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Bionic Reading
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What's in it for you? Get your attention

into peak shape.
Imagine this: you’re a firefighter – and not just any
firefighter, either. You’re a specially trained
emergency responder in the Australian bush. Your job
is controlling the blazes that regularly break out in the
country’s scrubland.

It’s not an easy job. The bush is inaccessible by land,

so you and your team rappel into the area from a
helicopter and then fan out, each of you carrying a big
bag of tools and specialized equipment. Each
firefighter takes their own section, where they’ll aim
to contain the rapid spread of the fire.

You know that before long, a support helicopter will

drop foam and water on the blaze. But for now, you’re
on your own. So you get to work. Sweat pours down
your face as the sound of an inferno rages in your
ears. As you tackle the intensity of the fire roaring in
front of you, you lose yourself in the work, focusing
on the urgent task at hand.

After a while, though, something suddenly grabs your

attention: a huge whooshing noise. It’s the sound of a
gigantic amount of air being sucked up by the flames,
and it means that while you were honing in on the fire
in front of you, a wall of fire crept up the other side.

So what happened? Basically, your attention failed

you – not because you couldn’t focus, but because
you focused too much. When your mind zeroed in on
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one small patch of flames, your awareness of the
broader situation became hazy and unclear. In this
case, a lapse of attention endangered your life.

Now, forget the flames for just a second. Let’s say you
survived. There are two things you can learn from
your close brush with death. Number one is this:
issues of attention can be life threatening.

Sure, you might not be a firefighter or a soldier. But

do you drive? Are you a pedestrian who needs to
cross roads on foot? Do you take any medications?
All of these things require your attention, and messing
them up can be fatal.

Point number two? Attention is misunderstood. When

people talk about it, their thinking is often confused
and imprecise, and based on a big misconception:
that attention describes a single phenomenon. That
simply isn’t true. Attention is actually three
subsystems, each of which does something distinct.
We’ll call these subsystems the flashlight, the
floodlight, and the juggler.

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The flashlight.
Human beings are sensitive creatures. We have a
number of finely tuned sensory organs. We have
memories. And we have the ability to contemplate,
imagine, and predict.

But to do any of these things well – to pay attention

to a sound, predict someone’s reaction to your
behavior, or remember the events of last week – you
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need to be able to control your attention. That is, to
highlight what’s relevant and dampen what’s
unimportant.

So, really, the ability to bring certain things into focus

and clarity while leaving others vague and obscure is
what attention’s all about. And the three subsystems
of attention, the flashlight, the floodlight, and the
juggler, are all vital to that ability.

Of these three, the most familiar is probably the

flashlight—a handy name for what attention
researchers call your orienting system. The flashlight
allows you to select certain kinds of information and
orient yourself toward it – whether that’s a friend’s
facial expressions, your own inner monologue, or a
particularly delicious taste. It’s the type of attention
you exercise when you focus on something, making
it brighter, more detailed, and more clearly defined;
the things around it, by contrast, recede into the
background, becoming dim and out of focus.

For example, your flashlight is pointed at this text right

now. But what about your surroundings? Chances
are, whatever’s going on behind you, above you, or
across the street is dim and out of focus. Here’s
another example: think about how it feels to bite into
a warm, crumbly spoonful of raspberry pie, the
slightly tart berries perfectly balanced by cool
whipped cream and an overall sweetness that melts
across your tongue . . .

So are you paying attention right now? Or are you

wondering how long it would take to get your hands
on a slice of raspberry pie? In other words, is your
flashlight pointing toward these blinks – or straight at
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the nearest bakery? It just goes to show that while the
flashlight can be a powerful tool, it’s only effective if
you can keep it pointed in the right direction.

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The floodlight.
If you’ve ever lived alone, you’ve probably
experienced something like this: You come home at
night and notice that the front door – the one you
always make sure is definitely, completely, 100-
percent locked – is sitting wide open.

All of a sudden, you’re on high alert: you’re living in

your nerve endings. You shout out a tentative “Hello?”
and then listen very, very carefully to the sounds
beyond the doorway. No response.

You step in, monitoring the shadows on the floor and

listening for any movement. Again, nothing. What on
earth could be going on?

Emboldened now, you move from room to room,

listening and looking around with complete attention.
And . . . it’s all clear. You must have simply forgotten
to close the door all the way when you left earlier.
From now on, you’ll be more careful.

