20 key facts

  1. our brains are busier than ever;

    in addition to millions of pieces information our body sends to our brain every second,

    we are assaulted with an ever increasing number facts and pseudo facts all posing as information

  2. figuring out what we need to know

    and what we can ignore is exhausting, both physically and mentally

  3. many people turn to multitasking as the answer,

    but multitasking has been scientifically proven to be a myth

  4. we are not multitasking,

    we are constantly toggling, shifting and switching our cognitive resource

  5. shifting attention from one activity to another causes our brain to burn up oxygenated glucose

    depleting the nutrients we need to stay on task

    leading to compromises in both cognitive and physical performance

  6. multitasking also increases cortisol production, putting us into a stressed state

  7. when we multitask we perform tasks more slowly, make more mistakes and reduce our creative thinking

  8. we are hardwired to be distracted

  9. we seek to minimise pain and maximise pleasure

  10. our “wanting system” fuelled by dopamine, makes us desire and search

  11. our “liking system” delivers consummatory pleasure via opioid receptors

  12. our “wanting system” is more powerful than our “liking system’

  13. we crave and desire more and more and feel satisfied less and less

    this is known as the dopamine loop

  14. the dopamine loop is significantly more powerful than our human gift of self-control

  15. we live in a world of distraction,

    the average person spends almost half their time thinking about something other than what they are doing

  16. our brain’s default mode of operation is to contemplate events that happened in the past, or might happen in the future, or may never happen at all

  17. mind-wandering has been directly correlated with decreased happiness

  18. focussing is the gateway to all thinking skills:

    remembering, understanding, applying, analysing, evaluating, creating

  19. the majority of people find it easier to focus in the morning

  20. a minority of people find it easier to focus in the late afternoon / evening