Brain Food for Pioneering Spirits: Why can a teenager binge ten Netflix episodes in a weekend yet supposedly “can’t concentrate”? Dr. Yasemin Yazan, Marc, Jürgen and Sabine dig into what concentration actually requires — a decision, a reason, and freedom from distraction — while debating whether the body truly thinks along, and whether age quietly erodes focus at all…
Note: This session was recorded live in German as part of the Deep Talk Club, so the video above is German-language audio only. What follows is an English translation of the conversation, lightly edited for readability — the back-and-forth between the moderator and participants is preserved, but the original timestamps and speaker names have been left out.
A very good morning I wish you. Today we continue with thinking and concentration. How do thinking and concentration relate to each other, is the question we want to engage with this morning. And so you’re all really, really warmly invited to join again this morning too, bring in first impulses, thoughts on the topic, gladly also concrete examples, so we can work our way along together and see what all arises in the exchange. Again briefly the note, that we record the room the entire time, and the whole thing gets published later too. So, anyone who joins is automatically agreeing to that. Then we have three small room rules. A profile picture where you’re recognizable, first and last name, and at least one sentence in the bio. And anyone who can’t or doesn’t want to speak right now can of course also use the chat, to bring in thoughts, questions or similar. Thinking and concentration. How do thinking and concentration relate to each other? That’s the question we want to start with today. In this sense I’ll gladly mute myself and see who’d like to open the round with me this morning. A very good morning, dear Marc. What are your first thoughts on that?
Good morning to the group. Nice to start the week with you. Yes, I thought about it, and first considered, when do I actually need concentration at all? So when is it actually necessary that I concentrate? And there I came, for myself, if I think through all the areas where I need concentration, to the conclusion that if I want to learn something, want to know something, so want to learn something, want to know something, want to process something, or want to solve something effectively, then I need the concentration, which for me is a different thinking process than just pondering, but it’s almost a focusing, and I tried to summarize what that then means, concentration. I always notice that I need it, or that it’s easier for me to concentrate too, when I direct attention and mindfulness onto a certain topic. And for that the first step is actually to tell myself, program the system, not you have to concentrate now, but you want to concentrate, that’s important for you. Because if something is important to me, or I see an advantage that I can process the information further afterward. That can also be information, for example, that I give my partner, where I say, oh, that interests her too, I want to keep that now, so I can tell her about it again. But before that works, I first have to decide, do I want that? So is that important for me, like with everything, or not important? And if I don’t do that, I can listen to a radio segment, but my thoughts wander off, because it’s just not that important, and I’ll then only be able to retain a fraction of this segment or this newspaper article, if I don’t decide beforehand, that’s interesting, I want to concentrate on that. So, I want to concentrate means that there’s a higher probability of repeating what was read or said at a later point in time.
Yes wonderful, thank you so, so much. There were various aspects included now in the context of concentration. On one hand the aspect that it’s voluntary, so to speak. Then you talked about attention and focus. And the aspect of what it’s actually for, so also that it’s basically goal-directed. And yes, let’s look more closely. Maybe you also have concrete examples you brought up, to make this more tangible again?
Oh, I have very many examples. So with me everything starts with mindfulness. I constantly notice about myself, and I hope, I hope that’s the same for you now too, that when I do things, or believe I can do two or three things simultaneously, because each thing isn’t that important now, or hasn’t been evaluated, that this doesn’t require the highest concentration, or that doesn’t require concentration. But it does, for me. And those are things like, for example, that you go out, leave the apartment, notice while going out that you forgot something, go back, and then file away unconscious trains of thought. And it can happen to me that while going back into the apartment, I put a key, a car key, somewhere I never otherwise put it, and then afterward have to concentrate, because I don’t find it immediately, and because I say, where’s this damn key now? And I can prevent that by completing processes, by, before I take on tasks, so tasks that aren’t important, going into mindfulness, completing processes, and always directing focus and attention to the now. As soon as several things run in parallel in my head, and I think that’s the same for you too, I keep noticing that inattentiveness results, so carelessness results. And concentration doesn’t just mean, for me now, concentrating when highly complex things are happening. This has, for me, very much to do with mindfulness and attention. And to consciously call myself out, you’re the bigger expert there. I’m no expert, dear Yasemin. I thought about it — you explained to us so nicely that the brain, when we just think, when we don’t consciously ponder, but when just thoughts run through our head, that much of that runs automated. We don’t think about many things. That means, with many things that run in the automatism, we don’t need to concentrate that strongly either. For example, normal walking. I don’t need to concentrate anymore, to fall. Unless it’s icy. Then the focus and the concentration is higher again, because then the environment has changed. And that’s a higher challenge, to walk on a really glass-smooth surface, than in a normal state. Just as an example.
Yes, super, I find that totally exciting. Also the example with searching for the key. So every one of us has certainly put the key down somehow at some point and then no longer knew where it was, so to speak, if it’s not where it usually is. Then something occurred to me directly in this context, like the glasses on your head and you search for them anyway. And there are so many examples you could open up now. And now the question arises in this context, and you’ve already talked about this conscious unconsciousness, whether that then only concerns such, yes, I’ll say routine processes now. So whether that now makes a difference again, so to speak, because it’s often precisely something like the key or the glasses on the head or the phone, which actually always possibly lies in the same place, or I have a fixed spot where I put it, also in the handbag or similar. And if it’s not where it normally belongs, and I somehow did that during a process of something else, without noticing that I proceeded differently here or so, that it then suddenly becomes a challenge, because I, when I realize this, suddenly can’t assign anymore what I actually did with it. Then we have here partly simply “automatic processes,” so routine processes, which, because there’s a deviation, suddenly lead to this situation, that I suddenly have to search for it, or have to concentrate, to consider what did you actually do last, or something, to look again via docking onto memory, where do I find it. But while that now seems to mainly concern such routine aspects, are there also other aspects where it’s the same, basically? Marc, what would you say?
