A CLEAR HEAD

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THE PRINCIPLE

Control Stimuli

Managing your exposure to external stimuli will increase the quality of your thinking, the quality of your judgment, and the quality of your life overall.

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Most of us have had that moment when we're sitting at lunch with a friend and find our fingers reaching for our smartphone or glancing over their shoulder at the baseball game on the TV screen over the bar. And most of us have come to hate these moments, which undermine our human connections and leave us feeling uneasy as a result, but we feel powerless to fight them. There's just too much stuff competing for our attention, everywhere.

New York Times columnist David Brooks touched a nerve with a column on the constant distractions of everyday life. The line that really struck home with us:

I am losing the attention war.

Information overload is the collateral damage of an ongoing war for our attention. We have a whole range of devices and apps designed to be addictive. They, combined with ever-expanding data sources, can help us do our jobs better and enrich our leisure time. But increasingly, all they do is overwhelm us, robbing us of the agency necessary to do what we want to do or need to do.

Fortunately, it's possible to build mental firewalls so that you can focus on what's important, whether that means putting your phone in a drawer in the other room or gently removing yourself from a distracting situation until your immediate goal is achieved. Learning to control environmental stimuli is a great source of agency because it involves us taking an active role in determining what environment is best for us.

Agency Begins with What You Let into Your Mind

Think about what children are like when they're overwhelmed by information. Throw too much at them and they will become hyperactive, explode into sudden silliness or crying, have tantrums, or shut down and emotionally check out. Some kids literally cover their ears and eyes or try to escape from places that overwhelm them.

Adults are generally better at sublimating their sensory overload — at least for a while. We don't throw tantrums (most of the time), but we do show specific signs when we are losing the battle with stimuli. Sensory overload in adults looks like this: tension headaches, sleepless nights, sore and tired eyes, problems concentrating, irritability, anger, loss of temper. Many adults live with some collection of these symptoms every day, powering through with a combination of determination and resignation.

Do you know that little spinning wheel you sometimes see on computers and phones when they're having trouble processing? Many call it the beach ball of death. It means the computer, overwhelmed by too much information, has stalled.

While the human brain seems to have unlimited capacity for information, it, too, has a tipping point. Information overload, which occurs when our brains are taking in too much sensory information at any one moment, is a real state, and one experienced with increasing frequency.

One common example of how we overload our brains with information is multitasking. While Ed prepares breakfast for his son each day, he often finds himself "checking in" to view work emails and (guiltily) social media, going between the toaster, his phone, and stealing glances at a second screen — the television — to get weather, news, and traffic updates before the two of them run out the door. On some mornings, it's expanded to three screens, with Ed's laptop open on the counter to scan a work spreadsheet or something else that he has to deal with at work later that day.

Is Ed's situation unusual? Not as much as you might think. All of us are handing over our attention to devices, sometimes two and three at a time. Ed could put the agency principle of Control Stimuli to good use at the start of his day by being more aware of where he puts his attention, respecting the processing limits of his mind, and taking steps to exert more control over his behavior in the few precious minutes he has with his son during breakfast. The true cost of his habits each morning goes beyond what's happening with the neurons inside Ed's brain. There is the irretrievable cost to the experience of simply being present and enjoying the company of his ten-year-old son at the beginning of each day.

There are people who have learned to block unnecessary stimuli well before their own internal processor breaks down, who protect their memories from getting bogged down and distracted by random messages. They're able to circumvent added stress and focus on what truly matters to them.

Monica is a woman in her late twenties holding down two jobs while trying to get her career off the ground. She told us that her work involves using social media to network several hours a day, and she relishes opportunities to take a break from electronics.

There are still some places that are free from digital noise. Monica told us that she has started visiting a church daily to grab some peace and quiet between shifts. "Quiet and calm are commodities," Monica said. "I can go in there for a few minutes during my lunch break and recharge. The quiet allows me to think, to be alone with my own thoughts."

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Use Your Agency: Take yourself to quiet and screen-free spaces.

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Incoming Data Takes a Lot of Energy to Process

External stimulation takes many forms and isn't inherently bad. In its best forms — great books, films, music, for example — it can inspire, teach, and motivate us. It can be the fuel that moves us closer to our desired goals. It can help us survive and adapt to change. It can come in forms that provide us better data to do our jobs more effectively, or find a good restaurant, or it can provide us with important downtime. When controlled and chosen selectively, it doesn't tire us out — and, in fact, it can help us elevate and maintain a more positive mood.

But external stimulation has to be controlled, particularly at times when 1) you have to get something done or 2) you're overwhelmed. And fortunately, even in this age when entire business plans are built around creating addictive stimuli, you can actually learn to control them.

You may have noticed some...