So what was going on in your mind when you arrived

home and saw the door? Where was your attention?
Well, in a word: everywhere. And that’s because you
were using your alerting system – also known as the
floodlight.
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When you stepped through the open doorway, your
attention was broad, receptive, and flexible. It was
ready to dart out and seize on any relevant stimulus:
a voice, a footprint, a shadow down the hall. You
didn’t know exactly what you were looking out for, but
you were sure there was something.

The alerting system – the floodlight – is associated

with states of vigilance. And not just vigilance to
threats out in the world, such as doors sitting open or
things that go bump in the night. The floodlight also
helps you keep an eye out inside yourself, looking out
for thoughts and feelings that you ought to pay
attention to.

Of course, you can’t always be looking for threats. At

some point, you need to shut off the floodlight and
calm down. So with the front door locked again and
the house safe and sound, relax: it’s time to meet the
juggler.

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The juggler.
In the business world, you probably know what a
chief executive does: she sets goals, supervises, and
makes decisions. She ensures things are running
smoothly, and keeps everything on track.

In your mind, the central executive – also known as

the juggler – plays a similar role. It doesn’t carry out
every small task, but instead oversees and manages
the whole process. That means overriding automatic
impulses, like the knee-jerk desire to pick up your
phone every time it beeps. And it also means
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matching goals with the actions you’ll need to take to
reach them. Whether your goal is short-term and
simple or long-term and more complex, you’ll rely on
the juggler to help you navigate the demands it
presents. That’s why the central executive is called
the juggler: whatever challenges you’re facing, it has
to try to keep all the balls in the air.

So that’s the spotlight, the floodlight, and the juggler

– all powerful subsystems of attention. But as
impressive as they are, there is a catch: these
functions tend to operate solo, one at a time, rather
than in tandem. For example, you can’t really have the
spotlight and the floodlight on at the same time. Your
stint in the Australian scrubland taught you that.

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Stress, threat, and poor mood degrade

your attention.
So you’ve discovered the way attention works, and
the various forms it comes in – the flashlight, the
spotlight, and the juggler. But what about when
attention doesn’t work? When things go wrong and
your power of attention is weak or misdirected.
Exactly what is happening then?

Well, there are three main things that can damage

your attention system and wreak havoc on your
power of attention. The first is stress. Whether you’re
feeling overwhelmed by professional worries,
relationship issues, or financial woes, feeling
stressed out can drastically interfere with your ability
to marshal your attention.
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Why? Well, stress hijacks your mind’s cognitive
resources, directing them toward imagined
catastrophes and remembered mistakes. In other
words, it directs your attention away from the here
and now, forcing you to engage in “mental time
travel.” With your mind locked in bitter ruminations
and dark imaginings, there’s naturally less attention at
your disposal for other tasks.

The second thing that can mess with your attention is

threat. Imagine trying to take a driving test with a wild
animal in the back of your car. How much attention
would you be able to devote to your three-point turn
with a raccoon breathing down your neck? Probably
not a lot. You see, threats magnetize your attention
like little else, and disengaging your mind from them
can seem all but impossible.

That brings us to the third and final thing that

degrades attention: poor mood. Anything from a
passing bout of the blues to chronic depression can
interfere with your attention system. In fact, the
author and her research team found that people’s
attention and working memory decline significantly
after seeing upsetting images.

That’s a serious problem because, as you’re about to

discover, a weakened attention system doesn’t just
cause issues in the present. By interfering with the
way you create memories, it also leads to problems
down the line.
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Making memories require rehearsal,

elaboration, and consolidation.
Did you know that making a memory involves three
steps? Rehearsal, elaboration, and consolidation –
that’s all it takes. But if the attention system isn’t
working properly, a lot can go wrong with this
seemingly simple process.

Now, the word “rehearsal” might call to mind images

of orchestras and theaters, but in this context it
means something much more mundane. When you
hear a phone number and repeat it aloud, you’re
rehearsing it; when you meet a new coworker and say
his name three times in your head, you’re rehearsing
that too. Rehearsal, in other words, is the act of
tracing over information, reminding yourself of it in
order to help lodge it in your memory for good.

When that’s done, step two begins. That’s

elaboration, which simply means connecting new
information with your existing memories. In other
words, integrating the new input with the old.

Finally, there’s consolidation, the process by which

new neural pathways are created, strengthened, and
stored. It occurs at the same time as rehearsal and
elaboration. Thanks to consolidation, information
passes from your ephemeral working memory into
your more enduring long-term memory. In everyday
terms, think of it like taking a receipt out of your wallet
and tucking it into a folder for safekeeping.
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Rehearsal, elaboration, and consolidation. Sounds
pretty straightforward, right? Well, it generally is. But
degraded attention can easily mess the process up.
One reason for this is that consolidation normally
takes place during mental downtime, when attention
is flexible and unconstrained and the mind can roam
freely.

