O'Grady Psychology Associates

Psychotherapy, Marriage Counseling, Neuropsychological Assessment

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Procrastination: Scratching Items off the Mental To-Do List

When tasks overwhelm
Getting Unstuck: Finding Flow Again

A lot of our stress comes from holding our undone tasks in mind; the more we have, the more they weigh upon us. Sometimes it’s not our actions but the actions we’re not taking that cause us stress. If we can generate ways to off-load the things on our to-do list from working memory, we are freed to focus on one thing at a time, relieving a sense of burden and at the same time allowing us to be more productive.

Full Engagement & Wholeheartedness

This idea of doing one thing at a time with full engagement of attention has been seen as crucial to a sense of well-being by many observers. In David Whyte’s book Crossing the Unknown Sea, he describes an exchange with Brother David Steindl-Rast, who says: “You know that the antidote to exhaustion is not necessarily rest? . . . The antidote to exhaustion is wholeheartedness.” (p. 132, emphasis original)

Finding Flow in Difficult or Unpleasant Tasks

This idea of full engagement as a part of well-being was observed by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who researched the concept of “flow.” Tapping into this idea, he observed that when people are engaged in an activity that is moderately challenging( neither too easy nor too hard), allows some creative problem-solving, and absorbs the mind, they report that they can be lost in a task with little sense of time passing. On emerging, they feel a sense of satisfaction: pleasure in achievement, but also pleasure in the intrinsic reward of being fully engaged in something interesting.

It’s important, then, not just to focus on the product of your work—the outcomes, the problems solved, the things you get to cross off your list—but also the process. If in addition to achieving good work you are also using your skills and challenging yourself to improve, that, in and of itself, is gratifying.

A recent study, reported on in a New York Times piece, explored how people make decisions—and turned up some surprising findings. Researchers asked subjects to carry a bucket down an alley; they could pick a bucket close by, or an identical one closer to the alley’s end. Believing that people are inclined to save physical effort, the researchers expected that people would pick the bucket farther away, which would require less carrying. Instead, most people chose the bucket near them at the alley’s start.

Working Memory- The Mental Scratch Pad

They tried this experiment in eight different ways with the same result. Why? Researchers believe that people engage in “procrastination”—taking on tasks ahead of time because it feels so good to get it off our minds, even if it’s more work. We can also call this “offloading working memory.” Working memory refers to holding information in mind for a short span of time, just long enough to complete a brief task, as opposed to short-term or long-term memory, which stores information for later use.

Working memory is a mental scratch pad: once an item is completed, it’s crossed off and thrown away. You may remember from Psych 101 the magic formula 7 +/- 2. On average, humans can hold seven bits of data in mind at one time—plus maybe two on a good day, or maybe just five if you’re tired or stressed. There is a limit to what you can hold in your head at one time. That’s why phone numbers are seven digits.

If we try to hold too much information in our heads at once, it feels stressful, so we’ve developed strategies to offload tasks from your working memory. If you can confidently say, “I know I can get to that later; I don’t have to think about that now,” then you’re freed to focus on just the one thing in front of you. This is the reason behind to-do lists.

The Myth of Multitasking

The idea of doing one thing at a time is something we come back to again and again. It is impossible to do constantly but is something to aim for because of the greater feelings of satisfaction it produces. Multitasking is a myth: when you divide your attention between tasks you are less productive and less accurate.

It’s understandable that people want to offload from working memory, but answering trivial emails (tweets, phone calls), sharpening pencils, and so on, may seem like accomplishing things, but they pull focus from the important tasks. We have to select which of these to respond to and which will get done later.

Of course, a lot of what makes us human—and so successful—is our ability to plan and think ahead: we inhibit automatic, impulsive responses in favor of thoughtful, controlled responses. The kids in the famous impulse-control study who were more successful at inhibiting had higher GPAs, SATs, and higher-paying jobs in comparison to the kids who couldn’t stop themselves from going for the marshmallow. At the same time, we know that scholastic achievement does not necessarily make people happy and that restraining all impulses can make for a life without spontaneity and joy. Finding the balance is a crucial component for happiness.

