In a memorable line in the 1970s film The Graduate, someone offers advice to a young man seeking his way in the world. “One word,” the advisor says. “Plastics.” For people interested in the brain, however, the word of advice is plasticity. In the 1990s, the Decade of the Brain, the greatest discovery in the field of neurology was that the brain is malleable, not static – in other words plastic.
This is of course what neurofeedback has capitalized on since the 1960s. Neurofeedback – which is also known as brainwave training and EEG feedback -- could also be called directed plasticity. With sensors on the scalp we can read what the brain is doing, and guide it to move into realms that can mitigate or eliminate problems such as anxiety, attention deficit disorder, depression and chronic pain. In other words it teaches us to engage and use our plasticity.
A study just published in the European Journal of Neuroscience, conducted by two laboratories from the University of London, shows that just half an hour of feedback causes a lasting shift “in cortical excitability and intracortical function.” That means essentially that the brain becomes less reactive. The researchers, from two laboratories at the University of London, call for more funding for neurofeedback “to modulate plasticity in a safe, painless and natural way.”
With the Open Focus approach, we have been using neurofeedback since the 1970s to help people gain voluntary control over the plasticity in their central nervous system. But the goal is to eventually teach them to do it without neurofeedback, by changing the way they pay attention. Attention, in other words, is a powerful tool that also engages and directs the brain’s plasticity, and we can learn to mitigate and eliminate anxiety, depression, pain and host of other problems simply by learning how to use the different ways of attending that are at our disposal.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Saturday, February 13, 2010
The Ways of Attending
There’s a story of a wise old fish swimming along and sees two young fish swimming toward him. “Hello boys,” he calls out. “How’s the water?”
The two young fish look at each other and say “Water? What’s water?”
We all tend to be stuck in narrow focus, what I call the emergency mode of attending. We have paid attention this way for so long, that, just like the two young fish, we don’t realize it. And we don’t realize there are other ways of paying attention, that can make us feel very different.
We are stuck in narrow focus because we have been taught to always be watching the world around us – look out for cars, pay attention to your homework or your teacher, watch out for this and that. We also spend time in this narrow objective attention because it helps us tamp down unpleasant feelings that happen to us as we grow up. Unfortunately they don’t go away -- they just stay in our mind and body, taking a toll on our physical and emotional life.
Here are the other ways of attending I have identified, and a little bit about them. Learning about them and learning to access them is fairly easy and can help us solve a great many problems in our lives, from anxiety to pain to impaired performance at work, on the playing field or on stage.
Narrow objective attention, is the one style we favor the most. It is a hyper-focus that engages the brain’s high frequencies. It is attention directed toward one or two things and which makes everything else background. Narrow focus isn’t just a way of attending visually. We can chronically narrow focus on any sensation, thought, a serious problem or a deadline, to the exclusion of almost everything else, which can cause worry and anxiety. Extreme narrow focus can be crippling, when it is overused or chronic, bringing on anxiety, panic and worry. It is the enemy of a smooth, fluid performance. A golfer, for example, who suffers what is known as the yips – uncontrollable muscle movements when putting – is hyper-focused, and the muscles are tense and in spasm.
Diffuse attention is the opposite of narrow and just what it sounds like– a softer, more inclusive view of the world, not attending to any one object or thing, as in narrow, but opening to everything, equally and simultaneously. It takes in a figure, but also includes the background. Think of attention as a beam of light. On a camping trip someone might hear a bear in a tree. Adjust the light so the beam is narrow, and nearly all of the light will focus on the bear. That’s narrow focus. But if we don’t know which tree the animal is in, we can broaden the scope of the flashlight beam so it illuminates more of the forest, as well as the bear, and not just one tree. That’s diffuse.
Diffuse brings on a multi-sensory experience, not just thinking and seeing, which are the senses that dominate in narrow focus. Walking through the forest and being simultaneously aware of birds singing, the smell of flowers, the feel of a breeze, the view of the trees and the space and the silence in which these sensory experiences occur is diffuse.
