S2 · Ep 17: Cognitive Load Reset — Reducing Mental Overwhelm And Decision Fatigue | The MindSpa Podcast

Your brain is not broken; it may simply be overloaded.

In this episode of The MindSpa Podcast, Tina Wilston and Michelle Massunken unpack cognitive load and why so many people feel mentally exhausted, distracted, and overwhelmed, even after a full night’s sleep. When your attention is stretched too thin, it can show up as brain fog, scattered thinking, forgetfulness, and decision fatigue over everyday tasks.

We explore how the five senses contribute to cognitive overwhelm and why visual input can be one of the biggest drains on mental energy. From turning down the radio so you can focus while driving to noticing how hypervigilance pulls in every detail of your environment, we connect common experiences to what is happening behind the scenes in the brain and nervous system.

Tina and Michelle also discuss anxiety and nervous system activation, including how panic can heighten sound, smell, touch, and temperature sensitivity until everything feels like too much. They share practical strategies for navigating overstimulating environments such as airports, grocery stores, Walmart, and Costco, along with simple tools that can help reduce sensory overload.

The conversation also explores digital overstimulation, screen habits, notifications, and small technology changes that can reduce the constant background demand on your attention. Finally, they discuss flow state, cognitive regulation, and why rebuilding tolerance for boredom may be an important step toward greater focus, presence, and wellbeing.

What You’ll Hear In This Episode

• What cognitive load is and how it affects daily life
 • Why sensory input can contribute to mental exhaustion
 • The connection between anxiety, hypervigilance, and overwhelm
 • Practical tools for managing overstimulating environments
 • How technology and notifications impact attention and energy
 • Why boredom may be essential for focus, creativity, and recovery

If you’ve been feeling mentally drained, distracted, or overwhelmed by everyday demands, this episode offers a grounded look at why that happens and what may help.

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The MindSpa Podcast

Thoughtful conversations about mental health, relationships, identity, healing, grounded in clinical expertise and steady human insight.

Hosts

Tina Wilston, M.Ed., Registered Psychotherapist 

Co-Owner, MindSpa Mental Health Centre

LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook

Michelle Massunken, MSW, RSW

Co-Owner, MindSpa Mental Health Centre

LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook

MindSpa Mental Health Centre

Ottawa - Kanata & Gloucester

themindspa.ca

LinkedIn, instagram

Listen on

Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube

Transcript

Welcome And Why Cognitive Load Matters

Michelle Massunken 0:02

Hello, hello, and welcome to another episode of The MindSpa Podcast where we talk about all things mental health and life related. And so today's topic, another very important one that we all experience to some capacity, but again, not talked about often enough. And that is as it relates to our cognitive load. Now I know, Tina, you talk about this quite a bit and you see it a lot in your work, and I've done obviously some courses on it and stuff like that. So I wanted to talk about it, especially starting off with just even uh understanding what cognitive load is and what kind of brought you to realizing the impact that cognitive load has on us as individuals and as a society. So tell us a little bit about your history around that and what it is.

Tina Wilston 0:45

Yeah, absolutely.

