Written by: Kylie Mort, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Change is the only constant in life. Oh yes… and time, one must never forget that ticking clock. We all have the same 24 hours in the day, it is true, but we certainly don’t use it similarly, and even within our own personal circadian rhythm, sometimes it just seems that time gets lost. So where does the time go?
Firstly there are the cognitive manipulations and contortions of our mind that I like to call the AAA effect. The first A of the acronym refers to Anticipation. That feeling of hope and excitement as we look forward to a pleasurable situation or outcome. The clamorous butterflies in the stomach and the irrepressible urge to grin. That state of mind when we really see the world around us, the colours more vibrant, the beauty more breathtaking, relishing the keenness of small delights. And whilst you are marvelling at the sheer pleasure of being alive your brain is enthusiastically feeding you more of this feel-good emotion, drugging you with the natural high of dopamine.
This is the cognitive reaction craved by the drug addict, those who rely on the legally accessible alcohol or nicotine, but also restricted narcotics such as cocaine and LSD. Dopamine receptors in the brain can be violated and hacked by these external elements but they can just as easily be unlocked and explored by the simple pleasures we take for granted, such as food choices, sleep, music, meditation, and exercise (especially yoga). Most important to this particular discussion though is dopamine’s ability to speed up time. No, I don’t mean black holes and time travel, I’m referring to the cliched, “time flies when you’re having fun!” The space-time continuum remains the same, your brain is just dancing to the beat of its own drum as dopamine fuels the fire of your chronological awareness.
Conversely, it is the same for a reduction of dopamine production as this will seem to make time crawl. My most horrific memory analogy would be the way I was sent to my bedroom “to think about it” before the inevitable punishment came when I was a child. The feeling of abject terror as you waited for what seemed to be eons, running through the possibilities of what the punishment would be today. On a short-term timeline, this is when the child’s brain is frantically calculating the consequences and the dread is pouring in. On a more sustained level this is where you see a child present as lack-lustre, unmotivated, and apathetic as a character. The child’s brain is a unique balance of chemical reactions sustained through patterns of predominance and if the fusion is off, so too is the behaviour.
So is time just about feeling good and the cognitive chemicals that create our perception of it?
Not exactly. In a broader contextual focus, time does appear slower through the eyes of a child. This is due to the encoding process of memory. New and novel encounters are denser to encode and thus seem to take longer. Neuron pathways are thicker and therefore more time-consuming to construct. Conversely, as life becomes more routine and the novelty of experiences wane, we do perceive a quickness that can be labelled as the reflective pining for the languor of our youth, as encapsulated in the stereotypical warnings of our elders to heed the rapidity of later years. Age makes time seem to pass more quickly as the pathways through our brain are more deeply ingrained.
Yet the third A is more universally felt. The third part of this time acronym is for Autopilot. The brain is an incredibly efficient machine. As we learn and adapt to situations the neuron pathways evolve and develop from the tentative tracks of the intrepid traveller to the careless careening of familiar frontiers. Neuron pathways are deepened, strengthened, and emboldened until such time as cognitive awareness becomes unnecessary. This inevitably leads to time seeming to pass faster, but does it also lead to time being lost? Is it all in the mind? Can we control time cognitively? Perhaps that is a little too simplistic, but I was keen to drill down on the mind-body balance and how we can cater for this in our productivity.
I recently conducted an experiment that proved beyond a doubt what I already knew.
Now putting aside the obvious confirmation bias, why am I so adamant? Because I am not the only one to preach it. I remind my clients, my children, my husband. I make social media posts about it; I speak about it at my performance coaching events. The proverbial reminder: you cannot pour from an empty glass. To give your best you need to be your best. And this takes time. Specific time scheduled for self-care.
Yet, if I was going to successfully preach the message, I needed to live it, I needed proof. As a qualified educator and student of psychology, I do not want to be just another voice. I am a holistic performance coach that teaches from experience. Thus I began my journey as my own laboratory rodent at a high-stress period where I faced deadlines like the craggy cliff walls of an insurmountable mountain. Again, I had bitten off more than I could chew. How was I going to fulfill all of these commitments? How could I find more time every day? I would neglect that which so many people classify as indulgence. I would remove that subjective pleasure we so often need to justify to ourselves, just so we do not feel weak and selfish. I removed my morning run, my meditation, and my yoga, successfully taking back 1½ hour of every day in my 7-day week, 10½ hours total. Now, what could I achieve with all that time?
The consequences came gradually. Yet just as the proverbial frog will eventually boil in the heating water; I too saw the culmination of liveable limitations leading to a new world order of a different nature. The first indication was my ankle. I have lived with the limp of my partial paralysis since childhood. The almost imperceivable intimation of my historical trauma. Insidiously, it grew worse and more painful as the damaged nerves lamented the loss of daily stretching and massage. And as the challenges of this weakest link grew so too did the burden increase for the knee and then the hip, as my body adapted to its necessary asymmetry.
