‘The number-one reason… for their [attentional] problems… was stress’ – Stolen Focus, Chapter 10 Notes

Posted on: June 13, 2022

Last Updated on: June 15th, 2022

Post Category: Book Notes

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About #onepageonepoint

#onepageonepoint aims to summarise new ideas from books on personal and professional development – with (approximately) one point for each page. Read more about this project here.

Today for #onepageonepoint, we have summary notes for Stolen Focus – for chapter 10: ‘Cause Eight: The Surge in Stress and How It Is Triggering Vigilance’.

If you are interested in getting yourself a copy or learn more about the book, click here.

Chapter 10: ‘Cause Eight: The Surge in Stress and How It Is Triggering Vigilance’

• In a 2020 scientific opinion poll conducted by the Council for Evidence-Based Psychiatry in both the US and Britain, it was found that the top reasons for decreased attention were (in order) stress, change in life circumstances (e.g. having a baby or getting older), disrupted sleep, and phones. From this, Hari suggests that there are deeper forces, other than our phones and the web, at work that lead us to develop a dysfunctional relationship with the web.

• In this chapter, Hari presents an anecdote of Dr Nadine Burke Harris (who studied public health and paediatrics at Harvard) and the treatment of a kid named “Robert”, who lived in Bayview. At the medical centre at Bayview, Nadine noticed kids were being diagnosed with attention problems at staggering rates, and treatment would involve strong stimulants. One of the child patients, Robert, has a mother who got divorced when he was 10 years old, and both of them have been sexually assaulted by the mother’s current boyfriend. This anecdote is revisited later in the chapter.

• Nadine explains that in a terrifying environment (an extreme example being: a bear roaming and attacking three times a day, or you’re struggling to pay rent) we become hypervigilant and look for danger all the time, rather than being present with our education and work. In a terrifying environment, our attention shifts to potential dangers that may arise.

• In an Adverse Childhood Experiences Study, attention and behavioural problems (e.g. obesity, addiction and depression) in children and factors like physical abuse and neglect were examined. It was found that ‘children who had experienced four or more (out of the ten listed) types of trauma were 32.6 times more likely to have been diagnosed with attention or behaviour problems than children who had not experienced any trauma’ (Hari 2022, p. 170). Furthermore, in another study by Nicole Brown, childhood trauma tripled the development of ADHD symptoms.

• In a study by the British Office of National Statistics, the likelihood of a child being diagnosed with an attention problem goes up 50 percent in a financial crisis, up 75 percent when there is serious illness in the family, and up 200 percent when a parent makes a court appearance.

• Dr Jon Jureidini (psychiatrist based in Australia) explains that narrowing your focus is productive in a safe environment but counterproductive in a dangerous environment.

• Jureidini also explains that ‘The medications [that are prescribed for attention problems] are treating the surface symptoms and not the root cause’, suggesting that, oftentimes, children with attention problems are those that are experiencing intense stress.

• From a study, mild-to-moderate stress can improve performance in the short-term, but prolonged periods of even mild levels of stress can significantly alter attentional processes – causing structural changes in the brain with long-term effects.

• Professor Charles Nunn (leading evolutionary anthropologist) explains and concludes that insomnia arises when we are hypervigilant (and looking out for danger), so to treat it, we need to alleviate the sources of anxiety and stress.

• One deep cause of stress is financial security. Six out of every ten US citizens have less than $500 in savings for if a crisis comes along and this is consistent across other Western countries, and a study from the University of Chicago observed that sugar cane farmers had a 13 point lower IQ before the harvest versus after the harvest.

• Dr Signe Jauhilinen comments ‘If you have to worry about your financial situation… it takes a lot of the capacity of your brain… If you don’t have to worry, then it improves your capacity to think about other things’ (Hari 2022, p. 175). This was consistent with the results from Finland’s trial of a universal basic income scheme. Signe and Olavi Kangas (professor in the Department of Social Research at the University of Turku) examined that the universal basic income (to give a baseline of security) improves people’s focus.

• The web came around in the 1990s when the middle class was collapsing, people were sleeping less and people were becoming more financially insecure – and those factors of increasing stress made people more vulnerable to distractions.

• In this chapter, studies have shown that our inabiliity to focus is because of increasing stress, which can be attributed to a decline in sleep, increase in surveillance capitalism and increase in financial insecurity. However, a counterargument to this is that there is decreasing violence overtime.

• Nadine took steps to offer Robert’s mother therapy, get legal help against the abuser, and prescribed yoga to both Robert and his mother. Robert eventually developed a stronger relationship with his mother and no longer required drugs to manage his attention.

If you are interested in getting yourself a copy or learn more about the book, click here.

Interested in reading more? See my notes for Chapter 11.