Science Says You Should Only Check Emails at Designated Times
Over at The New York Times, researcher Daniel Levitin shares why you should give your brain a much-needed reset by only checking emails or social feeds during designated times:
The science Levitin refers to here is that which he conducted with his collaborator from Stanford, professor of neuroscience Vinod Menon.
The researchers discovered that part of the brain – called the insula – is responsible for switching our thoughts from high-focus to unfocused, depending on the task at hand.
When the insula is balanced evenly, we can be extremely focused for productivity or letting ourselves get caught in wild daydreams to boost creativity.
The problem, Levitin explains, is when our insula is imbalanced, either by overwhelming distractors (like Twitter (X), Facebook, Instagram, email or co-workers) or by a lack of energy caused by a poor night’s sleep, for example.
Dedicating portions and set times of your day for checking emails, social networks, meetings or other common attention-sucking tasks can give your brain the much-needed structure it needs.
SOURCE: The Behance Blog
