It has made me a calmer, better focused, happier, more mentally flexible, and creative person.
It takes anywhere from 20 to 45 minutes to do this practice, but trust me, this morning practice is time well spent.
It usually feels hard at first, but by the end, I feel strong, confident, and clearer in my thinking. As clichéd as it sounds, this practice helps me be the best version of myself.
What simple morning practice am I talking about?
I’m talking about my movement practice.
Before I do any work (e.g., check my email or messages, read the news, or deliver a presentation), I make myself do some physical activity.
I usually run on a treadmill, ride a stationary bike, or lift heavy weights.
I can’t say I’m leaping out of bed with joy at the thought of exercising. There’s always a little voice in my head that grumbles, “Ugh, do we have to do this?”
But I push forward and lace up my running shoes because I know that by the end, I’ll feel amazing.
Twenty minutes into my movement practice, my husband says he can hear me ‘whooping’ with joy from the other end of the house.
The natural ‘runner’s high’ people talk about is real.
I can relate to Cultural Historian Vybarr Cregan-Reid when he describes his running highs in the following way:
“They are as strong as bootleg whisky. They make you want to stop everyone that you pass and tell them how beautiful they are, what a wonderful world this is, isn’t it great to be alive?”
The amazing thing is that a year ago, I couldn’t run for more than a minute without being completely out of breath. Now I can run for 45 minutes nonstop. And I’m hooked.
How did I get here? And more importantly, how can you cultivate a movement practice that leaves you feeling energised, less stressed, and in a great mood?
Do you remember, as a child, running around the playground, swinging on the monkey bars, and playing games like Chasey?
You did these things naturally and effortlessly, and you enjoyed doing them. No one had to force you to move.
You ran for the sake of running. You ran because it made you feel good and fully alive.
This is what movement does for me. It makes me feel excited about life.
I’ve discovered this is the key to building a long-lasting movement practice: you have to find delight in moving your body. And you have to hang in there for long enough for the delight to show up.
You see, the delight probably won’t be there straightaway. Instead, what you’ll usually find is that there’s some discomfort and resistance for the first 10 – 15 minutes of your movement practice.
But if you persist, trust me, the delight will come knocking at your door and sweep through your house like a group of wild party animals.
Just to be clear, you don’t have to run to experience this delightful feeling. Any moderate-intensity physical activity, such as riding a bike, dancing, and swimming, will do the job.
In the book The Joy of Movement, psychologist Dr Kelly McGonigal makes it clear that you can achieve a natural high from any sustained physical activity.
She says the key to experiencing this ‘exercise induced euphoria’ is to put in the time and effort. She writes:
“You just have to do something that is moderately difficult for you and stick with it for at least twenty minutes. That’s because the runner’s high isn’t a running high. It’s a persistence high.”
The thing about movement is that it takes effort. But that effort is what delivers the delight!
When you do hard things for a sustained period of time, your brain rewards you by serving up a cocktail of feel good chemicals, such as dopamine, endorphins, serotonin, noradrenaline, and endocannabinoids.
From an evolutionary perspective, this makes sense.
Life for our ancient ancestors was hard work and often dangerous. To survive, they had to forage and hunt for food, find water, build shelters, and run from wild predators.
These neurochemical rewards (e.g, dopamine and serotonin) would keep them going. And keep going they did!
Hunter-gatherers clocked up thousands of steps each day. They were constantly on the move because their survival depended on it.
But here’s what I find really interesting . . .
Despite being incredibly active, hunter-gatherers’ brains were wired for comfort and laziness. This wiring served them well, especially when food was hard to obtain. Conserving energy through sedentary behaviour was a survival trait.
This explains why most of us feel resistance to the idea of physical exercise.
Fast-forward 30,000 years to today: our modern environment is completely different from that of our ancient ancestors, but our brains are still the same (i.e. wired for comfort).
Want food? You can order it with the tap of a button. In our modern world, you don’t have to move much, if at all.
Because of our ancient wiring, some resistance to physical activity will always be there. We just have to push ourselves to do the hard things first (e.g., exercise), knowing that the rewards will come if we persist for long enough.
As you start moving your body, during those first few minutes, you may find yourself thinking, “Why am I doing this? This doesn’t feel good!”
To which, I say: Can you feel your heart pounding in your chest? Can you hear yourself huffing and puffing? Is that sweat dropping off your face and onto the ground?
Fabulous! You’re on the right track. Hang in there. It won’t be long before your mood starts to shift in a dramatic way.
I have come to love the feeling of my clothes soaked in sweat after I exercise. There was a time when I thought that was gross. But not anymore.
Those sweaty, stinky clothes are evidence that I’ve worked hard. It’s proof that I pushed myself and the feel good chemicals are flowing through my brain and will continue to do so for the next few hours.
In The Official Dopamine Nation Workbook, psychiatrist Dr Anna Lembke explains what happens at a neurochemical level when you do hard things. She writes:
“While engaging in these kinds of painful activities [exercise, meditation, ice-cold water plunges, etc], our dopamine levels rise slowly over the latter half of the activity and remain elevated for hours afterward before going back down to baseline, without ever going below baseline.”
This is why Dr Lembke starts her day by avoiding her phone and doing the hard things first. She said on a recent podcast interview:
“I won’t even go on my laptop until I’ve exercised, eaten breakfast, I’ve read a paper that gets delivered to my house, I’ve made my bed . . . I’ve done all the things I need to do to centre myself for the day.”
Similarly, I equate my movement practice with getting my brain ready for the day and accessing parts of myself that would otherwise lie dormant.
Sometimes movement helps me to experience a wonderful flow state. I feel in tune with my mind and body. Things just feel easier.
But even if I don’t reach a state of flow, moving helps me be more present and show up as the best version of myself in the other areas of my life, such as my work and when I’m with my family.
My movement practice is something I’ve come to genuinely enjoy. It’s not something I need to rush through to tick off a list.
If you’re reading this and thinking “But I don’t like movement” and “I’m not an athletic person”, I get it because I wasn’t always a super active person.
There was a time when movement felt like a grind. I felt clumsy and awkward. It was something I just had to get done.
So, what led to this dramatic shift in how I related to movement?
I shifted from training for my appearance (to stay lean) to training to feel good.
Psychologists would say I became intrinsically motivated to move rather than extrinsically motivated.
When you’re extrinsically motivated, you’re moving to lose weight, achieve a particular look (e.g., the fitness influencer look), or have a sexy body. You’re trying to reach some place in the future, and it often takes you to a place of misery.
In my early twenties, I became friends with a businesswoman who was also a female bodybuilder. I was inspired by her discipline and focus, so when she invited me to attend a Bodybuilding competition, I jumped at the chance. I thought, “Why not?”
I should point out that this was in the pre-social-media era, when you couldn’t easily watch videos of people flexing their muscles online. You had to go to competitions like these, or watch a documentary (rented from a video store), to get a glimpse into the world of bodybuilding.
As we sat in the audience at the Bodybuilding Championships, one perfectly chiselled body after another walked onto the stage and flexed their muscles. I felt inspired.
Without knowing what went into getting visible abs and perfectly toned bodies like these, I remember thinking, “I want a body like that!”
A couple of hours later, the judges announced the bodybuilding champions, and shortly after, the party kicked off as everyone hit the dance floor, including the bodybuilders I had watched strut their stuff across the stage.
At one point, I found myself dancing next to the Female Bodybuilding Champion. She was holding her massive trophy, and I couldn’t help but notice that her face had a pained expression and she was struggling to move and stay upright.
She’d just been crowned Bodybuilding Champion of the Year, so I thought, “Why is she looking so sad and weak?”
I spun around, told her she looked amazing, and congratulated her. I then asked her (shouting over the loud music) how she was feeling. Her answer took me by surprise. She said:
“I’m so tired and hungry. I just want to go home and eat a pizza!”
That’s when I realised she had been starving herself for the competition, and just like that, the idea of achieving a body like hers quickly vanished from my mind.
To achieve the ‘perfect’ look, bodybuilders and fitness influencers often severely restrict their diets, which can be harmful.
In the book How Not to Die (Too Soon), Professor and Personal Trainer Devi Sridhar states:
“For most women, achieving visible abs requires an extremely low body fat percentage (less than 17 per cent, below the 20-23 per cent healthy range), which is often linked to irregular menstruation, brittle nails, feeling faint and disrupted hormone production.”
So, unless you want to feel faint and constantly crave pizza, think twice before setting a goal to look like a bodybuilding champion or a fitness influencer!
When the focus is on aesthetics, you undermine the joy of movement.
In the DW documentary Muscles – More than Power and Pumping Iron, social media influencer and former Bikini model champion Sophia Thiel shared her experience of training to achieve the ‘perfect’ body. She states:
“When you train for the sake of your appearance, it can quickly tear you apart and take away all the joy that the sport normally brings with it.”
Post competition, Sophia found it difficult to maintain her competitive form and stick to her competition diet. Her weight began to fluctuate, and the nasty online comments about her appearance started to take their toll on her mental health.
At some point, Sophia shifted her focus from her appearance to how lifting weights made her feel. She said:
“Today my motivation for working out is very different. It brings a lot more balance to my life. I can deal with stress better. The way I carry myself is completely different, which gives me self-confidence. My sleep and concentration are better too. In other words, training improves my quality of life.”
Making the mental shift, like Sophia did, from wanting to look good to feeling good, is a total game-changer.
But in our image-obsessed world, it’s easy to lose sight of the mind and mood-altering effects of physical movement (spending less time on social media and unfollowing fitness influencers can help with this mental shift).
Harvard Professor John Ratey sums it up nicely when he says physical exercise is like “a little bit of Prozac and a little bit of Ritalin”. It does wonders for your brain (especially your attention and mood) with no nasty side effects.
To sum up
Instead of reaching for your phone first thing in the morning, try reaching for your running shoes, a set of dumbbells, or a yoga mat.
Developing a morning movement practice is one of the simplest and most powerful things you can do to benefit your brain and improve the quality of your life.
But the key is to find delight in moving for the sake of moving. You need to persist with the movement for long enough – at least 20 minutes – for your brain to reward you with a dose of feel good chemicals.
When movement becomes inherently enjoyable, you’ll find yourself doing it more often. Before you know it, it will be a non-negotiable part of your day. In the words of Dr Kelly McGonigal, “regular exposure to exercise will over time teach your brain to like, want, and need it”.
Image 6: “2013 Fall Classic Natural Bodybuilding Competition – U.S. Army Garrison Humphreys, South Korea – 28 Sep 2013” by USAG-Humphreys is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
We are sold this idea that, if you want to go places in life, goal-setting is absolutely essential.
For many years, I enthusiastically attended workshops with other goal-setting enthusiasts, where I wrote long (and overwhelming) lists of goals.
But towards the end of last year, instead of feeling delight at the idea of setting goals, I felt dread.
When I thought about setting goals, there was a little voice in my head that screamed, “Please don’t make me do this!”
So I stopped, and I listened to that little voice.
I’ve learnt that just as you shouldn’t force yourself to wear tight shoes, it’s not always helpful to force yourself to do certain things.
Sometimes you need to try a different approach, which is exactly what I’m doing this year.
I’ve decided to shift my focus from setting goals to running tiny experiments.
It’s a subtle mental shift that takes me from feeling fixed and rigid to curious and playful.
