All right, chat. Today we're going to talk about how to stop zoning out. And the basic mistake that most people make is they think of zoning out as a problem to be solved, which it sort of is, and we're going to do. But there's one main thing you need to understand. Zoning out is your brain's way of trying to increase cognitive resources. So if we look at zoning out, first thing is that everybody does it. And we do it when we are tired, when we are overwhelmed, when we are bored. So, if I'm studying for a test and I feel cognitively fatigued and I take a break or I zone out for a little while, when I zone back in, I'm able to study. The problem though is that a lot of people get into this cycle of constantly zoning out, zoning back in in a way that's really unproductive. And this is something that I really sort of dove into with a patient of mine who had ADHD that was getting worse. Now, this is something that sounds really common, but is actually very unusual because ADHD is one of the illnesses that should not really ever get worse. And I know that sounds weird, but let me explain. So, ADHD is a neurodedevelopmental disorder, which means that it is it is a disorder related to the way that our brain develops. So, if you look at the trajectory of ADHD over time, someone's brain develops in a particular way. They either have mild, moderate, or severe ADHD. And if anything, as we get older, ADHD should improve. About one in five people who are diagnosed with ADHD as kids will end up growing out of it as their brain matures as adults. But I had a patient who came into my office who said, "My ADHD is getting worse over time." Which doesn't make any sense because ADHD is a disease of how the brain is actually wired. And like we just said, it should be getting better. Now, there are things that can temporarily alter your ADHD. If you don't sleep very well, if you just went through a breakup or you're stressed out in some way, sure, we can have temporarily fluctuations, but fundamentally ADHD is a diagnosis that should be relatively static or improve over time. And so, as I started working with this person, we tried a couple of different things like increasing his medication. But even if increasing his medication allows him to focus today, it doesn't explain the trajectory of his attention span. And that's when we've had to start thinking outside of the box. And we dug into this idea of zoning out. And by the way, if you guys want more of these out of the box solutions, definitely check out the ADHD guide, which is basically like my exploration of things that work for patients that aren't a part of standard evidence-based treatment. So as I was trying to figure out what was going on with my patient, I stumbled into something called attention restoration theory. So there's a I think a couple of Dr. Kaplan's who sort of made an interesting observation that when we go out into nature, we tend to zone out. So as they started to explore this idea of zoning out in nature, they discovered a couple of important things. The first is that when we zone out, it appears to restore some of our cognitive function. So when I'm studying for a test, like I said earlier, and I zone out, when I zone back in, I'm able to start working on the studying again. The second thing that they noticed is that when we zone out, we seem to be dealing with unresolved issues. So the more stuff I have inside me, the more likely I am to zone out. Now, y'all may have experienced this in a very negative way. If you went through a breakup or something social is going on or you feel really hurt, you'll notice that when you try to focus on a task, your brain will essentially zone out and you will start thinking about other stuff, right? Your brain will start trying to solve other problems and that's how we discover what the role of zoning out is. It does these two fundamental things. And some aspects of attention restoration theory have basically been been debunked. But subsequent research has basically shown us that these two elements are why we zone out. It is a way for our brain to cognitively recover some RAM. So you can kind of think about this like even a timeout in sports, right? So if I'm playing a game of basketball and I take a timeout, I need some time to catch my breath and when I go back on the court, I'm able to play a little bit better. The second consistent finding is that when we zone out, we are usually dealing with internal and emotional stuff. And when I was working with my patient, this is the way that we approached zoning out. Not that it's a problem to be solved, but we tried to understand that, okay, when you zone out, your brain is trying to accomplish a couple of tasks. And the more that we focus on accomplishing those tasks outside of the way that your brain kind of does it, the better off you will be. Because essentially what starts to happen is we get into this cycle where we're trapped in zoning out. And the way that this works, it's a bit complicated, but this is essentially what we kind of stumbled into. So the first thing to understand is that your mind keeps track of all the tasks that you have to do. That is how it is able to remind you that you need to do something. Now, there's a basic problem here because the more things your mind is keeping track of, the less cognitive RAM you have to actually solve a problem. And what was happening with my patient, and this may resonate with y'all, is