How to tame your wandering mind | Amishi Jha
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- čas přidán 17. 04. 2018
- Amishi Jha studies how we pay attention: the process by which our brain decides what's important out of the constant stream of information it receives. Both external distractions (like stress) and internal ones (like mind-wandering) diminish our attention's power, Jha says -- but some simple techniques can boost it. "Pay attention to your attention," Jha says.
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I can't remember what she said ,but the origami birds in the background were truly amazing.
Grey Silverback Exactly!!! LOL
Almost hypnotic. I think I want those hanging in my house. Oh, what were we talking about?
I thought this was irony but everyone responded seriously lol
Nevermind I didn't finish reading any of the comments before responding
It's kinda both ironic and serious
Summary:
* everyone experiences wandering attention
* (estimated) 50/50 of a typical persons' day is spent distracted
* external and internal distractions contribute to attention loss
* stress influences our capacity and duration of attention
* myth that the brain uses %10. Fact, we uses %100 of our brain function
* information overload contributes to loss of attention
* being distracted increases stress and decreases accuracy
* internal distractions, like our inner monologue, and external distractions, contribute to attention loss
* loss of focus or wandering attention contributes to the onset and severity of PTSD and stress related disorders
* mindfulness decreases the severity of stress disorders
* being mindful during crisis can save your life; practice mindfulness now to be prepared later
* mindfulness, before entering a high stress situation, increases the quality of attention and results
* "Pay attention to your attention"
Great topic. Badly explained examples. Exceptionally well demonstrated. Would like this topic done again, with better examples of attention strengthening exercises. Mindfulness just doesn't cut it for concluding that, yes, everyone experiences wandering attention. Thank you for speaking. Looking forward to version 2.0 of the same topic
Thank you for the summary-excellent!
Can you expand on your hopes for a better presentation perhaps giving some better examples if you have any in mind? Do you just mean the talk should have more examples of exercises in it? Thank you
you actually saved my time.. thank you 😊
#EckhartTolle #ThichNhatHanh
Extreme summary.... Do yoga and meditation and you are good to go😂😂
the captain who-ever-i-forgot-already was such a bad example
Here's an interview with the speaker, Amishi Jha, that might help:
So, how do we gain control of those flickering flashlights and achieve focus? “That’s where mindfulness training comes in,” says Jha. She describes this training as a “portable brain fitness routine to keep our attention strong.” She has tested the effects of such training on subjects in high-stress groups, like athletes and military personnel. Her research has found that the attention of someone who hasn’t had mindfulness training declines when they’re under intense stress, but in people who’ve had training, their attention remains stable. What’s more, in people who regularly do mindfulness exercises, their attention actually gets better over time - even when they’re under stress. According to Jha, researchers have started to uncover other benefits associated with mindfulness, including reduced anxiety, protection from depression relapse, and improved working memory.
What is mindfulness? It’s about paying attention to the present moment with awareness and without emotional reactivity. “It doesn’t require any particular worldview or spiritual or religious belief system,” says Jha. Mindfulness training can be broken down into two major categories: focused attention and open monitoring. They’re very different, yet complementary, practices.
Focused attention exercises cultivate your brain’s ability to focus on one single object, like one’s breath. To do mindful breathing, sit in a comfortable, upright position and focus all your attention on the sensation of breathing - “for example, the coolness of air moving in and out of your nostrils or your abdomen moving in and out,” says Jha. “Focus on something that is tied to your sensory experience. When your mind wanders away from that sensation to internal mental content or an external distraction, gently return it to the breath-related object.” Don’t be surprised or disappointed if you find yourself retrieving your mind hundreds of times during a 15-minute session. Think of your brain like a puppy you’re training to walk on a leash. Gently redirect it every time it darts away.
Another focused-attention exercise is mindful walking. Notice the sensations of walking - “your feet on the ground, the wind caressing your skin, sounds in the air,” says Jha. Walking can take place either indoors or outdoors. You might find this activity easier than mindful breathing; go with whatever exercise works best for you.
