The ability to be aware of--and influence--what we're thinking about is a critical self-coaching skill. We need to focus our attention on what's important and devote less of it to what's irrelevant, a task that's more difficult when we're stressed or tired. And yet efforts to actively suppress thoughts can actually be counterproductive--so what can we do?
The late Harvard psychologist Daniel Wegner was known for his work on mental control, and in response to the question, "How do people control their own minds?" he responded:
The simple strategy of directing attention can often be helpful, as people can stop thoughts, concentrate, improve their moods, relax, fall asleep, and otherwise control their mental states just by trying to direct their thoughts. These strategies of mental control can sometimes backfire, however, producing not only the failure of control but the very mental states we are trying to avoid. [1, emphasis mine]
Wegner's insights on mental control emerged from his research on thought suppression, a concept he illustrated with the image of a white bear, inspired by a line from Dostoyevsky: "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." Wegner wrote:
People who are prompted to try not to think about a white bear while they are thinking out loud will tend to mention it about once a minute... It seems that many of us are drawn into what seems a simple task, to stop a thought, when we want to stop thinking of something because it is frightening, disgusting, odd, inconvenient, or just annoying. And when we succumb to that initial impulse to stop, the snowballing begins. We try and fail, and try again, and find that the thought is ever more insistent for all our trying. [2]
Why does this matter so much? Neuroscientist and psychologist Ian Robertson offers a vivid illustration:
We have to inhibit the billions of bits of irrelevant information assailing our senses in order to concentrate on the fragments of information which are crucial for us at a particular point in time.
This difficulty in suppressing the irrelevant causes particular problems with driving in older people. Whereas older people are more vigilant, careful and generally less error prone, they tend to make more mistakes at busy road junctions. At such complicated traffic intersections, everyone--young and old--is faced with a barrage of lights, signals and speeding streams of traffic. Some of this information is critically important for deciding when and what to do next, while much of it is irrelevant. For instance, the roaring trucks on the motorway overhead may be noisy and intimidating, but they...are quite irrelevant to the task of managing to turn here. A young driver will be much better able to "screen out" this irrelevant distraction than an older driver, and so will be better able to focus attention on the lights and traffic which are important for surviving this particular turn. [3]
But the risk of a car crash is just one danger we face if we're unable to avoid distraction and manage our attention effectively. We encounter the equivalent of a busy intersection every day in fast-paced meetings with full agendas and with our devices constantly streaming massive amounts of data in our direction. In these settings how do we focus our attention in order to achieve our goals most effectively?
Inhibition is crucial here--wasting attention on the equivalent of a noisy but irrelevant truck roaring overhead could result in an ill-timed turn. But we can't simply compel ourselves to ignore such distractions, or we may risk becoming fixated on them. And if we're stressed or tired, it will be even more difficult to focus our attention where it's needed most.
So what steps can we take? Health journalist Lea Winerman covered a presentation by Wegner at the annual convention of the American Psychological Association [4], in which he described several strategies for mental control, both in the moment and over time:
Minimize distractions in the moment by...
- Eliminating multi-tasking, which diminishes our cognitive load, frees up finite working memory and increases our ability to focus. [5]
- Identifying an "absorbing distractor" that will prevent us from becoming fixated on a more problematic focal point.
Build capacity to focus attention over time by...
- Address unwanted thoughts in some designated period during the day. (Winerman notes that chronic worriers who set aside 30 minutes during which they were free to worry experienced less anxiety.)
- Committing to a mindfulness practice, such as meditation. [6]
A note on mindfulness: Although I can find meditation difficult, I persist in the practice because my own experience is consistent with Wegner's recommendation. For me meditation isn't a means to a stress-free state--it's a workout in attention management, and like any workout it can be taxing. My simple practice is inspired by Jon Kabat-Zinn: Get still, notice what I'm thinking about (and how it makes me feel), let go of that thought (and those emotions) and bring my attention back to what it feels like to breathe. Within seconds, I'm thinking about something else again, and the cycle repeats itself over and over for the duration of my meditation session. It's not easy and not particularly fun, but I'm exercising my capacity for self-awareness and my ability to direct attention, and a consequence of that workout is that I'm better able to focus on what matters and minimize distractions.
Footnotes
[1] Mental Control and Ironic Processes (Daniel Wegner, a summary of The Handbook of Mental Control, edited by Wegner and James Pennebaker, 1992)
[2] Thought Suppression (Daniel Wegner, a summary of White Bears and Other Unwanted Thoughts: Suppression, Obsession, and the Psychology of Mental Control, 2nd edition, 1994)
[3] Mind Sculpture: Unlocking Your Brain's Untapped Potential, pages 114-115 (Ian Robertson, 2000)
[4] Suppressing the "white bears" (Lea Winerman, Monitor on Psychology, Volume 43, No. 9, October 2011)
[5] You're Not Multi-Tasking, You're Half-Assing (2016)
[6] Don't Just Do Something, Sit There! (Mindfulness for Busy People) (2017)
For Further Reading
The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking (Oliver Burkeman, 2012)
Many thanks to Oliver Burkeman for introducing me to the work of Daniel Wegner.
Updated July 2018.
Photo by flickrfavorites.