I just thought again about what I told, and find that with these processes incredibly great and exciting, Yasemin. I notice always, when I… again for example, I’m driving away now. A really banal process that requires no concentration. I’m driving away because I want to buy milk, I need milk for my coffee machine. I always notice, when processes… I’ve made a decision, that’s not an important decision. I’m driving away, doing errands now, or getting my mail upstairs. When I’ve made a decision and then get into acting, and this action rhythm, whatever it is, gets interrupted, then we’d be at the topic of distraction. And I say, I’ll interrupt that now, a phone rings, that could be a customer, something could have happened, could be a family member, I’ll quickly answer that. Or I already have my jacket on and the computer makes a sound, it could be an email. So, always when processes, when decisions have been made and processes have been initiated, and these processes get interrupted for me, and I then decide, I’ll quickly squeeze in the other process, you can quickly do that too, and that’s really no process where you need a high school diploma now, where you have to highly concentrate. But I notice that even the simplest things then throw my brain off balance. And then things happen like the key lying where it otherwise doesn’t lie. That things disappear, that notes aren’t lying where they otherwise lie. And that’s why I always have to smile that I always remind myself, mindfulness now means for me not highest concentration, but actually every moment — you don’t always manage that — but every moment, when I process things, to handle them mindfully, and also to have consciousness about this complexity, what happens there with our brains. Because we’ll probably come to that later too, how inattentiveness, or how distraction, lets these processes get interrupted for us in the daily work area. And then need incredibly much energy afterward to get back into concentration or into mindfulness. So every distraction basically interrupts the process we’re currently occupied with.
Yes, thank you so, so much. And we’d said with thinking, so can I not think at all? And we’d said, here there are both conscious processes and unconscious processes, so to speak, that take place. That also means, even when I’m sometimes not consciously thinking at all, my unconscious thinking continues in the background anyway. And with concentration we do also have conscious and unconscious processes, which we can also differentiate here too. That means, I can direct concentration quite consciously toward something and steer it here. But we also definitely have moments where, without us quite deliberately doing something for it, we also direct our concentration onto something, which possibly, through a stimulus that comes at us from outside, for example directs our attention there. And especially with these routine things, where you just said, a process gets interrupted, so to speak. I get distracted, for example, by something else. So distraction is exactly something where, so to speak, a stimulus hits me from outside, which I haven’t somehow planned now or anything, or planned the concentration, and where my focus, so to speak, my concentration, gets directed onto something else. That means, I have a concentration taking place that I’m not consciously steering myself in the moment. Jürgen, a very good morning. What do you say to that?
A very good morning, dear Yasemin, and everyone else in the room. Basically you already anticipated the essential thing I wanted to add with this transition. And it goes a bit in the direction, yes, of building this bridge between the conscious and the unconscious. There I’d put an absolute check mark, in my view, that in both spheres there’s a state of concentration. And the binding link, the connecting link or property for both, whether now conscious or unconscious, is for me the topic of consideration or non-consideration of, you called it distractions, of influences from outside. That’s, for me, besides what Marc already stated, that it’s a voluntary process, one position, and the second is the degree of distraction that I still accept, or have to accept, in my concentration. This degree of distraction is, for me, for me personally, a conceptual specification between concentration and focusing. But to come back to the original point again, this connection between conscious and unconscious, with the essential goal of switching off distractions, also happens in the unconscious. Namely at the moment when we get into a danger constellation, that our body, for example, reacts to that and our pupils constrict. That means, concentrates the focus of visual receptive capacity. And I find it so absolutely, among many other things, so remarkable, how we keep coming back to this, actually to this bridge, the body thinks along. So in an emergency situation, where associative thinking dominates the logical, the body actually reacts to a similar extent as we do when we voluntarily trigger it and say, now I have to concentrate, that we then actually decide, I withdraw into a certain room where I’m undisturbed. I block out everything possible that could disturb me. I find that absolutely remarkable. Thanks for listening.
Yes wonderful, thank you so, so much. And while you addressed that again with the focus, the thought also occurred to me again, also with the pupils just now, of the zoom, so of zooming, so to speak. Through that I mentally arrived, for example, at a camera, technically too maybe as an analogy. Even when we take photos or something, then something gets zoomed accordingly too, and only then is the shutter actually pressed. And maybe we don’t perceive it quite so clearly anymore now with these smartphones or so, when we take photos, but we still notice it, if we think of an SLR camera or so, you can maybe still remember how this front area of this lens also changed, extended in and out in the past, to set this zoom effect accordingly. And that was what triggered it, when you brought that with the example with the pupil. And our body partly does that, in quotation marks, also fully automatically at that point, you said, for example in danger situations etc. I find that totally exciting at this point, because you also establish this analogy here again. I don’t know what that triggers for you now. Marc, Jürgen, would you like to say something about that again?