Objective attention, which we habitually combine with narrow, emotionally distances us from the object of our awareness. The combination of narrow and objective is energized and fast paced, favors the rational and linear processing skills of the brain’s left hemisphere. It emphasizes thinking and seeing, and diminishes the role of the other senses, including emotions. It tends to be organized in the left hemisphere.
Immersed or absorbed attention is characteristic of someone who enters into a union with an object or process and forgets themselves. It is usually pleasurable, and takes place in low brainwave frequencies. The effortlessness of a creative artist or performing athlete in a well learned behavior -- a dancer so immersed in her body, movement and music she loses a sense of self or where she is, for example -- is immersed attention. Both diffuse and immersed attention favor the right hemisphere of the brain.
There is also a combination of narrow and immersed attention, which is associated with a combination of low and high frequencies. Immersed is a way of attending that allows us to savor and intensify an experience. The main draw for a fisherman who forgets himself for hours as he watches a fly intently and sees nothing else as he waits for a fish to rise, is partly the physiological release that comes from immersed attention.
There’s a story of a wise old fish swimming along and sees two young fish swimming toward him. “Hello boys,” he calls out. “How’s the water?”
The two young fish look at each other and say “Water? What’s water?”
We all tend to be stuck in narrow focus, what I call the emergency mode of attending. We have paid attention this way for so long, that, just like the two young fish, we don’t realize it. And we don’t realize there are other ways of paying attention, that can make us feel very different.
We are stuck in narrow focus because we have been taught to always be watching the world around us – look out for cars, pay attention to your homework or your teacher, watch out for this and that. We also spend time in this narrow objective attention because it helps us tamp down unpleasant feelings that happen to us as we grow up. Unfortunately they don’t go away -- they just stay in our mind and body, taking a toll on our physical and emotional life.
Here are the other ways of attending I have identified, and a little bit about them. Learning about them and learning to access them is fairly easy and can help us solve a great many problems in our lives, from anxiety to pain to impaired performance at work, on the playing field or on stage.
Narrow objective attention, is the one style we favor the most. It is a hyper-focus that engages the brain’s high frequencies. It is attention directed toward one or two things and which makes everything else background. Narrow focus isn’t just a way of attending visually. We can chronically narrow focus on any sensation, thought, a serious problem or a deadline, to the exclusion of almost everything else, which can cause worry and anxiety. Extreme narrow focus can be crippling, when it is overused or chronic, bringing on anxiety, panic and worry. It is the enemy of a smooth, fluid performance. A golfer, for example, who suffers what is known as the yips – uncontrollable muscle movements when putting – is hyper-focused, and the muscles are tense and in spasm.
Diffuse attention is the opposite of narrow and just what it sounds like– a softer, more inclusive view of the world, not attending to any one object or thing, as in narrow, but opening to everything, equally and simultaneously. It takes in a figure, but also includes the background. Think of attention as a beam of light. On a camping trip someone might hear a bear in a tree. Adjust the light so the beam is narrow, and nearly all of the light will focus on the bear. That’s narrow focus. But if we don’t know which tree the animal is in, we can broaden the scope of the flashlight beam so it illuminates more of the forest, as well as the bear, and not just one tree. That’s diffuse.
Diffuse brings on a multi-sensory experience, not just thinking and seeing, which are the senses that dominate in narrow focus. Walking through the forest and being simultaneously aware of birds singing, the smell of flowers, the feel of a breeze, the view of the trees and the space and the silence in which these sensory experiences occur is diffuse.
Objective attention, which we habitually combine with narrow, emotionally distances us from the object of our awareness. The combination of narrow and objective is energized and fast paced, favors the rational and linear processing skills of the brain’s left hemisphere. It emphasizes thinking and seeing, and diminishes the role of the other senses, including emotions. It tends to be organized in the left hemisphere.
