Does a goldfish have a longer attention span than us humans - as a Microsoft study found - or do we believe the latest study on concentration which says adults have actually increased in their ability to pay attention since the 1990's?
The latest study made us wonder about what's really going on, because we all know that gamers have phenomenal powers of concentration, but the rest of us feel we're struggling with attention.
Perhaps our real problem is a lack of focus caused by too many choices for what we could be doing.
In this episode, we talk about the two studies, other studies relating to the problems associated with too much choice, the impact of sleep-deprivation, and positive ways in which we can help ourselves to get things done in our daily lives.
TED talk: The gratification monkey - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arj7oStGLkU
Neither of us has medical training so please seek the advice of a specialist if you're not coping.
Please hit the follow button if you like our podcast, and share it with anyone who might benefit. You can review us on Apple podcasts by going to the show page, scrolling down to the bottom where you can click on a star then you can leave your message.
Does a goldfish have a longer attention span than us humans - as a Microsoft study found - or do we believe the latest study on concentration which says adults have actually increased in their ability to pay attention since the 1990's?
The latest study made us wonder about what's really going on, because we all know that gamers have phenomenal powers of concentration, but the rest of us feel we're struggling with attention.
Perhaps our real problem is a lack of focus caused by too many choices for what we could be doing.
In this episode, we talk about the two studies, other studies relating to the problems associated with too much choice, the impact of sleep-deprivation, and positive ways in which we can help ourselves to get things done in our daily lives.
TED talk: The gratification monkey - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arj7oStGLkU
Neither of us has medical training so please seek the advice of a specialist if you're not coping.
Please hit the follow button if you like our podcast, and share it with anyone who might benefit. You can review us on Apple podcasts by going to the show page, scrolling down to the bottom where you can click on a star then you can leave your message.
Susie is available for a free 15 minute consultation, and has a great blog: www.amindful-life.co.uk
Rachel Richards:
Hello and welcome to teenagers untangle the audio hug for parents going through the teenage years. I'm Rachel Richards, journalist, parenting coach, mother of two teenagers and two bonus daughters.
Susie Asli:
Hi there. I'm Susie Asli, mindfulness coach, mindful therapist and musician, a mother of three teenagers, two of them are twins. Now
Rachel Richards:
Susie, I had been thinking I might make an episode addressing the issue of teen gambling, but I was distracted
Susie Asli:
by your gambling or,
Rachel Richards:
which is ironic, given the topic. That study we mentioned in the chat, you know, the one we had before, where it was shown by Organisational Psychologist Adam Grant. And in that they said they discovered that children didn't decline in their ability to concentrate and adults actually improved over the period of 1990 to 2021. And we both went
Susie Asli:
grey Great. Yes, no, everyone else is
Rachel Richards:
saying No, exactly. And my husband went, that's our two rubbish, anyway. And the study is a meta analysis of 172 studies, over 32 countries on tests of concentration
Susie Asli:
study, thorough study.
Rachel Richards:
Anyway, I've taken one for the team, I actually read the study. Thank you so much. I didn't know it in the podcast notes. So feel free if you want to read it. But I couldn't be really interesting to talk about it and the ability to pay attention and its relationship to the amount of choice we have. As usual Ultron studies and our own biassed opinions. If you're listening and disagreeing or agreeing let us know teenagers on tangled@gmail.com or Spotify has a way you can comment on each episode. So get that out of the way reviews, do you have a review,
Susie Asli:
I do have another review here, which is very lovely may have saved my relationship with my tween. I found this podcast at just the right time in the early stages of tweens slash girl mom dysfunction. It gave me the perspective change I needed. She's right where she's supposed to be. Thank you. That's so lovely, really
Rachel Richards:
pleasing. And well. I'm so glad that she's actually founded a time that can really help her. We had one on Instagram. Thank you for all the wonderful content. I'm so grateful for each and every episode. And even though the topic may not be relevant to me at that moment, I know it will be useful for another time or for a friend. I listen while I'm working. So I don't have a chance to comment a lot of the time, but I usually answer you out loud while I'm very I do that all the time, too. So join the Mad persons club. That's the JB fit for better. Right back to Oh, nuggets. Yeah, I
Susie Asli:
didn't know what nugget to use. Because sometimes like, I didn't want to go, Oh, my kids are doing amazing things. They were sounding cheesy, but they are and it's lovely to share things. But I thought I'd talk about my pets. And well, just the impact that pets have in our home. And I just I just have been thinking about it this week. Because we talk a lot about them. We have two cats and two dogs, one of the dogs is there part time because she's really my partners and the impact they have and the amount of conversations we have about our dogs and our culture and the connecting force that they have and the CO regulating force that they have. So we have my my nephew's girlfriend staying with us at the moment cuz she's doing placements. And um, she's a massive animal, particularly dog lover, and we just sit and we talk about the dogs and her dog and our cats all the time. And it's just, it's really beautiful. I think we all hang out at dinner longer because the dogs are there and it's just they are such a beautiful part of the family. And of course we don't all not all lucky enough to have pets. But I come from a place where I would definitely had cats but I was definitely absolutely 100% Not having a dog like 110% Until one day I went Oh go on then got worn down. And I wouldn't be without them. So so they've used for teenagers abuse we're putting maybe two particularly teenage boys, you know,
Rachel Richards:
you know, it's made me laugh is that we had a male dog. He was very lonely. So we got a female dog later down the line and the male dog belonged to one of my daughters because she was like, It's my dogs, my dog. And then the female dog came along and she went Oh, you can have that dog. I'm having the the female, okay. Which was quite entertaining at the time. The other daughter went okay, I'll have the male dog I don't care. And I love him and and I'm really there. Everybody's done. The hilarious thing was the other day where this particular daughter said, Oh, I haven't said hello to you yet and she sort of slid down onto the kitchen floor to give her a hug to the female dog. And the female dog ran. Oh, ouch. Knock I don't know what happened. We all completely nonplussed but the funniest thing was she just looked at me she said I've never felt so rejected.
Susie Asli:
No, that's when a dog or a cat or cats reject all the time but when a dog rejects your baby cries when you pick it up, it's just not fun. Well,
Rachel Richards:
you see my dogs when you walk in they they just cannot wait. Hello So keep an eye for me. My Login is about setting screen time, because it relates to this. And this weekend, we were all in the kitchen making tea. And my eldest asked me to help her with her screen time. And she said, Look, I really can you just really shut down things. And I said, Of course. Let me add a younger daughter has been given a new phone. Okay, so I just turned to her say, right, you give me yours as well. And she muttered something about me touching her phone. And I said, Wait, your phone, so who's paying for it? And she said, Oh, okay, and then handed it over to me. And, and then she said, Oh, can you not do something on Tik Tok? Because that's how I can communicate with my friend. And I said, Use text. And she said, but she's not on SNAP. And I said, No, no texts, texts. So it was really funny, because I just said, You know what, you can work around all of these things. There's always texts have been around forever. They're still there. They're free. And, but what I did was I handed her my phone, and I said, you do the same for me. Whatever controls I'm putting on your phone. You put them on your on my phone, too. And she was delighted. And honestly, it was really annoying, because I use whatsapp quite a lot. So I like to go on Instagram, because I use it to put information out. Yeah, but it's absolutely brilliant. I love it. Because I am now not tethered to my phone.
Susie Asli:
So do you have time limits on it? Is
Rachel Richards:
that what you complete time? Yes. And it just shuts off? And I can't do anything. And my evenings on my own? I'm reading more books or more, and you can't get around the system? I shouldn't even tried. Maybe she can? I don't know. But I will check with her. Because you know, there's a lot of honesty in our family about that. And the fact that I did it too, because I thought you know what, it's good for you. It's good for me too. And you can't really impose the The truth is whatever age we are, this is really, really hard. It's hard. Yeah. So I'm actually, my goodness, thank you. I love it. And so really,
Susie Asli:
I like that, because I talked to my younger boy who struggles with screen time a bit. And we say, well, we'll do it together. Because you know, as you say, it's really challenging. I find I use it all the time. Yes, for work, but also I'm get you get stuck in it. And so we let's do it together or put them down together as a team. So that idea and he really likes that. But to actually put put
Rachel Richards:
a code on, it's not your code. So I've got a code she can't access. She's got a code I can't access. We're looking after each other. It's really very handy. Thank you for that. So coming back to the study on paying attention, and it was called so the title of it, is there a Flynn effect for attention? Have you heard of the Flynn effect? No, no. So the Flynn effect is basically the fact that IQ as tested, the way it's consistently tested, increased by an average of three points globally per decade in the 1900s. Okay, a man called Flynn realised this, which is why it's called the Flynn effect. And what surprised me when I read this study was that there's some evidence from the late 1990s onwards that there's been a stagnation and even a reversal of IQ in some countries, for instance, test scores decreased in Scandinavia, European countries, as well as more recently in the USA, I
Susie Asli:
don't know why didn't know did we hit our limit?
