One Thing At A Time
Why it is Important to be Intentional
Today I had banana bread for breakfast. The same one that I’ve been eating, but what’s different today was that I was just eating my banana bread and nothing else. No YouTube or Netflix to watch, no scrolling through Instagram — it was my breakfast and me.
When was the last time you ever did just one thing?
Try to have a walk down the park without any music, to have a meal without anything to watch, or just doing your work without the TV making background noises. We may have reached a point in our life where we are so used to constant stimulations that the thought of experiencing less can feel terrifying. In reality, we are just splitting our minds to find anything that can give us a boost of dopamine — the chemical that makes us feel good.
Before you say multi-tasking is not going to hurt anyone (yes eating while watching TV IS multi-tasking), know that this behavior does not work. Unlike computers, our mind cannot process multiple things at the same time — it simply divides its attention into one thing at a time, which reduces its effectiveness.
A Constant Dopamine Pump
Let’s pick a boring chore like folding laundry, there are two ways we can get dopamine (and feel good) from it:
Actually, fold our laundry and feel satisfied once we finish it
or
Instantly feel good with your favorite music in the background while you fold your laundry.
Many would opt into option 2 because humans are conditioned to want immediate reward compared to a delayed one (even though a delayed reward may be greater). On top of that, we unconsciously gave up our focus from one of the actions — either you don’t even know what song is playing or probably folded your clothes wrong.
Surely our world won’t turn upside down just because we have a little music playing in the background — but it’s deeper than that.
My old roommate used to warn me that the human body adapts to changes very quickly — that is, once we are used to something, it becomes normalized. When a sensation has been normalized by our body, we would need to do more of it in order to feel the same high we did the first time around.
This is why adrenaline junkies just have to keep adding up their thrills.
Where this becomes a problem (for us everyday people) is that the constant stream of stimulations will eventually normalize — to a point where we may not feel anything anymore.
How many of us now feel like there is nothing to watch, or constantly shuffling through our music library? How many of us keep refreshing the same page in hopes to see something new?
We kept on bombarding our self with things to keep our brain occupied, and now that it has adapted to it — nothing feels exciting anymore.
It’s hard to do exactly just one thing
The Dopamine Detox
What if I tell you there’s a way we can feel engaged again? Where we spend less time searching, and more time enjoying?
You might have heard of the term dopamine detox or dopamine fast. At its core, we need to let go of everything that creates dopamine for a set amount of time. The fast allows our body to lower its threshold of dopamine to “feel good” again. Once our threshold is normalized, we can then start enjoying the little things.
Conceptually this will work — however, I see it as unpractical and typically only those with higher income can do this (simply because they have resources to do this). For most of us, maybe staying off the phone for the weekend can be a make or break our monthly budget! Not all is lost, we can still make small changes to our actions that can mimic this path.
Intention
Intention is everything, whatever we decided to do, try to put our entire mind into performing said action. If you want to watch YouTube videos, go ahead, but don’t browse your phone at the same time. Do you want to listen to music? Try to sit down and just listen — you’ll be surprised at what difference it can make. By doing things at the full intention, we inadvertently will focus on one thing at a time.
As you slowly decrease the level of stimulations your body receiving on a daily basis — something magical will start to happen. Suddenly things become enjoyable again, you set goal post as to how you would want to reward yourself and become fully aware of when you have enough.
By focusing on just one thing at a time, I’ve been able to increase my efficiency in completing goals, have more self-control over the things I do, and everything feels more enjoyable. Although it is not the full detox, you still reduce the number of stimulants that your brain is processing, and that is what made all the difference.
I can now finally sit back, put my headphones back on, and let the music take control again.