Flow State Starts With Less Load

Tina Wilston 0:46

So I would say that my interest in it generated when I took a course about flow and flow state and how to encourage yourself to get into flow state. Because basically it boiled down to excess cognitive load reduces your ability to get into a flow state. So a lot of the talk around it was how do you reduce cognitive load or mental load is another way to sort of think about it. And because also because I think of the neurofeedback world, from the neurofeedback lens, we're always looking at the brain and the energy in the brain and how the way the energy in the brain is impacted can impact our lived experience. Right. So if we have too much fast brainwave activity happening in our brain, we can then feel anxious, right? But then also, what is it in our environment that can create too much fast brainwave in our brain? And that can be these different things that will impact cognitive load. One of the biggest things that impacts cognitive load is our five senses. So a lot of people might not know that your five senses all live in the same small little geographical spot in the brain, which is why when we do lose one sense, our other senses tend to get more heightened. Okay. Can you use an example of that? Yeah. So so many people who um are blind or cannot see or even have reduced vision will notice that they have a more keen sense of hearing. Um, they have a more keen sense of taste. Um it it's not, it's not universal, like it's not a hundred percent universal, but just generally speaking, because what happens is when even when we remove a sense, uh we we have it. So let's say we have perfect vision, but we blindfold ourselves for a period of time, they can see on brain scans that then other senses will start taking over the geography of the visual senses. So it knows how to share the geography of the brain and give more power to these other senses. And from a from a survival standpoint, that makes a lot of sense. Right? If I'm out in the wilderness, let's say I'm living, you know, back thousands of years ago and I'm living in the wilderness and something happens to my eyesight. If I'm going to survive my environment, I need those other senses to pick up the slack. I need them to be able to be stronger so that I can survive. So I do think that it's based in evolution. Right. Haven't fully, I'm just assuming I haven't fully researched that, want to be clear, but I'm assuming that that has a because our five senses really are basic in our in our survival. But they're also incredibly energetically, they take a lot of energy, a lot more than I think people give credit to, especially our visuals. So our visuals are the ones that take up the most amount of energy. Um, I find it really fascinating because the way that our eyesight works, it's the reason that optical illusions actually exist, is because it's so energy draining. It's looking for shortcuts any chance it has. It will generalize. I think everyone's had the experience where they've driven they're they've driven a route like a thousand times. And then one day they see something on the route that they're like, I'd never noticed that before. Now I can't unsee it. Right. But like my brain just edited that information out because it was not relevant or pertinent to me. And our brains have to do that all the time with our visuals is edit out information that's not relevant to me. If we actually took in every single detail, every single detail that is going on, it would be exhausting. And what you've probably seen like from the trauma lens is those hyper-vigilant.

Michelle Massunken 4:50

I was gonna say, yeah, they do that.

Tina Wilston 4:53

They do, they're taking in everything, but they are more mentally exhausted than someone who is able to effectively filter out the visual information that's not pertinent.

Speaker 2 5:02

Yeah.

Tina Wilston 5:02

And we were talking before about how like I know that it's almost a joke how people turn the volume down on their radio if they're like looking for somewhere that they're trying to find, like an address that they're trying to find. But you literally can see better if your auditory is not being bombarded with the radio or music or whatever, people talking in the car. Shh, I need to see where I'm going. People are like, oh, that's kind of funny, but it's true. It really is how it works. So our five senses are an easy way to get cognitive overwhelm. Yeah. Which means it's also a really easy way to reduce cognitive overwhelm as well, is by looking at our five senses.

Michelle Massunken 5:41

Yeah. That's such a great example that you shared. And as you're talking, I was like, Yeah, I can see that. And I see that often. Sometimes I do I uh show like a grounding technique, right? Where it's like the five things. So I want you to describe five things that you see in the office. And it's always interesting that those who are so hyper-vigilant, like they're describing things that I didn't even notice existed. I mean, you've been in the office. I'm like, how did you even see that sprinkler? Up like I did a certain thing, I'm like, I did not. I've been in this office for years, I never even noticed that. But that goes back to your point of like sometimes that overload kind of is that double-edged sword, right? Where the five senses could be used to increase our capacity or to cause this feeling of overload in some ways as well. Too. How do you know when you're getting to that point of cognitive overload or your capacity is kind of reaching its limit?