If you’ve ever created a list of goals or New Year’s resolutions, only to abandon them shortly after (and felt demoralised), tiny experiments may be for you.
In this blog, I’ll share what tiny experiments are and how you can use them to have more fun and experience more growth and learning.
In her excellent book Tiny Experiments: How to Live Freely in a Goal-Obsessed World, neuroscientist Dr Anne-Laure Le Cunff argues that traditional goal-setting approaches no longer work in these uncertain times. She states:
“The linear way is wildly out of sync with the lives we live today. The challenges we’re facing and the dreams we’re pursuing are increasingly hard to define, measure, and pin to a set schedule. In fact, a common challenge for many people these days is feeling stuck when it comes to their next steps: instead of providing a motivating force, the idea of setting a well-defined goal is paralysing. When the future is uncertain, the neat parameters of rigid goal-setting frameworks are of little help; it feels like throwing darts without a target to aim at.”
Dr Le Cunff argues that the way we set goals is broken. Not only does traditional goal-setting encourage toxic productivity, but it can also leave us feeling dissatisfied, as if we are constantly failing. She states:
“…they [traditional goal-setting methods] create a discouraging perspective where we are far from success. Our satisfaction – the best version of ourselves – lies somewhere in the future.”
She argues a new approach is required that takes us away from “rigid linearity to fluid experimentation”.
A tiny experiment is a fun, low-stakes way to test out a new behaviour and see if it’s for you.
This may not sound revolutionary, but the power of tiny experiments lies in the mental shift they bring.
Instead of pursuing fixed and rigid goals, when you run a tiny experiment, you open yourself up to exploring new possibilities and stepping into the unknown.
In the book Tiny Experiments, Dr Le Cunff lays out a simple process for designing your own tiny experiments.
The process begins by playing a game of ‘self-anthropology’. In other words, you observe your own life and capture those observations by making field notes.
Here are some things to capture in your field notes:
For instance, yesterday I went to stock up on supplies from a small bulk foods store. I got talking to the sales assistant, who mentioned that she worked at two bulk food stores in different areas. I asked her if she noticed any major differences in the customers between the two stores. Her answer surprised me. She said:
“The customers up in the hills are less rushed. They are more willing to chat. People here seem in a hurry… a bit more fast paced.”
This five-minute conversation made me realise I don’t want to feel rushed or give the impression I’m in a hurry and have no time for a chat. I want to experience more calm in my life.
That’s the first step when it comes to designing a tiny experiment: gathering a rich source of observations.
The next step is to come up with a research question and a hypothesis (i.e. an idea you want to put to the test).
I know this part may sound serious and scary, but trust me, you don’t need to be a scientist to come up with a research question and a hypothesis to test.
There’s a magical word that can help to kick-start the process: Maybe.
Maybe if I checked my phone only at certain times in the day, I’d feel calmer?
Maybe if I put my phone away 30 minutes before going to bed, I’d sleep better?
Maybe if I exercised for 30 minutes each morning, I’d feel calmer and less stressed?
Maybe if I got up and walked on my treadmill every 30 minutes for 5 minutes, I’d have more energy?
Maybe if I rode my bike and walked more (instead of driving), I’d feel more relaxed and less busy?
These are examples of potential research questions I’ve brainstormed.
The word Maybe is incredibly powerful. When you use the word Maybe in this way, it sparks your curiosity and opens you up to exploring new possibilities.
Once you’ve come up with a question, you then turn it into a hypothesis.
Below is a figure from the book Tiny Experiments that illustrates how to turn an observation into a research question and a hypothesis.
Last year, I ran various tiny experiments, several of which focused on cultivating calm.
I had noticed that my days often felt hamster wheely, rushing from one activity to the next. I wanted to feel calmer and more grounded.
With this in mind, I designed the following tiny experiment:
After I finish delivering a presentation, I will lay flat on the couch for 15 minutes and do nothing. I’ll do this for the next 5 days.
So, for the next five days, I conducted my lying flat tiny experiment.
After lying flat for 15 minutes, I’d check in with myself: How do I feel? Do I feel less stressed? More grounded? I also reflected on how I felt at the end of the day.
By doing these quick check-ins, I was collecting data on my tiny experiment.
After I’d completed this tiny experiment, I took a step back and asked myself, “How did that tiny experiment go? Was it a success? Do I want to continue doing this?”
I concluded that the experiment had been a success. I discovered that forcing myself to do nothing was a good way to regulate my nervous system and feel calmer.
But not all of my tiny experiments have been quite so successful.
Last year, I ran a tiny experiment that completely backfired.
If I had taken a traditional goal-setting approach, I would have said I had failed dismally and hung my head in shame.
But there is no failure when it comes to running tiny experiments, only growth and learning.
This tiny experiment involved selling clothing on Depop (an online fashion marketplace for buying and selling secondhand clothes).
Tiny Experiment:
I will put up one item of clothing on Depop every day for the next 30 days.
My hope was to earn some extra cash, declutter my wardrobe and extend the life of some of the clothes I no longer wear.
But as I ran this tiny experiment, it became clear it wasn’t working: I was buying more clothes than I was selling!
I’m embarrassed to admit this, but it was Winter time, and I became obsessed with cashmere jumpers (I loved the warmth and soft feel against my skin).
After listing an item for sale, I found myself scrolling through Depop, searching for more cashmere jumpers to buy. I would enter a trance-like state, as if I was using a poker machine.
If I had been selling more items, maybe I could have justified this behaviour, but I was selling very few items. Once postage and fees were factored in, I was earning only $1–$2 per item!
It wasn’t until I bought and put on a jumper that had clearly shrunk in the wash, revealing my belly button in all its glory, that I quickly came to my senses and said, “Enough!”
It was time to get off the consumer treadmill!
I quickly aborted this tiny experiment and deleted my Depop account.
You could say this tiny experiment was a flop. But I didn’t beat myself up about it. As I mentioned earlier, there is no failure when it comes to tiny experiments (only growth and learning), and I had learnt something valuable from this experience.
What did I learn?
I learnt that selling clothes online was a trap for me. It exposed me to all these other beautiful items that were really hard to resist.
I also discovered that taking photos of my clothing items made me appreciate each piece a little more. In the end, I decided to hold on to and wear several items I had taken for granted.
I also learnt that it was okay for me to quit the experiment and try something else. There was no shame in quitting. In fact, quitting was the right thing for me to do.
You always have options when it comes to your tiny experiments. You get to be flexible because nothing is set in stone.
When you are new to tiny experiments, it can feel daunting to design your own experiments from scratch.
I find it helpful to see examples of other people’s tiny experiments. This is why I belong to Dr Le Cunff’s Ness Labs community: a community of people excited about growth, learning, and running tiny experiments.
In this online community, people share their tiny experiments with each other.
Here is a small selection of tiny experiments people have shared with me:
As you can see, these are all small behaviours performed over short time periods. Most of them can be slotted into even the busiest of schedules. This is the power of tiny experiments.
After you’ve conducted your tiny experiment for the specified duration, you have three choices:
For example, in my experiment of doing nothing, I scaled the 15 minutes on the couch back to just 10 to see if I could still get the same benefits. To my delight, 10 minutes seemed to work just as well as 15 minutes.
When you run a tiny experiment, you’re constantly tweaking and refining what you do, which means you’re continuously learning and growing as a person. This helps build momentum and a feeling of success.
At the end of the day, tiny experiments are a fun, low-stakes way to improve your life. With your sights no longer fixated on some far-off destination, you have the freedom to experiment and see what works best for you.
After falling out of the habit of weight training, it feels good to pick up my weights and challenge my body.
At a time of increasing uncertainty, this simple practice helps me to feel strong and powerful. As Professor BJ Fogg says:
“When you feel physically stronger, this feeling ripples out into many other areas of life.”
My muscles were growing, but one part of my body was slowly getting weaker.
What part am I talking about?
I’m talking about my brain, specifically my ability for deep learning and thinking.
A couple of months ago, it dawned on me that my brain had seen better days. When I confided in my husband about this, he said he felt the same way about his brain.
But it wasn’t always like this.
When I was a university student, it was normal to spend several hours each day reading and mind mapping.
Most days, I’d feel confused about a new concept or how one idea was connected to another. I didn’t know the answers to a lot of questions.
But I sat with the discomfort, knowing it was a normal part of the learning process.
By the time I submitted my PhD thesis (nearly 10 years ago), I was at the peak of my mental fitness. My brain was sharp and strong.
These days, it feels much harder to think and learn. Too often, I notice that I’m impatient like a toddler. I want the answers quickly.
While learning has never been easy for me, deep learning felt easier 10 years ago because:
Contrast those conditions to the modern environment most of us find ourselves in today:
If you wanted to create a recipe to diminish a person’s ability to learn and think deeply, those would be the perfect ingredients.
Students today find themselves in an environment that actively works against deep learning. In this environment, we are pushed to learn in superficial ways, if at all.
A recent Guardian piece explored how AI is having a negative impact on students’ ability to study. Survey research conducted in the UK found a staggering 62 per cent of students agreed with the statement, “It’s too easy to find the answers without doing the work myself.”
Only 2 per cent of students said they did not use AI.
As humans, we tend to live for the short-term. Thinking about the future and long-term planning are not strengths for most of us, especially teenagers whose brains are still developing.
Now, imagine you’re a young person who finds high school incredibly boring. You’re a little insecure, and you lack confidence in your ability to learn. To make matters worse, you can’t see the point of your subjects and how what you’re learning is going to help you later in life.
Suddenly, a free tool appears in your world that can help you avoid the pain, suffering, and potential humiliation of failure with your school subjects. It can also save you a lot of time.
This tool effortlessly pumps out an essay within seconds when it would take you many hours to write.
Would you be able to resist using this tool?
I’m almost certain I wouldn’t have been able to as a young person.
ChatGPT is like candy. It’s hard to resist. But resist we must because too much is at stake, especially for young people.
Many people I respect and admire speak enthusiastically about generative AI. There’s this palpable sense that if you don’t get on board the AI train, you’re going to be left behind.
But not everyone thinks this way.
A number of people, including Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin from the Center for Humane Technology, argue that those who become too dependent on AI for support and validation may suffer in the long run.
The use of AI is resulting in unbuilt skills remaining that way and already built skills diminishing.
For example, a group of researchers from MIT recently released a working paper called Your Brain on ChatGPT. This study took 54 students and asked them to perform a specific task over four sessions: writing an essay.
The students were split into three groups:
The researchers examined students’ brain activity as they worked on their essays to assess cognitive engagement and cognitive load. They found that the brain-only group had higher levels of neural connectivity, which was associated with stronger memory and firmer ownership of the written work.
The researchers stated in the discussion section of their working paper:
“[AI tools] may unintentionally hinder deep cognitive processing, retention and authentic engagement with written material. If users rely heavily on AI tools, they may achieve superficial fluency but fail to internalize the knowledge or feel a sense of ownership over it.”
The researchers did something really interesting in the fourth and final essay writing session: they switched the groups.
The students in the brain-only group could now use ChatGPT to write their essays and the LLM group had to rely on their brains (no more ChatGPT for them).
How did each group do?
The brain-only group performed better when using ChatGPT. These students had already engaged with the ideas more deeply and therefore seemed able to critically examine the information ChatGPT brought up.
In contrast, the LLM group struggled when it came to just using their brains after using AI to write their essays for the first three sessions.
