Garrett Westerwell explains how multitasking really means shifting attention between tasks, describes research linking it to higher stress, and uses a vehicle highway vs. city analogy to illustrate the value of focused attention.
Garrett Westerwell: We're all guilty of multitasking, whether we like to admit it or not. He says when we multitask, we're more likely to have higher stress levels because we're constantly shifting our attention. He uses a vehicle analogy to show the benefits of focusing on one thing at a time.
Hello, Cadre. Welcome to sports, like Saturday on this lovely Saturday morning or afternoon, wherever you are in the country. My name is Garrett Westerwell, and I am our expert in sport and performance psychology. And one thing that I want to talk about for today is something that I've seen a lot recently and that I'm personally guilty of, and that is multitasking. Excuse me? So multitasking just again, I think we are all guilty of it, whether we like to admit it or not. And I think we've probably all heard of it.
And it would be beneficial, in my opinion, to do a deeper dive in a few minute long video on here. So that might be coming in the future. But I want to leave you all with one analogy today that I think is really beneficial to think about multitasking. And we do it in a variety of ways, whether we're the classic one is texting while driving or on our phone while driving. I think of one for me is if I'm on a phone call with somebody, especially like a family member, and I'm just doing something else, my attention is not really fully invested in that, that phone call.
And some of us might think we're good multitaskers. Some of us might think, ah, I know it's bad, but I still do it. And basically, when you multitask, the sum of it is. Thank you, Doctor Leslie Davis and Jules. Good afternoon. Hey there. Basically, when we multitask, it's, we're not multitasking. We're not multi. We can multi do, we can do different things at once, but we're attending on one thing at once and we're just constantly shifting our attention. We're going back and forth. We're stopping here and starting there and just going back and forth with that.
So the efficiency just isn't there. We're more likely to be stressed. There's research that shows we're more likely to have higher stress levels when we're multitasking because we're just constantly shifting back and forth. But regardless of that, I think just a really practical analogy that'll hit home. That did for me, and I hope it might for you, is think about your vehicle. Whether you're looking to buy a new one or you have one, or you know, anything about vehicles, which, which gets a better mileage per gallon on the highway or the city.
It's usually the highway that gets better miles to the gallon. Right. It gets better gas efficiency. And why is that? That's because in the city, you're, you're stopping. You're shifting, you're going different speed limits. Maybe you're making turns. You have to slow down for those turns or stop signs, pedestrians. You're looking at all the things by the side of you. There's a lot of reasons why you might stop, start, shift, turn, all these different things. Whereas in the highway or the interstate, you're just going, you're not stopping nearly as much.
You're keeping a consistent speed. You're focused, or your car's speed is focused on that singular thing. And similar to your car or your vehicle getting better mileage on the highway, that's how your tension is. You're going to get better bang for your buck, better efficiency out of your tension when you don't have to stop, shift and do all these different things. So when you pick one singular thing at a time, you're getting better miles per the gown, with your brain, with your focus and being more efficient.
So I know when I heard that, it was like it really helped me. And multitasking is a big thing that we're all guilty of. So I think I want to do a deeper dive on this in a future longer form video. But just wanted to share this, this cool analogy with you all. Maybe you can think about it if you're road tripping this weekend or with a vehicle analogy or just in your daily life, just try to think, how can I be aware of if I'm multitasking and be aware of the efficiency of that, that I might be risking if I am multitasking?
So thank you all for joining. Appreciate you for being here and happy rest.
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