One final focused-attention exercise is the body scan. Remember the idea of your attention being like a flashlight? “A body scan is essentially taking that flashlight and directing it systematically through the entire body,” Jha says. Start by focusing your attention on your toes, taking note of whatever sensations might be there. Tightness? Tingling? Warmth? Cold? Next, you can move on to the soles of the feet and the heels, then the legs, stomach, and so on, slowly moving your flashlight up your body. After you have a good grounding in focused attention practice and can keep your attention on a particular object or set of sensations for a period of time, you can move on to open monitoring.
Open monitoring helps you learn to pay attention to what’s happening around you without becoming attached to it. This practice is not about paying attention to a particular object or objects. Instead, it’s about remaining open to any experience - internal or external - that arises, and allowing it to wash over you. “You don’t process it, you don’t think about it,” Jha says. “You just notice its occurrence and allow it to dissipate.” To do this, sit in a comfortable, upright position and try to be aware of any sensations, thoughts or emotions that emerge, without holding on to them. It might help you to label what comes up by using words like “planning,” “worrying,” “judging,” “remembering.” You can do this silently or out loud. After you name it, let it go. Think of what you’re doing as like watching clouds move in the sky and observing the different shapes they make - but in this practice, you’re watching your thoughts travel through your mind. And yes, there will be times when you feel like you keep getting hooked on a particular thought or sensation and can’t seem to drop it. Says Jha, “If you find you’re so lost in thought that you can’t do the open monitoring practice, go back to doing a focused attention exercise to steady yourself again.”
People generally start to see benefits when they practice for about 15 minutes a day, 5 days a week, for around 4 weeks. “If you do more, you benefit more,” she says, “but if you do less than 12 minutes a day, we don’t really see any benefits.” If you try any of these exercises and have trouble keeping your mind still, know that that’s a common experience. Jha urges people not to feel discouraged - as with any new activity or sport, you need to practice. “The mind will wander, and that’s completely fine. It’s not about not letting the mind wander; it’s when the mind wanders, to gently return your attention,” she says.
Start small. “Begin with whatever you consider a reasonable goal and cut it in half, and make a commitment for some period of time,” says Jha. Your goal might be as simple as vowing to stop every day and take the posture of one of the practices, says Jha. Chances are, once you sit (or walk), you’ll decide to stay for a while. Whatever your initial goal, commit to that for a month - and congratulate yourself for making it! - and then gradually increase your practice time until you’re doing it for 15 minutes, 5 days a week. Finding a mindfulness community, whether virtual or in person, can help you stick to the activity. What’s most important, says Jha, is to make sure “you really support yourself to create the habit of practicing,” whether that means setting multiple reminders for yourself or finding a quiet spot and time at your home or workplace to sit.
Jha has seen the positive impact of mindfulness training on the many people she’s worked with over the years. One thing that struck her is how much the military personnel say it has improved not just their ability to work under pressure but also their home lives. Many told her that they’d struggled to be present with their families after returning from deployment. But after mindfulness training, they found they were better able to be present with their loved ones - which is something most of us would like to do, too. “This idea of being present to the people around us when we really want to be present - it often escapes us how to do this,” says Jha. By reclaiming our own attention, we can more fully connect with the people who matter to us.
Awesome
That was great:) Thanks~
Thanks you brother
Thaaanks🙏🏾💚
Wow thank you for this
This is not fair! If you make me watch an 18 minutes plus video, then you have to share the tips for gaining mindfulness.
how to tame wandering mind
just ended with the results.. c'mon I thought we would be hearing the methods
Nutei Sailung
Pay attention to your attention.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
14:28 "If people do our mindfulness training they get better"
So there you go. Your brain is a muscle, the more you train it in anything the better you get. But what are those mindfulness exercises? That would answer the title of the video
Lumosity :)
Little Cripple I think someone else in the comments said it was meditation... But her lack of detail on how to do mindfulness training was a huge oversight of this talk... I wish there was a link or something...
Just google it...
I often wonder in my mind and stop paying attention to life.., I think she was just trying to say to try to catch yourself when you’re in this “trance” and practice getting out of it and pay attention to what you’re really supposed to be paying attention to.