let's say they were working on f five tasks, one of which was a personal task, which they didn't even think of as a task that they were trying to solve. They had gone through a a sort of a breakup or they were on a break. They were on a separation. They had been on a separation for about a month and they were like not sure exactly what's happening in this relationship. They weren't sure if they should move on or they should wait or whatever. And so anytime they're sitting down for a particular task, let's say they're focusing on task number one, their mind gets tired, right? Because it has all of this stuff in the subconscious and then it switches to task number two. But then our mind starts working on task number two for a little bit and then it gets tired and it switches to task number three. And then as it starts working on task number three, it gets tired and it switches to task number four. And then as they are moving between tasks, eventually thoughts about this separation that they're going through will always creep up. So they were sort of existing in this place where even if they spent an hour working, they didn't actually get anything done. And this is when we discovered a couple of very common principles that they had tried from the productivity like you know podcast circuit actually seem to be sabotaging them. The first is people will say just get started. And if you just get started, that's the most important thing. And the second thing that people will say is that okay, you should just take small steps. Just take small steps. Just take small steps. Just take small steps. But we what we actually found was that just getting started and just taking small steps ended up with them sort of taking a couple of steps over here and then they'd get distracted and a couple steps over here and then they'd get distracted and they would spend an hour trying to just get started and they would get started again and again and again and do a tiny little thing again and again and again and they would never get anything done. And there's research that backs this up that when people multitask a lot, it turns out that the more experienced you are at multitasking, the less productive you actually are. So people who multitask a lot actually don't get much done at all. So the solution for this ended up being targeting these underlying root causes. Okay, so understanding that okay, if my hands are full of things to do, I don't have actually working memory to get anything done. to understand that when I become cognitively fatigued from holding on to a lot of tasks, my mind has to switch more to restore my attention and that underlying emotional things, personal things that things that require self-reflection will happen a lot when we zone out. So basically, the more self-reflection I need to do, the more my brain will zone out because I need to do a lot of self-reflection. So, what we ended up with are a couple of unusual solutions that I've tried with several patients and I've used in my own life that work incredibly well. The first is if you are stuck in a cycle of being trapped by zoning out, don't focus on getting started because your mind will just wander. Focus on task completion. Now, this may be really hard to do because we tend to zone out anyway. But that's why I want to explain this. So what we sort of find with people when I work with them is that this becomes like a set of dominoes where the first task that you complete is quite difficult but the moment that you complete one task the second task becomes easier the third one becomes easier the fourth one becomes easier and then you're it it actually becomes way way easier to get all of your stuff done. Second thing related to that is as best as possible do not multitask. Right? So, we live in a society where like everyone is into multitasking. And I know a lot of y'all have jobs where you get interrupted and there are notifications. These things are everywhere that exists and we're getting Slack notifications and emails and texts and whatever, but basically we want to try to multitask as little as possible and focus on task completion. And the last thing that may sound a little bit counterintuitive is that if you want to be productive, you need to dedicate some time to being nonproductive. to understand that the brain that is trying to complete your academic or your professional tasks is the same brain that is trying to solve your personal problems, trying to deal with the existential threat of AI, trying to deal with the dating and mating crisis. It's one brain that is trying to solve all of those problems. And what we tend to do in modern society is anytime we have a nonproductive day, let's say I have a weekend, we don't give our brain the space to process those problems. We engage in highly distracting, highly absorbing, highly dopamineeric, highly emotionally activating, usually forms of media. We're on social media, we're playing games, we're watching shows, we're doing something to keep our mind occupied. And it's so interesting, right? Because the way we spend our weekends, we are rarely zoning out because we're so occupied. So, you can circle back to what the Kaplins originally discovered and spend a day in nature. If y'all need more guidance or support, you can check out the ADHD guide, work with a coach if you don't know what internal stuff is interfering with your productivity, or see a licensed mental health professional.