The Science of Training Your Attention | Dr. Amishi Jha
10% Happier with Dan Harris
10% Media, LLC
4.6 • 12.9K Ratings
🗓️ 18 December 2023
⏱️ 72 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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How to stay focused, fight distraction, and function at your peak.
Dr. Amishi Jha is a professor of psychology at the University of Miami. She serves as the Director of Contemplative Neuroscience for the Mindfulness Research and Practice Initiative, which she co-founded in 2010. Dr Jha is the author of the national bestseller, Peak Mind.
In this episode we talk about:
- What peak mind is
- Why meta awareness is important to practice and achieve peak mind
- The suite of mindfulness-based attention training practices
- Why humans developed attention in the first place
- Using the flashlight and floodlight metaphors to help us understand different types of attention
- The mental pushup for attention: focus, notice, and redirect
- The attention benefits for high stress populations who engage in contemplatives practices
- Multitasking vs. monotasking
- The real life and death consequences of confirmation bias
- Part of the reason why we may be experiencing a crisis of attention
- Giving our mind the freedom to choose where it goes next
Related Episodes:
Why You Can't Pay Attention - And How to Think Deeply Again | Johann Hari
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Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/amishi-jha-rerun-2023
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. |
| 0:19.0 | Hey, gang, distraction is one of the top complaints of meditators and pretty much every human being alive right now in an era that has been dubbed the Info Blitzkrieg. |
| 0:28.9 | My guest today has spent years studying the impact of meditation on people who work in high-stress professions. |
| 0:35.1 | She's collaborated with the military, first responders, and elite |
| 0:38.7 | athletes, and she's written a whole book about how to, in her words, a focus without all the |
| 0:43.8 | struggle, take back your attention from the pull of distraction and function at your peak. |
| 0:49.3 | Dr. Amishi Jha is a professor of psychology at the University of Miami, the director of contemplative |
| 0:54.2 | neuroscience for the mindfulness research and practice initiative and author of the book, |
| 0:59.0 | Peek Mind, Find Your Focus, Own Your Attention, Invest 12 Minutes a Day. |
| 1:04.5 | In this conversation, we talk about what she means by Peak Mind. |
| 1:07.4 | She gives us the neuroscience of attention 101. |
| 1:10.3 | We talk about the benefits of contemplative |
| 1:12.2 | practices for high stress groups and what exactly it is about meditation that's helping these people. |
| 1:17.3 | We talk about multitasking versus task switching simulation mode versus mindful mode. And she finally gives |
| 1:23.9 | an answer to the question I have gotten a million times, which is something to the effect of what is the least amount of meditation you can do and still derive all of the advertised |
| 1:32.4 | benefits? Her answer does carry a few scientific caveats, but it's fascinating nonetheless. |
| 1:37.9 | One quick note here. This episode is part of a two-week series we're doing called Deep Cuts, |
| 1:42.0 | where we dip into the vast TPH archive to find |
| 1:46.3 | some of our best and most popular episodes to give you a measure of sanity during the holidays. |
| 1:52.2 | Before we dive in, just to say, we've got some exciting things happening in the 10% happier |
| 1:57.5 | universe. We are now offering bespoke guided meditations to go with every podcast |
| 2:04.3 | episode. Those meditations will be guided by a teacher of the month, all people who you know from |
... |
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