Earlier this week (a time seemingly eons ago), somebody asked me if I had any suggestions for interesting podcasts. Usually, I am an avid podcast consumer, but just recently my capacity to ‘think’ on my journeys to and from work has been somewhat diminished and I have found myself either listening to music or something requiring no thought. This morning I decided I was going to make more of an effort. For some reason, my brain appears to be working quite well this morning and quite able to access some material requiring some thought. (I wonder if this is because my week started with a series of high emotion, high stress events and now I am recovered and ‘bounced back’ stronger.) If you hadn’t already guessed, it’s going to be a deeper one today, so thank you for bearing with me. I’m also writing the majority of this at the beginning of today on my way to work rather than at the end of today before I leave, although the chances of me finishing and posting before the end of the day are minimal.
So, when I logged in to LinkedIn, I came across a LinkedIn learning course from a guy called Dan Ariely. He’s not just a random guy though, he is Professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University and I first came across him a good while ago. This particular course was (is) called ‘Dan Ariely on Making Decisions’. I was intrigued. I have many decisions to make both personally and professionally at the moment, so I was curious.
I am around 15 minutes in to the roughly 60-minute course and my brain has been reminded of some of the neuroscience I learned back in the mid ‘00s when I was studying for my Master’s. One of the things that he said has really stuck with me is that our brains are just not wired to make modern decisions; they are designed to detect faces, light and colour or danger but not to deal with large society and so often fail. We are not designed for this much attention. He uses the example of driving a car and talks about all of the split-second decisions that one has to make when driving and how modern cars are now designed to take or assist with some of these to protect us. (I’m resisting the urge to sound like my father and talk about driving when I first learnt to drive, what cars were like then, attempting not to veer off into one of my reminiscences and rue the days of when I used to bat around the country in my 1985 A reg Ford Fiesta.)
Anyway, it got me thinking about my decision-making and how my conscious and unconscious decisions are made. He said that at times of high stress and increased emotion, cognition reduces. We are not neurologically capable of making good decisions under these conditions. This then made me think of a book I read bits of several years ago: Thinking Fast and Slow by Dan Kahneman. My biggest takeaway from this excellent and really interesting book is that our brains have two types of thinking – the automatic swift, snappy unconscious responses (system 1) and the slow, considered, thought through (system 2) ones. He also found that you can tell how engaged a person’s ‘system 2’ is during a task; their pupils will dilate! Cool stuff, huh?!
I have digressed once again… so, Dan Ariely also talks about two different types of stress; high levels of stress and persistent low levels of stress. When we are experiencing high levels of stress just don’t make a decision. Equally, when we are experiencing significant, ongoing low levels of stress the brain is being used to process that and we can’t use all of our cognitive ability. His advice is to slow down and remove some of these stresses. This made me think about the last 2 1/2 years, and probably more importantly the last two years almost to the day; the decision-making, stress levels and emotional taxation during these Covid times. I do need to note here that stress and pressure are two very different things; stress is both physiological and emotional. Stress is caused by the belief that we are unable to cope with the pressure we are under. So when Dan was talking about reducing our stress, I believe he’s also talking about how we can learn to cope with the pressures that we are under. I have been reflecting on my thoughts, feelings and emotions of the past two years and I’ve tried very hard to map out how things have changed and how different ‘big’ decision-making comes to me now. That’s not to say that I always make better decisions, although I very much hope I do, I think it is more that making those decisions have less of a stressing impact on me because I have had so many more experiences and so many more high-pressure and even high stress experiences that my brain has rewired itself to feel less of that pressure. I also believe in the plasticity of the brain and its ability to grow and develop.
Apart from finding all of it fascinating (and picking up potentially useful pub quiz facts), my most practical takeaway so far is that, when one is in one of those low-level stress brackets (and I’m using the word stress not pressure here), one should always get a second opinion or ask for advice. This is because, when we give advice to another, we can remove much of the emotion from the situation. (I believe that what Dan is referring to when he talks about emotion or stress is that stress and emotion are highly correlated.) It is not, clearly, always suitable to actually ask another person for advice, however that by asking ourselves the question “What advice would I give to somebody in my position?” we are still able to reduce some of that emotion and come to a better, less emotional decision than if we had not asked the question or framed it in that manner.
Well, that’s all I have for this week. As predicted, I didn’t finish before work and so I’m doing so now. The bonus is that I can now listen to some music while I type. My playlist is ‘Comfort Zone’ and I’m listening to a bit of Rihanna and Mikky Ekko; they are suggesting I Stay. I shan’t. It’s home time now, so I wish you all a Happy Friday.
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