WE Zone Out

“…it is all about how much these ‘zoning out tools’ are in line with my goals and aspirations for living a sustainable life in harmony with others around me.”

What do scrolling through social media, mindless eating, doodling, staring out into the window, daydreaming, and going on a long walk have in common?

All these activities are allowing us to “zone out.” Within the Western productivity-driven culture “zoning out” has acquired a bad reputation. We all had that moment in middle school when the teacher had to snap their fingers at us because we weren’t paying attention to the class. Or that moment when we had to quickly snap into highly focused work when suddenly our boss walked into the room, out of fear of being penalized for doing “nothing” during the work hours.

However, the more research that is being done on the subject of productivity and neuroscience, the more we learn about just how crucial that dreamy state is to our brain’s long term function.

What is zoning out?

Julia Kam, scholar and psychology professor at University of Calgary, and Todd Handy, cognitive neuroscience researcher and psychology professor at the University of British Columbia, call this state “mind wandering” in their journal article titled “The neurocognitive consequences of the wandering mind: a mechanistic account of sensory-motor decoupling.”

Mind wandering is the ubiquitous phenomenon in which our minds drift away from perceptual and cognitive demands of the immediate external environment to focus on the internal milieu.

According to Kam and Handy, this mind wandering tends to occur while “performing well-practiced tasks such as driving or washing dishes,” and from my experience I would also add running, walking, cycling, driving, or any other repetitive activity done over a prolonged period of time.

This “proclivity to mind wander is sufficiently hard-wired that despite the best of our will power, these ‘decoupled’ thoughts occur whether we want them to or not.” So it is only natural for us to crave that state after an intense period of highly conscious activity.

I am a firm believer that we can do anything for a short period of time. The question becomes, however, what can we sustain over time?

Let’s use our sleep cycle as a metaphor. After a day full of activities our bodies demand sleep, unless we use external stimuli to extend the “active” cycle. What happens then? For me, I sleep fewer hours and it is totally fine at first. The sense of accomplishment and beating the system is through the roof. Slowly over time, though, my mood, productivity, performance, and social skills deteriorate until my body gives up on me in one way or another. That’s my recipe for burnout, unmatched expectations, and utter disappointment in myself.

I am not alone in that. Isaac Owens, software engineer with MediaMath, shares his experience during the coding bootcamp at App Academy when he literally had to stay in bed for a whole weekend:

“My health was declining exponentially. I didn’t stand up for hours on end, I wasn’t drinking water, I wasn’t eating… and started getting swollen in my legs. I was up for 2 days at a time, so… yeah… things were slipping away from me.”

You can learn how Isaac adjusted his schedule in “WE TALK Accountability.”

What’s the moral of the story here? If we don’t make space for zoning out, our minds begin to suffer from what we could call “mind wander deprivation,” and eventually force us into it. It’s likely that this won’t happen according to our Google Calendar.

Now, let’s get real for a second. We all know this pretty well and are already subconsciously reaching for our phones, bags of popcorn, or going for that afternoon jog, to clear our heads and process what happened in the past few hours. I am not here to say which choice is better or worse. I don’t believe in one-size-fits-all answers. For me it is all about how much these “zoning out tools” are in line with my goals and aspirations for living a sustainable life in harmony with others around me.

For the next couple of weeks I will be sharing the “zoning out tools” I have observed in my own behavior through the years backed by the research and opinions from scientists and health professionals. Check back in for my experience with cigarettes and how I’ve gradually let go of the cycle of starting and quitting.

Join our live sessions 3 times a day, Monday-Friday for a perfect chance to zone out.

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