Torkel Klingberg, a professor at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, has written about the problem in a book titled The Overflowing Brain: Information Overload and the Limits of Working Memory. Klingberg documents the incredible demands that are made on our minds by modern life and points out that our brains evolved to handle fewer tasks that were probably less complex.

I think the solution to the problem having too much to pay attention to while not having enough attention to pay has two parts. Klingberg provides a nice introduction into the first strategy: increasing working memory through brain training. Klingberg as well as others have shown that working memory can be trained, and limited evidence suggests that the difference training makes can generalize to real-life tasks.

The second part of the strategy is developing better attention through practice in focused attention and in resisting distractions. We all have the experience of forgetting something important because our attention was drawn to something else. The ability to pay attention to an object that is important is a prerequisite to almost any achievement.

Computer training has been used to help people learn to function better under distracting conditions; it may be a helpful strategy in coping with multiple distractions.

Meditation is a widely used technique that can help you reduce stress, help you focus on what’s important, and resist being distracted by things that aren’t important. Simply spending a little time each day in a situation with minimal distractions can help you appreciate how much of the noise and distractions in your life arise from inside yourself. If you allow each to rise to your consciousness, you can decide which issues deserve attention and follow-up action, and which can be ignored.

The bottom line: Training working memory with computer-based tasks can help. Meditation can help you focus on what’s most important and use your limited resources effectively.

What does that have to do with brain fitness?

Mind wandering of the kind we’re talking about is associated with increased activity in a group of structures in the brain called the default network. It’s called that because it was discovered when researchers left the scanners on when people were being evaluated for brain activity in other experiments. When people weren’t actively doing a task, investigators found that a set of structures in the brain tended be more active. Conversely, when people are focusing on a specific task or actively directing their attention, activity in this network decreases. If their minds wander to upsetting or worrying things, their mood may worsen.

When I give talks to groups of seniors about brain fitness, I often ask them what their number one complaint is. It mirrors what I see in patients who come to the clinic for evaluation of memory problems. “I went into the other room for something, but forgot what it was.” “I opened the refrigerator but forgot what I wanted to get out.”

The diagnosis is something I would call loss of the ability to maintain an intention. From talking to people with the complaint, it seems likely to me that what happens is that their minds drift to an introspective or planning state (perhaps reflecting a shift to default network activity) and thus the object of the intention (what they were going to get in the other room or out of the refrigerator) is lost.

Why does this happen more as we get older? Declines in the central dopaminergic system have documented with increasing age, and that system is known to be intimately involved in both attention and motivation. A decline in the activity of that system might explain the shift – maintaining the object of the intention in memory isn’t as automatic. Most older persons can remember what they are going to get, they just need to consciously maintain the object in their thoughts by rehearsing it.

What is the answer? Some researchers have studied the use of dopaminergic drugs (often the same medicines used to treat attention deficit disorder) to improve apathy in older persons. Many stimulant medications act on dopamine, and improve focus and sustained attention. It’s an open question whether these medications should be prescribed for this purpose.

Perhaps a better and unexplored alternative is to work on ways to explicitly train older persons with memory strategies for just this kind of problem. If you rehearse (say over to yourself multiple times) what you want to remember, you can improve your ability to remember almost anything. Another possibility is meditation – some kinds of meditation are associated with changes in the default network’s activity. It may be possible to improve a person’s ability to deactivate it and activate alternative sensory networks, with a resulting improvement in memory.

As a neuropsychiatrist, I often work with people who want to change something about themselves or their lives. And wanting to change raises the paradox we all face at times: we want to change, but we don’t.

The psychoanalysts used to have complex theories about why people do things that appear self-defeating. I think there’s a better answer: lack of focus. This may seem too simple, but attention is a complicated ability that is affected by things inside and outside of us.

When cognitive psychologists says that attention is a limited resource, they mean that you can only focus on a limited number of things at one time. Research has shown that even people who believe they are good at doing more than one thing at a time actually aren’t.

What does that have to do with change? In order to change, you have to be able to pay attention to what you’re doing and remember that you want to do something different. If you’re watching TV, it’s easy to eat an entire bag of chips. If you really pay attention to what you’re doing and at the same time remember that you want to lose 10 pounds, the chances are you will eat less. But when your attention is spent on the TV, your behavior becomes almost automatic (and probably outside of your awareness).

What can you do? Here are 5 ways to develop focus on what you want to change:

• Start every day with 10 minutes of focused thinking or meditation. Break up the morning rush for just a few minutes so that you’ll have the change to reflect on your goals for the day.
• Help yourself remember to pay attention. Recognize that you will forget or become distracted from your goals, and do something about it. In Aldous Huxley’s novel Island, birds were trained to help people to remember this point by repeatedly saying “Attention!” You may not have a mynah bird, but you can put a note on the bathroom mirror or a picture on the refrigerator to help you remember your goals.
• Schedule a reminder in your phone or computer. Set it to pop up at a particular time or interval to remind you to stop for a few moments and review your goals, to meditate, or to relax.
• Schedule time once a week for a more complete review of your goals at a time when you won’t feel rushed. Take some time to think about how well you’ve done during the preceding week, and focus on your goals for the coming week.
• Try writing down personal brain fitness goals and keep the list somewhere that you will see without making a specific effort, such a door you walk through every day.

If you want to achieve something – whether it’s weight loss, increased exercise, or consistent brain training – you have to deploy some of your limited resource, attention. Finding ways to keep your goals in mind, every day, is a key.

A study from this past summer in the prestigious journal The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that even 11 hours of a special kind of meditation can’t make a difference in the connections in your brain.

The technique, called “Integrative Body-Mind Training” or IBMT is based in Chinese method. The publications are a little sketchy on the exact details of the procedure, but it involves a combination of mental imagery, breathing, and posture exercises done under the guidance of a “coach,” all while listening to relaxing music.

Researchers at the University of Oregon, including the well-known cognitive neuroscientist Michael Posner as well as IBMT’s founder Yi-Yuan Tang used a neuroimaging technique called diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) to study changes in the brains of students being trained in IBMT.

Results showed that just 11 hours of training resulted in significant changes in connections to the anterior cingulate cortex, a part of the brain involved in emotion and self-regulation. The researchers had already shown that IBMT increased activity in the anterior cingulate and improved self-regulation. The new study shows that even a brief intervention can actually change connections in the brain.

The implications are that specific types of meditation practice cna improve cognitive functions, such as attention and resistance to distractions. That could add up to better study skills, being more productive, and possibly even better memory.

References:

Tang YY et al. (2010). Short-term meditation induces white matter changes in the anterior cingulate. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107, 15649-15652.

Tang YY et al. (2009). Central and autonomic nervous system interaction is altered by short-term meditation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106, 8865-8870.