Struggling to focus these days? You are just ‘Overstimulated’!
You are not lazy or suddenly less clever or less careful either!
This is a ‘New Age’ phenomenon and you will read and hear about this a lot more in the coming days or years. Let me paint a picture…
You wake up with energy and resolution to make good use of the day ahead. But, when the time rolls in to do the actual work, you find yourself stalling it. You check your emails, make yourself a cup of tea, arrange your desk or find a mundane article suddenly more interesting than the work that you need to do.
You say to yourself that you will start in 10 mins, 15 mins, 30 mins, after lunch and suddenly you realize that you’ve wasted yet another perfect day. Not only this, but you also realize that your cognitive ability, which is your ability to think, formulate answers and the ability to remember things, has significantly gone down. You also realize that you fantasize about running away from your job for a vacation or realize that your job does not give you the purpose or meaning and that is the reason for your stalling. But, funnily, when you buckle down and do your work(because of a looming deadline or some other external factors), you realize that you do like what you are doing and you beat yourself up for being lazy and careless.
Does any of this sound familiar?
If yes, you are not old or losing your senses like you joke about! You are just overstimulated!
Overstimulation is when your brain takes in more information than it can process from your senses, which results in reduced concentration and productivity.
What are the causes of being overstimulated?
- Your Phone
- Your Phone
- Your Phone
It’s not a typo. The mobile phones that we carry as our third palm are one of the primary reasons for overstimulation.
The news apps, instant notifications, messages, social media doom scrolls and so on.
Are there any other triggers?
Yes, the trigger need not be only from social media. They could be from sources that you need to use in your job as well.
- Numerous tabs you keep open in your browser
- All the e-mails you read first thing in the morning
- Pings from chat windows that you’ve kept open
Anything that hits your dopamine continuously. (Dopamine is your hormone which fires up when your brain expects a reward and gets it)
Even exercise or reading a book can trigger a dopamine response. So does that cause overstimulation?
No, these activities have a limit and end after a specific time. For example, your book will not go on and on and it has a definite end.
Whereas, in the case of your news apps or social media apps, your dopamine will be hit with every new information that you consume.
Why does this happen?
As humans, we are not meant to handle so much information in such a short period of time. And the internet now is built in such a way that it tries to hold your attention, which results in us spending more and more time on it.
Think of our temporary memory as something similar to a RAM and whatever you keep seeing or noticing fills up the cache in that RAM and, over a period of time, it slows you down.
Apart from constant procrastination, what are the signs which show that you are overstimulated?
- Are you feeling lethargic, with a carefree attitude to the results or outcomes of the work that you put in? Are you being careless about not doing your work on time?
- Are you having reduced sleep quality?
- Are you seeing a reduced attention quality? Do you feel that you tend to lose attention more easily than before?
- Does it feel difficult in remembering data as compared to before?
How did we come to the conclusion that this was caused by overstimulation through phones or notifications?
Based on a study that was conducted on two mice groups, one which was not exposed to audio sensory overstimulation and one group of mice which was exposed to cartoons with frequent changes in visual and audio groups, the following characteristics were observed.
Those mice which were overstimulated took more time to come out of the maze, took more risks by coming out in light instead of staying in the dark, spent more time in the open field instead of hiding, which is not typical in mice. Normal mice tend to hide but are generally curious about new objects around them. So they will avoid light as much as possible but will venture out. Compared to this, the overstimulated mice were also curious but ventured out more under the light. They made more errors while trying to find a way out, which suggested impaired memory and also spent less time being curious about a novel object.
Does this sound familiar? Have you felt any of these symptoms lately?
Think of the impact that our children would have if they are exposed to cartoons and images that overload their sense of understanding the world around them, particularly when they are babies and vulnerable.
What are my personal observations?
I used myself as a guinea pig to test this over several months and I’m listing down my observations.
On days I started by watching Youtube videos or Instagram reels or even opening every chat/mail that I got from the office, I found myself finding more items of dopamine release. May it be watching more videos, reading random blogs and generally not being able to focus and tended to procrastinate more than usual. I also felt lethargic while focusing during calls and meetings and tended to find alternative ways of entertaining my mind. I also was not able to recollect details as easily as I used to and I was not following my plans for the day properly.
On days where I avoided all forms of overstimulation, I would not say that my procrastination was altogether removed. It was still there as it’s a normal human behaviour, but I was able to focus in less time and tended to stay on the object of focus longer. I felt the nervousness of not meeting a deadline or of submitting poor quality work and found myself working better for the same. I also was able to keep the big picture in mind and was able to take steps towards it.
What steps did I take to avoid getting overstimulated?
- Avoided looking into any social media or emails or chats before I started the important work for the day.
- Allotted a specific time every day to check emails and chats.
- Added a Do Not Disturb in my chat while I was focusing on my work.
- Muted or removed all notifications as much as possible.
- Keep a time limit on the apps in your phone. You can either use a specific app like Stay Focused which will completely lock the apps or you can use the inbuilt Digital wellbeing setting which is present in most phones. (My take on this is ‘use an app to beat an app’)
- Let my mind wander instead of occupying it at every available moment. Avoid the temptation to whip out my phone every time I get small breaks when I am talking or having food with my husband, while traveling or even while listening to a boring unwanted meeting that I was not needed for.
Did it succeed? Am I a super human now?
Nope, I still falter and give in to the temptation. But, I am more self-conscious about it and try to avoid it as much as possible.
I also spend ‘no plan weekends’ or ‘no plan days’ where I just lie down and browse social media all I want.
Try it for yourselves and see if this works out. If you need to occupy your mind, try to go for less overstimulating options like reading novels or playing board games or just let your mind wander to give it a break. For all you know your mind can remind you of that call with your friend that you keep forgetting, a chore that you need to complete or you might even end up finding your life purpose.
Recommendded Reads:
Dopamine Detox by Thibaut Meurisse
Hyperfocus by Chris Bailey
