# Peak Mind ## Metadata * Author: [Amishi P. Jha](https://www.amazon.comundefined) * ASIN: B08THNJ978 * ISBN: 0062992147 * Reference: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08THNJ978 * [Kindle link](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978) ## Highlights If you’re feeling that you’re in a cognitive fog: depleted attention. If you’re feeling anxious, worried, or overwhelmed by your emotions: hijacked attention. If you can’t seem to focus so you can take action or dive into urgent work: fragmented attention. If you feel out of step and detached from others: disconnected attention. — location: [74](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=74) ^ref-11084 --- Your attention determines: what you perceive, learn, and remember; how steady or how reactive you feel; which decisions you make and actions you take; how you interact with others; and ultimately, your sense of fulfillment and accomplishment. — location: [83](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=83) ^ref-24328 --- The attention system exists to solve one of your brain’s biggest problems: there is far too much information in the environment for your brain to fully process. To avoid getting overloaded, your brain uses attention to filter out both the unnecessary noise and chatter around you, and the background thoughts and distractions that constantly bubble up to the surface of your mind. — location: [95](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=95) ^ref-54522 --- First, attention is powerful. I refer to it as the “brain’s boss,” because attention guides how information processing happens in the brain. Whatever we pay attention to is amplified. It feels brighter, louder, crisper than everything else. What you focus on becomes most prominent in your present-moment reality: you feel the corresponding emotions; you view the world through that lens. — location: [109](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=109) ^ref-7775 --- Second, attention is fragile. It can be rapidly depleted under certain circumstances—circumstances that turn out, unfortunately, to be the ones that pervade our lives. When we experience stress, threat, or poor mood—the three main things I call “kryptonite” for attention—this valuable resource is drained. — location: [112](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=112) ^ref-23711 --- And third, attention is trainable. It is possible to change the way our attention systems operate. This is a critical new discovery, not only because we are missing half our lives, but because the half we’re here for can feel like a constant struggle. With training, however, we can strengthen our capacity to fully experience and enjoy the moments we are in, to embark on new adventures, and to navigate life’s challenges more effectively. — location: [114](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=114) ^ref-54422 --- I want to make one thing crystal clear: there is nothing wrong with your attention. — location: [132](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=132) ^ref-29384 --- To win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill. In other words: Don’t waste your energy trying to get better at fighting the pull on your attention. You cannot win that fight. Instead, cultivate the capacity and skill to position your mind so you don’t have to fight. — location: [139](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=139) ^ref-19431 --- Over a thousand years later, in 1890, the psychologist and philosopher William James expressed the attention struggle, and the persistent lack of a solution: The faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention, over and over again, is the very root of judgment, character, and will. No one is [master of himself] if he have it not. An education which should improve this faculty would be the education par excellence. But it is easier to define this ideal than to give practical directions for bringing it about. — location: [160](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=160) ^ref-39758 --- The problem is that we often don’t know what’s happening in our own minds. We lack internal cues about where our attention is moment to moment. And for this, there is a solution: pay attention to your attention. — location: [171](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=171) ^ref-35055 --- You cannot simply decide to pay attention “better.” No matter how much I tell you about how attention works and why, and no matter how motivated you are, the way your brain pays attention cannot be fundamentally altered by sheer force of will. I don’t care if you’re the most disciplined person alive: it will not work. Instead, we need to train our brains to work differently. — location: [191](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=191) ^ref-22278 --- One of the biggest culprits? Mental time travel. We do it all the time. We do it seamlessly. And we do it even more under stress. Under stress, our attention gets yanked into the past by a memory, where we get stuck in a ruminative loop. — location: [208](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=208) ^ref-28804 --- Our basic definition of mindfulness was this: paying attention to present-moment experience without conceptual elaboration or emotional reactivity. — location: [214](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=214) ^ref-935 --- Could mindfulness training protect and strengthen attention? The answer was a resounding yes. In fact, mindfulness training was the only brain-training tool that consistently worked to strengthen attention across our studies. — location: [220](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=220) ^ref-31410 --- We are living in a time of uncertainty and change. Many