Gladly, Marc. I’d like to, Jürgen, be a bit provocative now again. I can underline everything you said. I just thought about it. The body thinks along. I can’t underline that for myself like that, because I’ll just claim, my foot and my hand, they don’t think along. And I’d claim, that’s all controlled by the brain. And then just ask you again, whether you’d go along with that. That’s a subconscious control from the brain after all. And a game occurred to me there, that I once played as a child. I found it totally exciting. We tried to let ourselves fall onto a soft mat. Or onto a bed. Without the hands coming into play. Exactly what you wrote. Without the hands supporting the body. But just giving the command, let yourself fall. And don’t put your hands forward. That’s extremely difficult,
because the brain is stronger. And to switch off these functions, there are other possibilities. But I think that all of that comes through our brain. However that may be, which areas are responsible for it. I’d just claim that my foot and my hand can’t think.
Yes, a really exciting aspect you’re opening up here again. I mean, the body thinks along, is maybe also meant a bit symbolically in this context. We did once talk in some room — but we did that before we now dedicate ourselves to these overarching topics of reflection, thinking, and then acting — that we once talked about, basically, I think that was about aspects like intuition or feeling, and in that context we quickly get into the aspect of the heart, that basically it’s not the organs per se where somehow something happens, so from the heart or such, but that basically it’s always the brain making certain controls, in quotation marks, so also in the sense that signals get passed on to certain body areas, which then lead to automated processes being triggered etc., all the way to movements and so on that take place. So the question arises in this context, whether the body thinks along, isn’t always basically also per se, basically, that the brain is meant, as the trigger, so to speak. And then we, for example, perceive the results from that, for example in the form of movements or whatever, then at other body locations, for example. I’m curious what you say to that, Marc, Jürgen. Gladly, Jürgen.
Yes, of course, I don’t want to get into conceptual hair-splitting now, but I think you said it, that it’s especially to be understood symbolically. Only I’d like to point out again the, I believe also common among us, definition of what we understand under thinking. And thinking, we said, is nothing other than that quite certain stimuli or influences get perceived from the outset as information that needs to be processed, in order to, and in this case for example in a stress situation, situation is the use, or the purpose of this thinking, to solve a problem. And this problem gets associatively recognized as danger. And the problem means, for the body in connection with mind, that it has to be ready to solve this problem in some form. Either through fight or through flight, or through flock, you know the four conscious — and above all then he has to make a decision. And so that’s essentially connected for me. I also said, it thinks along, and it doesn’t just think alone instead of the brain, but it thinks along. And for me it’s, in this respect, what happens with our body in such a situation. Again to you, dear Marc, the hands, the feet don’t think along. There I’d like to restrict and say, well, in this danger situation, for example through a corresponding hormone cocktail, our whole body gets made ready for being able to run faster with our feet. But as I said, I don’t want to get into a conceptual discussion now, but I think you said it correctly. It’s a connection between both. But I’ll lean out the window. In such situations, the body currently wins the power, or the supremacy, over the mind. Thank you.
Thank you so, so much. Marc, would you like to add here again?
Yes, I’m no specialist, that’s just a gut feeling, and that’s why I’d just, because you always need the counter-thesis, and I’ll underline everything you said, but I just underline the word interplay, dear Jürgen, and I just considered for myself that the body, for me, is the source of information for the brain. The brain decides, but in such, in such an insane speed that we don’t notice it. Those are other areas I can’t explain, because I’m simply no brain specialist. But if a danger approaches us, then the brain needs the body after all, otherwise the brain doesn’t even get the information at all. And if I see a car coming toward me on the wrong side, the brain gets the information from the eye. When my body can’t anymore — we’ve already talked about running or doing sports — when the body notices it can’t anymore, then the brain gets notified, analyzes all information from the body, analyzes it, and then makes a decision within a split second. And the question that just occurs to me, when you say that the mind, if I understood you correctly, isn’t involved, that people who are in a coma, that the body then, so as long as the brain, that’s my thesis, as long as the brain is on in some form, the body can react, and it’s an interplay, and the brain can’t without the body, because it needs the information, and the body of course can’t without the brain, because it’s controlled by the brain. That would be, for me, so, and at least conclusive. Whether it’s correct, I of course don’t know.
Yes, thank you so, so much. Let’s look again at this connection now between thinking and concentration. So how do thinking and concentration actually relate is the question we wanted to engage with specifically for today too. That means, we’ve now briefly picked up again what thinking was again. Then we’ve now looked again at what concentration is, and now to build this bridge between thinking and concentration. What can be held onto there? Jürgen, gladly.
Yes, this does touch your question, because it’s rather about the preconditions at all. The essential key players for concentration at all. I’d like to bring this in too, if you allow, and because I then have to log off. But for me it’s really essential, and we had this topic also in the area with thinking, if I decide — I’m talking now about the voluntary process — to want to concentrate, then I have to, as trivial as that may sound, I have to give the whole thing a topic, give it a term. Because I decide, I want to concentrate on something, what is this something, on something. So for example learning a new language, cramming vocabulary. There I want to concentrate now. That means title, cramming vocabulary. And likewise a bridge to the topic of thinking, or especially reflection. I need this terminology, in my view, also to define the use for myself. Because why do I invest, with my brain, this energy-intensive, conscious thinking, and then also through explicit concentration? So I have to give an answer, if I know the topic, what are you actually doing that for? And then I’m at the last topic connected with that for me, this use, becoming clear what am I doing that for, that decides quite decisively about the kind of motivation with which I carry out this concentration. If I have to concentrate because someone told me to, in my position, dependency relationship to a boss or some other persons, then that’s, roughly said, an extrinsic motivation, which possibly doesn’t come out of me at all, but which I have to carry out, understanding it, because otherwise I don’t generate the corresponding use that’s demanded, or that I also subordinate myself to. But if this use comes from myself, that I say, if on my next vacation trip, then, if I imagine, I’m sitting in a restaurant and can then say in Italian what I want, what I don’t want, then that’s an intrinsic motivation. And I don’t want to go into the values or strengths now, but that’s, for me, a really decisive logical connection, if I knowingly, I’ll say it again, knowingly, voluntarily decide to concentrate, to say, what’s the topic, what’s the use, what do I get out of it, and how do I feel, or what supports me? How am I positioned motivation-wise? Thanks that I could bring that in too, dear ones. And I can still listen to you now, but I’m withdrawing. Thank you.
