Dr Adam's Blog

There is more pressure on the average employee today than any other time in history. Companies are cutting resources yet expecting greater outcomes, every industry is feeling the pain and no one is immune. Business guru Charles Handy said that working in the 21st century is described by the formula ½ x 2 = 3. Translated, this means half the number of people doing twice the amount of work expected to get three times the result. The pressure to get more done in less time is driving us to the brink of burn out, causing us to take stress leave and putting excessive pressure on our relationships. Part of the fall out from this pressure is that most people have stopped taking breaks during the day, they arrive at the office put their head down and don’t put it back up again until it is time to go home. Morning tea is a thing of the past, the lunch hour is dead and afternoon tea doesn’t even get on the radar. However is working constantly during the day the answer? I think not.

As a performance consultant working with thousands of people each year I believe the single largest contributor to stress, burn out and poor performance is an improperly structured workday. It is physiologically impossible to be productive and focused your entire day; your ability to get work done fluctuates at different times of the day and follows the natural rhythms of the body. Every function in our body (sleep, digestion, alertness, even your energy levels) is controlled by our natural bio-rhythms. Unfortunately most of the habits we have in a day actually work against our natural rhythms rather than with them. The key to lasting energy, happiness and high performance is getting the external world and your internal world in sync with each other. Here is a daily plan to help you get your internal world and external world working together.

6am: Get regular

One of the most critical aspects of a sleep routine is a regular bed and wake up time (of these two the wake up time is the most important). Falling asleep and waking up involves a number of complicated processes, for example your body prepares itself to wake up long before your eyes open by increasing body temperature, releasing various hormones, elevating blood pressure and heart rate. When you are in a regular sleep routine your body gets used to the pattern and it makes going to sleep and waking up much easier. A sign that you have your routine right is when you consistently wake up minutes before your alarm clock is set to go off. The biggest challenge in maintaining a regular sleep routine is sticking to it on the weekends. When we dramatically alter our sleep pattern on the weekend we can give ourselves a mini case of jet lag. If you feel the need to catch up on sleep over the weekend the key is to go to bed early and get up at your normal time rather than sleeping in past lunch.

6:15 am: Get moving

Some exercise early in the morning before breakfast is the ideal way to kickstart your day. First of all exercise gets more blood and nutrients to your brain and helps you to be more alert when you get to work. Also exercise stimulates the release of endorphins, which are not distant relatives to Flipper but chemicals that elevate your mood and leave you feeling good. In addition low glucose and insulin levels in the morning maximise the burning of body fat during exercise and the exercise will elevate your metabolic rate for the rest of the day.

7:00 am: Break the Fast

A solid breakfast is needed to ensure that you have enduring energy levels during the day. The two main things to include in your breakfast are protein and carbohydrates that are low in glyceamic index. Examples are: Omelette with wholegrain bread

Fruit smoothie with yoghurt and fruit

Muesli and nuts

Skipping breakfast is just plain stupid, so don’t do it!!

8am to 11am focus on the big stuff

During this time the majority of people are at their most effective. This is the time to tackle your most important tasks that require the most thought and problem solving. Don’t spend this time doing mundane tasks, leave clearing the inbox to times when you are less effective.

11 am: Fuel up and get some sun

At 11am there is a natural drop in our blood glucose levels, the result is a slump in our energy levels and a corresponding drop in performance. This is the time to have your first meal of the day. Yes you heard right! Have lunch early, this will help you to keep your energy levels high. In fact a number of schools tested 11am lunchtime and found that students were far more alert and focused as a result. The easiest choice is a whole grain salad sandwich with protein (chicken, ham, tuna). Direct sunlight each day on our body helps to keep our circadian rhythm (the rhythm that controls when you are awake and asleep, as well as hundreds of other functions) in check. Most people don’t see the sun as they get to work when the sun is rising, stay in doors all day, and leave as the sun is setting. A lack of sun puts you at risk of seasonal affective disorder syndrome (SADS). SADS increases your chances of feeling down and depressed.

1 pm: Remember to breathe

When we get stressed our body releases stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol. Prolonged exposure to these chemicals has a negative effect on our brain and our ability to focus, solve problems and come up with new ideas. When we slow our breathing down and do some relaxation we stop producing these chemicals and produce something new called Nitric Oxide, when this hits our brain we produce endorphins and dopamine which make us feel good and help us think better.

