Opinion
The Power of Concentration
By MARIA KONNIKOVA
The New York Times Sunday Review, December 15, 2012
MEDITATION and mindfulness: the words conjure images of yoga retreats
and Buddhist monks. But perhaps they should evoke a very different
picture: a man in a deerstalker, puffing away at a curved pipe, Mr.
Sherlock Holmes himself. The world’s greatest fictional detective is
someone who knows the value of concentration, of “throwing his brain out
of action,” as Dr. Watson puts it. He is the quintessential unitasker
in a multitasking world.
Time Life Pictures/Mansell via Getty Images
A drawing of Sherlock Holmes by Sidney Paget from 1891 in The Strand Magazine.
More often than not, when a new case is presented, Holmes does nothing
more than sit back in his leather chair, close his eyes and put together
his long-fingered hands in an attitude that begs silence. He may be the
most inactive active detective out there. His approach to thought
captures the very thing that cognitive psychologists mean when they say
mindfulness.
Though the concept originates in ancient Buddhist, Hindu and Chinese
traditions, when it comes to experimental psychology, mindfulness is
less about spirituality and more about concentration: the ability to
quiet your mind, focus your attention on the present, and dismiss any
distractions that come your way. The formulation dates from the work of
the psychologist Ellen Langer, who demonstrated in the 1970s that
mindful thought could lead to improvements on measures of cognitive
function and even vital functions in older adults.
Now we’re learning that the benefits may reach further still, and be
more attainable, than Professor Langer could have then imagined. Even in
small doses, mindfulness can effect impressive changes in how we feel
and think — and it does so at a basic neural level.
In 2011, researchers from the University of Wisconsin demonstrated that
daily meditation-like thought could shift frontal brain activity toward a
pattern that is associated with what cognitive scientists call
positive, approach-oriented emotional states — states that make us more
likely to engage the world rather than to withdraw from it.
Participants were instructed to relax with their eyes closed, focus on
their breathing, and acknowledge and release any random thoughts that
might arise. Then they had the option of receiving nine 30-minute
meditation training sessions over the next five weeks. When they were
tested a second time, their neural activation patterns had undergone a
striking leftward shift in frontal asymmetry — even when their practice
and training averaged only 5 to 16 minutes a day.
As little as five minutes a day of intense Holmes-like inactivity, and a
happier outlook is yours for the taking — though this particular
benefit seems to have been lost on Holmes himself, what with his bouts
of melancholy and his flirtations with a certain 7 percent solution. A
quick survey will show that the paradox is illusory: Holmes is depressed
when there is no target for his mental faculties. Give him a project,
and balance is restored.
But mindfulness goes beyond improving emotion regulation. An exercise in
mindfulness can also help with that plague of modern existence:
multitasking. Of course, we would like to believe that our attention is
infinite, but it isn’t. Multitasking is a persistent myth. What we
really do is shift our attention rapidly from task to task. Two bad
things happen as a result. We don’t devote as much attention to any one
thing, and we sacrifice the quality of our attention. When we are
mindful, some of that attentional flightiness disappears as if of its
own accord.
In 2012, researchers led by a team from the University of Washington
examined the effects of meditation training on multitasking in a
real-world setting. They asked a group of human resources professionals
to engage in the type of simultaneous planning they did habitually. Each
participant was placed in a one-person office, with a laptop and a
phone, and asked to complete several typical tasks: schedule meetings
for multiple attendees, locate free conference rooms, write a memo that
proposed a creative agenda item and the like. The information necessary
to complete those tasks? Delivered as it otherwise would be: by e-mail,
through instant messages, over the phone and in person. The list was
supposed to be completed in 20 minutes or less.
After the multitasking free-for-all, participants were divided into
three groups: one was assigned to an eight-week meditation course (two
hours of instruction, weekly); another group didn’t take the course at
first, but took it later; and the last group took an eight-week course
in body relaxation. Everyone was put through a second round of frenzy.
