#📓 #🎧 #🟡 # Brené with Dr. Amishi Jha on Finding Focus and Owning Your Attention ![[calendar-plus.svg]] <small>Apr 02, 2022</small> | ![[calendar-clock.svg]] <small>Jan 03, 2023</small> 🏷️ [[Productivity]] **Podcast: [[Podcasts#Dare to Lead with Brené Brown|Dare to Lead]] **Host:** [[Brené Brown]] **Citation:** Brown, B. (Host). (2022, March 21). Brené with Dr. Amishi Jha on finding focus and owning your attention [Audio podcast episode]. In *Dare to Lead.* Parcast. https://brenebrown.com/podcast/finding-focus-and-owning-your-attention/ --- # 3 Sentence Summary # Notes & Important Ideas ### Dr. Jha's background - Dr. Jha's experience as a volunteer in the brain injury unit of a hospital led to an interest in studying the brain. - How can we rewire the brain by doing something ourselves? - Jha ran lab at the University of Pennsylvania studying the brain system of [[attention]]. - Curious about how to "fix" attention and was guided to explore [[meditation]]. ### What is attention? > In order to remember something, you have to have paid attention to it. - Attention is a system with sub-systems and sub-processes. - [[Focus is a flashlight]] - [[alerting system]] keeps us receptive when things are uncertain - [[executive control]] is most prone to fatigue, especially when [[multitasking]]. - Attention is always fully utilized. - 'Not paying attention' just means your attention isn't on the thing you want to have it on. #### Limits of attention - Attentions is limited but flexible. - Important not to spend too much time [[task-switching]] because it depletes [[attention]]. - Attention is required for thinking, deliberating, problem solving, feeling, and connecting. - Attention is vulnerable to stress, threat and negative mood. #### Mindfulness restores attention - Research showed that 12 minutes a day of [[mindfulness]] training reduces decline of attention and rebuilds it during high-stress intervals. **Myth #1 : Mindfulness means completely clearing your mind.** You cannot clear your mind, it will always wander. Instead, the goal of mindfulness is to pick a target to focus your attention on. **Myth #2: The goal of mindfulness is to feel peaceful and relaxed.** Not about achieving any special state, it's about paying attention to our present moment experience without reacting to it. ### Peak mind pivot > To think better, practice being aware that you are thinking. - Practice [[meta-awareness]] by taking a distanced perspective of your thinking. > To focus better, practice noticing and monitoring when you are not focused. - Engage [[executive control]] to keep your focus where you intended to. > To feel less pain, practice focusing on it, non-elaboratively. Don't make up a story about it, simply observe it and notice how it changes over time. - Do an emotional body scan. Observe the sensations in your body associated with whatever emotion(s) you are experiencing. Notice how it changes. - This is not thinking about the pain. Feel it physically. Watch the pain. ### Creativity and attention Watching/listening to something formulaic in the background to get into creative mode. Two steps to creativity: 1. Generative step of creativity requires [[alerting system]] to be receptive to anything that might come up. 2. Evaluative step requires [[executive control]] to determine if [[focus]] is on the right thing. The formulaic background noise helps quiet [[mind wandering]]. # Connections to Other Materials # Personal Reflection --- # Other References TBR:: 🔖Jha, A. (2021). *Peak mind: Find your focus, own your attention, invest 12 minutes a day.* HarperOne (GR) TBR:: 🔖Jha, A. (2017, March). *How to tame your wandering mind* [Video]. TED Conferences. https://www.ted.com/talks/amishi_jha_how_to_tame_your_wandering_mind