I used to have perfect focus. I could read a book for hours. Sit down and just read. Instead of grounding me from T.V., My mom grounded me from books.

But then I got a phone. I couldn’t focus on a single task. I would hear a little buzz and wonder who it was. 

My phone made it difficult to concentrate on one thing. 

In her TEDx Talk “Making Your Brain Smarter,” Neuroscientist Sandi Chapman says “deeper thinking” skills can be increased by taking information from multiple sources and using them for one task. This “hack” makes our brains smarter, sharper, and better. 

Multitasking is a myth. It breaks down our brain function. We need to process one project to think deeply and innovatively. . 

Too often we live on autopilot, living off a checklist, never using the deeper aspects of our mind. For me, I’ve found “brain hacking.” Brain hacks are strategies to increase deep thinking skills. Mostly, it is resistance training for your brain. When you say no to outside distraction, you improve your focus. Essentially, ignoring distractions is lifting weights for deep thinking. 

Chapman calls this the rule of one. One task. One focus. It is the most powerful productivity tool you can access. Brain hacking is also used in three ways: sleep, movement, and meditation. 

People associate these with health, but they are also a great boost for productivity. 

Sleep, movement, and meditation are the fundamentals of the rule of one. With these in your toolbox, your ability to focus on one thing will drastically increase.

Sleep  

“ Sleep is an investment in the energy you need to be effective tomorrow.”

Tom Roth

Most know that sleep is important, but many of us fail to get proper sleep. Sleep is essential for memory and any cognitive function.

A recent study compared the cognitive function of individuals who got nine, seven, five and three hours of sleep. The nine-hour group was the only one with full cognitive performance. Another study found peak brain performance a little above seven hours of sleep. Pilots improved brain performance by 34% when they took a nap.

Most people sacrifice sleep for work, school, and friendships, but working on four hours of sleep will not make you a better student or employee. Everyone requires different amounts of sleep. I’d challenge you to get a little more than you think you need. 

If you can hack into proper sleep, you can stop cheating the brain of its full capacity. I encourage you to think less, let your brain rest, and you’ll be able to do more.

Movement

Me thinks that the minute my legs begin to move my thoughts begin to flow, as if I had given vent to the stream at the lower end and consequently new fountains flowed into it at the upper.”

-Henry David Thoreau

When I started running, a strange side effect was I could read longer. I could sit down and read for hours. I could focus on my homework with distraction.

This isn’t just a personal phenomenon. In rats, new brain cells are created faster when running leading to improved memory and mood. Any amount of exercise can have powerful impacts on your cognitive function. The mind and body are intertwined and the more physically fit we are, the more mentally fit we are.

I try to do something active every day even if it’s not a “workout.” Sometimes that’s stretching and a walk. Exercise doesn’t have to be about looks. It can be about your brain. Instead of forcing productivity on our minds by sitting more and working more, setting aside time to move around could be one way to increase our ability to focus on a single task.

Mindfulness Meditation

“If you are quiet enough, you will hear the flow of the universe. You will feel its rhythm. Go with this flow. Happiness lies ahead. Meditation is key.”

-Siddhartha Guatama (Buddha)

Mindfulness is a sense of awareness. For me, that means smelling my coffee as I drink it, noticing the way I’m sitting while writing, and being aware of feelings.

The components of mindfulness meditation involve attention regulation, body awareness, emotional regulation and perspective on self. Take a deep breath. Notice how you feel. Take note of what your hands feel like if your face is clenched.

Taking a few moments for meditation and mindfulness can improve how we understand and process information. It’s resistance training for your brain.  

People that meditate have been found by increased grey matter in the parts of the brain associated with thinking and emotion, improved attention span, better mood and decreased stress hormones. 

Meditation can improve the networks that allow us to focus, but it is certainly the discipline I struggle with most. 

So What Now?

We all want to think deeper. Be more attentive. More productive. Sometimes we fall into the trap of do more, do more, do more, but we have malleable brains and we can use tools to stretch them. Combining sleep, movement and meditation can increase our concentration.  We can focus deeply and let our brains be capable of more than let them 

Action items

• We can make time for sleep by putting away our phones and T.V. at night
• Exercise can be done in “snacks.” A 10-minute walk in the morning and a 15 minute HIIT workout after work
• Weave meditation into your morning routine. Set a timer for 5 minutes to practice deep breathing (or Adriene’s yoga meditation is only 7 minutes long)

We have to have TIME to practice this.

The final component is to slow down and build time to be phone-free, tech-free, and work free. Down time doesn’t have to be spent in front of the T.V. Get a pen and a pencil, read something, write something, create something.

When we prioritize deep thinking, we reject the constant “business” in favor of real productivity. Slow down. Then cut down the number of things to do in favor of a few things done with care and quality. Then, we can get more, by doing less.

Sources

1. Here’s the Tedx I watched. Thought you might enjoy a quick watch!

2. Hacking the Brain: Dimensions of Cognitive Enhancement Martin Dresler, Anders Sandberg, Christoph Bublitz, Kathrin Ohla, Carlos Trenado, Aleksandra Mroczko-Wąsowicz, Simone Kühn, and Dimitris RepantisACS Chemical Neuroscience 2019 10 (3), 1137-1148DOI: 10.1021/acschemneuro.8b00571

3. Sleep Deprivation: Impact On Cognitive Performance Alhola P, Polo-Kantola P. Sleep deprivation: Impact on cognitive performance. Neuropsychiatr Dis Treat. 2007;3(5):553‐567.

4. Sleep and Cognitive Performance From Teens to Old Age Richards A, Inslicht SS, Metzler TJ, et al. Sleep and Cognitive Performance From Teens To Old Age: More Is Not Better. Sleep. 2017;40(1):zsw029. doi:10.1093/sleep/zsw029

5. Killing them softly: Neuroscience revels how brain cells die from law school stress and how neural self-hacking can optimize cognitive performance Austin, Debra S. “Killing them softly: neuroscience reveals how brain cells die from law school stress and how neural self-hacking can optimize cognitive performance.” Loyola Law Review, vol. 59, no. 4, Winter 2013, p. 826+. Gale OneFile: LegalTrac, https://link-gale-com.ezproxy.lib.ou.edu/apps/doc/A364853955/LT?u=uok_lawlib&sid=LT&xid=3d855254. Accessed 12 May 2020.

6. Running Changes the Brain: the Long and the Short of It Vivar C, van Praag H. Running Changes the Brain: the Long and the Short of It. Physiology (Bethesda). 2017;32(6):410‐424. doi:10.1152/physiol.00017.2017

7. Enhanced Attentional Network by Short-term Intensive Meditation Kwak S, Kim SY, Bae D, et al. Enhanced Attentional Network by Short-Term Intensive Meditation. Front Psychol. 2020;10:3073. Published 2020 Feb 7. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.03073