Yes, thank you so, so much. And I’d like to remind at this point that our brain basically always asks itself two questions again, and build this bridge again here. That means, basically it’s on one hand about existence security, so even if that’s now forced, so not voluntary, so to speak, but concentration happens here. It can be, for example, that it’s a physical threat, represents a danger or whatever. That means, it’s about existence security, and the second factor is this use factor, so what does that bring me? And here again briefly for reminder, at least from neuroscience, that it’s now been determined, brain-wise, that basically there’s no need for a distinction with regard to, so our brain doesn’t know intrinsic or extrinsic motivation, but either I have the motive to get into acting, so to speak, or I don’t. Those are these two factors. It’s about existence security on one hand, and the second is, there’s a use. This distinction is found everywhere though, also in textbooks and so on, but the brain basically doesn’t know this distinction, whether it comes from outside now, or whether it’s the motivation from within me, from the inside, so to speak, but basically it only ever asks these two questions. And when it’s about securing existence, then I become active, or if there’s a clearly recognizable use for me. And the use can also be, as Jürgen just described that now, for example, that’s maybe from outside, and it’s about me having to fulfill a task in the job context or similar. And that ultimately also brings me something. I get, for example, at the end of the month then, for the tasks I’ve completed, also money for example. And with that, on one hand, to a degree, existence security is also ensured again. Though it’s now not about such a threat, about life or death or something. But ultimately it brings me, and then we’re at the second aspect, I also again get use from it, that I can pay my rent and, and, and, what gets satisfied here and so on. There are various components flowing in here. And ultimately I basically always have these two aspects, based on which corresponding decisions then get made accordingly, whether that now runs automated, because it has to run relatively fast, because I’m in a danger situation for example, or quite consciously going into a certain steering here. Marc, would you like to build on that again?
Yes, thank you so, so much for your contribution, dear Jürgen. And exactly what you explained, that’s why I had a problem with school for a really, really long time. And I’m still today of the opinion that it’s not about, with everything we do, conveying knowledge. So if we meet someone somewhere who then says, I convey knowledge to you, if we don’t manage to also tell people this applying, this “what do I need that for,” to awaken this enthusiasm. And of course that can be the task of a teacher, or also not just a boss, to motivate us. But that’s exactly my point. We also achieve concentration and attention when we know, when we who are older know, that the younger ones need to know what that’s good for. And that was, for me, the essential point why I blocked myself with many things in school, because until 11th grade I barely encountered teachers who had this joy of knowledge, not that I need the knowledge to be able to master my life, to master the day, but how exciting it is to understand connections. And until I had a language teacher who, in English, even though the sheet was red, still gave a passing grade, because he said, it’s more important to me. He said exactly what you said, dear Jürgen. It’s more important to be able to say thank you and please in Italy, whether that’s grammatically 100 percent correct isn’t what it’s about first at all. This application, that was much, much more important to him. And that’s why this knowledge about, about consciousness, subconsciousness. And for me that would be a reason. Probably that also happens at university. But between having once read that in the textbook and practically working with it, how we generate attention, that doesn’t just apply as a teacher toward the student, but also as a friend toward the girlfriend, as a boss toward the employee or the coworker. If we want, as humans, to achieve something together, then we need attention. And we don’t get this attention by virtue of our office or by virtue of our position.
Yes wonderful, thank you so, so much. And if we now look again at thinking and concentration considered in connection, maybe you’d like to add here again, that we look more closely at this again, dear Marc.
Can you please formulate the question differently again, so I roughly know in which direction that applies?
Yes, the question we wanted to engage with more intensively today was, how do thinking and concentration relate? That means, we’ve looked at the terms detached from each other again on one hand now, so once thinking and once concentration, and that we now look again, how does that relate to each other then? So is it something that always belongs together? Is that something that only coincides under certain preconditions? Is there possibly a certain sequence behind it, are there interactions that take place. That we just look at this bridge between thinking and concentration again, so to speak.
Ah, okay, now I understand. Then I’ll build on what I just said. This concentration, that’s a decision. I also started with that. Concentration starts for me with recognizing what it’s important for. If I sit over my bookkeeping and there are mistakes, then that can lead to trouble with the tax office. If I… And so on. But the process is that I decide, if I don’t do that, if I don’t direct my focus onto it, mistakes arise. Then I’m at inattentiveness, then inaccuracies arise. Then, if I’m responsible in the technical area, as a pilot then… then my passengers in the back could be threatened by that and, and, and. And this attention and concentration comes from me, or from how I observe myself, can’t happen because someone says, you have to concentrate better, you have to become attentive. He can say it, but the decision, this process, only happens with us ourselves. I’m the one who says, I’m getting into this. And I’m then concentrated when I’ve said, yes, now I want that, and yes, now I’ll do that. And if someone stands in front of me and says, you have to concentrate, this is important now, please concentrate, that doesn’t work if I don’t go along.
