Living in an overly-distracted world and its effects on our attention, intentions, and actions. Why our mind and thoughts may often work against us.

Sleep deprivation, anxiety, stress, depression, and increased attention deficit are all associated with overuse of the internet and your smartphone. A habit that has been converted to an obligation is an addiction. So, ask yourself if you just woke up, opened your eyes and reached for your phone? Do you use your smartphone as a solution to boredom, feeling anxious or depressed, or to avoid facing an issue? Does the amount of time spent on your smartphone increase your anxiety or stress? Have you ever kept track of your screentime or tried to cut back on it to no avail?

Greater connection to each other, ideas, knowledge, and information is something to be sought. The smartphone and the power and connections it holds for us are endless, but we must also pause to make sure our attention, intention and actions are not being compromised in the overly-distracted world we are living.  We must understand the connection between how our thoughts and actions manifest, to harness the power of the technology at our fingertips, instead of that technology diminishing our power to accomplish and achieve in our day.

There are many things externally and internally at play when it comes to our attention, intention, and actions, for now, we will touch upon three factors: (1) the effect of excessive smartphone use and/or addiction, (2) mind-wandering, and (3) our ability to support ourselves and value our actions. First, it is important to note a few scientific findings.  A two-year-long USC study  tracking 2,600 teens is only one of many studies that have found that heavy users of digital devices are twice as likely to show symptoms of ADHD as those who are infrequent users. Smartphone usage is not necessarily the cause of attention deficit, sleep deprivation, anxiety, stress, and depression, but it is a contributing factor, and it needs to be managed to lessen such effects.

Situational support for yourself is a vital key to achieving your goals. What do I mean by that? When setting goals for ourselves and wanting to accomplish, we must support ourselves in action and in thought.  In action – if I was going on a diet and my favorite cookies were sitting on the kitchen table, it would be very hard for me to not eat those cookies in plain sight despite my willpower.  To support myself, I would have to remove those cookies from the house or at least place them out of sight in the house to situationally support my goal of not eating them.  The same holds true of the distractions in my life.  If my over usage of my smartphone is negatively impacting me then I must situationally support myself by taking actions which may include removing my phone from by bedroom or silencing it at night, setting daily usage limitations of certain apps on my phone, or charging it in a separate room when I have set aside hours to accomplish a task or goal. 

How can we support ourselves in thought? We have this great fete as humans – the ability of mind-wandering, which is a shift in the contents of thought away from an ongoing task and/or from events in the external environment to self-generated thoughts and feelings. It is the default mode network in our brain that gives us the ability of mind wandering and the thousands of thoughts that can spur us and our imagination, but this often works against us, because not every thought serves us. The DMN thinks outside the here and now, and resides in the past, future, and others. - a cognitive achievement that often works against us.  In fact, many thoughts do not help us and need to be allowed to just pass by and wash away.

Your mind does not control you. You are greater than just your mind - you are also soul, heart and energy. Not every thought is a fact or serves you, nor does every thought warrant an action. You must let some thoughts just pass by and not be acted upon. You are not your thoughts; you are the observer of your thoughts. Thoughts can be distortions, subjective, incorrect perspectives which need reframing. Psychologists Matthew A. Killingsworth and Daniel T. Gilbert of Harvard University write, “The ability to think about what is not happening is a cognitive achievement that comes at an emotional cost. A wandering mind is an unhappy mind.” The research by Killingsworth and Gilbert found that people spend 46.9 percent of their waking hours thinking about something other than what they are doing, mind-wandering, and this mind-wandering typically makes them unhappy. Too much time is spent contemplating past events, or anticipating future events that may never happen, and it is in the contemplating of the past or anticipation of the future that anxiety and depression exist.  If a wandering mind is an unhappy mind, and the distraction of the smartphone only intensifies and doesn’t lessen, then what can we turn to foster a happy mind?  The answer lies in the power of now and meditation. Studies and scans of the brain of people who meditate show that the default mode network is less active, mind-wandering is curbed, other regions of the brain are at play and the positive effect of meditation lasts beyond just the time spent meditating. We will explore this further later. 

Another goal is to discover the connection of trigger-thought-action-consequence. This is our behavioral chain.  Ask yourself what are the “chains” that bind you to dysfunctional consequences in your life like broken relationships, addictions, or negative emotions. When you start to be aware of these chains then you can begin to get the support needed to create positive change.

We are not in control of the triggers in our lives or our thoughts, and we do not get to choose the challenges or adversity we face, but we are in control of our actions and whether we choose to act on a thought, and if so how.  If acting on a thought results in a negative consequence that we do not like, then we have to work on our behavioral chain and not repeat the action that leads to that negative consequence. This is hard at first, and even harder when we have ADHD, an addiction, or a habit that draws us, all of which require greater help, tools and effort.  However, in every instance we are still in control no matter what- we just need the situational support to accomplish it:

·         mediation to curb our mind-wandering;

·         removing temptations and distractions;

·         eating the foods that help the chemical composition of our bodies;

·         sleeping to wash away our brain’s toxins and replenish our energy – it is the science of brain plasticity;

·         exercise to also level our chemical make up- to release the happy chemicals (DOES- Dopamine, Serotonin, Oxytocin and Endorphins) and lessen the cortisol and stress chemicals in our body and balance our emotions;

·         taking any medications, we may need in support of handling struggles or issues; and

·         seeking those to support our journey.

It takes work to support your attention, intentions, and actions, but you’re worth it and strong and powerful. Using that strength and power, and the life tools available which we will continue to explore, will help create the routine and support necessary to allow you to thrive and flourish.  Knowing and remembering we are all connected, in this journey together, experiencing much of the same, and surrounded by more people who want to help than hurt, leads one to many answers and sources of support. Have a strong and happy day!