4 Ways to Avoid Distractions and Train Your Brain for Focus During Lockdown

You love On Purpose because it inspires your life. Have you tried Jay’s Genius workshops and meditations to access even deeper well-being? Learn more at https://shetty.cc/OnPurposeGenius Have you ever listened to a song and wished you could listen to it forever? Or hugged a loved one and never wanted to let go? On this episode of On Purpose with Jay Shetty, guides you through ways to linger those positive moments to train your brain to be happier, more focused, and less stressed. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Jay Shetty?

  This episode is brought to you by AG1. Are you feeling September reset too? Shorter days, longer to-do lists, earlier alarms, all those routines you promised yourself you'd pick back up. It can feel like your whole life is recalibrating. And when everything around you is changing, it helps to have a few things you can rely on. AG1 Next Gen is one of those easy habits to keep. It's the clinically-backed, comprehensive daily health drink that supports your gut health, energy production, and foundational nutrition all in one scoop. AG1's ingredients are sourced from quality partners for absorption, potency, and nutrient density to deliver the foundational nutrition your body needs. And alongside a proper diet,

• 0:44Jay Shetty?

  AG1 Next Gen meets 94% of nutrient requirements and it's clinically shown to enrich the gut microbiome. For a limited time, save 20% on your first subscription order of AG1 Next Gen or AG1 Pro at drinkag1.com/onpurpose. That's drinkag1.com/onpurpose. This episode is brought to you by AG1. Are you feeling September reset too? Shorter days, longer to-do lists, earlier alarms, all those routines you promised yourself you'd pick back up. It can feel like your whole life is recalibrating. And when everything around you is changing, it helps to have a few things you can rely on.

• 1:29Jay Shetty?

  AG1 Next Gen is one of those easy habits to keep. It's the clinically-backed, comprehensive daily health drink that supports your gut health, energy production, and foundational nutrition all in one scoop. AG1's ingredients are sourced from quality partners for absorption, potency, and nutrient density to deliver the foundational nutrition your body needs. And alongside a proper diet, AG1 Next Gen meets 94% of nutrient requirements and it's clinically shown to enrich the gut microbiome. For a limited time, save 20% on your first subscription order of AG1 Next Gen or AG1 Pro at drinkag1.com/onpurpose. That's drinkag1.com/onpurpose.

• 2:16Jay Shetty?

  This episode is brought to you by Vinted. Value can be found anywhere, even in the clothes sitting untouched in our closets. That's where Vinted comes in. Vinted is a secondhand marketplace app where you can sell clothes you no longer want and get more value out of them. Whether you're running out of space, moving, or simply updating your wardrobe. Listing items is a quick and simple process, and once something sells, Vinted creates a prepaid shipping label for you. And the best part, there are no seller fees, so you keep what you earn. It's a simple way to clear out your closet, be less wasteful, and maybe make some extra money along the way. And if you've been thinking about a wardrobe refresh, this can make it feel a little more worthwhile. You're not just letting go of clothes, you're getting more value from what you already have.

• 3:00Jay Shetty?

  Give your clothes a second life with Vinted. Download the Vinted app for free to start selling with no seller fees, so you keep every dollar you earn. The new year is about hope. This is the special time of year when we're allowed to press the reset button and start over. I know that 2020 or the beginning of 2021 hasn't been what everyone is expecting, but now we can try and restart in February. So I'd like to invite you to join my 2021 Reset and Restart, New Habits for a New Time, five-day program. To register, just go to jshettygenius.com/newhabits. Starting February 3rd, I'll be meeting with you virtually for five consecutive days to give you the tools you need to create the year you need.

• 3:45Jay Shetty?

  Together, we'll meditate and set our intentions for the 2021 we want to have. Five days, five workshops, one fresh start. Let's say yes to starting 2021 with an open heart and open mind. It all starts with you. Go to jshettygenius.com/newhabits to register today. Thank you, and get excited for February 3rd.

• 4:10Jay Shetty?