2:30 pm: Lunch # 2

At around 3pm we get a dramatic drop in glucose levels and a drop in our temperature. This leaves us feeling very tired and drowsy. We have all experienced 3:30 itis. The way to avoid this is to stabilise your glucose levels by having a meal just before this. In this meal include some protein to stimulate brain function. An easy idea is fruit and nuts (almonds, walnuts). A meal at this time will also stop your cravings in the afternoon and stop you from pigging out when you get home.

6:00 pm: Switch to home channel

As you are travelling home start to switch your mind set to fit into family mode. A lot of people rush home at the end of the day and take their office mind set home with them and they run their home like their office. The mindset of your home is a lot slower and sedate than the office, so slow down on the way home.

7:30 pm: Have a happy meal

The final meal of the day should be small in volume (this will reduce the stress on your digestive system and help you to feel more energetic in the morning) and based on vegetables. Vegetables are high in fibre as well as vitamins and minerals. Science tells us that any population who live long healthy lives has a high intake of vegetables. With dinner include a small amount of lean protein especially oily fish like salmon, tuna etc. This type of fish contains high levels of Omega 3 oils, which improve our mood and our health.

9:00 pm: Dim the lights and slow down.

Whether our environment is dark or light impacts on our ability to get to sleep. A part of your brain called the Suprachiasmatic Nucleus (SCN) detects light input from the eyes. The SCN controls the secretion of Melatonin, a chemical that helps you sleep. When the SCN senses light on your eyes it shuts down Melatonin production, likewise when it senses darkness it releases Melatonin. Therefore as the evening progresses, start to dim the lights around the house. Bright artificial lights will prevent melatonin release so avoid switching on the Hollywood lights around the mirror just before you go to bed.

Taken from
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/17/technology/17distracted.html?th&emc=th

Driven to Distraction
SAN FRANCISCO — On the day of the collision last month, visibility was good. The sidewalk was not under repair. As she walked, Tiffany Briggs, 25, was talking to her grandmother on her cellphone, lost in conversation.
Phones aren't just distracting drivers; they make pedestrians inattentive too.
“I ran into a truck,” Ms. Briggs said.
It was parked in a driveway.
Distracted driving has gained much attention lately because of the inflated crash risk posed by drivers using cellphones to talk and text.
But there is another growing problem caused by lower-stakes multitasking — distracted walking — which combines a pedestrian, an electronic device and an unseen crack in the sidewalk, the pole of a stop sign, a toy left on the living room floor or a parked (or sometimes moving) car.
The era of the mobile gadget is making mobility that much more perilous, particularly on crowded streets and in downtown areas where multiple multitaskers veer and swerve and walk to the beat of their own devices.
Most times, the mishaps for a distracted walker are minor, like the lightly dinged head and broken fingernail that Ms. Briggs suffered, a jammed digit or a sprained ankle, and, the befallen say, a nasty case of hurt pride. Of course, the injuries can sometimes be serious — and they are on the rise.
Slightly more than 1,000 pedestrians visited emergency rooms in 2008 because they got distracted and tripped, fell or ran into something while using a cellphone to talk or text. That was twice the number from 2007, which had nearly doubled from 2006, according to a study conducted by Ohio State University, which says it is the first to estimate such accidents.
“It’s the tip of the iceberg,” said Jack L. Nasar, a professor of city and regional planning at Ohio State, noting that the number of mishaps is probably much higher considering that most of the injuries are not severe enough to require a hospital visit. What is more, he said, texting is rising sharply and devices like the iPhone have thousands of new, engaging applications to preoccupy phone users.
Mr. Nasar supervised the statistical analysis, which was done by Derek Troyer, one of his graduate students. He looked at records of emergency room visits compiled by the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
Examples of such visits include a 16-year-old boy who walked into a telephone pole while texting and suffered a concussion; a 28-year-old man who tripped and fractured a finger on the hand gripping his cellphone; and a 68-year-old man who fell off the porch while talking on a cellphone, spraining a thumb and an ankle and causing dizziness.