Signs You Are Cognitively Overloaded

Tina Wilston 6:26

Yeah. So I would definitely say, again, if you tap into the five senses, um, you're you're gonna be able to get a sense of it. But I I think it would start with my brain is feeling fuzzy. My brain is feeling uh like it's not functioning, like it's maybe running slower. I can't think things through. I'm feeling overwhelmed, but not necessarily. I think there can be emotional overwhelm that we can feel, and there can actually be just straight up cognitive overwhelm. Like my thoughts are all over the place. I can't, I can't even like sequence things, right? Of like first I need to do this, then I need to do that, then I need to do this. It's like I don't know where to start. Um, it can feel like decision, like I can't make a decision. I'm I'm trying to decide what am I gonna wear, the blue shirt, the black shirt, and I'm just like, ah, I can't, I can't decide. Very often you're gonna be caught like you're cognitively overwhelmed at that time. Um, and so interestingly, you know, digital, like digital information that we put into our brains is something that contributes a lot to cognitive overwhelm because everything has been shortened for our attention spans because uh it's all about engaging in it, right? Um, and engaging in online content. And so they make it short and it's like quick dopamine hits and that type of stuff, but it is very draining to our brain because it's like switching from topic to topic, right? It's not like it's just running one like similar topic after another. Your brain is getting bombarded with different visuals, different sounds, they put music in. Sometimes people are talking, um, and they're trying to make it visually interesting to you.

Michelle Massunken 8:15

But it could very well be, and it is very much so overstimulating. Yes. And so, in a lot of ways, like the modern brain doesn't even have moments of silence anymore. No. What are the implications of that?

Screens, Silence, And Modern Exhaustion

Tina Wilston 8:28

Well, I I I think it it does lead us to feeling it's harder to concentrate and focus.

Speaker 2 8:33

Yeah.

Tina Wilston 8:34

Um, I'm feeling more tired at the end of the day. One of the things, and and this is when I knew I needed to make a change, is um I'd be watching a TV show and I'd be picking up my phone while I'm watching a show. For me, that was new. I I had a period of my life where that never happened. And then gradually it turned into a point where I'm like, I'm doing this constantly. It's like the second the storyline gets a little bit boring, my brain is looking for more, for more dopamine, but I'm also exhausting my brain at the same time. And I don't, I would never personally notice it in the moment. I would notice it when I woke up the next day. And I'm like, why after eight hours of sleep am I so tired? Right. But my brain didn't have a chance to fully like really un really rest from all of that. Um, because it is how many waking hours do we have if we sleep for eight hours? What is that, 16 hours of like bombardment on our five senses and our visuals? Like again, back to scrolling on the phone, that is all visual. People don't scroll on their phone with their eyes closed, listening to right. It's a very visually demanding thing. And so that's where um we we are basically cognitively overloaded constantly, and we don't it's just part of life, and we don't realize what the implications are. Until we go on vacation very often, that's a time where we're like, ooh, sunset and ocean, and I can just stand here. And the cognitive load is so much less watching waves lap onto a beach, yeah, right. And but it catches our attention, it's so beautiful and it catches it. But I actually wouldn't be surprised if people these days also get bored with the sunset and they can't sit for the whole time of like 20 minutes to watch. It's so foreign. Yeah, because they're like, Oh, I'm kind of bored. What do I do? Let me grab my phone, take some picture, right?

Michelle Massunken 10:28

Yeah, and so you alluded to this already, just in terms of like the mental exhaustion that we feel and how we get to that because of the constant being constantly bombarded with content and information. And when you think about this from like a nervous system standpoint, too, right? Like, what is that even looking like? How do we even identify the impact that that's having on a nervous system that has this constant stimulation happening, constantly being bombarded, constantly on, yeah, but then trying to find a way to create more capacity at the same time?

Tina Wilston 11:00

Well, I think

Anxiety, Panic, And The Five Senses

Tina Wilston 11:01

the good news is if you are noticing that it's having a nervous system impact, then the solution is packaged right in there of I can if I reduce my cognitive load, I can improve my nervous system response to things. One of the interestingly, like when you when when I think nervous system and and this impact, my mind does go to like anxiety and panic attacks.

Speaker 2 11:22

Yeah.