What is it that makes us feel happy? Maybe it’s the wrong question. It is not happiness we should be seeking; we need to engage in meaningful work. As Eleanor Roosevelt wrote, “Happiness is not a goal, it is a by-product.”

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Chronic Pain: Talking About Pain

Synapse process over neuron connection background – 3D rendering

Treating pain is difficult for several reasons. Narcotic painkillers bring with them addiction and other problems, but the medical system isn’t set up to handle behavioral interventions that can help pain management, as I wrote a couple of years ago in a post on “A Behavioral Approach to Treating Chronic Pain and Medical Problems.”

Another reason brought out by Joanna Bourke in her July 13, 2014, New York Times Sunday Review column “How to Talk About Pain,” is simply how difficult it can be to put pain into words that other people can hear. Partly, Bourke writes, this is due to the introduction of effective anesthetics and analgesics, which paradoxically turned describing into complaining:

In earlier periods, doctors regarded pain stories as crucial in enabling them to make an accurate diagnosis. But within a century, clinical attitudes had radically changed. Elaborate pain narratives became shameful, indicative of malingering, “bad patients.”

How are patients encouraged to describe pain today? Often, it’s by picking a number on a scale—sometimes according to a series of increasingly distressed-looking cartoon faces. This might be enough for emergency use, but there’s more to the experience of a chronic pain patient beyond “6. Hurts even more.”

A study published in Proceedings (Baylor University. Medical Center) underscores these findings: “Acute and chronic pain not properly assessed can result in inadequate pain management outcomes and can negatively affect the physical, emotional, and psychosocial well-being of patients. Pain assessment is the cornerstone to optimal pain management.”

For Bourke, assessing pain means listening to the patient:

Pain will always be with us, and by listening closely to the stories patients tell us about their pain, we can gain hints about the nature of their suffering and the best way we can provide succor. This is why the clinical sciences need disciplines like history and the medical humanities. By learning how people in the past coped with painful ailments, we can find new ways of living with and through pain.

Fanny Burney (1752-1840), the English novelist and diarist, wrote a searing account of her breast-cancer operation—sans anesthetic—in 1811. Reading it with a sense of history should give any clinician a better sense of the nature of suffering.

I began a scream that lasted unintermittingly during the whole time of the incision – & I almost marvel that it rings not in my Ears still! so excruciating was the agony. When the wound was made, & the instrument was withdrawn, the pain seemed undiminished, for the air that suddenly rushed into those delicate parts felt like a mass of minute but sharp & forked poniards, that were tearing the edges of the wound – but when again I felt the instrument – describing a curve – cutting against the grain, if I may so say, while the flesh resisted in a manner so forcible as to oppose & tire the hand of the operator, who was forced to change from the right to the left – then, indeed, I thought I must have expired. (The Oxford Book of Letters, 1995, p. 203)

Modern medicine has impoverished the language we use to describe our suffering.

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The Present Moment and Transformation

Mindfulness and transformation.Research reported in the respected journal Science, in an article titled “Just think: The challenges of the disengaged mind” by Timothy D. Wilson et al. (345, 75 [2014]), presented results summarizing 11 studies where participants were first given an electric shock; all participants admitted that the shock was unpleasant, and said they would pay to avoid it. Researchers then asked the subjects to sit in the empty room and entertain themselves with their thoughts without cellphones, iPads, or other distractions. There were only two rules: you can’t get out of your chair, and you can’t fall asleep. Participants did have the option to press a button and receive a shock again.

The mind is its own place, and in it self

Can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n.

 John Milton, Paradise Lost

 Very much to the researchers’ surprise, the study found that 70% of the men and 25% of the women chose to shock themselves instead of just sitting there with their thoughts—remember, for no more than 15 minutes.

Researchers ran the test in a lab with college students, but also with older subjects (recruited from churches, farmer’s markets, etc.) in their homes, and they tried to replicate the study with a wider sample of people minus the electric shock. They found that these folks also had difficulty sitting still for 15 minutes alone to entertain themselves with their thoughts. Over half the people admitted to cheating by using their phones. The majority said that hated the experience—it was boring.

