Mindfulness for Wellbeing and Peak Performance

Mindfulness for Wellbeing and Peak Performance WEEK 3: Feedback from Craig and Richard - Friday 24 Feb 2017 https://youtu.be/dguevymjkwq CRAIG HASSED: Hi, welcome to all the learners for week three of our feedback. Richard, how are you today? RICHARD CHAMBERS: Good Craig, how are you? CRAIG HASSED: Good, good. So we've got lots of good topics, and one of the things that's been noted by a lot of learners is that actually realising, in a lot of ways, that other people are experiencing similar kinds of things to oneself. And because we all worry about perhaps slightly different things, and ruminate about different things, get tense about different things, but the actual process of worry and rumination and all of this is actually a universal. So realise we've got much, much more in common than we have difference with other learners. So that's one of the really good things about the supportive learning environment within the MOOC. RICHARD CHAMBERS: Yes. So distractor influence came up as a big topic this week. CRAIG HASSED: Hot topic this week. RICHARD CHAMBERS: Hot topic. Some learners found that if they just allowed the sounds to be there, suddenly their attention wasn't caught up in it anymore and so it was less of a problem. Now obviously if were trying to block something out then we end up focusing our attention on that even more. CRAIG HASSED: That's right. Many people assume to be mindful of I ve got to focus on the breath, I've got to get rid of everything else, and got to stop the thought to make my mind go blank. And that just makes it hard work and frustrating. RICHARD CHAMBERS: Yes. Some learners did find it was still difficult that we're trying to sort of accept certain noises. And one learner wrote, the more I try to accept it, the more annoying it gets. But there's almost a sense that they were Monash University 2017 FutureLearn 1

trying to accept it rather than just allowing it to be there, and I think that's really the key distinction here. CRAIG HASSED: Yeah, the annoyance is a sure sign that it wasn't real acceptance. It's what we all get caught up in sometimes, is trying to accept something but we're trying to accept it in order to make it go away. And that's not actual acceptance, that's generally non-acceptance pretending to be-- RICHARD CHAMBERS: Masquerading as acceptance, that's right. And Craig, as always, multitasking came up as a huge topic of conversation. CRAIG HASSED: Yeah. And it's fantastic that everyone's becoming more aware of the tendency to multitask, the habit, the sort of automatic pilot way of just lapsing back into it. RICHARD CHAMBERS: It's such a pervasive habit, isn't it, that a lot of us don't even realise we're doing it. CRAIG HASSED: Watching-- Yeah, multitasking while watching mindfulness videos and so on. And to notice that actually there's a sense of exhaustion that comes with that. Because we're actually activating the whole fight or flight response in the background, day in, day out, when we're multitasking. And we're burning up energy that s excess to requirements. So we conserve a lot of energy when we just uni-task, just with doing the one thing at a time. And many are starting to note the difference perhaps between efficient attention switching and multitasking. And how we sort have, these days a lot of workplaces have in their job description-- BOTH: Must be a good multitasker. CRAIG HASSED: And really it should be, needs skills and efficient attention switching to be able to focus on the task that needs your attention at any given moment. And of course, people think you can do it but it's not till you really experiment that you realise you can't. RICHARD CHAMBERS: And that's the value of learning it in a mindfulness course. Just actually paying attention to what happens when we're trying to do complex multitasking, we start to realise, hang on, my performance on both tasks is impaired, I'm feeling stressed, I'm not enjoying what I'm doing, so sheds a really good light on things. Music as well, what one of our learners asked, is it possible to do complex tasks efficiently while listening to music? And this is a really common question, do you get this one a lot? FutureLearn 2