The lead researcher of this study, Dr Nataliya Kosmyna, summed it up nicely when she said in a TV interview, “Use your brain”.
What I take from this working paper is that if you want to have a deeper learning experience and create more original work, it’s best to avoid using generative AI. But if you must use AI, hold off on using it in the early stages of a writing project.
If you feel like you’ve become dependent on AI, it’s not too late to turn things around.
The human brain is incredibly resilient. You can learn to work differently. You can learn how to learn.
In the book The Disengaged Teen, Jenny Anderson and Rebecca Winthrop state:
“More than ever before, what kids need now is to become better at learning. Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is accelerating rapidly, and everyone agrees that the pace of change will continue to be dizzying. Uncertainty is the new norm. No one knows exactly what shifts in jobs and society are in store. What can best protect and prepare our kids? Rose Luckin, a British professor and AI expert is blunt: Make them “good at learning.” The only thing that can insulate them from rapid change and give them the confidence to move forward is the ability to learn and adapt.”
It’s not too late to reclaim your cognitive power. But you’ll have to push your brain to the point of discomfort without using AI.
Just like you can’t build muscle by getting an exoskeleton to lift heavy weights for you, you’ll have to do the work and resist the temptation to outsource tasks to generative AI. But it’s important to get clear on why you want to build cognitive power and resist the allure of AI.
When a man I used to train at the gym with told me he was using AI to write his blog posts, my first thought was, “Why would you want to do that?”
I refuse to use generative AI to write any of my blogs. Why? Because for the most part, I get a lot of satisfaction from writing.
Yes, it can be frustrating and painful to write.
Yes, I usually always feel awkward and clumsy as I put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard.
Yes, it can take a lot of time to write an article.
But writing is a form of thinking. It helps me to make sense of the world. It also gives me a sense of purpose.
When I put a piece of my own writing out into the world, I feel good about it. I wrestled with ideas and, as a result, learnt something new.
If I offload all of my work to ChatGPT, I’ve robbed myself of a valuable opportunity to think, learn, and grow.
As Dr Nancy Colier states in her book The Power of Off:
“We are conditioned to believe that easier means better, that the less we have to do, the happier we will be. But often this is not in line with people’s actual experiences. We feel good when we are productive and engaged, which requires effort.”
It’s only natural to be amazed by the things AI can do. But it’s also important to be fully aware of what this technology has the potential to do to our brains, relationships, and the quality of our lives.
Based on the research I’ve read so far, I’m not convinced this technology is good for young people to use. It’s too easy to become dependent on using generative AI, to fall for its hallucinations, and for cognitive skills to atrophy or not develop at all. Let’s also not forget how energy-intensive all those data centres are.
This is why I’m resisting using generative AI as much as possible.
If you care about your brain, people, the health of the planet, and all the things that make life rich and wonderful, stop and think twice before turning to an AI chatbot. Be brave: use your brain and trust your thinking.
Toddler (featured in image 2): “Skeptical” by quinn.anya is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
For context, she was a sales manager who used a BlackBerry phone for work (a fancy, expensive device at the time).
Every minute of the interview, her phone pinged with a notification or she received an email alert on her laptop. She’d glance at one of her devices and, with a panicked look, say, “I need to answer this!”
It was an awkward and disjointed conversation, full of stops and starts. I have to admit, her behaviour annoyed me. I soon realised I wasn’t the only person feeling this way.
The sales manager mentioned that she had a 4-year-old daughter who would get upset with her.
She told me that her little girl would beg her to put her phone and computer away. She’d tug at her clothes and cry, “Mummy! Mummy! Put your phone away!”
I appreciated this woman’s honesty, especially when she said to me:
“On the weekend, I’m with my kids but not truly with them… if you know what I mean”.
I knew exactly what she meant.
That was over 10 years ago. Fast forward to today, and we’re all a bit like that sales manager. But things are a lot worse now.
Instead of being overwhelmed and distracted by phone calls and work emails, we’re dealing with powerful Big Tech companies that hijack our time, energy, and attention.
They’ve made us weak-willed and impulsive.
We’re now in a position where distraction is something we crave rather than put up with.
When we have a gap in our schedule or we have to wait in line, what do most of us do? We reach for our phones without even thinking.
Rather than be alone with our thoughts, we desperately try to fill the space with ‘phone snacks’.
When we feel confused, frustrated, or bored, we run to our devices to escape the discomfort and our brains reward us for doing so.
Every time we switch tasks, our brain releases a little shot of dopamine.
It’s these quick hits of dopamine that train us to crave checking our phones and, ultimately, multitasking.
In an environment of unrestricted tech use, my brain is like a wild monkey. It wants to run around, make a mess, and explore many different things all at once.
I can relate to Dr Nancy Colier when she writes in The Power of Off, the mind on technology is like a “wild, locked-up monkey that’s drunk two bottles of wine chased by a shot of Scotch and been stung by a whole swarm of bees”.
When I start multitasking (and it doesn’t take much to get me going), I feel amped up, frenzied, and agitated. My energy feels a little crazy.
Research shows that as we quickly switch from one task to another, we rapidly deplete our finite mental resources and put our brains under a lot of stress.
But it gets worse . . .
When we multitask, we also experience what researcher Sophie Leroy calls Attention Residue.
In a research paper called Why is it so hard to do my work? Leroy explains Attention Residue as the extent to which your attention is only partially focused on the current activity because a prior activity (the task you rapidly switched from) is still holding part of your attention.
Why does this matter?
Leroy’s research found that when you experience Attention Residue, your performance suffers.
It’s as if you’ve taken a big dollop of the previous task and put a thick slather of it all over the current task, thereby making a mess of the present moment.
The good news is we can stop messing with our precious moments by focusing on one task at a time.
In his excellent book Time Surfing, Zen Monk Paul Loomans encourages us to focus on one task at a time, with minimal interruptions, and do it until completion. He says if we do this, we will experience a sense of calm and pleasure in everything we do.
Even tasks we consider boring or mundane (e.g., peeling potatoes or cleaning your room) can be transformed into artistry when you are truly present.
Part of the problem is that we’re often in a rush to get to the next thing on our to-do lists. But as Loomans warns, “Rushing is like gulping down time. You’re not living for now but for later”.
To counter this frenetic urge to race ahead, Loomans suggests that we accept whatever we are doing as “the activity of the moment”. In other words, we view the task before us as the most important thing we can be doing in this moment and we forget the rest.
It’s a simple but powerful mental shift.
I’ve noticed that when I accept whatever I am doing as the thing I should be doing right now, I no longer feel the urge to work with such intense energy. I feel calmer. An added bonus is that when I slow down, I make fewer mistakes and tend to do a better job.
At the heart of it, doing one thing at a time means showing up to life and being present, to the good stuff but also the painful, boring bits.
If you find yourself reaching for your phone more than you’d like, ask yourself this question:
“Am I reaching for my phone to escape the present moment?”
For me, the answer is usually yes. I’m trying to avoid the discomfort of life. But life tends to be more meaningful and enjoyable when I stay fully present to what’s happening around me, with my phone out of sight.
Technology will dominate your life, and multitasking will be an issue unless you have strategies to protect your time, energy, and attention.
What motivates me to set limits on my tech use (specifically my phone) is a desire to feel calm, grounded, and focused. I also want to live a life of substance, not one in which I am constantly chasing instant gratification.
Here are the strategies that I am currently practising to help me decrease multitasking and cultivate calm:
When I’m with someone or working on an important task, I put my phone away and keep it out of sight. I want to be fully present with the person I’m with or the task at hand. Why?
Because attention is how we show others they matter.
When someone is checking their phone in a social situation, it communicates “I’m more interested in what’s happening on this screen than I am in you”.
When I think back to the interview with the sales manager, it would have been a better experience for everyone if she had put her phone on silent, left it in her bag, and closed her laptop.
There would have been fewer times saying “What was the question again?” and “Sorry, I can’t remember what we were talking about”.
We probably would have felt more connected, too.
Note: Even when my phone isn’t within arm’s reach, I can still catch myself rapidly switching between web browsers and tasks. However, I’ve noticed that my multitasking significantly increases when my phone is within arm’s reach.
You’ve probably heard of intermittent fasting, where you have a window for eating (e.g., 10am to 6pm). But have you heard of phone fasting?
Phone fasting is a period during the day when your phone is not within reach.
As TJ Power states in The Dose Effect:
“A phone fast enables your dopamine to replenish and creates the opportunity for connection and restoration.”
So, as an experiment, for 30 days, I phone fasted from 8pm until 12noon the next day (allowing myself to make urgent calls if needed). I discovered that this made a big difference to my ability to focus. I also experienced a sense of calm like never before.
At the start of the day, I create a ‘Wish List’ (another wonderful concept from Paul Looman’s Time Surfing book).
I write down all the things I’d like to do in the day, but there’s no pressure to do all of them. I then put the list away, and depending on how I feel, I listen to my intuition and trust myself to choose the right activity to begin with.
Before I start a work session, I also declare what I intend to do (e.g., “Chop vegetables for curry” or “Write for 45 minutes”). If possible, I also like to share what I plan to do with another human (I use an online coworking community called Cave Day to do this).
After every 25-30 minutes of work, I aim to take a short movement break (usually 2-5 minutes in duration). This helps me to stay energised and alert. But most importantly, it gives me a brain boost.
What I wish I had understood when I was younger is that you can’t focus for hours on end. It’s not humanly possible because your brain has a finite amount of attentional resources. This means as you focus on doing a task, your attentional resources get depleted (and if you multitask, you accelerate the depletion even more!).
However, research shows you can boost your attentional resources by taking short breaks or, as Paul Loomans likes to call them, ‘breathers’.
A ‘breather’ is any activity that allows you to get out of your head and grounded in your body.
Some of my favourite breather activities include going for a short walk, chopping vegetables, or riding my bike to pick up a package from the post office. These activities allow my brain and thoughts to roam free.
Although many of us default to checking our phones during breaks, resist the urge. The problem with using your phone on a break is that you’re still in your head. This means you’re churning through your attentional resources instead of replenishing them.
The sense of calm and pleasure I experience when I stop multitasking and focus on doing one thing at a time is second to none.
But in the age of the Attention Economy, with so many companies trying to hijack our attention, it takes discipline and practice to stay focused.
Without strategies in place to protect your focus, the default will be multitasking and its friends – chaos, stress, and fatigue.
We may not have a 4-year-old child tugging on our clothes when we’re using our phones. But perhaps we should all listen to the wisdom of that little girl and put our phones away.
Unless you’re a superhero in a Marvel film, no one benefits from exposure to asbestos, lead paint, tobacco, and radioactive substances.
Toxic products are just like toxic people. It’s best to steer clear of them if you can.
If you can’t avoid them, then it’s wise to take precautions and minimise your exposure as much as possible.
Only a small child or a foolish adult would handle asbestos or a radioactive substance with their bare hands.
But I want you to consider that millions of people all around the world are constantly exposing themselves to another class of toxic products and they are unaware of it. What’s unique about these products is that the harms are invisible.
Exposure to these toxic products can result in:
I’m talking about social media platforms, such as TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram.
Over the years, I’ve read extensively on the invisible harms linked with social media. As someone who was an early adopter of Facebook, I’ve seen these harms firsthand.
