Switch on Your Brain: The Key to Peak Happiness, Thinking, and Health (13 page)

of concentration that are unfortunately often erroneously

labeled ADD and ADHD and that are too often unnecessarily

medicated, adding fuel to the fire. And it’s a rapid downhill

slide from there if we don’t get back to our God-design of

deep, intellectual attention.

What does deep, focused, intellectual attention look like

versus milkshake-multitasking? The answer is modeled in

Proverbs 4:20–23: “Dear friend, listen well to my words; tune

your ears to my voice. Keep my message in plain view at all

times. Concentrate! Learn it by heart! Those who discover

these words live, really live; body and soul, they’re bursting

with health. Keep vigilant watch over your heart; that’s where

life starts”(Message). It is very interesting that every cell in

the body is connected to the heart, and the brain controls

the heart and the mind controls the brain. So whatever we

are thinking about affects every cell in our body.

We saw in the last chapter that we are deeply intellectual

beings and are designed to bring all thoughts into captivity—

are you surprised? We are made in God’s image, after all.

He designed us to think through things one at a time in a

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focused, quality manner by paying attention, listening in-

tently, keeping our eyes on one thing at a time, and fixing

it in our mind.

The 140-Character Tweet

This design described above contrasts undeniably with the

general pattern of modern life today in which so much at-

tention is paid to tweeting on Twitter, Instagramming, and

Facebooking to the point that we forget all about enjoying

the moment. We are told by so-called social media experts

that information needs to be in bite-size amounts and in

a constant stream of new information before the previous

information has even been digested.

This is not stimulation; it is bombardment. We have been

reduced to 140 characters and an addiction to looking for the

next informational high. Students can’t sit quietly and enjoy

reading a book, allowing their imagination to take flight.

Before sharing some of the researched consequences of

this milkshake-multitasking momentum we are in, I want

to assure you that I believe social media plays an important

role in society, business, and life. When used correctly and

in a balanced way, it is a phenomenal communications tool.

I am all for progress. Used incorrectly, however, this good

thing becomes a bad thing.

It’s All about Balance

It is all about balance. Our brain responds with healthy pat-

terns, circuits, and neurochemicals when we think deeply,

but not when we skim only the surface of multiple pieces of

information. Colossians 3:15 in the Amplified Bible explains

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peace as “soul harmony” that comes from Christ and that

acts as an umpire who helps us think, choose, decide, and

settle with finality all questions that arise in our minds. But

milkshake-multitasking switches on confusion in our brain,

making soul harmony impossible.

Scientists have found that the amount of time spent

milkshake-multitasking among American young people has

increased by 120 percent in the last ten years. According to a

report in the
Archives of General Psychiatry
, simultaneous ex-

posure to electronic media during the teenage years—such as

playing a computer game while watching television—appears

to be associated with increased depression and anxiety in

young adulthood, especially among men.1 Considering that

teens are exposed to an average of eight and a half hours of

multitasking electronic media per day, we need to change

something quickly.2

Social Media Enthusiast or Addict?

Another concern this raises is whether you are or your teen

is a social media enthusiast or simply a social media addict?

This is a very real problem—so much so that researchers from

Norway developed a new instrument to measure Facebook

addiction called the Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale.3 Social

media has become as ubiquitous as television in our every-

day lives, and this research shows that multitasking social

media can be as addictive as drugs, alcohol, and chemical

substance abuse.

A large number of friends on social media networks may

appear impressive, but according to a new report, the more

social circles a person is linked to, the more likely the social

media will be a source of stress.4 It can also have a detrimental

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effect on consumer well-being because milkshake-multitasking

interferes with clear thinking and decision-making, which

lowers self-control and leads to rash, impulsive buying and

poor eating decisions. Greater social media use is associated

with a higher body mass index, increased binge eating, a

lower credit score, and higher levels of credit card debt for

consumers with many close friends in their social network—

all caused by a lack of self-control.5

We Can Become Shallow

Milkshake-multitasking decreases our attention, making us

increasingly less able to focus on our thought habits. This

opens us up to shallow and weak judgments and decisions and

results in passive mindlessness. Deep, intellectual thought,

however, results in interactive mindfulness—the “soul har-

mony” presented in Colossians 3:15 (AMP). This requires

engaging passionately with the world. We need to increase our

awareness of our thoughts and take the time to understand

and reflect on them.

Let’s take a look at some studies that show the impact of

changing from a milkshake-multitasking mindset to a deep,

intellectual mindset.