  Three out of five Americans say they feel misunderstood. They feel lonely, disconnected, and left out. And the loneliness trend is rising, with the highest levels of reported loneliness among millennials. And according to the Royal Society for Public Health, rates of anxiety and depression have increased 70% over the last 25 years. On one hand, those numbers are shocking. Yet on the other, this data probably comes as no real surprise when so many of us ourselves are experiencing bouts of isolation and insecurity, disconnection, fear, and anxiety. But as you may know, and as I've discussed on this show, so much of how we experience life is about our minds and our perception.

• 4:55Jay Shetty?

  That doesn't mean our fears and our worries aren't real, but so much of how we feel about them is something we can influence. Still, just knowing that's not helpful if we don't have real, concrete tools to change and shift our perception. Struggle is real. Our problems are real. And yet our brains have a way of taking what we focus on and magnifying it even more. And that makes our problems seem even worse. It makes it harder to find solutions from them. Researchers took employees who work on creative tasks and analyzed their work diaries, scanning more than 9,000 entries. They discovered that the more pressure the employees were under to produce,

• 5:39Jay Shetty?

  the less creative they were. In another study, researchers showed a group of participants a clip of either the first 30 minutes of the movie Saving Private Ryan or the first 30 minutes of Shrek. Then they had the participants do a word association exercise that was designed to see how creative they were. You can probably guess how this ended up. Those who had just watched this stressful movie scenes performed worse on the task. When we're anxious, we don't handle stress as well. And that not only affects our performance and our creativity, it affects how we experience life. But how do we change that? There are loads of solutions out there, and I've talked about a number of them here. But today, we're going to look at how to change the problem at the source: your brain.

• 6:24Jay Shetty?

  I'm going to share with you three steps to actually, literally, re-wiring your brain so it's set up to support you, to focus less on the feelings you don't want and more on the ones you do. If you've been listening regularly, and I hope you have, and I so appreciate your time and your willingness to be here and share this space with me. But if you've been with me the last few Fridays, you know that we've been taking ideas and thoughts from my book, Think Like a Monk, and going deeper. Today, we're focusing on chapter seven, which is all about the mind, and my inspiration for today's podcast comes from the following passage from the book. "True growth involves understanding the mind. It is the filter, judge, and director of all our experiences.

• 7:08Jay Shetty?

  But we are not always of one mind. The more we can evaluate, understand, train, and strengthen our relationship with the mind, the more successfully we can navigate our lives and overcome challenges."

• 7:25Jay Shetty?

  I'm so excited because I love getting into science and data and marrying it with ancient wisdom. And today, we're going to get into the actual brain science of how we can change our brains to support greater happiness and wholeness and resilience. And I'm going to tell you, you'll be shocked at how simple it is. I know I was, and that's why I'm so excited to share this with you. These techniques are so accessible, you don't need any special equipment, apps, or anything like that to do these things. So let's get started. Now, maybe you've heard this idea before. What you focus on, you create more of. For some of you, that conjures the idea of manifesting. For some of you, it's the idea of increasing your productivity. But the thing is, that idea can be a bit fuzzy, right? It sounds good, what you focus on, you create more of.

• 8:08Jay Shetty?

  So if I just focus on something I want, it will appear or multiply, right? But some of you are like, Jay, I could stare at this $10 bill all day long, and it's not going to magically multiply. If only it were that easy. And yet, in a way, some things are. Maybe not magically making more money appear, but when it comes to the experiences we want to have in life and the feelings we want to feel, it turns out this saying is grounded in neuroscience and in ancient wisdom. Harvard researchers created an app that contacted volunteers at random intervals and asked them what they were doing, what they were thinking about, and whether they were happy. It turns out that people's minds were not on the task at hand a massive 47% of the time. Instead, they were distracted.

• 8:51Jay Shetty?

  And most of the time they were distracted, volunteers said they were unhappy. One of the lead researchers said he thinks lack of attention to the present moment was actually the cause of respondents' high rates of unhappiness. Being fully present with whatever you're doing at the moment not only calms your mind, but also improves your mood. In a separate study, researchers looked at the brains of experienced meditators and non-meditators while they followed the same meditation cues. Imaging showed that those who'd been meditating longer showed less mind wandering. But don't worry, you can start to change your brain patterns relatively quickly. So we know distraction can increase our agitation, and we know activities like meditation can decrease distraction and help us focus.