Yes, I find that great, especially also the example you just brought in again with flying or the pilot. Because we did talk briefly about routine
at this point too. And especially, you know that from professions where, for example, certain dangers or risks are also present, against the background of routines that can then, for example, lead to error-proneness. That means, here, so to speak, work is done with a corresponding, I’ll say now, risk management, so to speak, that on one hand our brain also needs certain routines, so as not to have to spend a lot of energy everywhere. On the other hand, there are certain, possibly certain areas of our life, that can be professional, but can also be private, where it’s maybe even sensible to also pay attention that it’s not just pure routine that takes place in terms of the processes, but where, for example, certain things get quite deliberately built into processes or structures. And especially in the professional context we know that, whether that’s now a pilot, whether that’s with doctors or similar. For example in the emergency room or so, where basically, so to speak, on one hand the good thing is to have certain routines, and on the other hand it’s also important and required and necessary, in order not to threaten life at that point, that routines partly even get either broken up, or repeatedly subjected to a certain structure, to check routines, to minimize errors, or minimize the risk of errors at that point. And I find that totally exciting, because you just said that so, in quotation marks, so casually with the pilot. That means, I can also apply that quite consciously in everyday life for myself too. The question is, regardless of whether that’s now about routine processes or not. How do I direct, for example, with regard to thinking, concentration, attention to certain things, and what can I do, in quotation marks, to quite consciously promote this process, or this process of thinking and concentration accordingly? Marc?
I have another point there, before we talk further about that, and I thought about to what extent superiors of doctors and pilots actually also have the task of observing their employees. And specifically, it’s not just alcohol that lets us not concentrate, but also strong emotions. And let’s say, I’m now a surgeon and come to work somehow with swollen eyes, and say, my wife just separated from me, or my child was just severely injured and is in the intensive care unit. And I then have a boss who then says, Marc, you’re not operating today. Can you concentrate, I say yes, and then he says, I have to weigh that up. I doubt that. Maybe you’re thinking of your son, or your family member. And I don’t know if I’ll let you fly today, or let you operate today. So whether you then also, as soon as we have personnel responsibility, then also in professions where something really bad can happen, where it’s about life, where a wrong decision from me, a carelessness from me, can lead to a really tragic event. I don’t know whether not just the alcohol, whether we don’t just, if people are intoxicated in front of us, I notice immediately that I say, you go home, you’ve drunk, you can’t work. Or also, if I notice that someone is emotionally in a strongly agitated state in front of us, whether they can then take on these tasks that day.
Yes, absolutely. And quite regardless of whether that’s now, from outside, so to speak, the leader or the superior, for example, who has a certain responsibility here and can also observe that, we can also, to the same degree at least, talk about self-responsibility, which we can also go into here too. That means, when we’re in an emotional state, where we notice that it’s difficult, for example, to direct our focus onto something specific, everyday tasks for example, against the background of an event that’s taken place. That can also be something like, for example, the loss of a family member or similar. So various things that limit or hinder us, so to speak, from actually thinking about certain things in a concentrated and focused way, following certain processes, certain processes, to accordingly, for example, do our work. But that can of course also just as well be in the private context. For example, going into self-responsibility. Am I even in the position to drive a car, if I’m currently emotionally somehow caught up in something, for example. Which leads to me being too strongly distracted in traffic, and possibly also threatening both myself and others, if I were to drive in this state I’m currently in. Marc, would you like to add to that again?
Yes, I can underline that. And Yasemin, we keep coming back to our brain. That has nothing, 100 percent, to do with the topic now. But due to family circumstances I’m currently engaging with the topic of Alzheimer’s. And I’m, as I said, no doctor, and I also don’t understand studies. But I find it at least interesting that I read that apparently Canadian researchers have now found that Alzheimer’s, 12 or 15 years earlier, that you can see that, and the first signs would be, if you notice in sleep that the partner sleeps very restlessly and thrashes around with their body, with their arms. I can’t explain it medically, but what stuck with me, if we don’t get into the dream phase. The result of this study was such that if we don’t get into the dream phase, if we don’t have certain sleep phases and recovery phases for our brain, one suspects. That’s all not scientifically secured. I just noticed it for myself, because Alzheimer’s and dementia are not a topic for me. If we don’t sleep continuously and wake up, and maybe thrash around in sleep, that could possibly, you don’t know exactly yet, lead to it being a first warning sign for Alzheimer’s. And based on that I derived for myself all the more to concentrate in the evening. We had that topic before too. As far as possible to be able to fall asleep with a warm and a nice thought. Simply because I found that there are phases where my brain lets me sleep through. Maybe that’s in that context, I don’t know that. But there are phases where I really sleep through and feel totally fresh in the morning. If I mull over problems in the evening, or if I don’t direct focus and concentration onto what was nice, then I don’t manage that. Then I’m restless, then I wake up. And we keep coming back to our brain. I ask you to forgive that I’ve now deviated from the topic. But that fascinated me a lot, because we again see the power of our brain there, what we can steer if we concentrate. And this article, it interested me so much, I couldn’t save it, but I really wanted to share that with my partner. Because when we’re together, I then asked her, if you then notice changes in me, so changes in behavior, which I myself don’t consciously perceive at all, that we then also talk about that. And that she helps me then to call things into consciousness that I’m maybe personally not able to, because I simply overlook them.