I was addicted to social media until I read the book Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now. I read this book in a day. The book had such a profound impact on me that I deleted all my social media accounts that evening back in November 2020.
I firmly believe now that social media is the mother of all toxic products and it’s time we started relating to it in this way.
As it turns out, I’m not alone in my thinking.
In a 2024 New York Times article, the US Surgeon General Dr Vivek Murthy stated that warning labels should be placed on social media platforms, similar to the warnings that appear on cigarette packs. He wrote:
“It is time to require a surgeon general’s warning label on social media platforms, stating that social media is associated with significant mental health harms for adolescents. A surgeon general’s warning label, which requires congressional action, would regularly remind parents and adolescents that social media has not been proved safe.”
He also wrote:
“Adolescents who spend more than three hours a day on social media face double the risk of anxiety and depression symptoms, and the average daily use in this age group, as of the summer of 2023, was 4.8 hours. Additionally, nearly half of adolescents say social media makes them feel worse about their bodies.”
Mental health issues are just one of many toxic by-products created by social media platforms.
The Center for Humane Technology has created a Ledger of Harms that details the hidden costs linked to social media, including a polluted information ecosystem that makes it hard for people to make sense of complex issues.
Under the heading ‘Making sense of the world: Misinformation, conspiracy theories, and fake news’, it states:
“A broken information ecology undermines our ability to understand and act on complex global challenges from climate change to COVID-19.”
This is why I believe social media is the mother of all toxic products. By fragmenting our attention and impairing our ability to understand complex issues, it becomes increasingly difficult to solve the massive challenges of our time.
We’ve placed too much trust in social media platforms without fully understanding how they work and what these apps are doing to our brains, relationships, and society.
Even if you understand the hidden harms, you may think that they don’t apply to you. That somehow you are immune to the risks.
I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard my friends make comments like:
There’s a reason why many parents working at big tech firms like Facebook and Instagram don’t let their children use the apps they work on.
It’s because they know these platforms cause harm.
For too long, we have naively trusted social media to be on our side. We believe what we see in our feed is a reflection of society. But it’s not.
Your feed is curated by the algorithm to keep you clicking, scrolling, and posting for as long as possible. This is why it feeds you outrageous content. Outrageous content hijacks your amygdala (the fear centre of your brain) and captures your attention.
The more data these companies can extract from you, the more profit they make. That’s the business model of Big Tech.
Put simply, Big Tech does not care about your wellbeing. It doesn’t care about supporting you with your goals or presenting you with accurate information that will help you make sense of the world.
As Philosopher James Williams writes in his book Stand Out of Our Light:
“There’s a deep misalignment between the goals we have for ourselves and the goals our technologies have for us.”
It’s time we said enough is enough to these Silicon Valley tech bros and their relentless pursuit of amassing more and more wealth through their addictive platforms at the expense of our collective wellbeing.
It’s painfully clear that a small handful of tech companies are hurting millions of people and bringing down society. As Jaron Lanier states:
“Bringing down a society to get rich is a fool’s game and Silicon Valley is acting foolish.”
These tech bros got rich because they captured our attention and we gave them our data. But we don’t have to put up with this. There is another way.
The Australian government is leading the way with a social media ban for under-16s. It’s a bold move that Big Tech companies are not happy about.
From December 10, all Australians under the age of 16 will be banned from using social media, such as TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, X, and Snapchat.
But why should this ban only apply to teens under 16?
Everyone would be better off by taking a break from these platforms.
As young people move away from social media, I encourage everyone, especially parents, teachers, and older siblings, to try taking a break from these apps too.
Your self-imposed social media ban doesn’t have to be forever. It could be for just 30 days.
If you’re thinking, “30 days! Why so long?”, here’s why . . .
You need to be off social media for a while to clear your head and see how crazy it all is.
What I discovered by deleting the apps is that when I used them they scrambled my brain. When I was on the platforms, they made me performative, jealous, and desperate for attention.
But it’s difficult to see it when you’re under the spell of these mind controlling platforms. Like a person exiting a cult or sobering up from alcoholism, you need to step back and gain some distance to recognise the toxic impact it’s having on you.
If, after 30 days, you feel stronger without social media in your life, you have the option of extending your ban. Or you can delete your accounts. The choice is yours.
There are several other reasons why taking an extended break from social media is well worth doing.
Firstly, this is a powerful way to show solidarity with young Australians as they go cold turkey on addictive tech.
This transition won’t be easy, especially for heavy users of the apps. By joining the under-16s in taking a break from the apps, we can better understand what they’re experiencing and offer support and compassion.
It’s also an opportunity to get to know ourselves better and live more authentic and free lives.
In Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now, Jaron Lanier says:
“To free yourself, to be more authentic, to be less addicted, to be less manipulated, to be less paranoid…for all these marvelous reasons, delete your accounts.”
Big tech companies want you to think that without social media, there will be no internet or support groups to help you through tough times. That you will be isolated and lonely without their apps.
But don’t believe the lies.
The Internet will still be there to use and explore. You’ll have chat groups, friends you can email, text, and call, and meet-ups you can attend.
Trust me when I say this: you will adjust and get to know yourself better by taking a break from social media.
Whether you are forced to get off social media by the government or you voluntarily decide to take an extended break, here are my suggestions for a smooth transition off these addictive platforms:
Initially, leaving social media will feel hard. You will find yourself picking up your phone to open the app to start scrolling, but it won’t be there.
You will most likely feel a sense of loss (I did). Expect to feel restless and irritable to begin with.
But these feelings will pass.
What is happening is your brain is adjusting to a new, lower level of mental stimulation. It’s adjusting to a world where it doesn’t constantly receive quick hits of dopamine.
At some point, the discomfort will disappear and be replaced with a feeling of calm.
During this time of adjustment, treat yourself with extra care. Spend time outdoors, go for walks, get good sleep, fuel up on nutritious meals, and do things with your hands (write, draw, colour in, etc).
Engage in activities that connect you to yourself, others and the world around you.
When you engage in healthy lifestyle practices, your brain releases a balanced cocktail of chemicals (including dopamine), which leaves you feeling good rather than anxious.
When you wake up, resist the urge to check your phone right away. Even if you don’t have social media on your device, there are plenty of other ways to get quick dopamine hits, like messaging friends, checking your email, or reading the news.
When you check your phone or email first thing, it puts you in reactive mode. You also risk crashing your dopamine system, leaving you feeling sluggish and flat.
I like to start the day with some form of physical activity, such as going for a run on my treadmill or riding my bike, or tidying up my space. These activities provide a slow release of dopamine, helping set me up for the day ahead.
Some academics say generative AI is like crack cocaine for social media addicts. For this reason, it doesn’t make sense to replace social media with an anthropomorphic chatbot (e.g., ChatGPT) that sycophantically tells you what you want to hear and provides a friction-free ‘relationship’.
Life and human relationships are messy. But unlike AI chatbots, these things are real.
Time gained by stepping away from social media is best spent in the real world with real humans.
Be proactive about your social life. Text or email your friends to organise catch-ups. Take delight in hearing about what they’ve been up to.
Instead of getting a picture-perfect, curated version you’d see online, you’re more likely to receive a raw and refreshingly honest account of what’s been happening in your friend’s life.
Without social media, you’ll find yourself with a lot more free time. Use that free time to teach yourself a new skill or explore a new topic.
When I left social media, I joined a local Yoga studio, upped my kitchen game (learning how to cook delicious plant-based meals) and enrolled in free online courses that would increase my knowledge and skills.
How will you get your news? By heading straight to online news sites.
I have several online news sites loaded into my streamdeck to stay up-to-date with what’s going on in the world (e.g., Democracy Now, Al Jazeera, Guardian, All Sides, and ABC). All I need to do is hit a button, and I’m reading the news with the peace of mind that I’m no longer in a filter bubble.
There will be times when you feel lonely, bored, and sad. Instead of trying to suppress or numb these emotions, journal or draw what you’re feeling and thinking.
You could also write a letter to yourself. If you don’t know what to write, here are some prompts to get you started:
Whatever you would normally post and share, you’re now sharing with an audience of one: yourself. The good thing is there’s no need to worry about offending anyone or being cancelled. You can fully express yourself without the fear of being judged by others.
There are many toxic products in the world that we need to be aware of, and social media is another one of them. We need to treat it with extreme caution, as no one is immune to the harms caused by these platforms.
In the book The Anxious Generation, Dr Jonathan Haidt asks the question:
“What would the sages advise us today about managing our phone-based lives? They’d tell us to get off our devices and regain control of our minds.”
Australian teenagers under 16 will soon be banned from social media, but the rest of us can choose to leave the platforms freely.
In the spirit of reclaiming your mental freedom, I challenge you to run a tiny experiment where you refrain from using social media for at least 30 days.
As your brain adapts to a lower level of stimulation, you’ll experience a sense of freedom, satisfaction, and calmness. You’ll notice your life force, energy, and focus returning to you once again.
I had one of these dreams the other night.
My anxious exam dreams usually go something like this . . .
I’m back in high school and I’m not having a fun time.
I’m freaking out because this exam is in just a few hours. So I’m scrambling. I’m cramming. I’m feeling desperate.
But what I’m doing isn’t working. I’m looking at the page and nothing is going into my brain. I’m filled with this sense of impending doom. But just before I enter the exam room . . . I wake up . . . Phew!
It was just a dream.
I graduated from high school two decades ago!
These dreams usually occur a few weeks before I need to deliver an important presentation. I’m not big on interpreting dreams, but here’s what I believe my subconscious is trying to tell me: “Lift your game. It’s time to start preparing!”
Delivering a presentation is similar to taking an exam. Both activities require you to exert mental effort and be well prepared. They can also bring up a lot of anxiety.
When I deliver a presentation, I have to recall a large amount of content from memory. I also need to keep an eye on the time because running into recess or lunch is not a smart move!
I have to be organised and make sure I have all my props and equipment. I also need to stay calm because if I look stressed, this will make the audience feel stressed and concerned about my wellbeing.
Just like you can’t wing a 3 hour long exam, I can’t afford to wing a presentation in front of a group of 200 students.
I believe the strategies that help me to memorise and deliver presentations can also help you to ace your exams.
Below I share simple things you can do to recall information under pressure and remain calm and grounded in strange and unusual environments.
Some of these strategies may seem a bit over-the-top. But my job is to present ideas to others. If I bomb out, I usually won’t get a second chance to present at the school again. This is why I strive to do my best every time.
When you leave things to the very last minute and feel rushed packing up your gear, there’s a good chance you’ll forget something important.
This is why I gather all my props the night before a presentation. Just before I go to bed, I lay out the clothes I’m going to present in. This means I don’t have to waste my brainpower on this small stuff in the morning.
Just like you need to think quickly in an exam, I need to be able to think quickly on my feet when I present. A solid 8 hours of quality (uninterrupted) sleep helps me to do this.
If I mess with my sleep, I mess with my ability to think.
I’ve developed a strict bedtime routine – I go to bed at the same time and I wake up at the same time. My phone is on silent and charging in another room when I sleep.
Now is the time to develop good sleep habits. Aim to get a minimum of 8 hours of quality sleep each night.
Consider doing some light exercise (nothing too strenuous) before an exam.
Before I deliver a talk, I’ll run on my treadmill or ride my bike for 20-30 minutes. Not only does this make me feel powerful and strong, but it puts me in a positive frame of mind.