of us are experiencing an atmosphere of stress and threat that constantly activates our minds’ tendency to mentally travel to an alternate reality. The more stress and uncertainty we face, the more our minds journey to a desired or dystopic mental destination. Often we are in fast-forward mode. We’re trying to puzzle through all the uncertainty. We’re mentally planning for events that aren’t plannable. We’re gaming out scenarios that may never come to pass. — location: [228](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=228) ^ref-43225 --- We tend to accept that, to improve our physical health, we need to engage in physical exercise. Somehow, we just don’t think the same way about psychological health or cognitive capacity. — location: [244](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=244) ^ref-34928 --- We need to continue to navigate toward what we most want to do, whom we most want to be, and how we want to lead both others and ourselves through the inevitable stresses of life, through times of uncertainty. — location: [274](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=274) ^ref-64691 --- We all need to be asking ourselves: What is my attention highlighting right now? What is it shutting out? And how does this factor into the experience I have of my life? — location: [413](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=413) ^ref-23729 --- In addition to perception, the three forms of attention operate across three types of information-processing domains: cognitive, social, and emotional. — location: [544](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=544) ^ref-5572 --- The mere presentation of stressful images, like those we are surrounded by all the time, was enough to diminish the power of attention. — location: [602](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=602) ^ref-22785 --- Three major forces degrade our attention: stress, poor mood, and threat. — location: [657](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=657) ^ref-29075 --- A version of the SART was conducted with live-fire simulation. That means that instead of a number 3, a simulated human target would flash on the screen, and instead of pressing a space bar, the subject would fire a weapon with simulated ammunition. Participants’ performance was not much different in the “live-fire” version of the SART, however. They were shooting when they shouldn’t have—a lot. I was struck by this, as it suggests that attention—and improving it—could have life and death consequences in the real world. — location: [1053](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=1053) ^ref-61566 --- Before, I’d always assumed I could “think” my way out of any difficult problem I was facing. My guess is that most of us believe this—that the only and best way to learn something, assess a situation, or manage a crisis is to think it through, puzzle it out, problem-solve with logic, and then do something about it. Psychologists call this “discursive thinking”: judging, planning, strategizing, and so on. — location: [1229](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=1229) ^ref-19597 --- Try this: for the rest of the day, start checking in with yourself every so often and notice when you’re on-task and when you’re not. — location: [1552](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=1552) ^ref-33231 --- The breath awareness exercise targets all three systems of attention, because it allows you to practice focusing—as you orient attention to the breath; noticing—staying alert and monitoring ongoing mental activity to detect mind-wandering; and redirecting—executive management of cognitive processes to make sure we return and remain on-task. — location: [1627](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=1627) ^ref-53576 --- The events in this sequence are: focus your flashlight, hold it steady, notice when it drifts, and then redirect it back to the breath. — location: [1666](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=1666) ^ref-29422 --- Mental time travel diminishes our working memory’s ability to do the work needed for the demands of our present moment. And because when we’re mentally writing and rewriting things over and over again, regardless of what we’re looping on, it leaves no room for anything else. We don’t have capacity available for either cognition or emotional regulation. You might find yourself, in this situation, making a hasty decision or snapping at your kids. Stress levels go up, mood goes down. That self-assisted stress wears on our attention, making it even more difficult to resist what I call the “loop of doom.” — location: [2046](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=2046) ^ref-58848 --- “Episodic memory,” which is your memory for experiences, involves selective encoding of only those aspects of experience that were most attended to and held in working memory. — location: [2270](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=2270) ^ref-56552 --- “Semantic memory”—meaning your general world knowledge, for facts, ideas, concepts—is similarly selective. What you remember is based on what else you’ve previously learned. — location: [2275](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=2275) ^ref-46667 --- Both these types of memory are not only inexorably linked with attention, but also a tightening circle: what we pay attention to is what we remember, and what we remember will influence what we pay attention to—and therefore what else we remember. — location: [2276](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=2276) ^ref-55822 --- the purpose of memory is not to allow us to savor the past, but rather to help us act in the world now. — location: [2290](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=2290) ^ref-2347 --- even when we are actually “paying attention” to what we’re documenting, the way we use these devices affects how we process, and therefore remember, these experiences. — location: [2337](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=2337) ^ref-46298 --- The process of remembering—already subject to your framing, biases, experience, and previous knowledge—is fragile and easily disrupted. It gets derailed when your attention is hijacked away. When something other than what you want to remember takes over your working memory, the memory-making process is interrupted. And ironically, that “something” is often long-term memory itself. — location: [2434](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=2434) ^ref-43805 --- create vivid versions of reality that guide decision making. — location: [2677](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=2677) ^ref-12198 --- Emotion is how the brain determines the value of something (say, an event or a choice). — location: [2681](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=2681) ^ref-28728 --- Simulations can be powerful not only in guiding decision making, but also in helping us emotionally prepare to accept particular outcomes. — location: [2685](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=2685) ^ref-58109 --- Our simulations are so effective that we get immersed and fused with them, and persuaded by them. — location: [2699](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=2699) ^ref-42918 --- So persuasive, in fact, that our bodies physically respond: When presented with an image of a slice of cake, people’s mouths will water; show a smoker a picture of a cigarette and they will experience intense craving. With a stressful memory or a stressful simulation, we’ll experience the release of stress hormones. Our minds and bodies begin to believe we are really experiencing the simulated event. — location: [2701](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=2701) ^ref-48168 --- Much of the time that you’re mind-wandering, you’re simulating. I was struck by a recent quote I read by the actor Jim Carrey: “Our eyes are not only viewers, but projectors that are running a second story over the picture we see in front of us all the time.” — location: [2709](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=2709) ^ref-14286 --- So here is the next major way that we go wrong: We are paying attention. But our attention is too narrow or too wide, too stable or too unstable. You’re paying attention in some way successfully—but it’s not appropriate for the moment. — location: [3035](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=3035) ^ref-23771 --- Meta-awareness is the ability to take explicit note of and monitor the current contents or processes of your conscious experience. Basically, it’s an awareness of your awareness. When I say “pay attention to your attention,” what I mean is apply your meta-awareness. — location: [3038](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=3038) ^ref-35339 --- If situational awareness in high-demand professions means “surveilling the external landscape,” then you can think of meta-awareness like this: situational awareness for the internal landscape. — location: [3042](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=3042) ^ref-5170 --- I’m much more aware of that sensation now—when I feel it, I check in: Is my attention where it needs to be? — location: [3059](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=3059) ^ref-39790 --- With meta-awareness, we are aware of the current contents of our conscious experience, and we monitor to see if those contents are aligned with our goals. We’re asking ourselves: What am I perceiving? How am I processing it? And is the form my attention is taking aligned with my goals? — location: [3074](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=3074) ^ref-50798 --- experience emotion and be informed by it . . . not ruled by it.” — location: [3148](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=3148) ^ref-50310 --- Attention is like a ball in motion. To effectively dribble it, you have to keep engaging and reengaging it over and over. If you “zone out” (mind-wander without realizing it), the ball will roll away. And the ball rolls away often. — location: [3179](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=3179) ^ref-9613 --- Even if you have the strongest attention system in the world, you could direct it to the wrong place. — location: [3188](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=3188) ^ref-22340 --- It’s simple: To know if you’re getting grabbed by something and need to intervene, you have to be watching. — location: [3199](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=3199) ^ref-10839 --- Now, the target of your attention . . . is your attention. — location: [3207](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=3207) ^ref-36665 --- Lou Reed: “Between thought and expression lies a lifetime.” — location: [3276](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=3276) ^ref-52027 --- There is a concept in Buddhism called the “Second Arrow.” It comes from a famous parable: the Buddha asked one of his students, “If you are struck by an arrow, does it hurt?” “Yes!” the student replied. “If you are struck by a second arrow,” the Buddha asked, “does it hurt even more?” “It does,” the student replied. The Buddha explained: In life, we can’t control whether we’re hit by an arrow or not. But the second arrow is our reaction to the first. The first arrow causes pain—the second arrow is our distress about that pain. — location: [3284](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=3284) ^ref-30514 --- Directing the flashlight. Simulating the other