Rachel Richards:
Rainfall. But that's not actually a focus of this study. So this was looking at our ability to pay attention, they use something called the D to test of attention, which measures selective so what you're choosing to pay your attention to, and then sustained how long Okay, so it's which and how long, and also your visual scanning speed. And what they do is give you a paper and pencil and arcs, they asked participants to cross out any letter D with two marks around which are above or below it in any order. Okay. The tattoo tests were conducted on adults and children between 1990 and 2021. And they found concentration performance in adults had been increasing over that time and stayed to saving kids butts. This is the thing that caught my attention. They saw a shift in test taking styles in children. Okay. And what's happened is there's been an increase in impulsive test taking so where they just they get it wrong, because they're going much quicker. Okay. And it's interesting. Yeah, isn't that that's to me. Anyway, so the instruction so they pontificate why they said maybe the instructions provided for the test may emphasise speed, speed or accuracy. Maybe they think that being faster is the same as being more successful or competent. Or maybe because they aren't, these tests aren't that important in their hands. Now compared to other things, they don't really care as much. They just want to get through it. Okay, so those could be any of those things. So, when it comes to the ability to pay attention, do you think this is true? Like do you think your ability to pay attention is the same as what as it was, say, like in 1993
Susie Asli:
Can't remember.
Rachel Richards:
What did you just say? I think I can still really concentrate. And deeply if I'm focused on something that interests me, but I can get very easily distracted.
Susie Asli:
I think I'm more discerning like, I think I think when I was younger, I would think I was I was quite, you know, studious in school. And I would you know, I was such a good girl. Yeah, sometimes not always. But when I was a, when I was struck was training to be a musician. Like focusing on practice, like my concentration, I'm sure was practice through the practice. Yes. So, yeah, I was, I could, I could definitely focus. But I think now, I don't know there comes a maturity or discernment doesn't I don't want to do that. So it's not as important whereas I would just concentrate because I thought I had to before, I don't know. Yeah, I want to know. So it's like, there's a difference between the ability to concentrate and the wish to concentrate. Like those aren't the same thing. That's
Rachel Richards:
absolutely spot on. I think that's spot on. And I just want to pause on that. Because my daughter, who I've mentioned before, who is in fact, both my daughter's debate, but one of them is more in the debating world now. And she apropos nothing said this weekend, I can feel my brain working so much harder, I can feel it, because the thing about debating is you have to concentrate for the entire time. Everybody is speaking every single person, because if you miss one point, then you will not be able to counter it. And you'll be shamed. Yeah. So that that is and she said, I have noticed that it's absolutely spilled into everything else. So my ability to pay attention in classes, my ability to concentrate on writing essays and pulling apart the points. So I think it's kind of it is kind of a muscle. So when we
Susie Asli:
use when we hear all these, this research that says, you know, we constantly can't concentrate anymore. That's not maybe maybe I don't know, I haven't done any research on it. Maybe it's not our innate ability to concentrate, but it's that we haven't practised it so much.
Rachel Richards:
Yeah, I think that's true. And, and but that we could even do it. Yeah. And we would get better if we cared. Yeah. Now the study conducted by Microsoft some time ago, they came up with the the average human attention span in 2000. Year 2000 was 12 seconds. Okay. By 2013. It was only eight seconds. And they said that's one second shorter than a goldfish.
Susie Asli:
Okay. And how did they measure that?
Rachel Richards:
Very good question. The researchers surveyed 2000 Canadians using ECG EEG s. So electroencephalogram, to study the brain activity of 112 participation participants it was wasn't all of them that they use the EEG s on. And they said over all their conclusion from this was overall digital lifestyles have a negative impact on prolonged focus, multi screening behaviour, media consumption, social media use, and technology adoption rate were listed as top factors that impact attention span. Okay.