Tina Wilston 11:22

One of the things that I've regularly worked on over the years is fear of flying. And why that one comes to mind for me is that again, when I'm feeling anxious, and anybody who's ever experienced anxiety will be able to say that their five senses play a very big role in their experience of anxiety. So all of a sudden their clothes feel really tight, right? And they feel like they can sense every tactile sense in their body seems heightened. Because again, if I'm having too much fast brain wave in my entire brain, that means my five senses are overactivated. That means anything that impacts my five senses can feel overwhelming.

Speaker 2 12:03

Right.

Tina Wilston 12:03

Right. And so my clothes are feeling too tight, I'm feeling hot. Um I am my mind is is racing, my heart is racing, my breath is um is faster. Yeah, I I'm thirsty, right? Like there's all like if you think about and smells can start feeling irritating. It's like a smell that normally I'd be like, oh, that's annoying. Is now like it makes me want to vomit, right? If that that smell is so intense. Um and a lot of people won't eat. Do you know what I mean? Like they'll actually avoid engaging their their sense of taste. Um, and so and and then uh the audio overwhelm as well, right? Like again, sounds that um otherwise just the din, like you're in an airplane, people are having little chats, like it sounds so loud, and you can't pull apart the voices, everything just feels really, really overwhelming. So the suggestion I always make to people is we actually have to think about strategies that are gonna be able to handle all of your five senses. So I recommend to them wear very loose clothing and layers on an airplane so that you can easily take when if you feel hot, you can easily take off layers and you can cool down. Bring stop at the store after you go through the security checkout, get a bottle of water, don't have to wait for the service to come through the plane. Make sure you have something to drink.

Speaker 2 13:29

Yeah.

Tina Wilston 13:30

Um, make sure that you have like something that you can focus your visuals on that is calming. So think ahead for types of content that you can have on your phone, a book, something that will help you like focus your attention on to something not too uh like stimulating or overwhelming.

Michelle Massunken 13:50

Exactly.

Tina Wilston 13:51

Something calming, something that can actually reduce, even like close your eyes. Bring an eye mask. Yeah. If if you can tolerate that, depending on trauma, again, you might not be able to tolerate that. But if there's no trauma, you can reduce your visuals. Wear a hat. That will at least reduce some of your visuals so that your visuals can be less um, less bombarded. You can bring earphones to again control the audio that's going into your into your ears. So you can either put noise cancellation so everything just sounds quieter, or you can put music, whatever it is that you want, but you're now controlling the audio, you're controlling the volume, and you're able to like block out some of some of that other stuff. Um, and the other one is sense of smell. So I always recommend to people have a scent that is uh some type of easiest is an oil-based product for someone's healthiest. Um, and then put it in your home in a place that you always feel safe and comfortable. So if in your home, your bedroom, like before I go to bed, bed is a great time. I love to sleep, things are good, bed is a good place. If you struggle to sleep, you might want to make a different spot. Right. Um, but have it somewhere where you always feel calm and then infuse something like fabric, soft, nice to touch, because again, we can control the tactile sense as well. So something that's satisfying to touch, but infuse it with that smell gently so we're not like interfering with a lot of people. Yeah, we don't want we don't want to overstimulate ourselves or anybody else. Right. But that you can kind of hold up and again, then I can control the sense. It doesn't smell like an airplane anymore. It doesn't sound smell like the person sitting beside me, behind me, in front of me anymore. I'm able to kind of control those senses more, and then I can calm my brain down because I can limit it to one scent instead of all the sense. I can limit it to one sound instead of all of the sounds. And my brain isn't trying to differentiate what's going on and it can calm down much more easily.

Michelle Massunken 15:41

Yeah, that's so interesting. We talk a lot about like emotion regulation, yeah, and different ways to like regulate the emotion and to put it within that window of tolerance, but we rarely talk about like cognitive regulation. Yes. But what you're talking about is like how do I regulate the different things that might be overstimulating? If I have all of my senses firing at the same time, my sense of sound and the the the chatter that's happening around or the smell of my neighbor or what I'm watching, like that could be very stimulating, overly stimulating. But to regulate the cognitive component is to dial back all those things, all of those things, and really just either focus on one, would you say, or even just try to dial all of them back to a bare minimum.