person’s reality. And watching to make sure the entire interaction stays on track. — location: [3358](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=3358) ^ref-1041 --- We need to be aware of our emotional state so we can intervene to regulate it, as needed. — location: [3401](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=3401) ^ref-37361 --- While you’re actively suppressing, it leaves less cognitive bandwidth to do much else. — location: [3422](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=3422) ^ref-13061 --- The strategy I use most often nowadays is option D: I decenter. You can go to the bird’s-eye view, as we did earlier, or you can try something even faster: stop, drop, and roll. — location: [3429](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=3429) ^ref-5082 --- Even the minor events are impactful—since a lot of tiny instances of dysregulated emotional responses can erode our most valued relationships. — location: [3443](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=3443) ^ref-32144 --- The ability to have proportionate responses affects all your interactions with others. Your ability to connect, collaborate, and communicate also hinges on your attentional stability. — location: [3444](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=3444) ^ref-666 --- As Yogi Berra said in his madcap way, “You can observe a lot by just watching.” — location: [3482](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=3482) ^ref-19596 --- A peak mind is not about striving to get somewhere else. It’s simpler, more elegant, and doable. I think of it like a triangle: the base is the present moment, and the sides are two forms of attention—one side, receptive attention so we can notice, observe, and be, and the other side, concentrative attention so we are focused and flexible. — location: [3502](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=3502) ^ref-56391 --- Taking the time to do the practice pays me back in all kinds of ways, all day long. You know what they say: if you don’t have time to meditate for five minutes, then meditate for ten.” — location: [3866](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=3866) ^ref-15905 --- We use an acronym to describe the most potent, high-demand, high-kryptonite circumstances that degrade attention: VUCA. Volatility. Uncertainty. Complexity. Ambiguity. — location: [3900](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=3900) ^ref-5563 --- Yes, but if you take five minutes to do ‘nothing,’ you can do a hundred more things after.” — location: [3932](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=3932) ^ref-50823 --- The ability to notice where your attention is, to bring your mind back when it wanders. The ability to fill your whiteboard with the present-moment experience. The ability to resist story-making and to simply observe. The ability to become aware of when your mind needs to be redirected. — location: [4023](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=4023) ^ref-45324 --- Remember: the basic description of mindfulness practice is paying attention to present-moment experience without telling a story about it. — location: [4030](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=4030) ^ref-15482 --- Here’s the bottom line: if you engage in mindfulness training, you will feel better, but not simply from the practices alone. The practices will build your attentional capacity and that will help you fully experience moments of joy, thrive in demanding circumstances, and successfully navigate moments of crisis with a reservoir of resilience. — location: [4038](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=4038) ^ref-21413 --- Not to feel better, but to experience my life better — location: [4045](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=4045) ^ref-60951 --- One way to think about mindfulness practice, and its utility in moments like these, is that it helps us build distress tolerance—our capacity to manage emotional distress, to be steady, effective, and resilient through the toughest times, real or perceived. — location: [4073](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=4073) ^ref-31501 --- And I talked about how the capacity to be present—to take in an experience without elaboration, judgment, or reactivity—allows us to absorb, learn, and discern so much more clearly and effectively than we would otherwise. — location: [4136](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=4136) ^ref-44566 --- the present moment is the only place you can use your attention. — location: [4168](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=4168) ^ref-13532 --- It is a superpower—but it has to be used now, it can only be used now. — location: [4168](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=4168) ^ref-47472 --- Just as your body grows stronger by doing regular physical training, this mental training will build meta-awareness, a heightened awareness of the rising and passing away of the contents and processes of consciousness, such as thinking, feeling, and perceiving. — location: [4224](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=4224) ^ref-33346 --- William James, the philosopher and psychologist who long ago pointed out that training a wandering mind would be the best kind of education we could offer, also observed: “Like a bird’s life, [the stream of consciousness] seems to be made [up] of an alternation of flights and perchings.” — location: [4231](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=4231) ^ref-49556 --- The key is to comprehend and extend the well-wishes, without checking out or diving into the story of each. — location: [4447](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08THNJ978&location=4447) ^ref-34123 ---