The only participants to show improvement were those who had received
the mindfulness training. Not only did they report fewer negative
emotions at the end of the assignment, but their ability to concentrate
improved significantly. They could stay on task longer and they switched
between tasks less frequently. While the overall time they devoted to
the assignment didn’t differ much from that of other groups, they spent
it more efficiently. They engaged, on average, in just over 40 discreet
“tasks” — test-related behaviors that had a definable start and end time
— spending approximately 36 seconds on each, in contrast to the 48 to
50 average tasks attempted by the other groups — with an average of only
30 seconds spent per activity. They also remembered what they did
better than the other participants in the study.
The concentration benefits of mindfulness training aren’t just
behavioral; they’re physical. In recent years, mindfulness has been
shown to improve connectivity inside our brain’s attentional networks,
as well as between attentional and medial frontal regions — changes that
save us from distraction. Mindfulness, in other words, helps our
attention networks communicate better and with fewer interruptions than
they otherwise would.
In a 2012 study at Emory University, increased meditation practice was
associated with enhanced connectivity between the dorsolateral
prefrontal cortex, a part of the brain involved in attention monitoring
and working memory, and the right insula, an area that is associated
with how well we can monitor our own feelings and thoughts and that is
considered a key waypoint between our two major attention networks, the
default and the executive.
Not only could this increased connectivity make us better able to switch
between tasks and monitor our own attention, but it is indicative of
more effective overall management of our finite attentional resources.
Mindfulness training has even been shown to affect the brain’s default
network — the network of connections that remains active when we are in a
so-called resting state — with regular meditators exhibiting increased
resting-state functional connectivity and increased connectivity
generally. After a dose of mindfulness, the default network has greater
consistent access to information about our internal states and an
enhanced ability to monitor the surrounding environment.
These effects make sense: the core of mindfulness is the ability to pay
attention. That’s exactly what Holmes does when he taps together the
tips of his fingers, or exhales a fine cloud of smoke. He is centering
his attention on a single element. And somehow, despite the seeming
pause in activity, he emerges, time and time again, far ahead of his
energetic colleagues. In the time it takes old detective Mac to traipse
around all those country towns in search of a missing bicyclist in “The
Valley of Fear,” Holmes solves the entire crime without leaving the room
where the murder occurred. That’s the thing about mindfulness. It seems
to slow you down, but it actually gives you the resources you need to
speed up your thinking.
The difference between a Holmes and a Watson is, essentially, one of
practice. Attention is finite, it’s true — but it is also trainable.
Through modifying our practices of thought toward a more Holmes-like
concentration, we can build up neural real estate that is better able to
deal with the variegated demands of the endlessly multitasking,
infinitely connected modern world. And even if we’ve never attempted
mindfulness in the past, we might be surprised at how quickly the
benefits become noticeable.
Until recently, our 20s were considered the point when our brain’s
wiring was basically complete. But new evidence suggests that not only
can we learn into old age, but the structure of our brains can continue
to change and develop. In 2006, a team of psychologists demonstrated
that the neural activation patterns of older adults (specifically,
activation in the prefrontal cortex), began to resemble those of much
younger subjects after just five one-hour training sessions on a task of
attentional control. Their brains became more efficient at coordinating
multiple tasks — and the benefit transferred to untrained activities,
suggesting that it was symptomatic of general improvement.
Similar changes have been observed in the default network (the brain’s
resting-state activity). In 2012, researchers from Ohio State University
demonstrated that older adults who scored higher on mindfulness scales
had increased connectivity in their default networks, specifically in
two of the brain’s major information processing hubs. And while we
already know that this kind of increased connectivity is a very good
thing, there’s more to these particular results. The precise areas that
show increased connectivity with mindfulness are also known to be
pathophysiological sites of Alzheimer’s disease.
The implications are tantalizing. Mindfulness may have a prophylactic
effect: it can strengthen the areas that are most susceptible to
cognitive decline. When we learn to unitask, to think more in line with
Holmes’s detached approach, we may be doing more than increasing our
observational prowess. We may be investing in a sounder mental future —
no matter how old we are.