Typical ted talk. 99% things people already know, 1% their actual research, 0% the argument for the value of their research.
Mindfulness has made a big difference in my service-connected PTSD.
so is this a 18:08mins ads of their mindfulness training program? common TED! your old videos used to be full of goodies :(
I'm getting that impression as well
Exactly dude, what a waste of time
That was exactly my reaction. But, if her definition of mindfulness is the same as the ones I've heard many times, there are lots of advice about how to practice it. So if you believe in the benefits she talked about and want to find out more ... do what I did ... Google mindfulness. Here's one link I have not yet explored. www.mindful.org/meditation/mindfulness-getting-started/
Meditation is well studied as to it's benefit for stress reduction and specifically requires you to be mindful of your thoughts when practiced.
So my plan is to stop complaining that she didn't give me the answers to _life, the universe and everything_ and pick up my long abandonment of my mindfulness practices.
Not "TED," "TEDx Coconut Grove." TED usually does not present speech long ads, but TEDx events (which are independent) often do.
@@RobertShaverOfAustin Thank you for the reply, it encourages me not to get distracted by any other opinions. I have a panic attack and it kinda bothers me a lot of time. I really need this.
What was the training??
She fooled us...😢😢😢
Anybody have a link to the program? I looked for books on this a week ago and found very little. Several ted talks have talked about it... but it's an ambiguous term that's hard to track down reliable info on.
Update: The "program" is essentially what I know as meditation + being mindful of distractions and letting them go www.mindfulnesseveryday.org/pdf/Meiklejohn_K-12_WhitePaperSummary.pdf
If she is to tell you, she would have to charge you.
download luminocity
Yeah total click bait
No offense, but this felt like I just watched a really long ad...
Otherwise why would you spend 18 minutes just to tell us to practice mindfulness and how helpful it is without giving actual productive advice. People who have problems concentrating usually know about the importance of "mindfulness" or whatever you call it because they have to deal with this problem every single day.
Sorry, but this wasn't worth my time OR my attention, and the title as has unfortunately become a Ted norm lately, is clickbait.
Yeah, me too. I've practiced meditation and other mindfulness practice but was too lazy to stick with it. This vid has caused me to start up again. I've always had a wondering mind. My solution has mostly to put off my work until I'm dead tired, then I can force myself to focus and get the task done. Maybe there could be an easier way. Maybe I'll try again.
Robert Shaver Oh well, then maybe at least something good came out of this.
Best of "luck" to us both 🙂
(btw, that's unfortunately very similar to how I get things done).
It had to be an extra long one too and I just ended up feeling strung along waiting for the take away .
celestialcircledance Ikr, talk about a waste of time.
I was frustrated by the time I finished watching it... 😖
All these talks are sales pitches. Isn't it obvious?
Energy flows where Attention goes !! Whatever we focus on is ultimately where our energy will be directed , both positive and negative. A lot of us (including myself) to direct our energy in negative directions. Let us begin to take the action today to directing our energy in more positive directions.
Im glad my mind wandered at 3:41. If not I wouldn't have gone through the comments and learned she doesn't offer an actual anwser in this video.
So how do i do that mindfullness exercise? Or did my mind wonder off while watching
My wandering mind brought me here.
Would be really helpful if she mentioned resources for learning about mindfulness. I can search Google, but being an expert and having had success in helping others to learn how to practice mindfulness in a way that has been empirically proven to work she really could have helped people find quality information.
I found out that she recommends mindful meditation daily
I think you can learn more about CBD from Weedborn.
Thank you so much
I wish if you could share some mindfulness exercises so that we cud improve our attention. Would have been really helpful
you gotta pay for that
Have you ever thought of using Google or Bing or duck-duck-go. You might be able to find such things all by your self. I did.
Wats duck duck go
Robert Shaver well thanks bro
Don't mention it ... oh ... too late. :)
Motivating speech
Thank you very much
That's awesome....
Thank-you....tedx
Thank you
She has an awesome voice
My mind was wondering so much while watching this. Then about three-four hours later I closed a few browser tabs and here I was still halfway through the video. Dammit.