CRAIG HASSED: Yeah. RICHARD CHAMBERS: Yeah CRAIG HASSED: Especially from school students. RICHARD CHAMBERS: Absolutely-- it's the number one question from parents of school students when I'm running courses or giving presentations. My student studies with music, is that good, it is that bad? Yeah. CRAIG HASSED: The doof doof in the background. [LAUGHTER] RICHARD CHAMBERS: And of course, I think it depends on the type of music to start with. And music that's got catchy lyrics, if you're singing along to that and really engaging with that, then of course that's attention switching and it's going to impair the task. But if it's just some music on in the background, maybe drowning out some of the environmental sounds, I think that's probably pretty good, pretty fine, yeah? CRAIG HASSED: Yeah, and if it's reasonably relaxing music and not too loud and aggressive then it won't interfere with attention too much. The key word is, listening to the music while doing something else. If the listening is on the music, it's not on the other task, like study, for example. RICHARD CHAMBERS: That's a good way to think about it, yeah. What about driving a car, is that good complex multitasking? CRAIG HASSED: Well it's interesting, what I think we ve probably been saying for a while is now being borne out by the research. Interesting new study that was looking at, say, when doing two things like, trying to drive and listening to a GPS instruction at the same time. There are different circuits of the brain that are active in those two jobs of driving and GPS, but those areas of the brain are actually communicating with each other. RICHARD CHAMBERS: Yes CRAIG HASSED: So there's a kind of connectivity that's happening. RICHARD CHAMBERS: And that's different to driving and talking on the phone, or listening to a podcast, or something isn't it? CRAIG HASSED: That's right. So you're trying to listen to a podcast using one area of the brain, trying to drive with the other area of the brain, and different areas are activated but they're not communicating. So it's like a surgeon's gotten a knife and Monash University 2017 FutureLearn 3

gone [SOUND EFFECT] cut down the middle of the brain, and those areas of the brain are not talking to each other. RICHARD CHAMBERS: And so that will, of course, result in impaired performance on both tasks, won't it? CRAIG HASSED: That's right. So that's quite a different thing. So when we're doing a number of things that are a part of the one task, that's not multitasking, that's a complex task. RICHARD CHAMBERS: Yes. And someone else, are there still interruptions to one's train of thought when we use efficient attention switching? So even when we're minimising the attention switching that we re doing, isn't that still resulting in impaired performance on the tasks, or burning up time, and yeah it is. I mean-- CRAIG HASSED: Potentially. RICHARD CHAMBERS: Yeah, there's evidence that shows that when we switch our attention from one thing to another there's a very brief pause, a switching cost, or sometimes called an attentional blink. Where the attentional systems of the brain go off-line and for 0.2 of a second, up to half a second if we're stressed. And, of course, if we think about how many times in a typical day we would switch our attention from one thing to another, and multiply that by half a second, that starts to add up. CRAIG HASSED: And if we're in the flow of something complex, like reading a complex article, writing an assignment, preparing some project at work, and we interrupt the flow of that complex task, because there's an email notification, go do that, and come back to the task there's a cost of at least a minute, on average. RICHARD CHAMBERS: There's that study that showed 64 seconds on average, wasn't that? CRAIG HASSED: 64 was the average. RICHARD CHAMBERS: To get our attention fully back into the task we're doing. CRAIG HASSED: And eight and a half hours of productive time lost each week because it happens so much in the modern work week. RICHARD CHAMBERS: That's right, so a whole day of lost productivity. CRAIG HASSED: Yeah. RICHARD CHAMBERS: Yeah, so if any of our learners have had the thought it'd be great to have an extra day in the week, well good news. FutureLearn 4