Susie Asli:
Yeah. I mean, that makes all make sense. Experiential, we feel it in ourselves. But what about the quality of the concentration? I mean, I like to think my concentration is better than a goldfish is, it might not be. Well,
Rachel Richards:
they said that tech adoption and social media use or training consumers to become better at processing and encoding information with short bursts of attention, like high attention. So maybe it's that we're, it's much shorter, but it's more concentrated. People with higher selective attention appear to actively choose to have fewer distractions, and multiscreen less frequently. Okay. Interesting. Right. Interesting. So coming back to the original study, about whether we've lost our ability to concentrate. So
Susie Asli:
again, I can't remember
Rachel Richards:
that all the way through this army, and urology doctor, and neuroscientists actually remarked on that study that he had plugged up and said, we're actually becoming exhausted because the the work that we're doing is much more complex and our ability to focus understandably reduces.
Susie Asli:
Oh, that's interesting. So actually, exhaustion and tiredness, of course, is going to affect our ability to concentrate, isn't it? I mean, that's, and
Rachel Richards:
I wonder whether the tight because we know because we've done an episode on sleep. Yes, episode nine. Oh, no, I never remember. So. We're, we have done a whole episode on sleep and why it's so so so important for teenagers and I've been reading a book called The collapse of parenting by Leonard Sachs. And he talks about a boy who was brought to him, he said, I see people like this all day, every day in my office. Boy brought him on ADHD medication because his parents said the light had gone out of him. He could concentrate now, but and the he said he looked at the boy's life and discovered that the boy was actually gaming into the early hours of the morning in his room and his parents didn't realise So he said, I'm gonna tell you what, I don't think he's got ADHD. It mimics tiredness. I'm not saying anything about ADHD here, by the way, I'm just saying he said, the same symptoms come from exhaustion. And he said, so what we need remove all the devices from his room. He's allowed 45 minutes a day. Let's take him off the drugs and see what happens. Yeah, he said he got better. And I think we are all struggling with sleep deprivation. Yeah, particularly our teenagers. There's lots of research into this. So I do think that that also will come into it.
Susie Asli:
Absolutely. But it's very interesting, isn't it? So maybe I think when we read these, these headlines, or I know, I certainly do not have that feeling myself, oh, gosh, I can't concentrate. I see my own kids kind of flitting between things. They can't sit down and get on with stuff sometimes. And we kind of catastrophize it maybe and think that, oh, we can't concentrate anymore. We've kind of we've broken ourselves. And maybe it's just that we aren't practising it. And if we were to practice it, that we would, you know, we were able to get it back
Rachel Richards:
on? Yes. I think it's just circumstantial. Yeah,
Susie Asli:
I think I don't know. I'm not a brain.
Rachel Richards:
Anyway, I'm glad you're listening,
Susie Asli:
just anyone pontificating.
Rachel Richards:
And I think the problem with social media is that it's really quick. And you can, and it used to be that you'd have to click to go to the next page. But now they've got constant scrolling, which they brought in because they knew that if you have to make a choice, your choices impede you. And we know all about that, because we'll talk about that in a second. And people but here's the thing, people who play video games can do that for hours. And they are really concentrating. Yeah. So we can do this.
Susie Asli:
Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah.
Rachel Richards:
And, and, you know, maybe it's just the stuff that we really need to concentrate hard on isn't as exciting as some of the other things that we're presented with, for example, you know, fireworks and big parades used to be really exciting. And now my husband says, Let's just buy 30 minutes of fireworks and throw them up in five minutes, because people will get bored. Yeah, right. It's true. We
Susie Asli:
expect things to be quicker. And it's the whole and amazing TED, Ted Talk of you know, the, the Gratification Monkey and procrastination and, and I see it with my kids, particularly one of them. And we've watched the video a couple of times, and it's brilliant. I must put a link. It's good. It's 10 minutes. It's so so good. And it's funny as well. But we have many more distractions, don't we? I mean, we hear it all the time we have we have more distractions. No, we didn't have fun phone next to us when we were doing homework when we weren't. Otherwise I know I would have been on it.