It’s a fine line though. If you push yourself too hard (which I have done in the past), you’re going to feel exhausted. You need to make sure you don’t overdo it.
If I do happen to push myself too hard (which doesn’t happen very often as I’ve learnt what works for me), I’ll take a quick 20 minute power nap to re-energise before a talk.
If I’m feeling a bit nervous about delivering a presentation, I don’t make a big deal about it. I view a bit of nervous energy as a good thing.
I think, “I must be excited”.
I’ve also come to see a bit of nervous energy as better than being completely chilled. If I’m feeling super relaxed, I can’t muster enough energy to inject into the room. I’ve also noticed my thinking isn’t as sharp.
If you’re feeling nervous about an exam, say to yourself, “I’m feeling excited!”.
Before I deliver a presentation, I’ll sit and breathe deeply for 2 – 3 minutes. This helps me stay calm, grounded, and focused.
I also put my phone on airplane mode so I’m not distracted by any random texts or calls. At this point, I need to stay in the zone and I can’t have anything throw me off my game.
In the 30 minutes before the exam begins, you need to protect your mental state. Take some deep breaths, put your phone away, and shut out the world around you. Wearing a pair of headphones can also help.
Your brain needs fuel to think and function well. Where does it get that fuel from? Food. So whatever you do, don’t skip breakfast or lunch before an exam.
Before I present, I make sure I eat a healthy meal an hour beforehand. If the talk is at a strange time, I’ll make myself a healthy smoothie. This gives me the energy I need to deliver high energy presentations.
I once cooked up and ate a big vegan schnitzel before I had to deliver an important presentation. I’d never consumed one of these processed schnitzels before, which must have been packed full of salt because I kept sipping on water before the talk.
I remember that I was freaking out because of the unexpected impact of this salty vegan schnitzel. I was thinking, “How am I going to do this? I’m going to need to go to the toilet! Why did you think it was a good idea to eat a vegan schnitzel right before a talk?!”
Luckily, I managed to deliver the talk without any problems. But it was a close call.
I learnt an important lesson that night . . .
Don’t experiment with any new or strange foods before giving a talk. You’re asking for trouble.
Work out what foods make your brain feel good and then stick to those foods before each exam.
If you feel hungry, sleep deprived, or you have a full bladder, these things are going to create some discomfort. It will be hard to concentrate and recall information in the exam.
This is why I always make sure I take care of the basics (e.g., having a healthy breakfast or snack) before I deliver a presentation.
Give yourself plenty of time to get to the exam room. There’s nothing worse than feeling rushed, stressed or getting lost.
This is why I like to set up for a job at least 30 minutes before I need to present. This gives me plenty of time to avoid any technical problems and get grounded.
Since I don’t rely on any notes or palm cards when I present, I need to know my content back to front and inside out.
How do I learn the content?
I use a combination of three highly effective study strategies:
1) Dual coding (using words and pictures to help you learn);
2) Active recall (bringing information to mind); and
3) Spaced practice (spacing out your study, not cramming).
These three strategies are much more effective than rereading and highlighting my notes. I recommend you use these study strategies to prepare for your exams.
Research shows physical movement, including the use of gestures, helps improve understanding and boosts memory.
Whether you’re trying to learn a new concept for an exam or memorise a presentation, don’t be afraid to use your hands and body. Think about what you’re saying. Can you apply a gesture or move your body to help you memorise and improve your understanding of a concept?
You can read more about the power of gestures and movement when it comes to learning here.
Before each exam, keep away from people and places that drain your energy and stress you out. Avoid energy vampires (i.e. people who drain your mental energy and make you feel a bit out of whack) as much as possible. Don’t waste your brainpower on these toxic people. You need all your brainpower for your exams.
Sometimes things will go wrong that are completely out of your control. And you have to just roll with it and do the best job you can under the circumstances.
For example, a few years ago, I did a job where nothing seemed to go to plan. The school receptionist was rude and unhelpful. The venue for the talk wasn’t booked. The students didn’t have chairs to sit on. To make matters worse, it was a boiling hot day and the air-conditioner wasn’t working.
What was I supposed to do?
Having a meltdown wasn’t going to help.
In times like these, you need to remain calm and focus on the things you can do to make things better going forward.
If you have two exams on the same day, you need to think about how you’ll manage your energy levels. You need to conserve your energy.
For instance, if I need to deliver two or three different talks in a day, I manage my energy levels by taking deep breaths, frequent sips of water, and power naps where possible.
Preparing to sit an exam is like preparing to go on stage for a performance. If you can use some of the strategies listed above, you can stay calm, energised, and grounded, which will make a big difference when it comes to recalling information in the exam.
Which strategy will you test out to stay calm and enhance your performance in your next exam?
But just to be clear – this car wasn’t in bad shape when I first got it. I turned this car into a jalopy through neglect and ignoring basic warning signs.
Whenever I gave my friends a lift in this car, I remember that they always looked visibly uncomfortable. They’d say with a nervous laugh:
“Jane, what’s that strange rattling sound?”
“Why is there a red warning light on your dashboard?”
I wasn’t fussed about the red light or the strange rattling sound.
Somehow, I’d missed the adulting lesson on basic car maintenance.
For many years, I never bothered to get my car serviced. I drove it to the point where it rattled and shook violently, the engine would cut out while driving, and the brakes squealed at a painfully high pitch.
It got to the point where I could no longer ignore these problems, but by then, it was too late. My car was beyond repair and could only be salvaged for scrap metal.
I’m embarrassed to share this, as that’s no way to treat a car that gets you from A to B and uses the Earth’s finite resources. But stay with me because there’s an important point I want to make, and it’s this. . .
When I was younger, I engaged in several unhealthy lifestyle practices. Whilst I never smoked, took drugs, or consumed alcohol, I ate huge amounts of processed junk food (I didn’t know how to cook).
I also frequently sacrificed sleep to pull all-nighters to complete my assignments (I struggled with procrastination).
My body seemed resilient. It appeared capable of handling the shocks. But over time, I started feeling tired and rundown. Still, I kept pushing myself like my old car. The only time I could rest was when I got sick.
These days, everything’s quite different.
I am physically unable to thrash my body around like an old jalopy.
Something as simple as consuming too much salt or sugar can send my brain spiralling out of control.
I was reminded of this a couple of weeks ago when I visited a friend in hospital. Because I was spending a lot of time at the hospital, my usual routines of grocery shopping and cooking from scratch were disrupted.
But then to make matters worse, I was given $80 worth of vouchers to spend at the hospital cafeteria. I thought, “How bad can hospital cafeteria food be?”.
It turns out really bad.
Cheese kranskys (sausages), heaps of salty hot chips, deep-fried chicken, and soft drinks were the main options at this hospital cafeteria.
Unhealthy food seemed completely normalised in this hospital environment. My jaw dropped when I saw a patient order not just one but five cheese kransky sausages!
In this hospital setting, I also started to eat poorly. It was on my third day of eating hot chips from the hospital cafeteria when I noticed that these chips weren’t doing me any favours. I was feeling off my game.
So I decided enough was enough. I gave the remaining hospital food vouchers to a homeless man who was hanging around the cafeteria, desperate for a feed. It was back to home cooked meals for me!
This greasy processed hospital food had a ripple effect on the rest of my life. I slept badly, which impacted my ability to run the next morning (my joints hurt). I felt resistance to using my treadmill desk because everything felt much harder than usual. Since I was moving less, I was more distracted.
I know all this might sound a bit dramatic, especially to those of us who enjoy a few hot chips (e.g., my husband). Given my friend was in a hospital bed and couldn’t walk, I am fully aware of how lucky I am to be able to run in the first place (even with sore joints).
The point I’m trying to make is this . . .
I also know that small decisions, like eating too many hot chips or staying up late, can add up and take their toll on your mind and body. These tiny decisions can have a big impact on the way you feel.
When I was younger, I could eat whatever I wanted and still feel pretty good. Sometimes I’d feel a bit off, but not in a noticeable way.
As Dr Randy J Paterson states in his book How to Be Miserable in Your Twenties:
“In your twenties, some people can do practically anything to their bodies, experience no immediate physical consequences, and feel emotionally more or less well. Random sleep cycle, sedentary lifestyle, lousy diet, 90 percent of the day staring at screen, binge-drinking, isolation, the works. The body doesn’t completely fall apart, and the mind, while not thrilled, hangs on.
Later on, the effect is more immediate. Live exactly the same way at thirty-five, at forty-five, and things don’t go so well. Take a middle-aged car and drive it aggressively down jolting roads, loaded to the max, old oil clogging the engine, and it’s not going to last long. The baseline mood at forty-with no maintenance, no exercise, no dietary adjustment, no stability, and no social life- is misery. ”
Like a car, the human body requires regular basic maintenance. I see this basic maintenance as a collection of small behaviours that leave me feeling calm, grounded, and focused.
Here are a few things I need to do to keep myself running smoothly:
Every now and then, I’ll abandon these behaviours. I’ll have a day where I eat and do whatever I like. I’ll order takeaway, sit on the couch and binge-watch a series until late at night. I usually pay for it the next day, but it also gives me a better appreciation of these healthy practices and what they do for my body and mind.
It’s all about tuning in and noticing how certain things make you feel. For example, when I was in my mid-20s, I noticed every time I ate deep-fried chicken, I experienced sharp stomach pains.
That was like the red warning light on my car dashboard going off in my body. But instead of ignoring it, I paid close attention. Eventually, I decided it wasn’t worth the pain. So I stopped buying greasy deep-fried chicken and eventually went plant-based, which immediately improved my mental and physical health.
There’s no doubt that modern life can be hectic and stressful. When you’re rushing from one thing to another, it’s easy to overlook the basics and ignore the warning signs.
I’m not proud of how I treated my first car, but I learnt from the experience. Now I make sure I get my car serviced regularly. This saves me time, money, and stress in the long run.
Similarly, we need to pay attention to the way in which we look after ourselves. By dedicating time, energy, and attention to the small things that make us feel better, our experience of the present moment becomes richer. As longevity researcher Dan Buettner says, “You can add years to your life and life to your years”.
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I find this so strange because I really enjoy public speaking. And I also have grown to appreciate spiders (my husband did his PhD on trapdoor spiders).
Whether you love it or hate it, public speaking is a valuable life skill. It’s one worth cultivating.
Having delivered hundreds of presentations, I’ve learnt a lot about what you should and shouldn’t do when giving one.
I’ve also learnt that it’s wise to ignore popular public speaking advice that gets thrown around. Cliches like “Imagine everyone in the room is naked”. That’s not going to help!
Over the past 20 years, I’ve had to learn to go with the flow and be prepared for anything when delivering presentations.
Here are a few things I’ve experienced as a public speaker:
And that’s not even the worst of it.
I’m not bitter and twisted about these experiences. As the ancient Roman philosopher Seneca said:
“Things that were hard to bear are sweet to remember.”
Looking back, I can have a good laugh about them.
Although these experiences were quite gruelling at the time, I am grateful for every one of them. Why? Because they taught me something valuable.
In some strange way, they also boosted my confidence. I came to see myself as someone who could handle (and survive) difficult situations.
Here’s the thing: nobody is born with a knack for public speaking. It’s a skill you need to work on.