Immersed or absorbed attention is characteristic of someone who enters into a union with an object or process and forgets themselves. It is usually pleasurable, and takes place in low brainwave frequencies. The effortlessness of a creative artist or performing athlete in a well learned behavior -- a dancer so immersed in her body, movement and music she loses a sense of self or where she is, for example -- is immersed attention. Both diffuse and immersed attention favor the right hemisphere of the brain.
There is also a combination of narrow and immersed attention, which is associated with a combination of low and high frequencies. Immersed is a way of attending that allows us to savor and intensify an experience. The main draw for a fisherman who forgets himself for hours as he watches a fly intently and sees nothing else as he waits for a fish to rise, is partly the physiological release that comes from immersed attention.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Stress and Vision
Stress is hard on the eyes and the muscles in the head and face that support vision. It shows up in many different ways, from eye pain to dry eyes, pain around the eyes, headaches and tension in facial muscles.
A big part of the reason is that from the time we’re very young we learn to watch for cues to our safety – we watch our parents and siblings faces for their approval, watch out for cars, barking dogs and automobiles. Vigilance is key to being safe, and we reflexively stay in a narrow, objective focus, an emergency mode of attending.
It’s especially powerful because it’s not just a physiological process – there’s a strong emotional component. The severity of the threats and our genetic make-up determine how problems manifest, but almost everyone has stress in their eyes, face or neck from paying attention so narrowly and intently.
There’s another kind of problem that affects vision – how we pay attention to work or school, even when it has little if any emotional dimension. A recent study found that myopia, or nearsightedness is much more common now then it was 30 years ago, according to researchers at the National Eye Institute. About 42 percent of people less than 54 years old have nearsightedness, versus 25 percent in the 1970s. People with myopia can see things close up but their distance vision is blurred.
Researchers think the problem may be linked to widespread use of computers, because we pay attention to a very small visual field in narrow focus much of the time rather than varying how we pay attention – looking at large vistas or other things in the distance.
It is not, however, the computers themselves. We are all guilty of hyper-focusing, that is focusing too intently on our work, or on the other things we do. We need to learn to pay attention more gently, to dial down the very effortful focus we use without thinking.
The remedy is using Open Focus exercises which can not only release tension and help mitigate vision problems including myopia, but also can help release all of the muscles that support narrow attention – in the neck, face, forehead, scalp and elsewhere.
Can you imagine becoming aware of the space between you and the computer as you read this?
Can you imagine becoming aware of all of the space in the room around you and computer as you read?
A big part of the reason is that from the time we’re very young we learn to watch for cues to our safety – we watch our parents and siblings faces for their approval, watch out for cars, barking dogs and automobiles. Vigilance is key to being safe, and we reflexively stay in a narrow, objective focus, an emergency mode of attending.
It’s especially powerful because it’s not just a physiological process – there’s a strong emotional component. The severity of the threats and our genetic make-up determine how problems manifest, but almost everyone has stress in their eyes, face or neck from paying attention so narrowly and intently.
There’s another kind of problem that affects vision – how we pay attention to work or school, even when it has little if any emotional dimension. A recent study found that myopia, or nearsightedness is much more common now then it was 30 years ago, according to researchers at the National Eye Institute. About 42 percent of people less than 54 years old have nearsightedness, versus 25 percent in the 1970s. People with myopia can see things close up but their distance vision is blurred.
Researchers think the problem may be linked to widespread use of computers, because we pay attention to a very small visual field in narrow focus much of the time rather than varying how we pay attention – looking at large vistas or other things in the distance.
It is not, however, the computers themselves. We are all guilty of hyper-focusing, that is focusing too intently on our work, or on the other things we do. We need to learn to pay attention more gently, to dial down the very effortful focus we use without thinking.
The remedy is using Open Focus exercises which can not only release tension and help mitigate vision problems including myopia, but also can help release all of the muscles that support narrow attention – in the neck, face, forehead, scalp and elsewhere.
Can you imagine becoming aware of the space between you and the computer as you read this?