Tina Wilston 16:21

Yeah, I would say, I mean, usually if you're able to stay present in the moment to feeling overwhelmed, you can identify your personal overwhelm. For you, you might not get them, my clothes feel really tight or I feel hot. You might be more, it's very auditory focused. So I would say it probably just depends on the person.

Speaker 2 16:38

Yeah.

Tina Wilston 16:38

Um, and you're always going to be safest to have a strategy for each one of them. Because I don't, I I could see the theory of if I get one under control, then the other one actually will become the problem. Because I was able to control this one, but I wasn't able to control the other. So I'd always give them the toolbox for all of them for that.

Grocery Stores And Public Overstimulation

Michelle Massunken 16:57

And we talked a little bit before we started recording around like how the grocery stores could be a big piece of this, right? And for many of folks, they tend to avoid it because of how overwhelming it would be. And so for someone listening who goes to the grocery store, Walmart could be really cognitively stimulating for them. They feel the overload of being in Walmart or in Costco or things of that nature, what could they do?

Tina Wilston 17:18

Yeah. I would say when it comes to shopping, shopping at the same store would be very, very helpful. Okay. Because that visual shortcuts, my brain can take a bunch of visual shortcuts safely because I know that I need to get XYZ and it's in aisles one, two, three. If I'm like, I don't know where it is in the store, I'm gonna have to visually take in all of the information in order to navigate myself around. I think most people, if you're listening to this, you've ever experienced you're gonna be like, yes, I hate going to like an independent I'm not used to because it's not the independent. It's not my independent, right? And it really is less stressful um to go into a store that you're more familiar with. So that would be number one. Number two, you can just pick a less busy time to go because the more people that are in there, it's why a lot of people hate sorry, hate the experience of Costco. They love Costco store. They hate the experience of Costco because it's always so busy. And that is like the number of people increases the number of smells. That's the other reason why grocery stores and stores like that are really overwhelming, is because of all the different types of things they have in it. Think about a bookstore. Bookstore has one smell for the most part, unless you go to indigo where there's the candles. But otherwise, it smells like books.

Speaker 2 18:38

Yeah.

Tina Wilston 18:38

It's a very over and it's most people have like a really good feeling about that. You walk into a grocery store, who knows what the bakery is a pretty strong. Yeah, has a pretty strong smell throughout it, but you go through that whole produce aisle and that's gonna be very um overwhelming. Now there's Starbucks, which I love in a lot of these stores, but that's adding to the bombardment of your sense of smell. So the even little things like if that is like I get sick at the at certain smells and I find that really intense. Um, if you can handle like VIX Vapor Rub kind of thing, that type of thing, just a little bit underneath your nose, now you're controlling the smell, and I just have one overarching smell that's happening. You could try perfume as well, then like have it placed somewhere on your clothing that's like here. Yeah. So that that can at least um calm that down. Yeah. Um, and then the the other one would be like going, yeah, going in prepared, knowing what you want to grab so that you can uh navigate the store kind of in a less overwhelmed way. Um, you can listen to music. There's no reason why you can't put in earphones whenever you're shopping.

Tech Tweaks That Reduce Drain

Michelle Massunken 19:48

Um Do you find technology helps with cognitive overload or does it hinder the c or does it hurt, I should say?

Tina Wilston 19:54

Definitely hurts.

Michelle Massunken 19:54

Okay.

Tina Wilston 19:55

It definitely, definitely hurts. Because it's visual, um, it it definitely hurts. Like outside, like sorry, I was just saying about listen listening to music. I'm thinking more like screening. Yeah. Screens and all that stuff, right? Screens themselves are very, very, they're huge cognitive drains. Right. Even like the backlighting on laptops, like there's all these different things now that you can put like screens or different settings you can now do to help reduce eye strain and all of that. But there's there's like physical eye strain, and then there's just information eye strain in the sense of my brain trying to process so much visual information. So one of the strategies that I learned was if cognitive load is an issue for you. So again, you're noticing mental exhaustion basically. Um, then if you actually take every, you should take everything off of your home screen on your computer, including pictures, and just have a black home screen.