You have to get your reps in (reps = talks). Then after each talk, it’s important to stop and reflect on what went well and what you could do differently next time. I’ve found this to be the best way to refine my public speaking skills.
You can also improve by watching other speakers and noting what you like and what irritates you. This is what I’ve done.
As I watch people deliver presentations, I can’t help but notice small adjustments they could make that would dramatically improve their public speaking.
So, what are the common mistakes I see people make when delivering presentations?
Here are eight things I wish people would stop doing when delivering presentations, along with simple fixes for each one.
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard people start a presentation by saying things like, “Sorry, I finished putting this talk together an hour ago” or “Sorry, I’ve only had 3 hours sleep, so apologies if I don’t make much sense”.
I’m not kidding. These are all comments I’ve heard from academics presenting at conferences.
When you start with an apology, it creates negative momentum. Your audience collectively thinks, “Ugh, here we go…”.
Starting with an apology is also a sure-fire way to destroy your credibility. For the rest of your talk, you’ll be fighting for the listener’s interest and attention!
So, drop the apology. Even if you’ve only had 3 hours of sleep, the audience doesn’t need to know this (plus, they don’t care).
Begin on a positive note and harness all the energy you have for the presentation. Once you’ve wrapped things up, you can treat yourself to a nice, long nap!
Professional public speaker Scott Berkun says:
“ … most lectures are slow one-way trips into sedation.”
He’s not talking about the speed at which you talk. You can speak at a normal pace, but you need to keep things moving.
Don’t start with a long, boring introduction. Keep your introduction short and sweet, especially the introduction about yourself.
Whenever I deliver a talk, I start by saying something like this:
“Hi, I’m Jane. For the last 15 years, I’ve been experimenting with different study strategies: strategies that make learning less painful, less boring, more fun and more effective. Today I’m excited to share some of my favourite strategies with you. ”
Then, I launch straight into providing value (e.g., sharing a strategy or a new idea).
I don’t go into my qualifications, tell a long story about myself, outline all the points I’ll be talking about, or thank the client for having me there. That’s boring. It feels slow and painful.
As Professor BJ Fogg recommends:
“You should move your audience efficiently through (1) new ideas and (2) a range of emotions”.
If you waffle on too much at the beginning (or at any point), you risk losing your audience’s attention.
You’ve probably experienced sitting through presentations where the presenter read word-for-word what was on their slides.
No one walks away from these presentations feeling energised and inspired. Personally, I feel resentful and drained of my life force.
Boredom factor aside, another major problem with having too much text on your slides is that it creates interference. The audience ends up multi-tasking: switching between listening to you speak and reading the text on your slides.
Research shows that multitasking in this way leads to less retention of information. It can also be stressful for the audience.
This is why my presentation slides consist mainly of images. I use very few words (if any) on my slides. This is a deliberate design decision. I want the audience to be focused on what I’m saying rather than reading what’s on the slide next to me.
Whenever I see someone reading speaking points from their phone, I want to swipe it out of their hand.
Your phone needs to be out of sight when you deliver a presentation. Put it on silent and keep it in your bag (or even better, leave it in another room). Please do not touch it or look at it until you’ve finished presenting.
Why do I feel so strongly about phones and public speaking?
Because phones are a barrier to connection with your audience.
In the book The Workshop Survival Guide, Rob Fitzpatrick and Devin Hunt write:
“Consider the negative impact of having dinner with someone who keeps glancing at their phone…holding and checking your phone projects massive disinterest in your audience, even if it was for a workshop relevant reason.”
Instead of reading speaking points off your phone, use palm cards. But keep them small.
When I was 12 years old, I had a public speaking coach who drilled into me that big palm cards weren’t a good look. She would make me trim existing palm cards so they fit perfectly in the palm of my hand and wouldn’t be visible to the audience. I recommend you do the same.
Now, if you’re thinking, “But Jane, I need my phone to keep track of time”, I have an excellent alternative for you: two kitchen timers.
Before I deliver a talk, I set a countdown timer for the presentation duration (this way I can keep an eye on the time and make sure I don’t go over my allocated time slot). I also have another timer within arm’s reach to time exercises, such as pair shares or break activities.
I used to wear a watch to keep track of time, but this required too much mental energy to figure out how much time I had left.
Here’s the thing: presenting to a room full of people takes a lot of mental energy. This means you need to find ways to save your brainpower wherever possible. Using digital timers to keep track of time is an effective method to conserve mental energy.
Being an effective public speaker is all about removing barriers between you and the audience. If there’s a podium that everyone has been presenting behind, don’t be afraid to go against the norm and step out in front of that podium to present.
By performing this simple move, your audience will instantly feel more connected to you.
Some speakers feel constrained by the podium as their laptop or microphone is placed there. But there are simple and effective technologies you can use to free yourself from feeling tied to this spot.
Most venues have handheld microphones you can use. If not, you can project your voice.
How do you deal with being far from your laptop and clicking ahead to the next slide?
Consider investing in a remote clicker (I use this one). Trust me, this will be money well spent.
One thing that can disrupt the flow of a good talk is when a presenter says, “Next slide, please” or “Can you go back a few slides, please?” and then waits for someone near the laptop to click through the slides.
A clicker allows you to experience total freedom as you deliver a presentation. You can move around the space and maintain control of your slides.
Perfect is boring. Perfect stops you from growing and trying new things.
Think of a lot of TED talk speakers. They are often coached to have a certain polished style.
But the best TED talks are when people bring their own style to the table. They don’t try to be like the other TED speakers. They are fully themselves.
At the end of the day, people want to connect with a human they can relate to. Perfect is unrelatable.
So, don’t fall into the perfection trap. Instead, follow Scott Berkun’s advice and “avoid the mistake of trying to make no mistakes”.
Accept that you will make mistakes. And when you make a mistake, don’t take yourself too seriously. Laugh it off and keep things moving (see point 2).
You must practice your talk before giving it. Please don’t do a dry run on your audience.
In the book Confessions of a Public Speaker, Scott Berkun says:
“Practice until it feels good. Anything you plan to do in your talk must be practised. If you get a new laptop, remote or presentation software, give those things runs well in advance.”
Let me be clear: you are not practising to be perfect. You are practising so you know how to transition from one point to the next.
You are practising so you are confident with your content. The more confident you are, the easier it is to connect with your audience (and deal with hecklers).
Practise sessions also allow you to safely make mistakes and correct them.
So, when it comes to practising your talk, when and where should you do this?
If you can, practice in the conditions of the actual talk. Here’s an example from my own life . . .
A few months ago, I had to deliver an online session for a fashion company based in New York City. This meant I would be presenting at 11pm (not my usual presenting time).
I’m not exactly a night owl, so I was nervous about how I’d go about presenting at this late hour.
A week before the talk, I decided to do a practice session at 11pm. I got up from bed and noticed I could barely string a sentence together. Uh-oh. What was I going to do?
I decided to try having a long power nap at 8pm, wake up, and then do 20 minutes of exercise before practising the presentation.
Through trial and error, I discovered a sequence of behaviours that worked, allowing me to present late at night. When it came to doing the actual presentation, I felt alert and energised. I was able to present from 11pm to 12:20am with relative ease and good energy.
But had I not practised under those conditions, the talk could have very easily been a flop.
It’s normal to feel nervous before a talk. However, you need to find ways to release that nervous energy before presenting, so you appear natural and at ease with the audience.
If you’re visibly nervous, this can make your audience feel on edge and concerned for your wellbeing. This isn’t a great experience for them, and there’s a good chance it will interfere with their ability to absorb what you have to say.
I’ve found that the best way to release nervous energy is to move my body on the morning of a presentation.
A 20-minute run or ride usually does the job at releasing 90% of my nervous energy. Another 5% is usually cleared with a 3-minute deep breathing exercise.
As for the final 5%? I accept that some nerves before a talk are a good thing. I choose to view those nerves as excitement rather than fear.
The final 5% of nervous energy keeps me alert and on my toes, ready for anything that may come my way during the presentation.
The key is to stay in the moment when you’re presenting. Focus on what’s happening in the here and now. Don’t worry about the next part of your talk or the bit you stuffed up earlier. If you can just be in the present and concentrate on what you need to say at this moment, it will help keep your anxiety levels down.
I recommend experimenting with different practices to see what works best for you in terms of releasing nervous energy.
Public speaking skills are like a muscle: the more you work them, the better and more dynamic you’ll be when delivering presentations. There are simple things you can do (and stop doing) to hone and refine your public speaking skills.
The most important thing is that you don’t focus on delivering a perfect presentation. Making mistakes is inevitable. What matters most is that you learn from the experience and continue to grow and improve your speaking skills.
My public speaking journey has been a wild and exciting ride. When you approach speaking with a playful spirit and accept the fact that you can’t control everything, it doesn’t feel so scary. It feels more like a fun adventure.
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I experienced this firsthand when I was an exchange student living abroad. When I was 16, I travelled to the south of Italy to live in a small village called Spinazzola.
This had been my dream, and my parents forked out over $2,000 to make it come true (thanks, Mum and Dad!).,
I wanted to make the most of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so I set off with an ambitious goal to come back fluent in Italian.
Before I left for Italy, several people had told me that I would pick up the language “just like that!”. I was told that I’d be fluent in no time.
I took their words as gospel truth.
So I became concerned when, after just a few days in Italy, I wasn’t speaking like the locals. I thought, “Why am I not fluent in Italian by now? What’s going on? Is something wrong with me?”
Panic and worry set in. I became stuck in an anxiety loop. Thoughts rolled through my head, such as:
“Am I learning the language fast enough?”
“Am I going to come back knowing enough?”
“How will I compare to the other Australian exchange students? What if my Italian sucks?”
This anxiety spilled over into almost every amazing experience I found myself in: a trip to the local pizzeria with my new friends from school, family dinners, and day trips with other exchange students.
To counteract my fears, I doubled down on my study, carrying a mini pocket Italian dictionary with me everywhere I went (this was well before mobile phones and Google Translate existed).
About a month into my student exchange experience, out of the blue, a young man snatched the pocket dictionary out of my hands.
This man was called Gianluca. He was my host sister’s 18-year-old cousin who had travelled with his parents from Milan to spend Christmas with my host family.
Gianluca was a character. He had wild, voluminous curly hair, a cheeky smile, and a sense of style.
Gianluca was also a slightly arrogant man. He would say whatever was on his mind, seemingly without caring if he upset or offended others.
For example, one of my first interactions with Gianluca was when I sat down on a stool, thereby exposing my white socks. He gasped loudly and said in Italian:
“Jane Christine, white socks with black shoes is a fashion crime! No, No, No!”
I took his words very seriously and have never repeated this fashion faux pas.
But it was the moment when Gianluca snatched the dictionary out of my hands that I remember more than anything else. This moment had a profound impact on the rest of my exchange experience, and I am deeply grateful to him for that.
It was late in the evening. A group of us had been talking and playing Italian card games. Remember, these were simpler times (there were very few mobile phones back in those days and no social media).
I was struggling to follow the conversation in Italian, so I picked up my dictionary to look up a word, but Gianluca stopped me. He grabbed hold of the dictionary and said:
“Put the dictionary down. You don’t need this! Just be here in this moment!”
Gianluca was trying to tell me to relax. To stop hiding behind my dictionary. To stop trying so hard to learn Italian.