Rachel Richards:
And so let's talk about choices. Let's talk about the impact of having all those choices or things to do. And just coming back to okay, just think about this. Remember when your kids were little, all of us parents, at some point realise you don't say to your child, what would you like to wear today? You give them two outfits? Yeah, which one? Because otherwise, you are never going to get some clothes on that. Oh, I
Susie Asli:
My daughter just wore all her clothes. Actually. I love it. I have photos of it. It's absolutely hilarious. She's like a big michaleen Girl. Five dresses. And
Rachel Richards:
so my mind would when none. Oh, we've had people come to stay with us who've said you've looked at my daughter running around naked. It's been cold. And we were talking February. Yeah.
Susie Asli:
It would have been fine. And
Rachel Richards:
so why is choice important? Well, the teenage brain is still developing, particularly in related to areas of decision making and impulse control. We know this prefrontal cortex, all that stuff, exposing teenagers to too many choices can be quite overwhelming. Right? So they're here are the the great studies. I love them decision paralysis. And this is when you're faced with numerous options, individuals can feel just overwhelmed and find it impossible to make a decision. And that can lead to procrastination. So the study the jam study, found that while more choices of jam set out initially attracted more attention. If you had fewer choices of jam to buy, you'd sell more. Yes, and shoppers are enchanted with the display of 24 varieties of jam. They just wouldn't they just go into London to go shopping guaranteed I'll end up at an art gallery and come home with nothing because I just I can't I'm just too much decrease satisfaction the chocolate study. This study 2015 examined the impact of choice overload on satisfaction with chocolate participants were given either a limited or extensive selection of chocolates to choose from. And those with fewer choices reported higher satisfaction with a selection.
Susie Asli:
That's so interesting. choice you have the less satisfied so so
Rachel Richards:
individuals can constantly compare their choice to the other options leading to regret. So we've done this, you go to a restaurant, just this amazing range of options and I'm always waiting for everybody else to choose first because i just i don't know i don't know i don't and I'll be looking at other people's plates and food regret is a thing. It's a big and actually You know, this can be true of dating, scrolling on dating apps. So who should I date? Usually? I'm gonna, you know, Oh, what did that either somebody better out there for me, you know, I'm so glad I'm married opportunity costs, give someone too many options. And so Daniel Kahneman found this one, or talked about this that the Nobel Prize winning psychologist, economist, actually. And he talks about how if you give someone too many options, what they tend to do is they focus on the what they might lose, by taking a particular choice more than what they might gain. Okay, if they have more choices, yeah. So if you say to somebody you need to choose, they will, when you talked about this, this kind of we have a negative bias. And so they'll focus more on what they might lose than they will on what they could gain from from taking a risk. Right.
Susie Asli:
And I can notice with my kids, I have one who is she's better at it now. But she and she would say this, so I'm not speaking behind her back or anything. She used to find it really difficult to make any decisions or anything she wants me to choose for her. And I have one here who walk into a shop or anything. Actually, I went to a careers thing a few years back and just, you know, went Oh, that looks great. Yeah, I'll do that. I can go home now. I have no problem making choices.
Rachel Richards:
I want to be that person. I know. It's brilliant. Sadly at night, yeah. Okay.
Susie Asli:
Next two things. Yeah. Like that one better. Right. Meeting?
Rachel Richards:
Yeah, I'm not like I know. I'm more like, Have you watched the good place? There's that the what? Is he a moral philosopher? Oh, you cannot make a choice. And he's in hell, because he annoyed everybody. Yes.
Susie Asli:
Okay, yes, I can see that. I relate to
Rachel Richards:
that. So what can we do? What can we do? Okay, practical techniques. So let's go back to Okay, so what we're really talking about is yes, we can concentrate. We're not broken. Our kids can concentrate if we help them. So your
Susie Asli:
brains expert and you disagree, please let us know.
Rachel Richards:
We might listen to your research, because I don't know. I have to say there are lots of conflicting studies I lose. I'm just like, Well, what do you know, where do I stop? And actually, no one's got a definitive
Susie Asli:
or no. So we'll go with my good.
