Attention – The New Currency

Everyone wants our attention. It’s getting harder to focus. Distracting temptations surround us.

Former Alzheimer’s family caregiver, Cindy Maria Bautista-Thomas, PhD, LCSW, and cofounder of Velocity Visions, Inc shares her four self-care caregiver tips in a recent quarterly edition of Alzheimer’s TODAY. One of these caught my attention:

Treat attention like money—be careful how much you pay.

Fleeting Attention

Today, our attention is fleeting. We’re constantly bombarded with content and other kinds of stimulation. As a result, our senses dart from one thing to the next.

Having lived for 14 years on five homesteaded acres in the Angeles National Forest, I enjoyed the peaceful quiet with only the sounds of nature. While walking along Michigan Avenue in Chicago, I felt like a little kid with all that stimulation. My attention was drawn to the tall buildings, scents from the perfumes and colognes of people walking on the sidewalk. The exhaust of cars, trucks, and buses was an uninvited intrusion. The aroma of Chicago’s deep-dish pizza was a welcome invitation to satisfy my taste buds.

Half-hearted Focus Leads to Forgetfulness

Still, with all of these attention-seeking distractions, we rarely focus, savor, and allow ourselves to remember.

I watch with wonder when young and even middle-age people sit to watch a Netflix movie, while having a (half-hearted) conversation and texting on their smartphones. How can you concentrate fully on any one thing, when your focus is flitting about?

You can’t. I get annoyed at time wasted when I have to repeat something because a person was not paying attention.

If I don’t pay attention, I’ll miss the conversation and won’t have much to remember.

Old-Fashioned Focus

I’m old-fashioned. I focus wherever I am. If I’m talking with you, that’s all I’m doing—in-person or on the phone. Our brains are not built to multitask effectively. When I try, I’m less effective on all counts.

Instead, what or who I choose to focus on has my complete attention. Imagine talking with a person who attentively listens to and sees you. It feels gratifying to be the center of one’s attention. For the same reason, I delete pop-ups in order to focus on what I am reading and ignore accidents on the freeway, so I may focus on where I’m going.

Sometimes, I wonder if this laser-like focus means I may be training my brain to narrow my field of view. Will I be missing some peripheral signals along the road of life that lead to adventurous outcomes?

Choose How You Will Spend Your Attention Currency

The fact is, the more time we spend here on Earth, the more information stored in our brains. This assumes we are not stricken by dementia.

With fewer years ahead of me than the years I’ve already lived, I feel increasing urgency in discriminating among the many options that seek my attention. I purposefully choose who I will spend time with, why, when, and where.

Bautista-Thomas writes:

Paying attention to things that are calming, soothing, or joyful enhances those areas and promotes positive feelings. The reverse is also true; spending too much attention obsessing about stressors can cause anxiety and other mental health challenges….” She distinguishes between paying attention to negatives versus dwelling on them, which can prove detrimental.

It’s up to us how we spend our attention. Remember, if you don’t choose where to direct your attention, there are enough marketing gurus and distractions waiting to steal your currency.

For more, review the bullet points on “6 Brain Damaging Habits You May Want to Quit,” which include “The #1 Killer of Concentration” and “Doing Twice as Much as You Should, Half as Well as You Could.” To access this article click on the last article excerpt here.