He was right. Sometimes, when you try too hard and are too fixated on achieving a future goal, it can get in the way of actually doing what you need to do (in my case, learning Italian).
Oliver Burkeman writes about this in his book Meditations for Mortals. He argues that there are benefits in not trying so hard. He writes:
“The less I’m trying to get something out of an experience, the more I find I can get into it, and the more I can be present for other people involved.”
Those first few weeks in Italy, I had been trying too hard to master the language and get the most out of my student exchange experience. I was trying to frantically get to a place where I could tick the ‘Fluent in Italian’ box.
I can now see clearly that by trying so hard to learn Italian, I was sacrificing my enjoyment in the present moment. I was also undermining my ability to learn Italian.
You’ve probably heard the phrase “La Dolce Vita”. This directly translates to “The Sweet Life”.
But what it means is a relaxed, easy-going approach to life. An approach where you enjoy the simple things: a hearty, simple meal shared with your family, a reviving nap in the middle of the day, and an evening stroll (‘passeggiatta’) down the main street with friends.
Whenever I picked up my dictionary, which was frequently during those first few weeks in Italy, I embodied the polar opposite of “La Dolce Vita”. I transformed a potentially fun, rich moment into an anxiety-fuelled study session.
I also took myself out of the present moment. And effective learning (and living) is all about being present.
Gianluca’s words – “Put the dictionary down!” – hit home. That evening, I put my pocket dictionary away and gave up on trying to master Italian in a day. I took the pressure off myself and relaxed into the experience.
Soon after, I asked my host mother Rosa if I could join a local exercise class. I knew that movement always made me feel better. It relaxed me. I was so happy when Mamma Rosa agreed.
At this class, I’d slip on some special socks over my shoes and slide from side to side on a slippery mat (a slide board).
I took this crazy exercise class with a bunch of middle-aged Italian women wearing spandex and leg warmers (it was Winter). Occasionally, someone would lose control on their slide board and fall to the ground.
For 60 minutes, I was able to get out of my head and get grounded in my body. This exercise class, as strange as it was, made all the difference. It relieved my anxiety and fears straightaway. It calmed my mind and made me feel like I was doing okay.
Ironically, once I felt calmer and less pressured to ‘learn Italian’, I started to pick things up. Learning the language became easier and easier. It didn’t happen in an instant. But it was happening. Slowly but surely, my language skills improved.
When I came back to Australia, I hadn’t mastered Italian (can you ever really master anything?), but I could hold a solid conversation with my nonna in Australia.
The whole student exchange experience fundamentally changed me. I learnt so much more than just Italian.
I learnt the power of a good nap after lunch (strictly enforced by my host mother), the importance of connection and community, and that if you’re having pasta, you must mop up the last bit of sauce with some bread (this Italian tradition is called ‘scarpetta’).
But I also learned not to try so hard. Instead of rushing to get to a specific destination, it’s okay to just explore, learn, and grow at your own pace.
“Mappa ferr Spinazzola-Barletta” (Used in Image 1) by Arbalete is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0
On these days, the temptation to procrastinate and distract oneself can be strong.
I recently spent a few days with my family in the countryside, where I enjoyed reading by a crackling fire. But when I found myself back home in my office, I struggled to get back into the swing of things.
I was experiencing a full-blown holiday comedown.
For some context, I had printed out the slides for an upcoming presentation that I needed to practise, but I felt resistance every time I looked at the slides.
My mind screamed, “Nooo! I don’t want to practise!”. Without even thinking, I kept pushing the slides away like a toddler smooshing their vegetables around on their plate.
But at some point, I caught myself in the act. Without berating myself, I managed to turn things around and ease into my practice.
In this blog, I’ll share a couple of simple strategies I use to get a better handle on my procrastination and overcome resistance.
According to Procrastination scholar Tim Pychyl, procrastination isn’t a time management issue. It’s an emotion management issue. If you can get a better handle on your emotions, you’ll have a better handle on procrastination.
Let’s unpack this…
Often, when we procrastinate, it’s because we’re trying to avoid experiencing negative emotions. The task we need to do brings up feelings of discomfort (e.g., boredom, fear, guilt, anxiety, and stress), so we avoid the task to make ourselves feel better.
But avoidance makes no sense when you think about it.
Oliver Burkeman explains the problems associated with avoidance in his book Meditations for Mortals. He writes:
“The more you organise your life around not addressing the things that make you anxious, the more likely they are to develop into serious problems – and even if they don’t, the longer you fail to confront them, the more unhappy time you spend being scared of what might be lurking in the places you don’t want to go. It’s ironic that this is known, in self-help circles, as ‘remaining in your comfort zone’, because there’s nothing comfortable about it. In fact, it entails accepting a constant background tug of discomfort – an undertow of worry that can sometimes feel useful or virtuous, though it isn’t – as the price you pay to avoid a more acute spike of anxiety.”
Dutch Zen Monk Paul Loomans labels the tasks we avoid as ‘gnawing rats’. He says these tasks “eat away at you under the surface”.
Have you noticed that whenever you try to avoid a task, it’s usually still on your mind, using up your precious mental resources?
That’s what Loomans means by the task eating away at you under the surface.
Why does he use the peculiar term ‘gnawing rat’? Looman’s daughter used to have pet rats that would eat loudly under his bed, keeping him awake at night.
Loomans explains that if you can befriend your gnawing rats, you can transform them into white sheep. Just like a white sheep follows you around passively, once you transform a task into a white sheep, it’s a lot easier to make a start.
The question is, how do you transform a ‘gnawing rat’ (a task you are avoiding) into a white sheep?
The key is to approach procrastination from a place of curiosity.
Loomans suggests creating a positive, open relationship with the task you’ve been avoiding. You need to sit with it or visualise the task. Instead of giving yourself a hard time, get curious about why you have such a strained relationship with this task.
Loomans advises:
“… you’re not being asked to immediately do whatever it is that’s gnawing at you. The assignment is only to establish a relationship with it. You let all the various facets sink in and then let them go again.
The rat no longer gnaws at you, and it has settled down. It’s no longer trying to get your attention, but follows quietly behind. It now has white legs and curly fleece – it’s turned into a white sheep.”
I decided to follow Looman’s advice with this presentation I had been avoiding. To begin with, I pulled out my slides and I just sat with them.
I closed my eyes, tuned into my body and asked myself:
“Why am I feeling resistance towards practising this presentation? What’s going on?”
Within 30 seconds, the answer came to me. The resistance came from how I thought I’d feel after doing my speech practice: exhausted and emotionally depleted.
You see, when I practice a presentation, I typically go into turbocharge mode. It’s like I’m delivering the real thing: I gesticulate, project my voice, pace around the room, and rely on my memory and the pictures on my slides to remember the content (I don’t refer to my notes).
All of this takes a lot of mental and physical effort.
So, naturally, when I looked at my slides for this one-hour presentation, I felt flat and heavy.
I equated one hour of presentation practice with having a fried brain by the end.
But then I had a brilliant idea. I thought, “What if this practice session didn’t have to feel like a hard slog? What if it could be fun, light and easy but still effective? What would that look like?”
It immediately occurred to me that I had to shorten my practice session, which brings me to the next strategy . . .
To keep my practice session fun, light and easy, I settled on doing just five minutes of speech practice.
Instead of pacing around my office and practising in turbocharge mode for an hour, I sat myself down with a hot chocolate. I set a timer for five minutes, pulled out a mini whiteboard and started recalling the content (scribbling out and drawing pictures of what I needed to say).
When the timer went off, I checked my notes to see how I went (What did I remember? What did I forget to say?).
Then, I checked in with myself – “How am I feeling after that mini practice session?”. Instead of feeling depleted, I was feeling good! I felt less overwhelmed by this presentation. The resistance had subsided. As Paul Loomans would say, the presentation had transformed from a gnawing rat into a white sheep!
I felt excited, even a little inspired.
I could have easily kept practising for another 10-20 minutes, but I decided to give myself a break to re-energise (I got up and walked on the treadmill for 2 minutes).
This gave me insight into the need to vary the intensity and mode of each study session, depending on my energy levels and what I have planned for the rest of the day. Sometimes it’s good to go into turbocharge mode, but not always.
Not every study/work session has to be hardcore. Work sessions that leave you feeling completely drained by the end can be counterproductive. As Professor BJ Fogg says, “Tiny is mighty”.
Firstly, tiny study sessions are less scary for your brain. Five minutes of speech practice and flashcard practice feels easy. You think, “I can do 5 minutes!”.
In contrast, one hour of study feels scary for your brain, which means you’re more likely to procrastinate.
When you go tiny, it’s also easier to give your full focus to the task at hand. Here’s the thing about focus: focusing your mind takes a lot of your brainpower. And you have a limited supply of brainpower!
As you sit there and study, your brainpower gets depleted. But research shows one way to boost your attentional resources (i.e. your brainpower) is by taking regular breaks. If you study in short focused bursts and then take a break, you can stay refreshed and ensure your study sessions are effective.
But most importantly, tiny study sessions help to create momentum, and they leave you feeling good!
I tend to push myself to the point of exhaustion when I practise my talks. But I can see now that this makes it hard for me to want to practise in the future.
By dedicating just 5–10 minutes to the task and enjoying it, I’m more likely to do another 5 minutes (or more) of practice tomorrow. Doing five minutes of practice every day is infinitely better than doing no practice or cramming a long practice session in the day before.
You’re not going to go from good to great in one tiny study session. But you can make meaningful progress and create the momentum you need to keep going.
So, don’t turn your nose up at five minutes of flashcard practice or 10 minutes of doing a practice test. If done with focus and intention, that’s a solid study session that can set you on the path to success.
Image credit:
Toddler (featured in image 2): “Skeptical” by quinn.anya is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
Rat: “Fancy rat blaze” by AlexK100 is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
But I’ve also had to learn to move to learn.
Does that makes sense? If not, let me explain myself.
Like most students, I was conditioned to sit still in a chair for hours each day. Even though I felt chained to my chair in school, there was one part of my body that I could move: my arms and hands.
I could gesture to express ideas.
Being half Italian, using my hands to gesticulate feels completely natural and normal. Growing up, I watched my Italian relatives gesture dramatically to stress a point and communicate ideas.
Having been exposed to this from a young age, I didn’t know how to behave any differently. It’s just what you did when you spoke: you used your hands.
However, my bold hand gestures weren’t always welcome, and they inevitably drew attention in the classroom.
People would comment, “Ha! Look at the way she uses her hands!” and “You’re so Italian!”.
My hand gestures were too over-the-top. I needed to tone things down.
When I was in Year 9, I tried to restrain my hand gestures. I alternated between sitting on my hands, folding them and cupping them in my lap.
I didn’t realise it at the time, but by suppressing my hands’ natural urge to move, I was doing my brain a disservice.
This study by Langhanns and Müller found that when students were asked to sit still while solving problems, their cognitive load increased and their overall success in solving problems decreased.
In other words, when you focus on being still and try to ignore your body’s natural urge to move, this consumes a lot of your brainpower.
Fortunately, I gave up trying to suppress my hand gestures. There was no point in trying. My hand gestures were like a wild horse. They would always break free.
All these years later, I can see that my ability to gesture naturally and effortlessly made me good at public speaking. While other robotic speakers had to be coached into adding a few hand gestures, I moved my hands with ease.
But that’s not all; by using my hands in class, I was also tapping into special learning superpowers.