Great talk. Suprised by the dislike ratio (around 10%), this was fantastic. It's definitely inspired me to make some changes in my life. I will spend less time trying to keep my mind distracted and more time trying to keep it focused.
*Great talk*
This video was on my top list of "to watch later " and now I know I have wasted 18 mins of my life in not knowing why I clicked on this video..!
What is the PROPER WAY TO STOP MIND WANDERING
Muito bom!
18 mins infomercial for the program?
This is fantastic! I know this by my practice over the years, but didn’t know the data!
It is an amazing video. Where could I find the mindfulness training program or tools?
The exercises are to be living "in the moment", and being mindful in these moments.
Meditation also compliments this practice.
It is TOPS!!!!!!
Awesome stuff 👍
Faschinating research ! I wish it were presented more in a way that demonstrates its application to better our lives. Found it a bit academic to keep my interest tbh.
Love thiss
Fantastic presentation! Very informative and thought-provoking.
Wished she had given more examples of mindfulness exercise.
If she had said "Buy our mindfulness guide with the link below" I would not have been surprised.
Awesome
Brillant presentation 😊👌
If you think my mind will stay still long enough for me to learn how to keep it from wandering, well I have news for you..........Waffles.
with Haagendaaz
czcams.com/video/-Gj95m0CR5I/video.html
I like trains
I laughed with this comment 😆😆😆
Right? Lol 😂
I thought she was going to tell us how to tame our minds and stop them from wandering.... Sounds like it was a pitch to buy her program. Waste of time.
It's what I exactly think. She didn't let us know 'how to do that'. If you want to know? Buy it! She just use TED for her ad.
they tried so hard not to mention the word "meditation" lol
the best video
Beautifully presented, informative and in fact compassionate - thank you so much.
Wow! very empowering and vibrant message. Thank you.
18 minutes of my life i payed attention just to find out there's really nothing to pay attention here.
I had to rewatch half of the video because I thought that I wasn't paying attention while she was talking about the exercise.
Yeah turns out I was actually paying attention and she haven't told anything about an exercise.
So...this is an ad. :( I was really hoping there would be practical helps here. I think she's a great speaker. But there was nothing here but an ad for her "mindfulness training". Bummer, Ted.
Found this Ted talk through reading her book. A neuroscientist friend recommended it bc it’s in her words “the best book on improving general cognition”. I’ve had a cognitive issue for sometime and her book/mindfulness techniques have by far been the most effective thing at bringing back my cognitive abilities. I think her talk is more about the concept of mindfulness, if you want sources, you’re literally one google search away. Or better yet, just read her book and try the exercises.
so is this ultimately just an ad for taking their "mindfulness training" program?
The God Emperor
Yes.
was wandering during the video, now I have to watch again... ahhh
Oh, super interesting! Have to wait till lunch break to watch ☹️
although some ads, it is very helpful.
Im glad Jeff Davis is alive.
I would never thank mindfulness or my own mind or my own mindfulness to save me. God does that.
Man you should have brought me on for that trial. My mind wanders like crazy.
All i heard was Mindfulness.mindfulness. mindfulness..i wish she illustrated the procedure of the mindfulness training.
You are all right,i have written all that in my diary for self adaptation
Im suffering mind wandering
My mind wandered soooo much while watching this (school assignment) She's pretty even though I can't understand the black and brown outfit...
My mind flew somewhere else in just 3 minutes.
You meant, listen carefully to my ads for the next eight minutes, and i did. as a result of that, i did subscribe to this channel.
I am a recovered heroin addict i am also diagnosed with PTSD,and bipolar. I do not take pharmaceuticals. I learned dbt skills,mindfullness,exercise,art,facing my fears,and juicing. It really boils down to balance. Look into the polyvagal theory.
18mins watching an ad and the revealing answer is meditation? Come on Ted...
use aderal that will solve a wondering mind.
What is the difference between the prewar experience of soldiers today and those of WW II soldiers who were in just as much stress?
Has TED become a marketing platform???!!!
Hats off to those who are fiddling through the comments before watching the whole video!