What is going on here? Why is it so hard to entertain ourselves with our thoughts that people will actually resort to painfully shocking themselves just for something to do? Why not just stay in the moment and wait it out? Partly, reflecting back and looking ahead are just human nature, something our big brains allow us to do and a big reason for our evolutionary success. Because we can think ahead and formulate goals, or review the past and learn from it, we can accomplish stunning achievements like writing novels, building bridges, and curing diseases (not to mention more ordinary but still essential accomplishments like saving for retirement). But that’s not the whole story.

While being past- or future-minded can have benefits, it’s clear that mindfulness—staying in the present moment—offers essential benefits as well. The present moment is the only one that truly exists. It’s only in the present moment that we can feel peace, fulfillment, and harmony. And it’s only in the present that we’re free to choose. That’s why people meditate and why so many religious traditions include some kind of mindfulness exercise.

But researchers in the study found that even subjects who had experience with meditation and mindfulness found it only slightly easier to sit still without distraction. I’ve found this in my own practice. When I explain mindfulness to my psychotherapy clients, they understand the concept and its value on an intellectual level, and may even experience a sense of pleasurable release during some meditations. Even though my clients have come to me for help in dealing with life’s burdens, and even though they get good results from meditating, it’s still not easy for them to practice mindfulness regularly.

So, what comes up for people when they sit alone with their thoughts? We experience restlessness, discomfort, boredom, and irritation. Sitting in stillness, letting moments come and go and staying with the quiet space, gives room to encounter the self. We come face to face with our anger, our envy, our jealousy and our pride. Those feelings are unpleasant and it is easy to want to be quickly rid of them. Switching the channel in our mind to a diversion such as a show, a game, or a piece of chocolate cake takes us temporarily away from the difficult emotion. We don’t want to feel like a jealous person, for example, because that gives way to other feelings such as guilt—which makes us feel worse. Our self-concept takes a beating when we give it time in the quiet moments.

But if we are to enlarge our Self and be fully alive, we have to face the darker sides. As Goethe writes in “The Holy Longing”:

 And so long as you haven’t experienced this: to die and so to grow,

you are only a troubled guest on the dark earth.

To be at home on earth, learn to sit with yourself in the present moment.

 

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Happiness and Pleasure Born of Reverie and Reflection

Photo credit: Vicki DeLoach

When I was little and living in lush, sweaty Georgia, my mother would take me and my brother out to the lawn and we’d pick delicate white daisies, carefully connecting stems end to end to make a halo or a crown. Secluded from other cares, for me those afternoons before being called to dinner felt eternal, endless. We didn’t ask to watch TV, the only screen available back then. And if we were lucky, the day would turn dusky and bands of lightning bugs would appear, making their mystical dance around our heads, flying just low enough so we could catch a few in our glass jars. I always released mine after a few seconds, hoping they would remember me as kind and come back again the next evening.

Daisies don’t grow in the grass in California where I live now. Bugs do. They crawl up and down gigantic blades in a determined march to get to the other side of the lawn. When my twins were little, we’d get down on our forearms and elbows and watch their surprisingly fast journey. Then we’d roll onto our backs and look at the clouds, finding comical animals, monsters, and castles. Absorbed in our thoughts, time moved much slower than the clouds and bugs. When my husband called us to dinner, we strolled to the house, calm and happy.

Several years ago, we tore up the grass to save water. I don’t see the bugs up close now, but I see the honeybees and hear their sweet music, along with the birdsong.

Long before Gautama became enlightened while sitting under the Bodhi tree, he experienced a calm, peaceful reverie as a boy while sitting under a rose-apple tree in his father’s field. This Buddha-to-be watched the grass being churned in the fields and noticed the bugs being displaced by the plow, some dying and some surviving. Contemplating the transitoriness of life with calm awareness, he experienced the state Buddhists refer to as jhana—a rapture and pleasure born of seclusion from the usual demands of life. This glimpse was lost in memory for many years, until that day under the Bodhi tree when Gautama realized that life brings suffering, yet it also brings a way out.

