Regenerative silence

Many action game characters have what’s called a power-up, the ability to temporarily enhance their performance.

Once the power-up has expired, and virtually all of them do, your character must undergo an ability cooldown, a required recovery period before you can use the power-up again.

I think our ability to allocate our attention has similar attributes.

Over the years I’ve managed to fill every nook and cranny of my time with some kind of cognitive stimulation: I’ll listen to a podcast while driving and and to music while exercising. If I’m waiting for some code to execute, I’ll respond to work messages in between or glance at the notifications on my phone.

By always placing some kind of demand on my attention at all times, my mind has very little time to undergo a proper cooldown. And as a result, my ability to intensely allocate focus and energy — to power-up — has diminished.

I don’t think our brains have adapted to having demands placed on our attention at all times. And, contrary to how useful it may feel or seem, I don’t think trying to consume information at all times or squeezing in one extra task here and there is actually making us more competent. If anything it’s exerting the exact opposite effect.

Instead of avoiding silence like the plague, I’ve recently learned to seek it. This means driving, exercising, walking, waiting for my order at a restaurant, and in some cases simply sitting in silence so that the brain may be afforded sufficient downtime so that when duty does call to focus greatly, I am consistently up to the task.