Can you imagine becoming aware of all of the space in the room around you and computer as you read?
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Treating Pain With Flexible Attention
"Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional." That statement, by someone whose name is lost to history, is true wisdom. Pain is something that happens to us, and then we have choices on how to relate to it. How much we suffer is one of those choices.
It is determined by how we attend to our pain.
By learning to pay attention to pain in more than one way, we can change the suffering part of the equation.
Some pain is inevitable. We bang a shin or strain a shoulder and it hurts. But pain that endures for no apparent reason, or even a pain that endures for a known reason, can be localized and dissolved as an experience of and in the body. But pain is actually generated by circuitry in the brain.
Take the case of phantom limb pain. People who have lost an arm for example, years later report pain, often severe pain, in the missing hand or elbow. Why? Because the circuitry of the brain that represents the missing arm become active.
But it’s not just that brain circuitry is active and the pain has a life of its own, beyond on our control. How we pay attention to pain, is something within our control.
We all tend to pay attention to pain in the high arousal mode of attention, we call narrow, objective focus, which is how the attention style we habitually use fights and avoids the pain. If we let pain in, we think, it will hurt more. But the opposite is true – it’s more painful over time to try to avoid it in a rigid narrow objective focus of attention.
The strategy then is to broaden our aperture of attention with Open Focus exercises by establishing a general awareness of space. With our awareness so much larger, the pain becomes a small part of one’s experience and is no big deal. It often dissolves on its own, or we can easily dissolve it.
It is determined by how we attend to our pain.
By learning to pay attention to pain in more than one way, we can change the suffering part of the equation.
Some pain is inevitable. We bang a shin or strain a shoulder and it hurts. But pain that endures for no apparent reason, or even a pain that endures for a known reason, can be localized and dissolved as an experience of and in the body. But pain is actually generated by circuitry in the brain.
Take the case of phantom limb pain. People who have lost an arm for example, years later report pain, often severe pain, in the missing hand or elbow. Why? Because the circuitry of the brain that represents the missing arm become active.
But it’s not just that brain circuitry is active and the pain has a life of its own, beyond on our control. How we pay attention to pain, is something within our control.
We all tend to pay attention to pain in the high arousal mode of attention, we call narrow, objective focus, which is how the attention style we habitually use fights and avoids the pain. If we let pain in, we think, it will hurt more. But the opposite is true – it’s more painful over time to try to avoid it in a rigid narrow objective focus of attention.
The strategy then is to broaden our aperture of attention with Open Focus exercises by establishing a general awareness of space. With our awareness so much larger, the pain becomes a small part of one’s experience and is no big deal. It often dissolves on its own, or we can easily dissolve it.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Dissolving Finanical Fear
Franklin Roosevelt famously said, “All we have to fear is fear itself.” As the economy, heads into uncharted territory of the downward variety there’s a lot of fear. People are nervous, anxious, unsettled and restless. While Open Focus can’t do anything about the stock market, it can change how we react to these stomach-churning financial events. Most of us are far more reactive than we need to be, and reducing reactivity is one of the things Open Focus does best.
The best way to move out of narrow-objective focus, where reactivity is most extreme, to an Open Focus state, where our attention is more inclusive and immersed, is to listen to one of the recorded exercises available on our web site, www.openfocus.com. Even without the recorded exercises, though, you can sit down and let your attention become diffuse and immersed. Here's how.
Become aware of the space between your body and the walls of the room you are in. As you start to let yourself open and merge with space, you will naturally release stress and tension. To take this further, pay attention to where in your body any feelings of anxiety, fear and restlessness might be located. If you can feel pain, you can dissolve it. Simply move toward and immerse yourself in those feelings, bask in them, accept them and stop fighting. This is a skill we all can develop. The Open Focus™ approach is about attentional flexibility, which leads to release of tension, and not about trying to relax. For more information, check out our book The Open Focus Brain.
