How often does it happen that in between a conversation we zone out, that we phase out of the conversation due to completely irrational and random triggers?

How often has it happened that you are out to dinner with your family or friends, and you find yourself or someone else on their mobile devices instead of actually being present in the moment? As most of our school teachers would say to anyone who wasn’t paying attention, you’re just present here physically and not mentally. 

It also happens many a time that while we are engaged in a new stimulus around us, something awesome, something sweet, something worth remembering might pass us by. While we are busy, distracted in something completely arbitrary, something worthwhile happens almost every time.

For all of “How I Met Your Mother” fans out there, this is known as the “the curse of the blitz”.

What has happened to us? Why did we become so distracted? Is technology really the source of the problem or is there something else entirely to blame?

To clear things up, Akrasia when loosely translated and paraphrased means distraction. 

Distraction is the internal or external drive acting upon an individual, making him act in a manner, which makes them take a decision that is done against their better judgment. This often happens when he or she has a weak will to start with.

We must face the uncomfortable truth here, that people get distracted, that people look for other stimuli during a prior engagement to escape some unwanted, undesirable, or simply “icky” emotional or physical sensation.

But also we can find some comfort and let ourselves off the hook, as distractions are not a product of these recent generations. It has been around for centuries. Lost Generation, G.I. Generation, Silent Generation, Baby boomers, Generation X, Millennials and finally GenerationZ. None of these generations single-handedly created this problem. I previously wrote regarding the generations as well. You can read it here: The Fear that drives us all

Popular belief is that people are distracted by external stimuli. However, distractions are not something that “happens to us”. These are the “actions” which we consciously take. “Actions” that act against us, act against our progress, actions that are taken against our better judgment.

We often say,

I was about to do this task, but I got distracted because of something.

Here, we often define the external triggers and believe those to be our root cause of distraction. However, what we are doing is combining the internal as well as external triggers. People usually don’t take into account the Internal Triggers, rather most of them don’t even acknowledge the internal triggers. Distraction is often considered as something that happened “to you”. But more often than not it is something that you chose to do.

You have sat down for a study session for an upcoming big exam. You have mapped it all out in your mind, you’ll study for 2 hours and then take a quick 10-15 minute break. However just a few minutes into your planned session, you mobile chimes in and soon you find yourself pseudo multitasking between texting and studying. I say pseudo because you’re not really studying, you’re just pretending to read something, or just doing a glance reading till someone replies to what you have said.

This situation has befallen 99% of all the student population worldwide at some point in their life. This generally happens because our brain controls everything in our body based on homeostatic responses. What it essentially means is that it motivates us to escape all sorts of uncomfortable situations. And it is no mystery that most students, hate studying.

So how to fight these internal triggers of distraction?

Overall, there are 2 ways to deal with these sensations. You can either fix the problem or you can find out a way in which you can address the issue in a healthy way, find a way to deal with it, find a way to be okay with what is happening.

I can suggest 3 ways to cope with these internal triggers in a healthy manner.

The first is, acknowledge the sensation. What this means is that give a name to the sensation you are feeling. Even giving the sensation, giving the trigger a name can give you the power to overcome the same. Let consider the same example of a student constantly checking his phone every two minutes during a study session. The trigger in his/her case is the boredom regarding studying and/or a longing for a fun activity. By acknowledging these sensations, by seeing the things for what they really are, one can overcome it. Here you’re acknowledging the distraction trigger. You are labeling it as boredom/ longing for something else. By doing so, you can build around it, you can sidestep it the sudden onslaught of these emotions.

The second way is to be curious. Often we ignore the sensation that we are feeling. Often we ignore the sensation of discomfort or fatigue etc.. But the right thing to do is to dig deeper into the root cause behind these sensations. Be curious regarding why you are feeling that. You are in an uncomfortable conversation. You can either frantically try to change the topic aka distract yourself as well as others. Or you can go through the conversation and later analyze your mental behavior. Be curious as to why were you uncomfortable about that topic. Is it deep-seated emotions which you may have buried a long time ago? Or is it simply an unwillingness to deal with the situation? Find out the reason and in doing so you just might find the solution to the same.

The third way is to Reduce distraction by making pacts. These pacts can be with yourself or with the people close to you. In the same student example above. When you feel the need to check your phone, you can tell yourself that checking the phone is the goal I can achieve or the reward I will get if I complete the study session successfully. By converting the trigger to check the phone into a challenge, you can convert the same trigger to stop the task at hand into a trigger which will motivate you to complete the same task as quickly as possible.

There is one more way. Its called the 10 minute rule. In this, you give in to distracting sensation and do it whole heartedly and get engrosed in it, but you have to complete that task in 10 minutes. In these 10 minutes, you can explore the trigger, the cause behind it. This works in the same way as a child acts when he/she is told not to do something, and then all he wants to do is that forbidden thing. But when you take the mystery out of the thing, when you take the mystery out of the distraction you won’t be compelled to do that. When you start doing that, when you analze the trigger, at the end of 10 minutes you won’t be seduced by the distracting stimuli.

However, Distractions have a positive side as well. Many times it might so happen that some dark thoughts might creep inside us. It happens that we need to escape from our own overthinking minds. Distractions are essential for our survival in these cases. If you are a believer in the law of attraction or not, but you can’t deny that if thinking about something positive can motivate us, then the same thought process when applied in regard with something negative can cause something adverse.

In cases like these, distractions are the need of the hour. You can either take a nice long peaceful walk, play a video game, call up your other half, anything that will take your mind off of the things that bother you. Taking your mind of things that trouble you does help. And even the little things can do you much better.

Distractions are actually better than other popularly adopted but not as healthy coping mechanisms. Alcoholism, throwing yourself into work or worse drugs cause more damage than they help. So distracting yourself with something healthy like a sport or nice walk is the better choice.