Rachel Richards:
So what can we do practical techniques? Pomodoro Technique? Yes, I like this one. And that was my daughter was really struggling with having to read this book that she was setting with Simone. And she was just getting mommy, this is the most boring book ever. And I said to her, just set yourself a time limit. You can only read for that time. And then you had to take a break. And she said, Oh, they're just so helpful. And I do on my computer, I have a little sort of bell on the bottom right hand corner. And if you click that, it does a Pomodoro it does a Pomodoro. And it stops anything coming through in the meantime, brilliant. No emails, nothing amazing. It's just Microsoft. Microsoft has 25 minutes, not an app, just Microsoft 25 minute prompt and then it tells you what time to take a break. Okay. Really clever.
Susie Asli:
And the the keys for that one, isn't it though? Is this coming back after the break? Coming?
Rachel Richards:
About? What five minutes? Yes, yes, absolutely. Often I switch it off and think no, I'm so focused, I want to keep
Susie Asli:
going. But your concentration has probably gone down.
Rachel Richards:
Yes, or because I've been using this technique a lot. I can keep going. Because I'm really interested. And but yes, your concentration will wane. The thing is it's okay. If you talk to anybody who's a writer, they will tell you that actually, if you sit down and you try and write, to start with that biting muscle will be very weak, you will find it very hard to sustain it. But you know, the really sit as Stephen King, these people can write for long periods, trained themselves,
Susie Asli:
they train themselves and they get into the state of flow. They get
Rachel Richards:
into the state of flow powerful, but it's also it's about training ourselves. They do this in sport. When you think that your body cannot do any more you do another five years you build and you just build up your capacity. Yeah, eliminating distractions, obviously. You know, just having a working environment that isn't surrounded by distractions, put everything else outside that working environment have the blocking tools.
Susie Asli:
Yeah, one of my kids is so, so distracted, so easily distracted. They've just been doing exams. And so he prefers to work in the kitchen because they have less distractions. But then I mean, even me having a quiet conversation in the corner. I mean, I'll just say something and suddenly, you know, there's his voice going, well, what's that, you know, contributing, and so we have to leave the room.
Rachel Richards:
Well, man, I get annoyed because someone has walked in to make some coffee. And my husband just gets really irritated. He's like, Well, wait a second. This is our kitchen. It's fine. It's fine. Just a couple of weeks. Mindfulness, again, integrating mindfulness into everyday activities.
Susie Asli:
I think that's an excellent idea.
Rachel Richards:
You can pay me later no payment. And this is what this is what they were coming up with this is actually paying a conscious attention to detail sensations experience to so that you can calm your mind and focus on what it is.
Susie Asli:
Oh, and it's like, it's it is like you were talking before it's training the brain and you can measure it. You can see it on brain scans. Yes. So monks who have meditated for years they have, that you can you can see it in their brain that they have created neural pathways. And they're, you know, that you're, the whole point of mindfulness is deciding where you pay your attention. And you train it to bring it back each time. And the more you practice, the more you train, the better you get. And you stop reacting to things you stop. Yeah, you do. But the tension part of it is you're you're you are choosing where you pay attention. And the more you practice, where you choose to pay your attention, the better you get at it. So you can bring your attention to where you want it to be when your mind wanders off, which it will because you're a human being.
Rachel Richards:
And I noticed that as well. I noticed when I'm able to pay attention. Suze, when are you going to do a course on this when you actually going to have something that all our listeners
Susie Asli:
an online course? Yeah, it's in the pipeline. I'm going to do an online course keep nagging
Rachel Richards:
her about it. Yeah. So organise your mind. So before you start work, make a list of everything you have to do prioritise it, and then your mind is empty. And then you can focus. And I saw a great thing I shared on Instagram, which was write down your to do list starting first with the things you have to do. Yes. Next, the things you want to do. Next, the things other people want you to do. Most of the time, you probably won't reach number three. And then you're focusing on your things. Yeah.
Susie Asli:
And then you get fired. It's great. Yeah, well, there's
Rachel Richards:
no, you start with the things you have to do. Okay. Okay. Which is your job? Yeah. Okay. So the want to do are, you know, would you pop to yeah, whatever. One thing at a time, multitasking is a continuous partial attention. And
Susie Asli:
it's a myth. Multitasking, the best?
