I have gained a lot of benefits from writing for more than a year:

I have developed the habit of reading;

I can focus on one thing for a period of time ;

Learned some useful reading and writing skills to improve the efficiency of both;

Find like-minded writing enthusiasts and grow together with them;

I unexpectedly gained writing income;

......

However, I also discovered the biggest problem: the inability to pay attention to current things. When I reviewed it, I felt that it might be because continuous writing requires a steady stream of materials, and the accumulation of materials needs to be done all the time.

What situation does this lead to?

I was walking on the road and saw a mother beating and scolding her child, so with the idea of ??collecting materials, my mind stayed on this matter, thinking about where it could be used, so I missed it. Scenery and other things on the road;

Chatting with others, hearing something or a point of view, and immediately thinking about where to find information to confirm it and what topic of articles it can be used in, so, I almost didn’t listen to what the other person said next;

Even when I was chatting with a friend recently, it was him who started the topic, but I was thinking about other things at the time, until he came to a key point. , I realized: I didn’t hear what he said before, so I had to ask the other person to go back and say it again;

...

And so on. .

Later I talked to many people about this issue, and I found that "ignoring the present moment" is a very common phenomenon. We are always multitasking, and it is rare to really focus on one thing for a period of time. No, do you often do this:

While driving, think about what to eat for dinner, how to change the plan to be handed in tomorrow, and what else has not been dealt with in the work group;

Chat with friends on WeChat while reading a book;

Switch to the news page as soon as WeChat is sent;

Eat movies and variety shows;

When I was chatting with my family, I was still thinking about how to do the children’s manual homework in school;

...

This situation is caused, on the one hand, because of technology While development has provided convenience for our lives and work, more and more things need to be handled personally. On the other hand, modern society is overloaded with information and has too many temptations.

Based on the above two reasons, we are forced to increase the output value per unit time. How to improve it? It means doing several things at the same time for a period of time.

What problems will this cause? --Directly increases our cognitive load. The most direct manifestation is that we feel very tired every day, but this fatigue cannot be solved by sleeping, because the part where we feel tired is the brain, not the body.

The formation mechanisms of brain fatigue and physical fatigue are completely different, so the methods of relieving them are also different.

The way to relieve physical fatigue is simple and crude, which is to ensure regular and adequate sleep. The way to relieve brain fatigue is a little more troublesome.

If you want to figure out how to effectively relieve brain fatigue, you must first understand how brain fatigue is generated.

There is a "default mode network" in our brain, which is mainly composed of these brain tissues:

Medial prefrontal cortex

Posterior cingulate cortex

Precuneus

Inferior parietal lobe

In daily life, most of the time, our brains are executing unconscious instructions, such as:

When walking, we don’t need to think about which leg to take first;

When picking up the phone from the table, we don’t need to think about how to hold it;

When sitting down, we don’t need to think about how the ankle joints, knee joints and hip bones fold;

...

To do this, just It is enough to rely on the brain to execute unconscious instructions. However, conscious brain activities such as making plans, reading, and thinking actually account for a very small proportion every day.

How do we carry out unconscious instructions? It is the "Default Mode Network" mentioned earlier, or DMN for short.

The energy consumption of the DMN accounts for 60%-80% of the overall energy consumption of the brain. When we need to execute conscious activity instructions, we only need to add 5%, which shows the huge appetite of the DMN.

Therefore, if you want to effectively relieve brain fatigue, you must start by suppressing the activity frequency of the DMN. Only when its activity frequency is suppressed can the overall energy consumption of the brain be reduced, which is fundamentally effective. Relieve brain fatigue.

Currently, research in brain science, neuroscience and psychology around the world has reached a unanimous conclusion: "Mindfulness meditation" can inhibit the medial prefrontal cortex, a key part of the DMN. and activity in the posterior cingulate cortex.

Therefore, mindfulness meditation has been proven to effectively reduce the excessive consumption of brain energy by distracting thoughts. Eliminating this excessive consumption can fundamentally alleviate the fatigue of the brain, because distracting thoughts generated during unconscious brain activities , has been confirmed by research to be one of the main causes of fatigue in the brain.

Because of this, the concept of "mindfulness meditation" has become very popular in recent years. You may have heard of it before, or you may have read relevant books, or you may have tried it yourself.

Even if you don’t know much about “mindfulness meditation” before reading this article, it doesn’t matter. We will share three methods later to help us practice it in our daily lives, but Before that, let’s briefly understand what meditation is.