Yes, thank you so, so much, and let’s gladly build the bridge again in this context. You just picked up the aspect of sleep, to look again at these influencing factors. And sleep is certainly, I mean, every one of us knows this from our own experience, if we haven’t slept well, or had too little sleep for a certain period, for example, that thinking processes or concentration then also become that much harder. There’s certainly quite a lot more too. And we can look at that again in a moment. And I’d also like to bring in Sabine too. A very good morning, dear Sabine. What are your thoughts?
Yes, good morning everyone. I unfortunately couldn’t before. Yes, I listened to you. We have two thoughts. Let’s come provocatively. We say children today can’t concentrate at all anymore. They can think, but only get distracted by the computer, or by TikTok, or whatever. That would interest me, whether that has anything to do with each other. And the second thing was of course age. You’ve talked a bit about that already. I once had an air traffic controller who told me, well, from age 55 they can no longer work like that and that. So you just assume, with age the ability to concentrate no longer stays maintained that way, and before you take those risks, you just implement a career stop. I also know that, for example, with teachers, occupational disability insurance is only insurable up to 55. Yes, that would interest me again. So I’m completely unversed now, those two thoughts just occurred to me.
Yes wonderful, thank you so, so much. I find that totally exciting in this context. So especially this first one. You said, children today can’t really concentrate properly anymore. We can talk about that briefly. So my first impulse would be to say, well, the question is, what do we understand by that, if I now think of children who, for example, play PlayStation or something, then they can very well concentrate on the game for hours, even very intensely. So the question arises here too, which expectations do we maybe have from outside, and whether that also has to do with this expectation attitude at this point, because concentration per se isn’t necessarily what always suffers. So especially if we think of something like these game consoles or such. As I said, then we do observe quite well that children get pulled in very, very concentrated, and also over longer periods, quite fascinated and enthralled, and that this also works wonderfully. Marc, Sabine, what do you say to that? Let’s first pick up the first point, then we can gladly go into the second point too. Marc.
Dear Yasemin, I hug you. That’s exactly what I think, when I see that teenagers can maybe watch ten or twelve Netflix shows in a row on the weekend, then you can’t speak of non-concentration. Then it’s just again, how do I manage that in school, how do I manage to tell someone, hey, that’s exciting, that’s great, that’s fun. And as soon as something is fun for us, we manage that too. And on that, I maybe have something on a few studies too, regarding the topic, then with social networks. But I find, I see it exactly like you, Yasemin, I keep encountering that, teenagers can’t concentrate and the ability to concentrate is declining. So I haven’t yet observed Hollywood saying, we’re not making movies anymore, because my age group is dying out. The next generation still living will continue to go to the cinema, and such a movie still lasts, in my view, an hour and a half to two hours, and I haven’t seen any news yet that cinema and film production is being discontinued because people can no longer concentrate on films.
Wonderful, nice example. Sabine, what do you say?
Yes, I can only follow that. If I see my son there, he also concentrates super well. Only unfortunately… No, not unfortunately. I find it completely fine. Partly other things too. And when I see how he goes through his feed, then he concentrates completely differently anyway. I can’t even perceive that fast, how he flits along there and so on. That’s right. Do we then actually have to say, do they now think differently? And thus do they concentrate differently? Has something simply changed here a bit? Because I think they have a very fast grasp. But somehow it’s still different.
Yes, it ultimately also has very much to do with the motivation and reward system. That means, here we can of course also always look again, what are the various factors that then, for example, favor one thing or another. And which relevances do we then set for ourselves against this background too, consciously or unconsciously, so to speak? And then we’re also at this aspect, which I also picked up again as expectation attitude, so to speak, now viewed from outside, so as mother, as father, as teacher, as maybe leader etc. And so that means, here we of course have quite various factors that play a role and that work together. And here too we can of course, to a degree, and we’ll also have a room where that then, for example too, I think I called that thinking training, in the coming days too, come to this training aspect again. That means, if I want, I can of course also, whether that’s now creativity techniques, whether that’s now other aspects you can pick up. If I have the motivation for it, I can of course also quite deliberately and consciously get into a steering here too, by quite deliberately also doing training, to increase that further. But it’s always various factors that come together here, that then ultimately have an effect on whether I, in quotation marks, feel like engaging with a topic or a task or whatever or not. And there possibly the relevances or the priorities are also partly set differently. That also has something to do with a generational change, in quotation marks, or something like, what’s my attitude toward work? Yes, the baby boomers just handled that differently than maybe now the subsequent generations. But we do quite see, as you just said, Sabine, also especially with things like the use of newer technologies or such, how quickly the young generation is at it too, who grew up with it, so to speak, for example with all the various features that come delivered with a phone, to handle that, while maybe the older generation, who didn’t per se grow up with these newer technologies, has bigger challenges with that. That means, certain shifts naturally take place here too, because we’ve also been socialized differently. Marc, Sabine, would you like to add here again?
Yes, and specifically I’d be interested to know, how do we take that into school? So, shouldn’t you actually react a bit there and say, okay, because you always hear from that area, they can’t concentrate anymore. But then something should actually happen here too and be taught differently, so that this concentration gets called up.