But if you’re undergoing stress, experiencing poor

mood, or constantly fending off threats, you don’t get
mental downtime. Your attention gets hijacked, and
the mind never really has the chance to wander in the
way that memory-making requires.

There’s also another, more fundamental reason that

you can’t make memories when your attention is
occupied, and it’s a simple one, too: you can only
remember what you focus on. If you’re not mentally
present at your child’s birthday party, then you’re
barely going to remember it, even if you were there
the entire time.

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Practicing mindfulness strengthens

attention.
Imagine if a friend asked you to come over and help
move a heavy sofa. You wouldn’t drop to the floor in
preparation and knock out a couple of push ups,
would you? Of course not. Building strength takes
time – a few exercises shortly before you need to
exert yourself is only going to tire you out, not
strengthen you.
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So why is it that you do the mental equivalent of those
push ups whenever you’re facing a difficult scenario?
During a job interview, you try to calm yourself with a
few deep breaths; before the big game, you try to
center yourself and focus.

Just like the last-minute workout, these interventions

are too little too late. What’s more, they can even
leave you feeling more depleted by draining your
cognitive resources. The solution isn’t emergency
mental push ups, then: it’s gradual training. And the
exercise in question is mindfulness.

Practicing mindfulness was the one thing the author

and her team found useful, time and again, in helping
to improve participants’ attention systems. During
times of stress, mindfulness meditation helped to
defend attention – and, practiced enough, it actually
improved it.

In other words, poor mood, threat, and stress are all

handled better when you regularly meditate – keeping
the attention trio of spotlight, floodlight, and juggler in
peak condition.

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Improve attention by meditating for 12

minutes, five days per week.
When the author brings research participants into her
lab, she’s able to track the effects of mindfulness
meditation on both their minds and their lives.
Improvements in attention and working memory crop
up again and again. People’s minds wander less.
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They’re more aware of where their attention is. Their
sense of wellbeing rises, and even their relationships
improve.

But that’s not all. The author and her team can see
actual physical changes in the brain that correspond
to these improvements. For example, the brain’s
cortex thickens in sections that are linked to attention
– in much the same way that your biceps would grow
if you practiced hammer curls in the gym.

So, what exactly do you need to do if you want to reap

the rewards of mindfulness meditation? How do you
use it to train your attention, and how long do you
need to practice for?

The last thing we’ll do in this Blink is a meditation

exercise – a type of meditation called breath
awareness. For now, though, let’s keep things
practical. How frequently should you practice, and
how long should each session last?

Well, once again it’s like physical exercise. The more

time you spend practicing, the greater the benefits
you’ll see. In scientific terms, then, mindfulness
training has a dose-response effect: the greater the
input, the greater the output.

But there’s a more precise answer to these questions.

If you want to benefit from your practice, aim to
meditate for twelve minutes, five days a week. That’s
right: just one hour in total each week is enough to
start seeing results.

So why not start now? Next up, we’ll show you how
to begin.
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Mindfulness meditation exercise

If you’re driving or walking, or in a loud and distracting
environment, then feel free to skip this exercise for
now and revisit it later. If you’re somewhere quiet,
though, and ideally somewhere you can sit, then now
might be the right time to start your meditation
practice.

Ready? Sit comfortably to begin, upright but not rigid.

Put your shoulders back, close your eyes, and
breathe. Don’t try to control your breath. Just follow
it, breathing at a normal pace.

Now, take a second to notice the way breathing feels.

Pay close attention to the sensations, but don’t think
about them: just sense them. Choose one area of
your body, wherever the breath is most noticeable,
and focus your attention there. Maybe it’s the rise and
fall of your diaphragm. Maybe it’s the movement of air
in and out of your nose. Choose just one location and
sense your breath there: following it in and out, in and
out, over and over again.

If you find that your attention has drifted, don’t get

frustrated. Simply redirect it to the sensation of the
breath. Once again, you don’t need to think: just
sense.

Sense the breath. Give it your full attention, feeling its

minute, second-by-second alterations. If your mind
wanders, simply notice it and redirect your attention.
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Still there? Well done. You spent the last minutes
meditating. And remember: twelve minutes, five times
a week is all it takes.