to engage in some form of daily activity is extremely beneficial, and must always be encouraged by the mental health professionals as well as the families of those who suffer from a debilitating mental health condition.
Reference: Hsee CK, Yang AX, & Wang L (2010). Idleness aversion and the need for justifiable busyness. Psychological science : a journal of the American Psychological Society / APS, 21 (7), 926-30
Source: The British Psychological Society’s Research Digest blog
Is Multitasking good for your brain?
March 31, 2010Posted in: General InterestTags: Multitasking0 Comments
Believe it or not, even Wikipedia has an article for Multitasking. Here is the definition provided by Wikipedia:
Human multitasking is the performance by an individual of appearing to handle more than one task at the same time. The term is derived from computer multitasking. An example of multitasking is listening to a radio interview while typing an email. Some believe that multitasking can result in time wasted due to human context switching and apparently causing more errors due to insufficient attention. Other research illustrates our brains are capable dealing with certain ‘dual multiple tasks’ at the same time.
Notice the use of the term “appearing” when referring to handling more than one task at the same time. Indeed, while some state that task-juggling makes you feel great (busy, energised, fulfilled, as if you are living three lives in the space of one), others say when you multitask you are scattered, overloading overloading your circuits.
I must admit that most of the information I have read on the topic states that multitasking is —in most cases— inefficient. When we multitask, we are in a way less able to connect with people and form a conscience. Right, multitasking makes us feel more efficient, but it actually slows down our thinking. For most tasks, it i could be said that our brains can’t handle more than one higher cognitive function at a time. We may think we’re multitasking, but in fact we’re switchtasking, toggling between one task and another. The phone, the email, the phone, back to the email. And each time we switch, there’s a few milliseconds of start-up cost. The neurons need time to rev up. Some have gone so far as to describe multitasking as a “mythical activity in which people believe they can perform two or more tasks simultaneously.”
However, I don’t think things have to be black or white. We all have experienced certain circumstances in which multitasking can work well enough. Say, for example, that you are listening to a news program on the radio while cooking. You can do both tasks successfully at the same time. The key, in my opinion, is that one of the tasks (in this case, listening to the radio) is not crucial, so it does not matter if you do not pay full attention to it. On the other hand, a motor task (such as cooking) and a listening task (such as listening to the radio) can be more successfully combined than other tasks which use more related functions of your brain.
A very interesting topic related tom multitasking is Continuous partial attention, which usually involves skimming the surface of the incoming data, picking out the relevant details, and moving on to the next stream:
Continuous partial attention describes how many of us use our attention today. It is different from multi-tasking. The two are differentiated by the impulse that motivates them. When we multi-task, we are motivated by a desire to be more productive and more efficient. We’re often doing things that are automatic, that require very little cognitive processing. We give the same priority to much of what we do when we multi-task — we file and copy papers, talk on the phone, eat lunch — we get as many things done at one time as we possibly can in order to make more time for ourselves and in order to be more efficient and more productive. To pay continuous partial attention is to pay partial attention — CONTINUOUSLY. It is motivated by a desire to be a LIVE node on the network. Another way of saying this is that we want to connect and be connected. We want to effectively scan for opportunity and optimize for the best opportunities, activities, and contacts, in any given moment. To be busy, to be connected, is to be alive, to be recognized, and to matter.
For those who want to read more on the topic, I would recommend this article on How NOT to Multitask.