CRAIG HASSED: So control the environment to minimise those kinds of interruptions is a smart move as well. RICHARD CHAMBERS: Yes. CRAIG HASSED: Richard, so a number of things have come up, too, about procrastination as well. So a lot of learners have found that an interesting topic. RICHARD CHAMBERS: Some of our learners got around to making some comments actually about that, and some interesting conversations started up, yeah? One really interesting example of what one learner asked, sometimes I'm in bed and I need to go to the bathroom and then I don't, and I'm lying there all night thinking about getting up and going to the bathroom, [LAUGHS] and is that procrastination? Yeah that's procrastination and yeah, they must be having a pretty uncomfortable night. CRAIG HASSED: Yeah putting off the relaxation effect of just going to the bathroom-- RICHARD CHAMBERS: And then going back to sleep. But it speaks to, I think, a broader issue of often we put things off to maintain a sense of comfort, whether it's being in bed or just not having to get started on some task that we don't feel like doing. And I think that's one of the many reasons that we procrastinate. CRAIG HASSED: Yeah. It's funny how after an evening of really solid procrastination and avoidance of the things we don't want to get on with, it's not like at the end of the evening, ahh that feels great, I feel so calm. It's like we feel terrible and it takes a lot of energy to avoid. We're actually investing energy and time in avoidance. And the paradox is, when we get on with that thing we've been putting off, and finally do it, it's like, ah, then there's the relief. RICHARD CHAMBERS: And quite often we enjoy doing it anyway, or at least it's the relief of getting it done, isn't there? CRAIG HASSED: Yeah, so there's one level of decision making, what I like and don't like. There's another level of decision making about what's necessary what's not. And that's actually an executive function. And when we're not following that, and it's just all what I like and don't like, and all of those sort of more superficial whims, then we've got a recipe for a lot of procrastination, a lot of avoidance, and a lot of unsettled mind. RICHARD CHAMBERS: That's right. There are quite a lot of reasons that people procrastinate. What you're just talking about, or just chasing comfort, or sometimes just avoiding things, or anxiety, and so it's been great to read that our learners are starting to really notice that showing up in their own lives. So they're sort of shedding some light on what procrastination is. Monash University 2017 FutureLearn 5

CRAIG HASSED: Yes. RICHARD CHAMBERS: And there's also a dopamine driven addiction to procrastinating, right? CRAIG HASSED: Well especially when the distractions, that little dopamine hit of just going back to the smartphone or whatever, it's like the addiction, it is an addiction. The addiction circuits are activated, and probably about 1/3 of people these days of especially young people have got a diagnosable addiction. Can't control the behaviour, anxious if there's withdrawal. RICHARD CHAMBERS: That was a 2013 study actually, so I'm going to say by now it's probably more than 1/3-- CRAIG HASSED: 95%. RICHARD CHAMBERS: Probably not just young people either. [LAUGHTER] CRAIG HASSED: Probably not. RICHARD CHAMBERS: Some learners did find, though, that just dividing tasks into steps was a really good way of getting started. Of course, if you've got to write a PhD thesis or something, it's one thing to think about the whole thesis, it becomes a scary monster. But, if you break it down into chapters, and then writing some articles, and making some notes, and that kind of thing, then, of course, it becomes much more achievable. CRAIG HASSED: Yes. And some have been noticing, too, you're about to start something that's sort of important and complex. And just to start that activity with a stop. To start with a -- RICHARD CHAMBERS: Start with a stop. [LAUGHS] CRAIG HASSED: --few minutes of mindfulness. That's right. And have few minutes, to sort of really engage the mind to be present, and then to engage with the activity, and then at the completion of that activity, to have another pause to stop. To put some space between one thing and another. And that's a very helpful thing. Like with music, I mean it's those spaces between the notes, the little silences, that make the notes stand out. RICHARD CHAMBERS: Yep. Some learners were talking about daydreaming as a survival strategy. Maybe doing repetitive, as they describe, kind of boring jobs. FutureLearn 6