The consequences compounded in my newly sedentary lifestyle. The historical blip on the radar of my nervous system was increasingly inhibiting my musculoskeletal system. I was feeling bloated and heavy as my digestive system went into culture shock also. As I was not stimulating either system my energy declined and so did my mood. I felt harried and beleaguered as the ripple effect of this one change damaged all routines, including meals and sleep. The mind-body connection continued to falter still further as a lack of dedicated meditation caused a lack of mindful gratitude and my mindset spiralled. Yes, I was working. I was committing everything I had to reach these deadlines. But at what cost?
Did I have more work hours? And more importantly, were they more productive? To start with the basic calculation, I had an extra 10 ½ hours per week to dedicate to my office; on average an extra 21 hours over the fortnight or 16 ½ over the 11 days before my university deadline.
I spent 34 hrs on this task, which was 45% of my work time. Let us not begin to drill down on the convulsive oscillation of competing commitments, company objectives, and deadlines. It was an 11-day sprint and anyone who runs multiple companies and a household equipped with multiple children knows the race is never won. Empathetically and objectively, it is a race that has no finish line. These are why milestone wins, daily gratitude, and celebrating small achievements are so important! Yet, I digress… Spending 75 hrs working over 11 days equates to an average of 6.8 hrs per day which equals an average 48-hour workweek. That is a pretty good balance for someone like me. But was it more time at work than the previous 11 days?
This will inevitably highlight the possible success of the sprint and the benefit of sacrificing self-care.
Looking at the schedule for the prior 3 weeks I averaged 43 hours at the coal face each week. That was taken from 128 ½ hours total which roughly equated to 6 per day. Excellent, it looks like a successful trade-off as this is equivalent to 66 hours over 11 days! The difference between the sprint of 75 hours and the preceding average of 66 hours means I worked on average an extra 9 hours… But what is this? My self-care generally takes 16½ hours! Where did the other 7½ go? That is an entire extra day!
Let’s talk about productivity. One of my favourite people to quote is Muhammad Ali and he is also one of my favourite people to model. "I don't count the sit-ups. I only start counting when it starts hurting." Just like he doesn’t count the easy sit-ups, I don’t count the off-task hours. To be on-task you need to be laser-focused. There is a myth that people can multitask. You can’t. When you believe you are focusing on two things at once you are simply dividing your focus and, in most cases, doing both tasks badly. Think about the last time you listened to someone and scrolled Facebook at the same time. How much did you retain from either task? People do not multitask; our brains use autopilot in relation to priorities. If I count an hour of work, I have focused for that hour. No phone calls, no messages, no emails. No daydreams, no time-outs. Commit. Get in, get it done, get out.
My missing day was a lack of productivity because I lacked strength. Lack of focus, lack of energy, lack of commitment. I had expected more of my mind and my body, and I had given less. Instead of preparing each day with a mind-body connection and the cognitive chemicals that would empower me, I had skipped straight to the battlefield. And I had been weaker. Ultimately if you are skipping your self-care, take a look at what it is that you are routinely scheduling and how much you genuinely enjoy it.
One of my best friends lives in Melbourne, Victoria, unfortunately, one of the most restricted, locked-up cities in the world during the past 18 months. We motivate each other each day by sharing our workout targets and successes. Yet do I do her workouts? No! I loathe the star jumps, the burpees, and ultimately for my unique body, the ankle damage. My workouts are yoga-based flows. Am I still smiling through the pain to tone and sculpt? Certainly, but my ankle doesn’t protest, and it is a rhythm that suits my individual personality. Two ten-minute workouts can equate to a 20-minute run. Choose your self-care in a way that serves you, so you look forward to the dopamine release rather than grimace at the scheduled pain. All bodies move, all bodies need movement maintenance, and all mind-body connections need stimulation. If you are not doing it for the bikini body, do it for the cognitive chemicals. Not only will you reap the results of efficiency, efficacy, and energy, you will strengthen your mind-body connection and your success mindset.
Kylie Mort, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Kylie Mort works with individuals of all ages to embrace and support the Academic Mind, Self-Awareness & the Mind-Body Connection. Assisting individuals by tailoring bespoke mentoring packages supporting academic, physical, and personal advancement and success. Kylie is an International Author and Writer for Global Magazines, writing both academically and creatively to connect with those who seek guidance and inspiration to be their best selves. A former Secondary School Teacher & VCE Leader with 20 years of teaching experience, Kylie is a qualified & registered: School Teacher, Yoga Teacher & Performance Coach. She is also an entrepreneur, leading multiple-award-winning companies. She is currently studying Psychological Science at Deakin University to provide holistic mentoring to her clients better, having spent decades honing her skills in face-to-face teaching, mentoring, and business & company development. Now, she is focused on the human mind and its power to empower through reimaging, redesigning, and recreating.
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