This is Your Brain on Focus

Just a few years ago, before the proliferation of shared ride apps and GPS systems, there were regular old taxis. And if you wanted to become a taxi driver in London, you were required to take an intense exam that tested you on over 25000 streets and routes through the city.

The London Taxi driver exam is known to be one of the most rigorous driving exams in the world, and studies have shown that the people who take it and pass have something in common. After studying so intensely, these drivers all have enlarged hippocampuses– which is the part of the brain that manages spacial memory.

These studies have shown that it is because of the time spent studying and memorizing the roads that has grown this part of their brain (not some coincidence that taxi drivers all happen to have larger hippocampuses).

The way we spent our time and put our attention to changes our brain.

What part might be growing when we check our phone every 40 seconds? That’s the average focus time in an office.

40 seconds.

We’re rewiring our brain to get used to being distracted every minute. Training it to need a new snack to the point where even when we’re not actually distracted, we may be distracting ourselves looking for the reward that our brain is used to.

And what could we be doing? What would our brains look like when we learn to focus for 40 minutes at a time? What might we be able to accomplish then?

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