Meditation requires two basic conditions:

A relatively quiet environment;

A period of discretionary, uninterrupted time.

The purpose of meditation is only one:

To bring thoughts back to the present moment

The most basic meditation method:

Feel your own breathing, Breath is the anchor of consciousness.

After a brief understanding of meditation, let me share three methods that can help us pay attention to the "now" in daily life:

Find a space, leave a few minutes, and feel yourself breathing.

Also known as "mindful breathing", you can find a sofa or bed in a relatively quiet environment, then find a comfortable position, close your eyes, and feel your breathing carefully.

How carefully? You can try to feel:

What is the difference in the sound when exhaling and inhaling;

What is the difference in the temperature of the breath when exhaling and inhaling;

What the brief pause between breaths is like;

How it feels when the chest is raised and lowered;

...

< p>In addition, you can also feel the touch of the part where your body is in contact with the sofa or bed, etc. The purpose of this is to allow yourself to keep your thoughts in the present moment by feeling your breath and the touch of the object.

Of course, according to my own experience, this kind of time to stay in the present may only be a few seconds or tens of seconds, and then my thoughts will inevitably be distracted by various plans, Huabei bills, etc. that will be handed in tomorrow. Attract all kinds of distracting thoughts away.

It doesn’t matter, this is normal. When our thoughts are taken away, don’t blame yourself, just try to bring it back to your breathing and touch.

When enjoying food, observe it for a moment before taking it into your mouth and feel its taste carefully.

Have you ever carefully distinguished the difference between the taste of each bite of rice and the feel in your mouth? This is not a pretentious question, because most of us will not make such careful distinctions. We are doing these things when chewing every bite of food:

Checking the phone;

Chatting ;

Follow dramas and reality shows;

Think of other things;

......

Be with everyone Forget about eating. When eating alone, I rarely pay attention to the food in front of me. I am either scrolling through my mobile phone or my mind wanders to unknown places.

How can we pay attention to what is happening "now" in this way? So, if you have the opportunity to eat alone, try to feel the taste of each bite of food and how it feels in your mouth.

It may be difficult to get used to it at first, but with practice, it becomes easier for our thoughts to focus on the "now".

Carefully observe the current environment and the people in it.

The example I gave at the beginning of the article is a typical situation of "being in this environment and being in another environment". I know better than anyone the consequences of completely ignoring the current environment. .

It is precisely because I have experienced it that I looked for a solution and want to share it with you through today’s article.

I am now consciously learning to do this:

Every time I go to an environment, no matter whether I have been there before or not, I will observe it first. If conditions do not allow, I will observe it secretly;

When someone comes towards you, focus on them. For example: when the waiter is serving food, secretly observe her appearance, expression, dress, etc.;

Walking on the road , even if I walk every day, I will pay attention to the small shops on the roadside, the color of the sky today, and the shape of the clouds;

...

In short, Try your best to let things in the current environment attract your attention and reduce the frequency and time of mind wandering and distraction.

Finally, to summarize this article:

While technological advancement has made our lives and work more convenient, more and more things need to be handled by us personally. Modern society is overloaded with information and has too many temptations, forcing us to increase the output value per unit time. How to improve it? It means doing several things at the same time for a period of time.

This will directly increase our cognitive load. The most direct manifestation is that we feel tired every day. The part that feels tired is our brain.

There is a "default mode network" in our brain, referred to as DMN, which is mainly composed of these brain tissues:

Medial prefrontal cortex

Posterior cingulate With cortex

Precuneus

Inferior parietal lobe

The energy consumption of DMN accounts for 60%-80% of the overall energy consumption of the brain. Therefore, think To effectively relieve brain fatigue, we must start by suppressing the activity frequency of the DMN.

Research shows that "mindfulness meditation" can inhibit the activity of key parts of the DMN - the medial prefrontal cortex and posterior cingulate cortex.

This article shares three methods that can help us pay attention to the "now" in daily life:

Find a space, stay for a few minutes, and feel your own breathing.

When enjoying food, observe it carefully before taking it into your mouth and feel its taste.

Carefully observe the current environment and the people in it.

It can be said that all fatigue and stress in the brain come from the past and the future: being unwilling to accept the past and full of uneasiness about the future.

Only by learning to pay attention to the "now" can we fundamentally be rescued from the vortex of "feeling tired every day".

I am @霖 Miss. Slowly. When it comes to growth, it’s okay to be slow, but don’t stop!