GAINING FREEDOM IN VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS

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“Freedom is not something that anybody can be given; freedom is something people take and people are as free as they want to be.” —James Baldwin

DECLARING INDEPENDENCE FOR THE MIND

In addition to inspiring us to celebrate, the Fourth of July holiday reminds us that the visions and persistent efforts of our early leaders were the reason they attained the independence that they had dreamed of. Despite the passage of time, their approach can help us achieve freedoms needed in other areas of our lives. For example, we could benefit from creating and pursuing a vision and action plan for freeing our attention, moods, memory, and mental functioning from the negative effects of excessive electronic information.

Just as home-organization experts recommend that attaining an orderly, pleasant, well-functioning home requires us to remove unnecessary items and prevent unwanted items from entering, attaining an orderly, pleasant, well-functioning mind requires preventing unwanted mental clutter from occupying our mental spaces. However, a key difference between the two is that mental clutter is often acquired involuntarily. As media and technology scholar Tim Wu writes in The Attention Merchants, “As adults we are hardly ever unreachable; seldom away from a screen of some kind; rarely not being solicited or sold to.”

Although this way of life is common, Wu notes that “we are certainly at an appropriate time to think seriously about what it might mean to reclaim our collective consciousness.”

PROCESSING INFORMATION IS TAXING

The information we receive through seeing and hearing is processed by millions of nerve cells and distributed to our brains and body for analysis, interpretation, and reaction. Processing excessive quantities of information, whether positive or negative, has the potential to deplete our attention and energy. Negative and/or intrusive information can cause muscle tension, depressed moods, irritability, and lowered mental function. Ultimately, our health and well-being can also be diminished.

Fortunately, we have an innate superpower that we can tap to gain control and freedom from information overload.

CULTIVATING OUR INCREDIBLE, MAGNIFICENT POWER TO IGNORE

Wu writes, “There is one thing scientists have grasped that is absolutely essential to understand about the human brain: our incredible, magnificent power to ignore.... As remarkable as our ability to see or hear is our capacity to disregard.... Fortunately we have a valve by which to turn the flow [of information] on or off at will.... When we shut the valve, we disregard almost everything while focusing on just one discrete stream of information.”

Cultivating our power to ignore has the potential to free us from constantly monitoring and engaging with our phones and media feeds. It would diminish distraction and enable us to focus on deepening relationships, enjoying quality entertainment, and expanding valuable knowledge in virtual or non-virtual environments. Doing this could even help satisfy our hunger for escape and connection.

By combining our increased capacity to ignore with setting boundaries for preventing mental clutter from accumulating, we gain the ability to free ourselves from information technology’s seemingly unilateral, unrelenting power and control. As James Baldwin notes, “freedom is something people take and people are as free as they want to be.”

GAINING FREEDOM AND CONTROL IN VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS

Just as we successfully mastered video conferencing skills when that need emerged, we can also master skills required to gain freedom and control in virtual environments. Though finding accessible ways to learn and master these skills can be challenging, a good resource exists and can be found in the High Health Network. Taking advantage of this resource is one of the easiest ways to gain the freedom we desire and enhance our well-being.

If you or your company want to master these and other extraordinary health-building methods, contact us to find out more.

Joyce M. Young, MD, MPH
Managing Director, Advanced Wellness Systems
Lead Expert for the High Health Network

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Sincerely,

Your colleagues at Advanced Wellness Systems