Speaker 2 20:52

Okay.

Tina Wilston 20:53

Um, the most you could have is like one folder that's like my desktop folder so that I can still ease of getting documents. It's kind of nice to have stuff on your, but as long as you just put it all into one um one uh folder, that's one strategy that you can use. Um, another one for our phone, it's the same thing with our phones. So having a black screen on the phone with no photos, no, um, and then our home screen having none of the apps and going to page two and putting all your apps on page two or and beyond can reduce cognitive load. Another one is actually the recommendation is taking all notifications off your apps beyond the like I absolutely need this one, which is usually gonna be our text messages. Um, but otherwise, like go into it when you want to go into it. Even taking the badge off, which tells you Facebook five, you have five notifications. That is actually a drain on cognitive. I should check that. What is it? Hope you like my thing, right? So it does grab your attention. And anything that grabs your attention grabs your cognitive resources.

Michelle Massunken 22:04

Yeah, that's a good point.

Tina Wilston 22:06

And so we this device is constantly, constantly stealing our cognitive resources 24, 7, or 16, 7. All the time. While we're awake. While we're sleeping, if you don't turn off notifications when you're sleeping.

Michelle Massunken 22:23

This is

Who Is Most Vulnerable And Why

Michelle Massunken 22:24

good. Do you find that there are um are there certain groups that are more vulnerable to cognitive overload? Let's say parents or people in leadership positions or students, or is this sort of a human experience? Or do you find that there are some groups that perhaps they experience cognitive load or overload perhaps more than others?

Tina Wilston 22:58

That's a good question. I would say that people who have anxiety may be more prone to cognitive overload, again, mainly because their brain is overproducing fast brainwave to begin with. And so to feel overwhelmed by what's getting bombarded to my brain, would you be a bit more prone to it. Um, but I would say that it's more about like people who actively recharge their brain on a regular basis are gonna have more tolerance than people who don't recharge their brain. So people who don't sleep well are gonna be more prone to cognitive overload because they're not having the restorative brain processing of information while you're sleeping. So um, and I would also say that extroverts are probably more in some ways they have more capacity for cognitive load while at the same time are more prone to overloading it, if that makes sense. Because of the capacity, people who love to read, stay home, do a puzzle, all that kind of stuff, they're naturally in their habits. Right. And what they enjoy to do is restorative. Cause I would say that is a restorative activity is doing a puzzle. Um, there's a few things that used to be just traditional things that we did that we don't do anymore, like sewing or patch, like not patchwork, but like cross stitch and knitting and those types of repetitive patterns and that type of stuff is very soothing and cog and calming, and not a heavy cognitive load unless you're doing a super complex one. Right. But if you're just doing something that's kind of monotonous and I don't have to think very hard when I'm doing it, even certain TV shows that you could watch at night could have a low cognitive load or a really high cognitive load. But I think there is a gen generic, like, I don't think there's anyone that is that can't be cognitively overwhelmed, if that makes sense. There's not like yeah. So from a human level, I think it's just like how much it takes can vary for a lot of people.

Michelle Massunken 25:14

Back to capacity, yeah. Right, and what that bucket looks like. We all have different sizes to it. And so for some, it gets full quicker than others. Yeah, yeah.

