Multitasking, Stress, and Tai Chi

Conventional wisdom has it that multitasking is the sign of a competent brain fully engaged and meeting the demands of today’s busy lifestyle, but an October 9 NPR story http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95524385 shows that doing too many things at the same time actually causes a “brown-out” of the brain.

The story tells us that simultaneously chatting and messaging and surfing on the Web reduces the depth of our thinking and lessens the quality of whatever work we are doing when compared to simply starting a task, finishing it, and moving on to the next one. The same thing presumably goes for talking on the phone while driving, texting, and wiping up a toddler’s spill—all with the radio playing—or cleaning the house and doing the laundry and helping a child with his homework and cooking dinner all at the same time. Talking to your boss on a conference call while touching up your makeup and checking your e-mail messages, it turns out, is a sure way to miss something important or say something you’ll regret.

What is perhaps most interesting about the story is not that it deals a blow to the multi-tasking mystique (it does avow that brief, occasional multitasking sessions are not too harmful), but rather that it reveals so much about the stresses of modern life. Multitasking is not something we naturally choose to do; it is a response to needing to get a certain number of things done within a certain time frame. The background pressure of the ticking clock causes us to cut corners, thereby reducing the quality of thinking, results, and the quality of living, all the more when we are deluged by negative media messages, an endless train of bad economic news, and an ever-changing landscape of seemingly critical opportunities, options and choices. Our brain responds to this drumming rainstorm of input by putting relaxation and response aside in favor of quick reactions and actions that often prove shallow and ill-advised. We live from day to day in a state of what we perceive to be constant crisis.

Step one in changing our life from stressful to meaningful is to recognize that we are addicted to the short-term rush of ticking items off our to-do list. Step two is to learn to slow down, say no to distraction, and focus on one thing at a time. Mind/body practices help us do this by heightening self-awareness, and so are great tools for improving the quality of our lives, our decisions, our actions, and their outcomes.

Meditation is very effective, but many folks find that when they sit or stand or lie quietly impulses roar in so fiercely that no peace can be found. That’s where tai chi comes in. It’s can be practiced in a quiet, meditative, inwardly-focused fashion. Its movements are sufficiently challenging that full attention is required, but not so difficult as to bring on precisely the anxiety and frustration it is designed to overcome. The antidote to compulsive multitasking, tai chi teaches us to act with relaxed and organized efficiency, and to accomplish whatever needs doing without feeling that much was required after all. In this way the art is both instructor and safe haven.