Young people injured themselves more often. About half the visits Mr. Troyer studied were by people under 30, and a quarter were 16 to 20 years old. But more than a quarter of those injured were 41 to 60 years old.
Pedestrians, like drivers, have long been distracted by myriad tasks, like snacking or reading on the go. But the constant interaction with electronic devices has made single-tasking seem boring or even unproductive.
Cognitive psychologists, neurologists and other researchers are beginning to study the impact of constant multitasking, whether behind a desk or the wheel or on foot. It might stand to reason that someone looking at a phone to read a message would misstep, but the researchers are finding that just talking on a phone takes its own considerable toll on cognition and awareness.
Sometimes, pedestrians using their phones do not notice objects or people that are right in front of them — even a clown riding a unicycle. That was the finding of a recent study at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Wash., by a psychology professor, Ira Hyman, and his students.
One of the students dressed as a clown and unicycled around a central square on campus. About half the people walking past by themselves said they had seen the clown, and the number was slightly higher for people walking in pairs. But only 25 percent of people talking on a cellphone said they had, Mr. Hyman said.
He said the term commonly applied to such preoccupation is “inattention blindness,” meaning a person can be looking at an object but fail to register it or process what it is.
Particularly fascinating, Mr. Hyman said, is that people walking in pairs were more than twice as likely to see the clown as were people talking on a cellphone, suggesting that the act of simply having a conversation is not the cause of inattention blindness.
One possible explanation is that a cellphone conversation taxes not just auditory resources in the brain but also visual functions, said Adam Gazzaley, a neuroscientist at the University of California, San Francisco. That combination, he said, prompts the listener to, for example, create visual imagery related to the conversation in a way that overrides or obscures the processing of real images.
By comparison, walking and chewing gum (that age-old measure of pedestrian skill at multitasking) is a snap.
“Walking and chewing are repetitive, well-practiced tasks that become automatic,” Dr. Gazzaley said. “They don’t compete for resources like texting and walking.”
Further, he said, the cellphone gives people a constant opportunity to pursue goals that feel more important than walking down the street.
“An animal would never walk into a pole,” he said, noting survival instincts would trump other priorities.

For Shalamar Jones, 19, the priority was keeping in touch with her boyfriend. Last month while she was Christmas shopping in a mall near San Francisco, she was texting him when — bam! — she walked into the window of a New York & Company store, thinking it was a door.
“I thought it was open,” she said, noting that no harm was done. “I just started laughing at myself.”
The worst part is the humiliation, said Christopher Black, 20, an art student at San Francisco State University who 18 months ago had his own pratfall.
At the time, Mr. Black said, the sidewalks were packed with pedestrians. So he decided he could move faster if he walked in the street, keeping close to the parked cars. The trouble is he was also texting — with a woman he was flirting with.
He unwittingly started to veer into the road, prompting an oncoming car to honk. He said he instinctively jumped toward the sidewalk but, in the process, forgot about the line of parked cars.
“I splayed against the side of the car, and the phone hit the ground,” he said. He and his phone were uninjured, except for his pride. “It was pretty significantly embarrassing.”

Dr Ad's comment
Just another study that shows being Present and focused helps our brain be more productive and helps us get better performance.

I was recently in a meeting with a learning and development officer of a large recruitment firm, who has a reputation for being a high performer in the industry and someone who is very productive. She had seen me speak at a conference and wanted me to work with their organization on three levels.
1. Present a keynote at their leadership offsite  
2. Put in place a 3 day program spread out over 3 months with their consultants.
3. Speak at 5 client breakfasts, in each capitol city where they invite 200 of their clients to hear my presentation, as a value add and relationship builder.

Typically after a meeting like this people want to see a proposal for each project, then we spend the next month swapping emails and phone calls about the content and discuss budget and availability.

I said to her “would you like me to send you a proposal?” To my surprise she said “No! I have a policy that I only touch things once. Lets get the whole process finished now”.

So we nailed down the content for each, called the relevant parties involved got their sign off on dates and budget and even designed the internal and external communications.

In 45 minutes the whole process was done! We both left the meeting with nothing more to do.

She had organised 6 months worth of training in 45 minutes and all I had to do was tailor my presentation to suit their needs and current challenges.

How often in the day do you touch things without finishing them?

Personally this month I have been working on 100% completion and 0% procrastination. I guarantee that this will increase your work place productivity.

My goal for this month is complete everything I touch. I challenge you to do the same.


Posted by Dr Adam Fraser