18 minutes that I’ll never get back for absolutely nothing
Yea and how do you train that? She said a whole lot without saying anything at all. It was like a late night infomercial: And now you can train your mind in mindfulness for only 3999 a week, there’s no price on being in the moment. (126 payments required before ending subscription)
🤣
3:45 Mindfulness Training reduces stress.
- Dr Amishi Jha, Psychologist | Neuro Scientist, NIH
What's the training
thank you so much ,lovely and informative. the ending is amazing,pay attention to your attention.The call for action is awesome.
I have trouble Focusing on the speaker when I enable subtitles. On one hand I read along what the presenter is saying but on the other I don't get the full experience of listening to the presentation. anyone else find them self in a similar circumstance?
10:55; 18,000 miles per 18 months if not roadways; diskState understands fragmentation
What are the exercises?
It's crazy, no matter what my problems are, almost all of them are solved through mindfulness. Even my blood pressure can be lowered through it, it's amazing that Buddhist/Hindu practices are showing so much promise. It's clear to me that thousands of years ago, Aliens must have visited India.
Laugh if you want, but how did they understand this and quantum theory in 2500 BCE?
Snape has Taught me Oclemency and now I can no longer tell whether I'm trying to be mindful or not.
Attention changes perception
ok but what is it what do u want us to do
Is that Rikki Lake?
I really need to tame my waaat were we talkin about?
Over the last 2 months my mind always wander and I'm sitting hear feel like it's too tired, like my mind has to run a marathon everyday without almost any resting moment. My mind wanders even when I'm sleeping I have no idea, so every morning I wake up it feels like talking in my head for 6 hours straight and this's happened for 2 months now. Anyone could help me please!
5 minutes of watching and I am clueless as to what it's all about. Where's the 'How to... ' That's what I need.
Daydreaming Creativity is a different type of attention that may need to be understood? Visual attention? Connect the dots attention? Refocused attentions? Learned or lost new information? Adding new information to old information connection? Five senses absorbing? Wisdom of factual details of what we learn and understanding how it pertains to life? Presentation of knowledge to learning style? How not to let it go, but give relevance to history of the minds interactions in life? Reality check? Addressing reasons for stress? Not to forget the origins of stress? Is mindfulness meditation blocking out past stressful events to let go of fear for today or memories of past cruelty ? The blind leading the blind? The challenge of never being being seen in the here and now ? Finding or having a mentor paying attention to life skills? Street Smarts? Confidence equals attention to by who and all?
They both have their job, auto pilot reacts faster, minfullness is helpfull when you want to train your unconciouness to act automatically to achieve your goals, try driving in mindfullness state, dont recomend it. So I believe that's what she meant is to train uncounciouness to work for you, I hope.....even thinking on a fake scrnary you train your brain to react as you wish next time
mind over matter
Look up Jon Kabat-Zinn and 'wherever you go there you are' for Mindfulness exercises. I personally don't recommend it as its filled with non-sequiturs, but it'll give an idea as to how mindfulness is supposed to work.
Mindfulness is all very good & useful for people in the marines, fire service etc who need to keep their attention. But if like many of us you do a really tedious, repetitive job... Well, I don't want to be in the present moment. My mind wanders (especially to the past) because the 'now', in life generally as well as work, is actually rather boring & predictable.
Nice speech
completely misleading title. she didn't say how to tame it, it was an advertisement not a ted talk
Where is the info?
So, was this just an infomercial for her mindfulness training program?
She sounds exactly like Elastagirl from The Incredibles. *continues listening
Tom C omg.. Yes!!!!
Wow, interesting!
*The real question is, what the heck Captain Davis was looking in a country far far away from his home.*
where can one get mindfulness training?
in her book
Subeditor fail. Saying 'do mindfulness training' is not 'How to.' Is this TED? Spruiking?
who else was focusing on the blue paper birds after saying "Im going to watch the whole video without getting distracted "
16:40 Major* Davis, not Captain.
...And she thought we weren't paying attention.
I mind wandered during this video lol
Me: Watches a video on how to tame your wandering mind
1-minute in...checks instagram.
If my attention is my boss then I quit.
👍
That means we're Lucy right now