Oh yes, so the topic school, I think, if we open that up now, then we really have challenges to wrap up the room in nine minutes. Yes, so quite clearly, in many places, in my very personal view, too little focus, so to speak, gets directed onto the law, or onto what would be the relevant topics in this context. So especially things like, in quotation marks, we order iPads or laptops or such in connection with digitalization. That’s nice, but basically our children could probably
explain to the teachers much better how to use or apply an iPad or laptop. So they don’t need support there anymore. But rather with aspects like, for example, how do I research with these devices? So more related to the internet, for example, and how can I, for example, distinguish information from actual knowledge, factual knowledge and so on and so forth. So that’s, well, I think we’re opening a huge can of worms again if we look at that. Marc, would you like to add something again?
Yes, but I agree with that, I’d also like to change direction. Our topic is concentration after all. And what I’d also like to bring in, I’m certainly no role model when it comes to nutrition. I still eat like a student. But with increasing age I do engage with the topic of concentration and health. And I mean, as I said, please read up on this, I’m no nutrition expert, I think I read, currently, that omega-3 acids also help us to be able to concentrate better. So I bought two packs of walnuts last week. I don’t like them at all. But I told myself, maybe it helps, it can’t hurt, that I resolve to eat three or four walnuts every day. Because I know for sure that with my otherwise nutrition I don’t take in omega-3 acid. And the second thing about concentration is meditation. We already had that this week too, which many people apply. And for me meditation also includes not just om, but also movement. For me it can also be a kind of meditation to just take half an hour at midday, go outside, feel the sun, feel warmth, smell things, then go back into the office. And I notice that this can also help concentration.
Yes, wonderful. Thank you so, so much. And against the background that we now have a few minutes left, I’d gladly like to pick up this second point again, that Sabine brought in. We’d said we’ll first look at the first point, then the second. That was about various professions where, for example, it’s said from a certain age, well you just can’t do this job anymore, against the background that the risk gets too high. That means, is it per se so that with increasing age, for example, you can concentrate less, or that the probability of making mistakes also might increase? Would you maybe like to add here again?
I wouldn’t be afraid of that now, because I would… That’s a really, really exciting question. There too I’m not expert enough. Can a routine, can processes I’ve repeated a hundred and a thousand times, possibly lead to, if there’s a young and an old pilot, that the old pilot maybe can’t concentrate as well, but can compensate for that again through his experience, through the constant repetition, and with an operation, with a heart operation I’d assume that the experienced surgeon, who really has the knowledge, is also accompanied by a team who also have eyes and ears. So everything that threatens my life is usually involving several people. In an airplane sits an older pilot, a younger pilot. That wouldn’t worry me, at least in my life right now, without saying, he’s not allowed to do that anymore, he’s too old, he can’t concentrate. And well, if a teacher now can’t concentrate anymore, that’s not so nice. But that doesn’t have immediate life-threatening effects on the students in the current moment in the action.
Yes, and I think that it’s ultimately also sensible here again to distinguish. We’d said earlier, there’s — so routine is something good after all, and experience is also, we’ve also opened that up in many rooms already, is also something valuable, in quotation marks. With the professional groups, those are of course also always, so to speak, decisions made from within a professional group, so to speak. An essential difference, and then you can of course, if you look at the individual areas in detail, discuss again whether that really applies, or whether that really plays such a big role there, in quotation marks, or what the effects would be if. But I think, where there’s a really essential distinction, and we already picked up this aspect today, is that there are indeed professions or tasks where it already represents a danger even in the normal state, so to speak, if the routine favors error-proneness, and here structures and processes already get implemented, to exactly “outsmart” that to a certain degree, so also to ensure that, against the background of routinely doing something, mistakes don’t get favored by that. And especially in such areas, where that already, regardless of age, plays a role anyway, that can of course quite well be a decision from within this professional group, to say, we don’t even want to take this risk, and therefore, for example, not work in that area anymore from a certain age on. That doesn’t mean the person, in quotation marks, necessarily gets dismissed, but maybe they get other tasks then, or similar. But that’s then again a, yes, against the background of the professional group, so to speak, a discussion where you can of course also look at it again from various perspectives, whether that’s justified or not, and which advantages and disadvantages the whole thing brings with it and so on. And can certainly also be discussed again on various other levels. Yes, we’d already held onto that once, quite generally, that we basically, on one hand lifelong learning is relevant for us and plays a really big role, though, now just viewed from the neuronal context, it’s such that the learning speed, for example, decreases with increasing age. But increasing age doesn’t mean only from 50 or something, but actually already starts from 25 years. That means, we often underlay a bit this, maybe it’s also a prejudice, of the old person, of the slow learner or such. That starts much earlier already. That means, from 25, at the latest 30, we have a clearly lower learning speed than, for example, younger people now, but that also has its place in nature, everything. And that’s why there’s no, that’s not to be evaluated somehow negatively or so, but young people are, by nature, designed or oriented, so to speak, to grasp the big picture, so roughly, in quotation marks, learn fast, so that they become capable of survival, while then from a certain age, existence security isn’t so much in the foreground, then we’ve basically already learned the basis, so that we’re capable of survival. And then it’s about being able to think in connections too, and connect and deepen aspects with each other further. So in this respect, that does have its justification in nature, both, and also its place, and is at least equally important. So maybe that briefly again for reminder. And I’d like to pick up a question again from Aya from the chat. Is it, from a neuroscientific sense, more effective, to manage various tasks in our life and share our concentration? Or should we specialize in a single area, to achieve optimal concentration performance? There are, I think, various aspects we can pick up here. On one hand many are subject to, in quotation marks, we have such a myth with multitasking ability and so on. So we’re per se, from the brain, not designed to be multitasking. But there’s often the saying, I’m capable of multitasking, or women can do that better than men or so. On one hand it’s simply not so, neuroscientifically, that we can, well multitasking-wise, but only quite limitedly. Things that run routinely. There we can maybe do something else in parallel, that doesn’t have high complexity. But the moment it’s about new connections, about something that really requires our concentration, or has high complexity, we’re not capable of multitasking. So that’s maybe one aspect again. And the second aspect, which connects a bit differently again with what Marc picked up earlier with Alzheimer’s. There are quite many neuroscientific findings that also show that to keep our brain fit, so to speak, and in old age also ensure that we don’t get sick, especially viewed neuronally, so something like dementia or Alzheimer’s etc., that it also has very, very much to do with in how many areas our brain is trained, so to speak. That means, the more I now, not as a specialist, look only at the topics, but also in different areas — that doesn’t even have to be specialist expertise now, so whether that’s now playing piano, can also be hobbies or such — so the more areas I’m mentally underway in, so to speak, the better my neural network is matured and connected with each other. And there are really great, also scientific findings in this context, that you can determine that the better, so to speak, my neural network is developed with different areas of life, the later, so to speak, certain symptoms toward age dementia or also Alzheimer’s etc. appear. That means, from this it’s definitely sensible not just to be a specialist, but also to approach topics generalistically. That doesn’t exclude that we can then still also get into depth in individual areas again. Marc, Sabine, do you have additions you’d like to make here, before we then, or simultaneously even, directly introduce the closing word for today too?