• 9:33Jay Shetty?

  But one of the missing pieces is we often don't talk about what to focus on. According to neuroscientist, long-term meditator, and bestselling author Rick Hansen, if we understand how our brains work, we can shape how we experience our lives, and that starts with understanding our negativity bias. Now, you may have heard me talk about negativity bias before. It's our brain's tendency to focus on the negative over the positive, like how we'll choose to read negative news headlines over positive ones. It's a holdover from our brain's survival circuitry, which is designed to keep us safe. Our brain is programmed to scan for threats, so its natural inclination is to pay more attention to the negative than the positive. Hansen describes the brain as being like Velcro for bad experiences and Teflon for good.

• 10:19Jay Shetty?

  What tends to stick with us is the negative. If you think back on your life, or even the last few months or weeks, what sticks out to you the most? Maybe it's confinement and restriction from the lockdown, stress from trying to make sure your kids are getting the support they need with their schoolings, worries over your work, and trying to balance everything. Chances are, you've had some positive experiences over the last few months as well, but those aren't the ones that pop us first, right? You may have to go digging around in your mind to even remember them. However, says Hansen, even though our brains are naturally wired to focus on the negative, we can change that. Don't worry, we're not going to totally dismantle our survival circuitry. We do need that. We want to be able to respond to actual threats, but we can train our brains to amplify more of the positive experiences in our lives.

• 11:04Jay Shetty?

  The science of how to do this comes down to something called neuroplasticity, which is essentially our brain's ability to change. It allows us to learn. It's how meditation and other techniques for focus and compassion can actually rewire your brain. Neuroscience and ancient teachings agree that our minds shape our experiences. And as Hanson says, what we repeat and emphasize in our minds rewire our brain. Looking at monks, for example, scientists can actually see how their brains are wired for greater peace, happiness and compassion. On the flip side, sadly, scientists can also see how things like exposure to violence rewire our brains to make us even more sensitive to potential threats, which can not only keep us in more fearful states, but can also negatively impact our physical health.

• 11:50Jay Shetty?

  Repeated exposure changes your experience of life. And if, like most of us, you're not aware or consciously directing what your brain is focusing on because of our negativity bias, your brain is often looping negativity. It happens every time you fixate or ruminate on a challenge or on a fight you had or a memory of feeling of left hour rejected. It's like putting a negativity filter on your brain and then making that filter stronger and stronger. By now, you're probably like, Jay, I get it, but how do I change it? How we change this pattern in our brains is to focus on what we want more of. But don't worry, this goes way beyond just positive thinking. And as researchers at Stanford have pointed out, simply trying to change your thoughts to be more positive can actually have negative effects.

• 12:34Jay Shetty?

  What we need to do, as Hanson says, is to use not just our minds, but also our bodies to emphasize the experiences we want more of in our lives. The Buddha once wrote, "There is one thing that when cultivated and regularly practiced leads to deep spiritual intention, to peace, to mindfulness and clear comprehension, to vision and knowledge, to a happy life here and now, and to the culmination of wisdom and awakening." And what is that one thing? It is mindfulness centered on the body.

• 13:05Jay Shetty?

  This episode is brought to you by Whole Foods Market. If you're talking about quality food, you can't forget Whole Foods Market, who've been holding themselves to the highest standards since they opened in 1980.

• 13:18Jay Shetty?

  That means you'll see thousands of organic products across their stores, from the produce department to the aisles. It also means you'll never see certain ingredients. They've banned artificial sweeteners and colours, high fructose corn syrup and more, so you can shop with peace of mind. Shop Whole Foods, Market, in-store or online. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. We talk a lot about intentional decision-making, and that extends to the practical stuff too, like making sure your coverage actually works for your life. State Farm is there to meet you where you are, and they know how sweet it is to feel good about your decisions. Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can choose to bundle and save with a personal price plan. Like a good neighbour, State Farm is there.

• 14:03Jay Shetty?

  Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state, coverage options are selected by the customer, availability, amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state. This episode is brought to you by Wayfair. Home should be a place that feels like a sanctuary, a space that truly reflects who you are. But it can be challenging to balance style, budget and endless options. I was looking to create a dedicated, calm space for my morning meditation and reading, but I was struggling to find pieces that felt grounding but could also stand up to daily use. I went on Wayfair and found a beautiful, solid wood accent chair and a bookshelf. Now that corner is my favourite place to anchor my day. The quality is incredible, it's built to last, and it completely shifted the energy of the room.

• 14:46Jay Shetty?

  Plus, you can shop with Wayfair Verified, where product specialists carefully vet items for quality and functionality, so you can shop with more confidence. And if putting it all together sounds like a headache, Wayfair can handle delivery, installation and assembly. Join Wayfair Rewards today to get 5% back on every purchase and start saving on your next home upgrade. Head to wayfair.com to shop all things home. That's W A Y F A I R dot com. Wayfair. Every style, every home.

• 15:18Jay Shetty?

  So often when we talk about mindfulness and meditation, we think of it as well, something we think of. We don't pay a lot of attention to our bodies. But Hanson says using our bodies is a critical component to changing our brains. I love music, right? Lots of you do too. I like to think of our bodies like a stereo. And by body, I'm including your brain. Lots of scientists say it's really impossible to separate the brain and mind from the body in any real way because they are so elaborately connected in ways we don't even fully understand yet. So if your whole body is a stereo, your mind is the receiver. You can choose to tune into experiences and feelings you want to focus on and feel more of. Your body and all of the sensations it can feel are the speakers,

• 16:02Jay Shetty?

  which can help you amplify the experiences. If it doesn't make sense, stay with me. When we set the channel on what we want to experience more of, joy, connection, meaning, purpose, and we use our body to turn up the volume on those experiences, we change our brains. We can also turn down the volume on undesired brain states by turning the channel or detaching. It's like changing the presets on your tuner from negative channels to more positive and powerful ones. And here's how we do that. And this is going to sound deceptively simple, but it really works. When you have a moment that you feel like, "This is it. This is what I want more of." You extend its duration and its intensity. If you were tuning a stereo, you would get to that channel where suddenly finding a song you love

• 16:47Jay Shetty?

  and you stop and stay there, right? And if you really like it, you turn up the volume. This is just like that. Say you're standing at the kitchen counter and you're working away on your laptop, because that's what a lot of us are doing right now. Your office is like the corner of a table or a counter. So you're feeling that stress and then your partner comes to you and gives you a hug. Or you open an email and it's a compliment from a coworker on that report. Or maybe you're on a Zoom call and someone says you're really funny. Stop right there. Resist the urge to change the channel. As humans, we do a lot of flicking around from one thing to the next. But when you find this feeling and this song you love, stay where you are. Stay there! You notice the amazing feeling of that hug. Or you notice that sense of recognition with a compliment from your coworker.

• 17:33Jay Shetty?

  Or you notice how much you need a laugh. As Hanson says, we want to identify and underscore that feeling. Freeze frame right there. That's something I want to feel more of. When we identify and recognize what we're experiencing as something we want to feel more of, we then deepen that feeling and extend the length of time we feel it. Instead of moving out of the hug, of clicking onto the next email, or stopping the laughter and shifting back to the task at hand, stay with it. Now, this doesn't have to mean it becomes a five-minute hug. Staying with it can mean just seconds longer than you normally would. Because again, our tendency is to switch channels really quickly, right? Instead, just stay there and listen to the whole song.

• 18:21Jay Shetty?

  We also increase the intensity of the song by turning up the volume. And how you do that is we connect the experience with our bodies. We notice all of the sensations we're feeling. Our partner's arms wrapped around us, our hearts beating together, our breath, maybe the touch of their hair against your cheek, or the pride we feel at that email, the way our heart seems to swell with it, the lift in our posture, and the lightning of the load of stress, or the effervescence of laughter. How you sit back in your chair and your head tilts back as you laugh, deepens. And the bubbling up of joy and connection in your chest. When we connect with our brains and our bodies, we get incredibly powerful results.

