Scroll, Swipe, Repeat: How We Lose Attention in 10 Seconds

Happy World Brain day to all you brainiacs out there! In this week's edition, to honor this very special day we thought that it would be interesting to discuss how we remember things, what is involved in helping us remember and how we can better our memory.

So without further ado let's get right into this memorable subject!

How We Remember Things (3 steps)

Attention: We are constantly receiving information from our environment (through sensory memory), how much exactly? A staggering 11 million pieces of info per second! That seems like a lot to take in at once… probably because it is. That is where attention comes into play, and it only picks roughly 4 out of them all to focus on at any one time, that's a ways from the 11 million we perceive. Now that’s what we call prioritizing!
Working memory: Ok, now we established what the 4 most important things to focus on (or so we think). Enter stage: working memory. This highly complex process involves your brain holding onto those 4 inputs we just talked about, and processing them for up to a few minutes. During this time you are problem solving, calculating and relating it to past experiences, which all happens in your brain's hard drive or long term memory. Once completed, your brain plays a game of this or that, where it will decide if it’s worth it to hold onto, or simply throw it out like the millions of other inputs. Needless to say, those that do get held onto are some lucky, nay, important inputs your brain holds in high esteem.
Long Term Memory: This is where it gets interesting. Did you know that you are able to store virtually an infinite amount of information? How much? The average adult has 2.5 million GB of data. Take that apple! Realistically, our memory is not infinite, but it would be safe to say that it is (almost) impossible to max out your biological hard drive, so it would only make sense to try to make use of the world's most advanced hard drive. This is where those important inputs get encoded for long-term use.

Let’s Put It To The Test

This quick experiment will let you see these 3 parts working together in real time. Let’s give it a go! Do your best to remember these names: Tony, Paul, Michael, Andrea, Caroline, Samuel, Jack, Andy. Without looking back, how many can you remember? As we have mentioned most people get 4, so if you fared better consider yourself lucky.

Attention was the mechanism that you used to focus on the 8 names instead of the sound of your dog chewing their favorite toy, the birds chirping outside, or even keeping your mind from wandering.
Working memory is that temporary space where you were able to hold the names, this is where you can retain information for a short period of time. After this period of time either it is classified as unimportant and discarded or it is useful and subsequently encoded into long term memory. So yeah, sorry to all of those Samuel and Jacks we all just forgot.
Long Term Memory: In this experiment you may have noticed that you may have recognized one of the names as something or someone you know in your life. This can help you to remember said names by associating them to an already established and remembered item.

The Attention Crisis

Over the past 15 years the average human attention span has dropped from 12 seconds to just 8.25 seconds! Even goldfish can focus more than we can… This drop is cause for serious concern as it affects nearly every single aspect of our day to day life from learning, socializing and problem solving.

Figuring out the why does not have a very straight forward answer, although it is clear that there are some important factors that are definitely contributing to this sharp decline. Some leading culprits include: lack of exercise, decrease in social interaction, poor dietary habits, lack of exposure to sunlight, increase in stress, diminished sleep duration and quality, etc. So let’s go over healthy habits so that you can optimize your focus, enabling you to become a more efficient problem solver, not to mention remembering more of your life!

Pay Attention to Your Attention!

Chill Out: Yes, stress is probably the greatest enemy to your body's overall wellbeing. Sadly people usually don't give it the attention it deserves (pun intended). Stress not only reduces the amount of information you are able to keep in your working memory, it also reduces hippocampal volume (the hippocampus is the actual part of our brain that works like a hard drive), decreases neurogenesis and neuroplasticity, and much more.
Undernourished: Unfortunately, most of us are deficient in at least one micronutrient, which sounds like no biggie, but it actually is. These deficiencies mean that our body works similar to the power-saver on your phone. And just like in the example, everything tends to run a lot slower when you don't have all the necessary nutrients or energy.

The good news is that generally people consider vitamins to be important to health, so much so that over ⅔ of the population takes them. We wonder what the figures would be for multimineral complexes? Though there is no concrete answer it is most likely much, much less. This seems paradoxical because most of us are also deficient in some mineral as well, at least marginally. Minerals play fundamental roles in our brain's optimal functioning and even slight deficiencies are cause for brain fog, decreased focus and concentration, impaired working memory and so on.

Let's review some of the more important minerals of the bunch (although keeping in mind that they are all critical and essential).

Magnesium: Magnesium increases BDNF, a key contributor to neuroplasticity and overall cognitive function. Super, duper important to say the least, not to mention it is a crucial component of energy production which, like oxygen, your brain will not be able to function without.

Zinc: Its deficiency is directly linked to a decrease in our ability to think, decrease in memory, altering of melatonin production and problems in dopamine and serotonin regulation… just to name a few.

Selenium: This mineral is akin to your brain's natural bodyguard. Protecting it from inflammation, oxidative stress and reducing the stress hormone (cortisol).

You may be thinking, how does OmniBlue tie in to these three power players? Well, OmniBlue’s flabbergasting mineral profile contains them all in significant concentrations, helping you reach nutritional adequacy from a marginally deficient diet. This will, in turn, grease up your attention span, working memory and long term memory making sure that your brain is as healthy as can be. Considering the vast amount of mineral deficiencies in the US alone, it may not be a bad idea to grab a bottle of minerals and not only maintain a healthy memory, but improve it enormously. For a very limited time, use code BRAINY (8 uses total, so hurry!) for a cool 25% off and get your brains up!

Awareness/Meditation/Mindfulness: FUN FACT! You spend roughly half of your waking hours mind wandering. It's not to say it's not useful (because it is for things like problem solving) but if you sleep 8 hours a day and spend another 8 wandering your mind, you are only truly present a measly 8 hours… just enough to work your shift! Just kidding! In all seriousness these activities not only help us fit more info in our mind at any given moment, it makes us aware of what is currently filling it up. In this manner we can be sure to feed our mind important thoughts that will ultimately contribute to the overall fullness of our harddrive and live a more fulfilled life.

Final thoughts

We hope that to celebrate brain day you have gotten a little closer to understanding the vital topic of attention and how our actions can make or break it. Unfortunately we cant offer you a meditation retreat just yet (although we would absolutely love to). But what we can offer is a magnificent mineral complex that addresses every single mineral in our body, most of which are generally overlooked. Our minerals contain significant amounts of not only magnesium but also selenium and zinc making it a perfect companion on your journey to fully harnessing the power of your mind.

Wishing you all a fantastic week! Stay healthy and stay curious!