Marc. Yes, what’s also important to me, we all have contact with partners, with work colleagues. And concentration, processes from outside interrupt our concentration. And what’s also important to me, because we haven’t talked about that at all… I’m very impulse-driven, and got into the habit, when it’s about freelance employees, that I remember what I want to discuss with them. And then call them centrally at some time, tell everything, and not call impulse-driven. There are studies I won’t give a timeframe for, because I doubt the timeframe, that every process from outside that interrupted our concentration leads to us finding our way back into this concentration, and especially in the work process, we’ll all know that, that’s maybe also an answer to why people don’t work as effectively anymore now, because through email and WhatsApp and so on, we’re very often, so to speak, constantly interrupted from outside.
Yes, thank you so, so much. Would you like to add your closing word for today right away too?
Yes, my closing word is, I’d like to address the chat too, I think you can — I understood the question as, whether you can concentrate on several things simultaneously, whether I can simultaneously do an engineering degree and learn an application. I think our brain is capable of that, feeling-wise, various things, that we can concentrate, just not everything at one time, but Mondays this, or from one to two that, never at the same time, but one after another, yes.
Absolutely, yes wonderful. Thank you so, so much. Sabine.
Yes, great topic. Maybe you can briefly tell me something about that again. If you now get to a more advanced age… I always know, my dad always did crossword puzzles to stay fit, to read books. With sport it’s such that the body also degrades, already relatively early. And that you can also counteract that by just continuing your sport and keep working on muscle building. Can you say something about that again briefly? Whether that has to do with concentration… you always hear about it, but now I have an expert in front of me. Can you maybe say something about that again? Otherwise interesting topic. I fully agree with you about the youth. That was meant a bit provocatively. But I also keep noticing, when I’m in such a mixed circle, that they always beat up on the youth. Starting with, they can’t apply for jobs, they can’t do that. They can’t concentrate, and, and, and. I’m always there and say, well, they do, just differently. Maybe we should meet in the middle. Because I just saw again how my older daughter helped my younger son with an application. I couldn’t have done that anymore, because I’m used to it completely differently, and because I also articulate myself completely differently there. So it’s important, I think, that you meet in the middle and combine both one and the other with each other. Yes, maybe, Yasemin, can you give me an answer to the one question, otherwise it was again, as always, a great room. I wish you well.
Yes, thank you so, so much. My request to you would be to repeat or specify the question again, because I’m not yet sure whether I was able to correctly pick it out directly.
I’m actually only interested in whether, if with advanced age I do a lot of things like crossword puzzles or some exercises, whether I then keep the concentration open. Because you just said, from 25 it actually goes downhill. Similar to muscle loss. Can I counteract that, can I counteract here too?
Yes, I can definitely do that. But it’s important to mention again that it’s ultimately the variety that makes the difference. That means, if I always only solve crossword puzzles, for example, and that’s the only thing I do, so to speak, to “train” my concentration or such, then that’s too little. That means, here too it’s about staying in this variety, and doing quite different things. That can start from traveling, new hobbies, different activities, that you, to a degree, pay attention to staying within this variety, so to speak, because otherwise, again, if I focus exclusively on solving crossword puzzles, then I’m also only underway in one area again, so to speak, and that wouldn’t be developed enough. I hope that answers your question.
Yes, wonderful. Yes, dear ones, then I’d say, let’s wrap up for today. We’ve opened many, many doors, so to speak, in the most various directions. I found it totally exciting. And tomorrow we continue, that we now look at, constructive and destructive thinking is the topic. How can constructive and destructive thinking be distinguished? And here it’ll also be about questions like, yes, okay, we can maybe first define constructive and destructive thinking on one hand, but who actually determines whether a certain thinking is constructive or destructive? I find that also quite exciting again, to look at via this track too. So there we also go, to a degree, again into the area of perception, of evaluation and so on too. And so I’m totally, totally curious what insights we’ll derive together in exchange from this room tomorrow. And in this sense you’re all really, really warmly invited to join again tomorrow at 8am at Deep Talk. I wish you well, a good start into the new week, and see you tomorrow. Ciao!