Meditation is one of the paths that bring awareness, insight, and calm. These states of meditation where the mind is free from craving, aversion, sloth, agitation, and doubt, are experienced when we can be alone without demands of daily life pressing us toward the ever-present distractions that impinge daily. Watching clouds or bugs with nothing on your mind may bring about that first state of meditation, just as it did for Buddha. Taking time with no purpose, but to sit still, listening and observing, may bring surprise and joy.

 

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How Wisdom Emerges from Body-Scan Meditation

 

 In mindfulness practice we use the Body Scan as a way to develop attention and focus on the body without judgment.Mindfulness Meditation: Using the Body Scan as a Focus

Body-scan meditation focuses deliberate attention on the body without judgment or wanting anything to come from it. This isn’t a traditional relaxation method; people may feel peaceful, but they can also feel antsy, impatient, irritated, and hungry. That’s the point: You can experience these feelings, thoughts, and sensations without needing to take them further. Just notice, and then move on to the next part of the body.

With physical pain, for example, our thoughts might go something like this: “My back hurts, that muscle ache could be a spasm or what if it is bone cancer, maybe I should have an MRI, or maybe I need to go to a chiropractor, but that could mean I have to go three times a week, how will I get off work? My wife is going to be mad at me for spending the money, but then, damn that! If I’m hurting, then I need to get out of pain. She has no business keeping me out of the doctor’s office. I deserve to spend money on me sometimes. Just like when I was a kid, and my mother didn’t take seriously the pain in my arm, and it was broken! I went for weeks before she took me to the doctor… ”

The thoughts go on like that. Before you know it, you’re fuming; your body is more tense than when you began. You feel irritation not only at your wife, but your mother, the medical system, the ACA, and your insurance company. You probably feel sorry for yourself. All that strong emotion gets internalized into your pores, your muscles and sinews, and your heart. Your focus on your body ended ten minutes into the 45-minute practice: all you can think about is getting up and googling “back pain.”

A mindful alternative might go like this: “My back aches, oh, okay. It hurts now, that is how it is right now.” And then you rejoin your yourself, and think, “Noticing my right shoulder…noticing the feelings present there…I bring my attention to my right arm, noticing what is there to be felt…” At the end of the body scan, you open your eyes and realize that you have stayed with the practice for most of the 45 minutes. Your mind wandered, but you didn’t end up becoming angry with your partner, your mother, the medical system, and your poor luck.

Living with all our emotions can be difficult. It’s not uncommon for feelings to be transformed into physical sensations that can very possibly develop into an illness. You didn’t cause the illness, but being in prolonged or frequent physical and emotional turmoil puts the autonomic nervous system (ANS) into a constant state of over-arousal, a kind of hyper-drive that leads to difficulty sleeping, tense muscles, fretting, and worry.

In his poem fragment “Eternity,” William Blake wrote about the elusiveness of joy:

He who binds to himself a joy

Does the winged life destroy

He who kisses the joy as it flies

Lives in eternity’s sunrise.

Happiness studies show that no one is happy all the time. In the same way, wisdom is not always with us. We have moments where it all comes together, and then it disperses again. Focusing on the body with awareness is a way to allow wisdom to emerge without trying.

How does wisdom enter in? In the second, alternative, body scan you notice the pain in your back, move on, and finish the practice. You’re more rested because you didn’t get attached to any one thought. Then sometime later in the day, you do a kindness to yourself. You think, “I’m feeling some ache in my back; I’ll listen to my body over the next day and see if I should pursue it further. But for now, I’ll take care to not overdo the wedding, and to come inside and rest.”

That is wisdom. It’s not Socrates, or Jesus, or Buddha; it’s your own wisdom that emerges because of your kindness to yourself, and because you didn’t let yourself go down the rabbit hole of your thoughts.

Below is a thirty-minute Body Scan Mindfulness Meditation. It is one of the first meditations used in Dr. Kabat-Zinn’s Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction class (MBSR) and is also a core meditation used in Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT). It is best done laying down, with your eyes closed.

Body Scan Mindfulness Meditation