Tina Wilston 25:21

Cause even like decision fatigue, like does people who struggle with decision. I've personally only ever had heard of that context from an anxiety perspective. When I'm feeling anxious, I cannot make a decision. I've just never worked with someone that doesn't have anxiety and struggles with decision making globally, but they can have moments of struggling with decision making. And that that again goes back to that can be a sign of cognitive overload. The brain cannot parse out the information and make sense of it because I am bombarded with information. And that can be easy to do if like the decision is a very complex decision to make and I have to balance all of these like different concepts and then try to make a decision. But it can it's definitely overwhelmed. It's like I can't decide if I want chicken or beef for dinner. Right. It's like that shouldn't be a difficult decision. You know what I mean? Like you're probably just eating some overwhelmed. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And uh one of my one of the interesting strategies, and I really I recommend this one a lot is actually was after you do your laundry, when you're putting your laundry away, you put it away in outfits for the next week so that you do not have to decide in the morning what to wear. And how

Routines, Decision Fatigue, And Easy Wins

Tina Wilston 26:37

that sets you you up for your week of reducing the cognitive load. Because that whole process in and of itself does not start your day off in the best way, especially if you're like, oh, is that in the washing machine or is it in the dryer? Is it in my is it in the pile on my floor? Is it in my closet? Like, where is where are my shoes? All this kind of stuff. So habits or having like routines and structure.

Speaker 2 27:00

Yeah.

Tina Wilston 27:01

That's actually that's a huge cognitive savings, is routine.

Michelle Massunken 27:05

Yeah. Cause it's predictable, kind of like the grocery store piece. Like you know what to expect to a certain degree, yeah, because it's sort of is in line with what it's been and what it's always been.

Tina Wilston 27:16

And it's effortless. Habits, I I don't, I never think, should I brush my teeth? Should I not brush my teeth? Where's my toothbrush? Where's my toothpaste? Like my toothpaste and my toothbrush are always in the same spot. And I don't ask myself, Am I gonna brush them? Yeah, it's just I walk in my bedroom, I walk into the bathroom, it's time for bed, I'm brushing my teeth. And so that has very low cognitive load. But I know that some people, let's go with like, I don't know, young folk who are like, I hate brushing my teeth, right? It's like this huge cognitive load of effort. I need to do it, I'm gonna feel bad if I don't, it's bad for my teeth, right? There's this whole process. And that's why habits are so hard to break because they're so effortless. But the good news is if you want to develop something into a habit, it becomes a low cognitive load task. And all of a sudden you can accomplish it with very little very very little effort and a lot of ease. So some people will look at someone else and go, How are you so so productive? And I'm not. But if you look at our habits, you might get a sense on why it's so much easier for you than it is for me because you get to do it without even thinking.

Michelle Massunken 28:19

Right.

Tina Wilston 28:19

And I have to like paint.

Michelle Massunken 28:20

Put a lot more cognitive effort into it. Yeah. Whereas setting up those habits allows you more space, more capacity cognitively to focus on other things.

Tina Wilston 28:29

So another strategy there is can I make this decision once? And now it's just a rule that I live by so that I don't have to keep making the decision all the time. So let's go with um, should I have this cookie tonight? I don't eat cookies past 9 p.m. Is it 9 p.m.? Yeah, it's past 9 p.m. So I don't have cookies. Like I decision done because I made that one decision. This is the rule that I live by. Right.

Michelle Massunken 28:56

So it governs all the decisions that you're making.

Tina Wilston 28:58

Yeah. We have to be careful that it doesn't get too rigid. Yeah, right. But but if you can or if you can do something once, like can I put this as a reminder in my calendar yearly for the next 10 years? Now I don't have a cognitive load of remembering to change that filter that needs to be changed once a year. Because that's a bunch of stuff that steals cognitive load. And something we haven't really talked about is the mental load that there's a lot of talk about the division of mental load in relationships and in families. And historically, and and a lot of times women can end up with the higher cognitive load. But I would say, like my husband, I think I used to have the higher, I would say, mental load in our family dynamic until he was really the stay-at-home parent. Now I find it's actually him that carries a lot more of the cognitive load than I do.

Michelle Massunken 29:45

The mental like decision making comes along with that too, right?

Tina Wilston 29:49

Doctor's appointments, dentist appointments, like all of these things that I need to remember. Exactly. Things I need to remember is a huge cognitive load. Write it down. Use your calendar, use the tools, right? Use reminders. These are all ways that we can offset the cognitive load onto other things so that we can create more space for ourselves.

