Attention Rehab: How Attention is Trainable like a Muscle

 Is attention a muscle we can train?

In our class we debated whether attention is something that fluctuates much like our muscle strength or not. But before we get into that deeper thought, lets ask some simpler questions.

Everyone can agree that this is the digital age, and if electronic devices were to simultaneously shut down our society would fall into chaos, but how much time are we using our cell phones to benefit and grow our society versus filling in our gaps of boredom?

After being asked (more so told) to track our phone usage over a 24-hour period for our class, I was a little shell shocked by my own usage. I knew that I could probably stray away from mindless scrolling on Instagram or Facebook, but I didn’t know that I spent upwards of 5+ hours using these platforms! 

I felt like I could have done so many more tasks if I had just put my phone down, but even then, if you are focusing on a task and look at your phone notifications, it takes you up to 23+ minutes to refocus completely! That’s insane!

One study done by Florida State University suggests that merely receiving a push notification is as distracting as responding to a text message or a phone call. The study asked more than 150 students to complete a test of sustained attentional performance. For that test, subjects are shown a series of single digits on a screen. A new digit is displayed about every second. Students are supposed to tap the keyboard every time the digit changes unless the new digit is 3. Everyone took the test twice: the first time, they did it uninterrupted by their devices; the second time, assistants placed calls or texts to some of the students’ phones. They found that performance on the assessment suffered if the student received ANY kind of audible notification. That is, every kind of phone distraction was equally destructive to their performance: An irruptive ping distracted people just as much as a shrill, sustained ring tone. It didn’t matter, too, if a student ignored the text or didn’t answer the phone: If they got a notification, and knew they got it, their test performance suffered.

So, subconsciously its not our fault that we get distracted, we’ve merely been trained to interact with notifications, but through recognizing our habits and practicing good habits we could break the cycle!

Now let’s get back to my first question, is attention something we can train? I believe so, and I have personally experienced a retraining of my attention through sports.

Dr. Vroomann, our professor, made the connection of attention related to fast pace sports like volleyball and basketball. As soon as he mentioned that I had a lightbulb moment! I used to play one of the fastest positions in the game, one that required me to think two steps ahead of the other team, but once I got to college, I was moved to a position that required more time for thinking and planning. I was moving slower than usual, and my body and mind wasn’t ready for that change. I found myself overthinking while I was playing and I wasn’t preforming very well, but over time I developed a new attention span and got better. But I found myself also getting bored with this position, I felt lackadaisical with this position, but this was an opportunity I didn’t recognize until my second year playing this position.

Original picture of myself playing for Texas Lutheran University

#25, Cailey Young

Boredom is an amazing opportunity to expand your creative mind! In her book Bored and Brilliant: How Spacing Out Can Unlock Your Most Productive and Creative Self, Manoush Zomorodi. She interviewed Dr. Sandi Mann, a psychologist, and asked exactly what happens when you get bored that ignites your imagination. “When we're bored, we're searching for something to stimulate us that we can't find in our immediate surroundings.” In other words, our brain is forced into finding something to stimulate itself like daydreaming, creating a new game, or creating art, etc.

For me and my sport, my boredom was solved by playing the position with my own twist. I made the setter, or quarterback for easy comparison, to run a faster play for me. The position I’m in is slow so the defense has time to set up on me, but if I sped up the plays, I had more opportunity to score! My boredom ended up being a huge asset to my team and were one of the most competitive teams in our conference because of it!

So, yes, our attention can be compared to a muscle, and although it has many distractions from its main workout, it can be stimulated and exercised through boredom if we allow it to be bored. So put the phone away, daydream and get creative! It can be really refreshing when you do.