• 19:00Speaker 01

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked 350,000 Virginians' health care to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the HouseMajorityPac.com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

• 19:31Jay Shetty?

  Researchers took a group of people and trained them in a mental exercise about exercising. That is, they trained them how to think about exercising their calf muscles. They didn't actually work out. For five times a day over four weeks, the study participants just imagined exercising their calf muscles. One even managed a 39% increase in strength, though most were closer to 8%. That's the power of the mind. Imagine when you combine actual exercise with mental presence and focus. That's what this amplifying technique does with your brain. Remember, the reverse is also true. When we get stuck on a negative channel and we amplify that experience, we wire our brains to more deeply focus on negativity.

• 20:13Jay Shetty?

  Here's an incredible story about the power of what we choose to focus on. As a young man growing up in Austria, long before he became a monk, Brother David Steinor Rast was conscripted into the military during World War II to fight on the side of the Nazis. Fortunately, he never ended up in a situation where he was responsible for harming anyone. But while he was experiencing it, he had no idea what was to come. When talking about how he got through the ordeal, which included literally watching friends and family die, one of the worst things we can imagine, he says absolute presence was the key. Steinor Rast wrote, "We only attended to what needed to be done, moment by moment." In his autobiography, he describes this time in his life as years of utmost aliveness

• 20:57Jay Shetty?

  because he and his loved ones were forced to live so firmly in the present as their means of holding on to hope. And that aliveness they felt in those moments allowed them to experience joy in spite of perhaps the biggest horror all around them. Even in the midst of war, it all boiled down to bringing full attention to what was in front of them and amplifying the positive experiences. It wasn't about pretending or ignoring what was going on. It was about taking each of those small moments of beauty and connection and extending and intensifying their focus on them. That's how they survived emotionally. Rick Hansen points out something that this story illustrates, that we don't only need to focus on joyful experiences or experiences. ...of connection.

• 21:42Jay Shetty?

  If we want to experience more of a sense of resilience in our lives, for example, we can stop the channel on moments when we are aware of making progress in spite of challenge. Like when you finish that one piece of a long or tough project you're working on, and you let yourself hold on to and amplify that feeling for a moment.

• 22:03Jay Shetty?

  Artist Georgia O'Keeffe was known for her unique eye for detail, portraying everyday subjects such as flowers and landscapes in new and remarkable ways. O'Keeffe once recalled the time in an art class when an instructor taught her the difference between looking and seeing. He held up a flower called a jack and the pulpit and pointed out shadows, contrasts, and all kinds of other aspects she had never noticed before. It forever changed the way O'Keeffe saw the world. And she wrote later in her life, "Still, in a way, nobody sees a flower. Really, it is so small, we haven't the time. And to see takes time." Hanson says our minds essentially have hundreds of trillions of microprocessors in it.

• 22:47Jay Shetty?

  That's a lot of power we can harness to create the life we want to experience. As monks say, our senses are responsible for our desires and attachments, and they pull us in the direction of impulsivity, passion, and pleasure. There's a quote from the Upanishads, which is an ancient Vedic text. "Beyond the senses are their objects. Beyond the objects is the mind. But beyond the mind is the intellect. Beyond the intellect is the great self." Monks calm and direct our senses in order to calm and direct our mind. And that's something you know how to do. Try it for just a few days and see what happens, and let me know. I'd love to hear from you. Tag me on Instagram, @JShetty, and I can't wait to read how you learn to amplify, extend,

• 23:31Jay Shetty?

  and emphasize these beautiful, deep, powerful moments. Thanks for listening.

• 23:46Jay Shetty?

  This podcast was produced by Dust Light Productions. Our executive producer from Dust Light is Misha Youssef. Our senior producer is Juliana Bradley. Our associate producer is Jacqueline Castillo. Valentino Rivera is our engineer. Our music is from Blue Dot Sessions. And special thanks to Rachel Garcia, the Dust Light Development and Operations Coordinator.

• 24:17Speaker 01

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked 350,000 Virginians' healthcare to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, thehousemajoritypact.com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.