And one learner was just talking about how doing tedious, repetitive, manual labour, if they were to be mindful of how dull their days were that would be a recipe for torture. And I mean, of course, whatever we focus our attention on becomes our reality. I think it's one thing to focus our attention on the task that we're doing and actually just find something to be interested in, or even just use that as a way of cultivating mindfulness. But to sit there doing something repetitive and thinking, this is really dull I hate this, and focusing our attention on that, that's going to make us pretty unhappy, isn't it? CRAIG HASSED: I've come to think that boredom is a form of mantra meditation. The mantra being, I'm bored, I'm bored, I m bored RICHARD CHAMBERS: You hear kids say that, I'm bored, I'm bored, I'm bored, I'm bored. CRAIG HASSED: Yeah that's a powerful form of meditation, pretty soon the child's bored. I mean a very young child, I mean ah gee another day of playing gosh I wish I was doing something, you know The child is just in the moment and so in a way, to really connect in a sensory way with what we're doing, to unhook the mind, can give us a lot of mental rest even amidst mundane activities in day to day life. But it's not easy, it's a challenge, I dare say. RICHARD CHAMBERS: And managing emotions, as well, while we're getting started on tasks, that was something else that came up. And one of our learners mentioned that the Disney film Inside Out, which for anybody who hasn't seen it is a really great exploration of what it means to, I guess, relate mindfully and unmindfully to emotions. It's all about giving place to sadness actually, the movie, but it really sort of describes why emotions work and shape our behaviours, and our memories, and that kind of stuff. CRAIG HASSED: Yes. And learning to work with the more uncomfortable emotions, and mindfulness and how it can help with that. And it's not about negating them, or thinking they shouldn't be there, and so on, but learning to be with them in a more self-compassionate way. And learning not to be so controlled by them. And that's not easy with a very strong emotion. RICHARD CHAMBERS: No, not at all. CRAIG HASSED: You need to practise gently with the smaller emotions building up. And then maybe one day we might be lucky enough that we can bring that same way of being to really some quite difficult strong emotions. But there is still making space for it. It's a part of the human experience. RICHARD CHAMBERS: And just cultivating mindfulness in a general sense gives us a really good resource for being with our emotions in that way. So maybe just Monash University 2017 FutureLearn 7

through meditation or other applications we might find that we can just stay present with strong emotion just a little better. CRAIG HASSED: Yeah, I think of it like if you imagine a piano that's got a whole number of different octaves. And it's like we've got this whole octave of emotions. And I think sometimes a one dimensional view of happiness is, oh I'm just going to be playing the high notes over here, and we forget about the rest. And of course, we start to try and avoid and fear the other emotions. So it's really not easy to be able to be mindfully present with uncomfortable emotions. But they are a part of being human. And mindfulness is not about denial. RICHARD CHAMBERS: No, and we'll actually explore that in more detail next week as well. CRAIG HASSED: Yeah. that's going to be coming up and we'll say a few words about that before we finish that. RICHARD CHAMBERS: Yeah and I guess at a sort of more extreme end, some of our learners were talking about switching off negative emotions associated with things like abuse, and that that's asking a lot of people who've experienced significant stress or difficulty. And to that I would say, mindfulness really isn't about switching off. It's not about-- often people assume it's about getting rid of emotions, or switching off from things, or avoiding things, but it's really about learning to accept things the way they are. Not just accept as an idea but to genuinely learn to be with emotion in the body without getting lost in it, without reacting to it. CRAIG HASSED: Getting caught up in it. RICHARD CHAMBERS: That's right. CRAIG HASSED: Yes and then there has been, of course, research as well. Not a huge amount, but there are some studies that have been looking at people who've experienced a history of abuse and that it's helped them very significantly with the long term effects in later life. And so there's some interesting research there as well. RICHARD CHAMBERS: Yes, Craig, effects on the body? CRAIG HASSED: Yeah. Well one of the topics that was coming up was some of the epigenetic effects of mindfulness. It's been found to switch down pro-inflammatory genes, switch on healthy immunity genes and so on. But one of the interesting things is in relation to ageing, which are measured by telomeres. And telomeres were discovered by an Australian woman, Elizabeth Blackburn. FutureLearn 8