Rachel Richards:
Rubbish? Yes. And the, there's a guy in my yoga class who gave a really good tip. He said, I will not open my emails, until I know, I have time to actually read and respond to every single one. I probably wouldn't, I would never open a job done. I think that's why my kids don't ever open. Taking a break in a natural environment is better than doing it in an urban environment, if you can, yes. So they, they did a survey in the University of Michigan, where they asked one group of students to walk around an arboretum and another around a city, and the latter scored significantly lower in concentration.
Susie Asli:
Well, it's, it's amazing. I mean, the research on the effect that the nature has on us and on our nervous system is extraordinary. I mean, it's, we know it, we feel it, but they've now can show us and then we go, oh, it's true,
Rachel Richards:
I think okay, just coming back to this. I think some of us absolutely can't access a natural environment. We're in a built built up urban environments. But I would say that I have sometimes if I hear Birdsong, even if I see and hear birdsong on a social media thing on YouTube or something I can feel myself
Susie Asli:
relaxed. You know why it's why amazing actually birdsong in particular, it is but when we hear birdsong in as we've evolved, birdsong used to represent that there are no predators around so the birds only sing their beautiful melodies unless they've got like a like a warning calling, which sounds very different. But when they're singing, you know, they're beautiful songs. That is a that represents that there are no predators around, we're free, we can sing with safe. And we know that our bodies know ah, the birds singing. And because we haven't evolved so quickly, our bodies still remember that. And so they go, Oh, that means there are no predators around we're safe, which is why we feel when the birds sing, we our whole bodies go. And I think it's if you hear birdsong for six minutes, and it really has an effect, and it can really help for people who are depressed and anxious. It's incredible
Rachel Richards:
genius, Susie, everyone's going to forget everything we've talked about. They're just going to take that but I love it. Go and listen to birdsong.
Susie Asli:
The trees and what you said about not being in nature is really important as well, because you know, we're really fortunate we have nature out outside, but not everybody has that. But actually if you just have a tree or a park and not in even if you don't have a park, or just a single tree, it's not as obviously it's not as impactful as if you're in the mountains, but it does have an effect because the energy of being in nature does does affect our nervous system. It's been proven.
Rachel Richards:
Yeah, amazing. Amazing. And finally, don't carry that digital lease. 24/7 put this put the time locks on and things. It's honestly it's great. I love it. I mean, I can still access things on my computer, but I don't want to know it's more effort than its neck. So yeah, honestly recommend it. That's it from us. Don't forget to tell us what you think and where we're wrong. disagree with us as much as you love I'm just I'm just rummaging around trying to find answers to things in life and mostly coming up with just my own opinions,
Susie Asli:
which is great. Yeah. And go and listen to some birds singing listen to the lesson for today.
Rachel Richards:
Give us a review or share it with another person. If you think somebody else might find it useful. You can email us at teenagers untangled@gmail.com. We're both on social media outlets, the website where you can sign up to my newsletter access the blog and other episodes is www.teenagersuntangled.com. Susie is doing some incredible work, including writing this mindfulness course that I'll keep nagging her about. She has a free 15 minute consultation, you can do that. I
Susie Asli:
know. I'm doing that at the moment.
Rachel Richards:
On every single one of these episodes, yeah. So okay, don't go.
Susie Asli:
Yeah, maybe just cut that bit out. For now, it will come back for the magnet. All right, well, just that you can contact me, you can email me you can contact me and you can access all my social media outlets, which my website is www dot a mindful hyphen. life.co.uk. She
Rachel Richards:
has been doing lots and lots on all sorts of rails. What's the latest one that you just did?
Susie Asli:
I've done no talking about LinkedIn. That's really Yeah, LinkedIn I'm doing well. I did a post today on empathy, empathy, leadership, empathy, and holding how to hold space. Yes, that's a really important skill that we can learn. And that's really tied to being vulnerable and empathetic. And that's really important in the home, you know, with our families that we can hold space for each other. And also in
Rachel Richards:
the workplace. Yes. So if you're going into work, that's actually a really useful thing to have in your work environment. Absolutely.
Susie Asli:
And spread the word. Spread it Yeah, come into a workshop.
Rachel Richards:
Right. That's it. Big hug to you. Yeah. Bye bye for now. Bye bye for now.
