The Mindbodygreen Podcast

Johann Hari: “When you try to do lots of things at once, you do all of them less competently—you make more mistakes, you remember less of what you do, and you're far less creative.”  Hari, a New York Times bestselling author, joins mbg co-CEO, Jason Wachob, to discuss how to reclaim your attention span, plus: - The link between sleep & focus (~05:16) - Why multitasking never works (~10:39) - How reading for pleasure retrains your brain (~21:05) - How to eat for attention (~35:54) - Why you shouldn't reply to texts immediately (~39:21) Referenced in the episode: - Hari's book, Stolen Focus. - kSafe. - Freedom app. - A study showing it takes 23 minutes to get back your focus after an interruption. - A study on the switch-cost effect. - A study from Charles Czeisler that sleeping ~5 hours a night impairs attention the same as a blood alcohol level of .1%. - Read more about Hewlett Packard's study on the link between work distractions and IQ. - mbg Podcast episode #79, with Adam Gazzaley, M.D., Ph.D. - Read more