Research shows physical movement, including the use of gestures, helps improve understanding and boosts memory.
I’m referring to an experimental study conducted by a husband and wife research team, Tony and Helga Noice. This couple spent many years studying actors and their ability to learn and recall lines.
Their research found that actors were able to accurately recall lines that had been accompanied by movements months after the final stage performance. However, these same actors struggled to remember lines that had been spoken when they remained in one place.
The Noices wanted to know if ordinary people (non-actors) could benefit from engaging in physical movement and using gestures when learning and retrieving dialogue.
They devised an experiment involving 23 university students. They split these students into three groups:
Group 1: Movement condition
Group 2: Verbal communication only condition
Group 3: Memorisation condition (Control)
In the movement condition, students were taught how to move in the scene (without reading their scripts). They were then given scripts and read their lines while moving their bodies.
In the verbal communication condition, these students sat on chairs and were told to read their lines out loud. They weren’t allowed to move.
Groups 1 and 2 were told not to memorise the dialogue but instead to focus on the meaning of what they were saying. They were instructed to adopt an actor’s approach to learning (i.e., to be fully present and mean what they were saying as they said it).
In contrast, Group 3 (the control group) was instructed to try to memorise their lines using whatever strategy they’d found successful in the past.
Students in each group were given only five minutes to learn their lines. They were then given a brief distractor task (“Write down five movies you saw recently”) before being tested on their ability to recall their lines.
The researchers found that the students in the movement condition remembered 76% of their lines compared with only 37% for the memorisation control group.
The researchers concluded:
“Students who actively experienced communicating the meaning of the material by using both words and movements recalled significantly more material than did either students who communicated using only words or students who deliberately memorized the same text.”
It’s important to note that the students in the movement condition weren’t just waving their arms around in the air. Their movements had meaning and were connected to what they were saying.
There are several ways you can utilise your body to learn.
If you’re trying to learn a new concept or memorise a presentation, don’t be afraid to use your hands and body. Think about what you’re saying. Can you apply a gesture or move your body to help you memorise an idea and improve your understanding?
As the authors of The Extended Mind In Action state:
“…the feel of our hands making a gesture reinforces our memory.”
This is why I also practice my presentations on my feet, using my hands and all my body to express ideas.
If you’re an online educator or teacher, it’s really important that students can see your arms and hands. Research shows that instructional videos that include people gesturing result in significantly more learning for people who watch them.
When I first started delivering online presentations, I made the mistake of only showing my head and shoulders.
After exploring the research in this area, I quickly adjusted my studio setup so that students could see my hands and arms as well. This small tweak made a huge difference in improving student learning.
I also encourage students to gesture back to check their understanding and reinforce key ideas. If you’re a teacher, I encourage you to try doing this with your students, too.
Besides using specific gestures and movements to learn concepts and dialogue, it’s also worth considering the benefits of engaging in light to moderate-intensity exercise before sitting down to study.
A fabulous research study called Sweat So You Don’t Forget found that when students engaged in five-minute exercise breaks every 17 minutes, they could focus better and remembered more than students who didn’t get any breaks or had a sedentary break (playing video games).
Annie Murphy Paul writes in her book The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain:
“…we have it within our power to induce in ourselves a state that is ideal for learning, creating, and engaging in other kinds of complex cognition: by exercising briskly just before we do so.”
This is why, every morning, before I start my work, I run on my treadmill or ride my stationary bike for at least 20 minutes. This gives me a cognitive boost: it improves my focus, creativity, executive function and ability to learn.
The movement also helps to decrease anxiety by supplying my brain with a dose of BDNF (i.e. brain-derived neutrophic factor). Dr Jennifer Heisz, in her book Move the Body, Heal the Mind, explains that BDNF is like fertiliser for the brain. She writes:
“BDNF acts like a fertilizer that promotes the growth, function, and survival of brain cells, including those that turn off the stress response.”
She continues:
“Immediately after exercising, our brain cells are bathed in BDNF, which protects those cells against the toxic effects of high stress.”
As I think back to high stress times in my life, I have no doubt that movement (and regular doses of BDNF) are what got me through these periods.
Your body is a powerful tool to help you learn. The research is clear that moving your body enhances your ability to think and learn.
It’s time to move past the outdated idea that learning means sitting still and being serious. It costs us nothing to gesture with our hands while reading about a concept or to go for a walk outside before studying.
Movement benefits us in many ways, so why not include some in your study routine today?
Before adopting any new technology, the Amish will carefully consider how the device or app could impact their values, community, and way of life.
In these times of rapid change, I believe this is a valuable practice for all of us.
I recently received an email from a company that had developed an AI mind-mapping tool.
The email included a special offer. If I blogged about this AI mind mapping tool, I’d receive a year’s free pro-subscription.
Look, I love free stuff. When I see the word ‘free’, something funny happens in my brain.
I come from a thrifty family who hate waste and excessive consumption. For as long as I can remember, we’ve always received free items from others. Old bikes, broken laptops, and fridges (you name it!): we’d take the stuff, fix it, and use it.
As a family friend used to joke, “If it’s too good to throw away, give it to the Genoveses!”
But as I looked at this offer of a free subscription to mind mapping software, the usual rush of dopamine I’d get when I saw the word ‘FREE’ just wasn’t happening.
I felt nervous and uneasy.
I took a closer look at the website. At first glance, the tool looked quite impressive. You could import text, PDFs, images, and books into it, and the tool would automatically generate a mind map for you within seconds.
The website claimed this was a tool “Empowering 100,000+ thinkers”. It said it could save me time. I could generate and seamlessly edit mind maps. All of this sounded good in theory.
So, why was I having such a strong negative reaction to this new AI tool?
I recently finished reading a book called The Extinction of Experience: Reclaiming Our Humanity in a Digital World.
In this book, author Christine Rosen argues that we are facing a human crisis caused by Big Tech. The widespread adoption of technologies, such as social media, dating apps, and smartphones, has fundamentally altered the human experience — and not for the better.
Interacting with screens all day long and living in virtual worlds that reward us for sharing our most private thoughts has diminished the human experience and left us feeling disconnected.
Rosen argues we run the risk of developing habits of mind and machine-like behaviours that lead us towards an impoverished experience of the world.
In one part of her book, Rosen discusses the decline of skills like handwriting. She states:
“Like species decline, skills decline gradually.”
This sentence made me stop in my tracks. It stood out to me. Why? Because I have felt some of my skills declining in recent years.
So, when I checked out this AI mind mapping tool, I put my Amish cap on and asked myself the following questions:
If I were new to the practice of mind mapping and had only just discovered mind mapping software, things might have been different. I would have had no awareness of what I was missing out on.
But I have been mind mapping by hand, with pen and paper, for over 20 years. I don’t use any fancy apps or software (I never have).
This has been a deliberate choice on my part to preserve and sustain a practice that helps me understand and learn new information in a highly effective way.
I worry that switching from pen and paper to keyboard, mouse, and computer will cause something fundamental to change (and be lost) about my current mind mapping experience and practice.
Before adopting any app or device, you need to get clear on what job you are hiring this piece of technology to do. I use mind mapping to learn and clarify my thinking. Could this mind mapping tool do this for me?
This mind mapping software could produce a mind map for me within seconds. As one student writes in a testimonial on the website:
“I post my own lecture notes to generate a very concentrated mind map for me. I don’t have to spend 3-6 hours writing my own mind maps, which I often can’t do very well.”
Another person leaves a five-star review, “No more messy brainstorming”.
However, all of this completely misses the point of mind mapping.
The process of mind mapping is just as important as the final, often messy, mind map.
When I mind map, I’m not concerned about creating a work of art or saving time (it takes as long as it takes to understand a topic). I want to take my time, settle into the process, and avoid feeling rushed. Mind mapping by hand allows me to do this.
Creating a mind map on a computer screen quickly and outsourcing the job to AI puts me in a speedy, turbocharged frame of mind, which is not conducive to deep learning.
Mind mapping is a practice that forces me to slow down.
This slowing down is super important because the world around me is sending me signals to speed up and go faster and faster! When I’m in turbocharge mode, I’m more likely to get distracted and feel overwhelmed.
I’m trying to resist this frantic pace because I want to do things thoroughly and at my own speed. Watching a mind map get created within seconds isn’t what I want or need. It shifts me into overdrive mode, which makes it much harder to learn.
Mind mapping by hand also allows me to think deeply about ideas and how they are connected. The only way I can see those connections and understand them is by reading through the information, thinking about how I would convey that information as a picture and in mind map form.
When you outsource the process to mind mapping software, you don’t get the same deep understanding as you would if you took the time to do it yourself by hand. It feels superficial. To me, it feels like the McDonald’s of Mind Mapping: fast, convenient, but ultimately, not particularly nourishing for my brain.
Using mind mapping software also bypasses something else that brings me joy and satisfaction: it feels really nice to work with my hands.
As Rosen says, “We have a human need to see, touch and make things with our hands”.
Making a mind map with your hands may not be quick, easy, or convenient, but it provides a very rewarding experience for your brain and soul. Personally, it makes me feel calm, grounded, and more connected to ideas, myself, and the world.
I don’t want to be ignorant or closed-minded. This is why I created a free account with this mind mapping AI tool and attempted to generate three mind maps.
The first mind map was on an article I’d read. The mind map focused on just a small section of the article (conspiracy theories). If I hadn’t read the entire article, I would have missed the important science on this topic.
The second mind map was on creating a meal plan for a trip away. Although the mind map provided some ideas, I was left feeling dissatisfied and uninspired. You can see my hand-drawn mind map on a meal plan, which I created for a family trip, compared to the AI-generated one below.
Which mind map do you prefer?
For the third and final mind map that I tried to create, I entered the following prompt:
“Create a mind map on the book ‘Die with Zero’ by Bill Perkins?”
I encountered this error message:
“System resources have been exhausted. Please try again later.”
Instead of feeling frustrated, I was grateful for this message as it highlighted another problem with using mind mapping software: when the tech goes down or power goes out, you are rendered helpless. It also reminded me of how energy-intensive AI is to run.
I went away and mind mapped this book by hand (I’d just finished reading it and had marked up several ideas). You can see the mind map I created below (it took me approximately 40 minutes to do).
I was curious to see if my mind map would resemble the one the mind mapping software generated. So the next day, I entered the same prompt again. Less than 3 seconds later, a mind map appeared on the screen (you can see it here). Was this a mind map on the same brilliant book I’d just read?
It seemed like AI slop.
I felt disconnected from the ideas. The spirit of the book just wasn’t there! I preferred my own mind map.
There is a freedom in mind mapping by hand, away from screens and without AI. The freedom comes not only from using your hands, brain, and creativity, but also from being able to focus on the task at hand.
It’s all too easy to get distracted when working on a computer. That’s why I have set up a dedicated space in my office, away from screens, where I do my mind mapping practice.
Mind mapping is a sacred practice for me. Doing it on a computer and outsourcing the process feels abstract and detached. I can see and feel what is being lost from the process.
Some tech enthusiasts may label me a “luddite”, but as Rosen says, “not every new thing is an improvement on the old”.
I say, stick with what works. Let’s not overcomplicate something that is simple but highly effective when it comes to learning. Put aside your fear of creating messy mind maps, step away from the screen, and enjoy the experience of making a mind map by hand.