RICHARD CHAMBERS: She won the Nobel Prize for that, didn't she? CRAIG HASSED: That's right. And the work that she's been doing with Elissa Epel who's a psychologist who has a strong interest in mindfulness. And they did the first studies, first one published in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences in 2009, where they demonstrated that mindfulness practice switched on the telomerase, the repair enzyme. And then they did subsequent studies that demonstrated that actually slowed down, and even stopped, the telomere shortening, which is how they measure biological age. Even a study looking at middle aged men, and it was a mindfulness based healthy-- RICHARD CHAMBERS: Prostate cancer. CRAIG HASSED: --yeah, mindfulness-based healthy lifestyle programme. And what they found was that when they measured again years later, they were genetically younger than they were five years before. RICHARD CHAMBERS: Wow so reversing the ageing process. CRAIG HASSED: That's right. I'm 157 years old, mind you, so it's working for me. RICHARD CHAMBERS: Seems to be working for you. So mindfulness and good lifestyle practices, diet, exercise, that kind of thing, together. CRAIG HASSED: Yes that's right. They're always putting those together. RICHARD CHAMBERS: Beautiful. Meditating on sounds as well. One of the meditations this week was a meditation on sounds and some of our learners found that including sounds, or using them as the object of meditation, made them less intrusive. I think sometimes when we're meditating on the body or the breath, and a car alarm goes off, or a dog's barking, or there's an air conditioner going, we can- - CRAIG HASSED: Try to block it out. RICHARD CHAMBERS: Yeah, we try to block it out and it's a distraction. Whereas when we work with it in that way, where we just allow it to be there, suddenly it's an interesting object, a way of being present, or something that we just don't get our attention caught up in the first place. CRAIG HASSED: Yeah, yeah, it's just a sound. When we're trying to block things out we're becoming hyper vigilant for those things we're trying to block out. So they become more intrusive. There's not just sounds in the environment, it's the thoughts in their mind as well, and that's part of the problem we get caught in. Monash University 2017 FutureLearn 9

RICHARD CHAMBERS: Yeah. One of our learners said that sounds were unsettling. That they'd been meditating, they were in some very calm state, and then their husband turned the TV on in the next room. Now of course that's going to be distracting having a TV set going in the next room. And I guess it would be a challenge just to allow that sound to be there without getting caught up in it. CRAIG HASSED: Just riding the waves of annoyance. RICHARD CHAMBERS: Noticing them come up, that s right. I d also it also points to this very common thing that happens with people of chasing states with meditation. You know, getting into a relaxed, calm state and then thinking that mindfulness equals being in that state. Whereas mindfulness is about being present to what's happening. So if you're with the breath, and the body's calm, then it's about noticing that, then if the TV goes on it's about noticing that, and if frustration comes up it's about noticing that and letting go. So it's really not about being in any particular state, and I think that's an important thing to keep in mind. CRAIG HASSED: Because it's so easy to get attached to that state that we're finding pleasant, the relaxed and calm. And then that state goes. There's a kind of level of attachment to that. You know, I was in my non-attached state before! And now I m. It's that's like there's a kind of a contradiction in that, that if we're mindful it's just like, OK so that pleasant state passed and something else has arisen, there's annoyance there. So it's really-- because we want to get attached to the pleasant stuff and we want to be mindful with the other stuff. But actually we need to be-- RICHARD CHAMBERS: Mindful of all of it, the full catastrophe. CRAIG HASSED: Yeah. OK so perhaps just a few closing things as well. Establishing a regular practice, any tips on that? RICHARD CHAMBERS: Well as we often teach, bookending the day. First thing in the morning, last thing at night, is a great way to sort of practise just small amounts. And it's the repetition that counts, like five or 10 minutes at a time. CRAIG HASSED: Those little moments of mindfulness during the day. RICHARD CHAMBERS: Punctuating the day, the full stops and the commas, very important. CRAIG HASSED: That's right. So that's the main topics. We could probably go on all day, but we'll have to stop there. RICHARD CHAMBERS: I can certainly talk all day about this. FutureLearn 10

[LAUGHTER] CRAIG HASSED: But we'll have to stop there. And so week four is coming up and it's often a very interesting week, and it can be a challenging week sometimes, working with some of these emotions, working with self-compassion, and emotional health. So please progress gently and at your own pace, and engage in the practices and experiments in week four that you feel comfortable with. And go at your own pace, and reflect, and you don't have to practise things that you feel less comfortable with. RICHARD CHAMBERS: So that's goodbye, for now, from us, and we'll see you next week. Monash University 2017 FutureLearn 11