Michelle Massunken 30:10

I kind of have the analogy of the glass, right? Like, how do I make sure that there's more room in this glass? And sometimes it's just tapping into the tools that I have access to.

Tina Wilston 30:19

And some are really small and simple, but because they're small, people think it's not gonna make a difference. But if it's small and repetitive, it makes a much bigger difference than you think it does.

Michelle Massunken 30:29

Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. And takes up a lot of space because of the repetitive nature of it. Yeah. It's not just in this moment, but it's like next week, got to remember the same thing, and so on and so forth.

Tina Wilston 30:39

Yeah.

Michelle Massunken 30:39

Yeah.

Tina Wilston 30:41

So try to like make fewer decisions, reduce visual cognitive load, and like use strategies, use reminders, write things down, do it once, and then repeat it if you can, like set an automatic repeat if you can so that you don't have to care. Because just life right now has a lot. We we have so much access to information, right? Information takes up a ton of energy, learning something new, learning new information, huge cognitive load.

Speaker 2 31:16

Yeah.

Tina Wilston 31:17

And our phones are teaching us. And I love it. I love learning new things. Do you know what I mean? Like I actually uh in this conversation, I'm realizing how I need to like ask Chat GPT less questions when I'm curious about something. Because I'll be sitting there watching a show. What show have I seen them in before? Right? Chat GPT, this actor, what else have they been in? Right. I I'm realizing that I really need to stop doing that because it while it feels like my brain is now has new information that it has to that it wants to try to hold on to, and do I really need to know what other shows in this moment? And I don't. I'll figure it out. One day I'll watch another show and be like, oh yeah, other things, right? Like I don't need that.

Michelle Massunken 31:54

Yeah. Yeah. So sometimes it's like going back to the basics of things. Like, how did I watch TV in the past when I felt like I had more capacity or whatever the case might be? And sometimes it's just little habits that can sometimes be unhelpful. But it's kind of a double-edged sword of how we can use technology in different ways, whether it's listening to music or actually reducing the scrolling time. Yeah. Finding that balance is going to be important when it comes to cognitive overload.

Tina Wilston 32:19

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you can have it in your pocket for the grocery store when you need like music, but then when you're at home, take that phone and put it in a different spot, not right beside you. Yeah.

Michelle Massunken 32:29

Same tool, but different outcomes. Yeah. Yeah. Depending on how it's used. Exactly. Well, this was very informative. Thank you so much for sharing all of the information about flow and how we can actually get into a flow state. And really, it just starts with a series of habits.

Tina Wilston 32:43

Yeah.

Michelle Massunken 32:44

And once we are able to identify that habit, we find ourselves in a flow state, which is where we are able to be more present than ever before and reduce feelings of anxiety or depression.

Boredom Tolerance And Final Takeaways

Michelle Massunken 32:54

It's just being able to be in the flow, be in a zone.

Tina Wilston 32:57

And so I just want to say one last thing before we close up because we brought up flow. What I found the most fascinating about learning about flow is the cycle of flow, and that just before flow is boredom. Oh and why people are experiencing flow less these days is nobody has boredom tolerance. And the second we pick up our phone to get rid of the boredom, the cycle to get into flow starts all over again. And you have to go through the whole process to get back into it. But it's interesting because I find in this in our line of work, I find it easy to get into flow because we when you're when you're talking to one person, you don't have all the disruptions. It's a lot easier to get into flow. But to just to know that boredom is the step right before you get into it. If you can learn to ride out that feeling, you can experience flow more often.

Michelle Massunken 33:47

Yes. Don't push it away or run away from it. Embrace it. The next step is an important one. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Well, thank you so much for this. And hopefully, you listeners out there got some many, many key tools out of today's conversation. And like always, we look forward to seeing you in our next episode of the MindSpot podcast. Thank you.

Speaker 3 34:07

Bye bye.