In 2012 a research group at the University of Washington

did an interesting study on the effects of meditation training

on multitasking. They found that the subjects of the study had

fewer negative emotions, could stay on task longer, had im-

proved concentration, switched between tasks more effectively

in a focused and organized way, as opposed to haphazardly

dashing back and forth between tasks, and spent their time

more efficiently.6 These results excited me because I found

similar results in my own research.7

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My Research

In my documented research with patients who had trau-

matic brain injury (TBI) and students and adults who had

learning and emotional disabilities, I was astounded at the

change in their cognitive and emotional function once they

started applying a more deeply intellectual thinking pattern.

I abandoned all traditional therapy, trained them in a new

technique I had developed, and showed them how to apply

it to their daily life. The changes were almost immediate:

improved focus, concentration, understanding, shifting ef-

ficiency, and overall effectiveness in producing quality work.

There were even positive emotional changes, specifically in

self-motivation and self-esteem. And it didn’t stop there; over

time they continued to improve in cognitive and emotional

functioning. Once they were set on a healthy thinking path,

it continued upward in a cascading fashion.

In the ensuing past twenty years, I have seen these improve-

ments in thousands of patients and clients. This work is the

result of God’s guidance, because when I started down this

path, it was the complete opposite of my academic training.

I instinctively began with and continue to use Scripture—

specifically the drive and focus that is called for in Proverbs—

as guidance and motivation for my research on the science of

thought. This research produced my Switch On Your Brain

5-Step Learning Process (discussed in part 2), which teaches

people to use disciplined, focused attention to develop the

kind of thinking pattern that has huge benefits on attention

networks and saves us from the enemy of distraction.

As a communication pathologist in the field of cognitive

neuroscience, I saw the benefits of focused thinking and disci-

plined concentration were and are not just behavioral. Every-

thing you do and say is first a thought in your physical brain.

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You think, and then you do, which cycles back to the original

thought, changing it and the thoughts connected to it in a

dynamic interrelationship. If your thinking is off (“toxic” or

“pathological,” to be really sciency), then your communica-

tion through what you say and do is off, and vice versa. As the

Scripture says, “As he thinks in his heart, so is he” (Prov. 23:7).

Scientists See Evidence of the Difference

Scientists are seeing the evidence of deep, intellectual thought

versus milkshake-multitasking in the brain.8 Deep, intellectual

thinking activates the prefrontal cortex (just above your eye-

brows) in a positive way, producing increased concentration,

less distraction, less switching between tasks, more effective

switching between tasks, decreased emotional volatility, and

overall increase in job completion.

Scientists have also found that deep, intellectual thinking

improves connections within and between nerve networks,

specifically in the front part of the brain and between the front

and middle parts of the brain.9 Other researchers found that

when an individual pays attention to a stimulus, the neurons

in the cerebral cortex that represent this object show increased

attention.10 We can also alter these patterns of activity by

altering our attention, which remaps the cortex.

Determination Is Key

During the 1990s, when many neuroscientists were report-

ing on the power of attention, I saw the greatest changes in

patients who willfully, determinedly, and persistently chose to

focus their attention on improving their skills and restoring

function. For example, one of my patients had been in a car

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accident when she was a junior in high school that had left

her with extreme brain damage. Her neurologist and other

doctors told her parents not to raise their hopes of her being

more than “a vegetable.” Even when she got back to a fourth-

grade level, the doctors said that was her limit. Fortunately

she and her family chose not to pay attention to what they

said and instead chose to focus her attention on what she

wanted for her life. She was determined not only to correct

her disabilities from the traumatic accident but also to catch

up with her peer group and finish her senior year with them.

Consequently, she built new networks in her mind focused

on where she wanted to be and strove to make it happen.

She talked with me about her goals and vision, and we

worked together, taking small steps, working consistently

toward achieving them. There were times she wanted to give

up, but she always picked herself up and carried on. The

benefits were evident: Not only did she catch up with her

peer group, but she also went on to complete twelfth grade

and further her studies after high school. When we applied

the various behavioral and neuropsychological tests after her

period of therapy and compared them to her functioning

before the accident, she had not only restored her original

level but had gone way beyond in her functioning.11

What I believe happened to this patient is captured in two

Scriptures: “Nothing they have imagined they could do would

be impossible for them” (Gen. 11:6 AMP), and “Faith is the

substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen”

(Heb. 11:1). To think positively about our prospects, we must

be able to imagine ourselves in the future. Our brains may

have stamps from the past, but they are being rewired by our

expectation of the future. Imagining a positive future reduces

the pain of the past. Faith motivates us to pursue these goals.

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Hope leads to expectation, which creates peace, excitement,

and health in our minds, thus increasing brain and body health.

Additional Benefits of Not Milkshake-Multitasking

An additional benefit from deep thinking is increased
gyri-

fication
, a lovely word that means more folds in the cortex

of the brain. These extra folds allow the brain to process

information faster, make decisions quicker, and improve