The best way to move out of narrow-objective focus, where reactivity is most extreme, to an Open Focus state, where our attention is more inclusive and immersed, is to listen to one of the recorded exercises available on our web site, www.openfocus.com. Even without the recorded exercises, though, you can sit down and let your attention become diffuse and immersed. Here's how.
Become aware of the space between your body and the walls of the room you are in. As you start to let yourself open and merge with space, you will naturally release stress and tension. To take this further, pay attention to where in your body any feelings of anxiety, fear and restlessness might be located. If you can feel pain, you can dissolve it. Simply move toward and immerse yourself in those feelings, bask in them, accept them and stop fighting. This is a skill we all can develop. The Open Focus™ approach is about attentional flexibility, which leads to release of tension, and not about trying to relax. For more information, check out our book The Open Focus Brain.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Peak Performance and the Yips
The Olympics just concluded and throughout it people commented that some athletes had the “yips.” Yips are well known to some golfers. Just as they are about to putt the ball, something they have done a thousand times, they have an involuntary jerking movement and can’t control their swing and hit the ball too hard and miss the shot.
Golfers are not alone. It happens in all sports. A baseball catcher who suddenly can’t reach second base with the ball. A quarterback whose passes fall short of his receivers. In the Olympics this year gymnasts, kayakers and archers – who also call it target panic – are among those who have had the yips, according to press reports.
No matter what the sport yips are caused by the same thing – narrow focus, objective attention. Paying attention in too narrow a focus – selecting out only the golf ball in your field of attention for example and not including anything else in the focus – causes muscles in the eyes, face and throughout the body to tense. This tension is the enemy of fluid movement required for successful execution of fundamentals in sports.
The way to keep muscle fluidity and enhance any sport is flexible attention. In the short term that means narrow focus when its needed, but less rigid ways of attending when its not. Over the long term it means practicing Open Focus often to keep the body relaxed and ready – not tense and over ready.
Golfers are not alone. It happens in all sports. A baseball catcher who suddenly can’t reach second base with the ball. A quarterback whose passes fall short of his receivers. In the Olympics this year gymnasts, kayakers and archers – who also call it target panic – are among those who have had the yips, according to press reports.
No matter what the sport yips are caused by the same thing – narrow focus, objective attention. Paying attention in too narrow a focus – selecting out only the golf ball in your field of attention for example and not including anything else in the focus – causes muscles in the eyes, face and throughout the body to tense. This tension is the enemy of fluid movement required for successful execution of fundamentals in sports.
The way to keep muscle fluidity and enhance any sport is flexible attention. In the short term that means narrow focus when its needed, but less rigid ways of attending when its not. Over the long term it means practicing Open Focus often to keep the body relaxed and ready – not tense and over ready.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
The Power of Attention
This is the first post on the Open Focus blog. It was created to begin a discussion about some of the ideas raised in our book, The Open Focus Brain: Harnessing the Power of Attention to Heal Mind and Body, published by an imprint of Shambhala Press. The premise is that we all hold on to emotional stress that we have carried with us since infancy and childhood. Because this stress -- which moves through our body as well as our mind -- is painful, we shut it down reflexively to keep from feeling it. To keep our stress from surfacing we stay in a type of attention called narrow objective. This fear lives on in our stomach, our chest, our heart and other organs and muscles and causes a host of problems, including anxiety, depression, chronic pain, ADD, ADHD and many other things. It also contributes to an overall phsyical and emotional numbness.
Stress and fear is held in place by the narrow focus objective style of attention. We can release this held fear, and reverse negative physiological and psychological symptoms, by moving into a less rigid, more flexible styles of attention. Taken far enough we can even move into transcendent states.
The book includes a CD with exercises that very quickly move us out of narrow objective focus, and into other forms of attention. In the clinic the Open Focus exercises are used with neurofeedback which makes them even more powerful.
We believe that used along with other tools, attention training has the power to transform modern psychology and psychotherapy, and will allow people to gain control over their nervous system. We want to encourage discussion here.
-- Jim Robbins
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