The Psychology of Everyday Life

You know you have an assignment due tomorrow. You know it will take you three hours. And you know that you have that time now to complete it.

And yet suddenly you find yourself re organising your files, checking instagram and making coffee and watching one quick YouTube video or cleaning a room that you hadn't cared about for weeks.

Then midnight arraives. You panic. You finally start working, finish under pressure and promise yourself that next time will be different.

Then it happens again.

This is procrastination. Unnecessarily delaying an intended taks despite expecting that the delay will probably make things work. It is not simply laziness. Psychologist increasingly understand it as a problem involving emotional regulation, self control, motivation and how we perceive future consequences.

One important explanation is temperal discounting. Our brains tend to value immediate rewards more strongly then future rewards. Finishing an assignment gives you benefit tomorrow while scrolling through you phones gives you pleasure right now.

Your brain doesn't necessarily choose what is best for your future self. It often chooses what feels better right now in the present. This becomes even strong when the task feels unpleasant.

Researchers developed models of procrastination showing that motivation is influenced by factors such as expectancy, value, impulsiveness and delay. In simple terms of something feels difficult or boring or unpleasant or far away then your motivation to do it collapses.

This explains why someone can spend two hours scrolling but struggle to spend twenty minutes starting a difficult assignment.

The problem is not that they task require more energy. It may be that the task creates more emotional resistance.

An intresting real life example is studying for exam. Opening a textbook can immediately remind you that you didn't understand the chapter. That created discomfort and demotivation. You phone offers an escape from that feeling almost immediately.

So you go and check one notification and then another. Soon the discomfort has disappeared but the exams hasn't.

Research by other people has linked prorastration with short term mood repair. In other words, sometimes we procrastinate not because we don't care about the risk but because avoiding it makes us feel better right now.

And modern technology makes this incredibly easy. The phone in your hands contains thousand of immediate rewards. Your brain is being asked to choose between an uncertain future benefit and an instant dtram if entertainment. That is an unfair competition.

And the solution as far as I think is not simply preaching being disciplined. It is to make the task smaller. Remove immediate distractions. And most importantly feel motivated before beginning. Soemtimes starting is where the motivation is being created.

You send someone a message. They see it. No reply. Five minutes. You are fine. Ten minutes pass. You are still fine. Thirty minutes pass. Congratulations. You brain has now opened a full investigation.

Did I say something wrong? Was that "okay" too okay? Should I have used an emoji? Should I give delete for everyone? But there would be a message that says that they have deleted this message. Should I tell them that I have accidentally sent a wrong message? Was the period at the end of the sentence aggressive?

They would have been having their notifications on and they should I have seen my message and would have thought "Ohh this girl...eww I don't even remember her name she is so annoying and childish"…? Are they angry? I am sure that they secretly hate me no matter how sweet they sound to my face...

Did I make them uncomfortable? Did I give them reasons to hate me?
Shit...It has been 40 mins since I texted...I have to delete my existence and move to another country

The person might simply be taking a shower. Or someone else might have opened the message. Meanwhile your brain has already came up with the worst possible scenario. That is overthinking.

Psychologically overthinking involves repetitive, difficult to control thinking often in the form of ruminantion about the past it worry about the future. The strange thing is that sometimes that feels productive.

Your brain convinced that if you think about something for a long time then you will eventually find an answer. Except that for the list times there are no answers for our brain.

Now why do we do this? One explanation involves threat detection. Our brains are highly sensitive to potential danger and uncertainty. Historically noticing possible threats could be usefull for survival. Unfortunately your brain does not always understand that an unread message is not a tiger.

Basically your brain hates saying I don't know. So it starts generating responses. What if this happens? But...what if THAT happens? Okay ..but maybe the tone was wrong and what if someone told you THIS?

Congratulations...you have gone from "My friend has not replied yet" will be changed to "No one likes me and the only tolerate me...I am going to die alone and cold".

There is a difference between What can I do about this and Let me think about the same thing 73 time just in case.

If there is something you can fix it then go and fix it. If you need information then get it. If you need to apologise then go and say sorry.

You are sitting in class. The professor is explaining something important. You are trying your absolute best to look intrested. Then your mouth suddenly opens like your souls is trying to escape through it. You yawn. You weren't planning it. You didn't approve it. Your body simply announced That's enough education for today.

And the weirdest part? Someone who sees you yawn too. They yawn. You look at them. They yawn again. And then you yawn again too. Congratulations. You have accidentally started a biological reaction.

For year people believed that we yawn because our bodies simply needed more oxygen. It sounds logical. You are tired. Your brain is struggling so it perhaps screams MORE OXYGEN IMMEDIATELY!!!

Unfortunately science said NO.

Experiments found that changing oxygen and carbon di oxide levels doens't explain yawning well enough. So your yawn is simply not your brain gasping for oxygen like a fish that accidentally enrolled in engineering college.

Scientists have proposed several explanations. One intresting theory is thermoregulation. The possiblity that yawning helps to regulate brain temperature. Researchers found evidence that suggests that environmental temperature can influence yawning. Basically your brain might occasionally decide Temperature unacceptable. Initiate mouth based Air conditioning.

But then when I read I had a doubt that people across all the time zone and climates yawn. Why is that though? And also that yawning is not only about temperature. We yawn when we are tired. We yawn when we are bored. We yawn when we are sleepy. We yawn when we are waking up. We yawn when we are relaxing.

Apparently the human brain have decided that opening your mother dramatically is an appropriate reaction to every situation.

Then truly comes the suspecious part: Contagious Yawning.

Someone yawns. You see it. Your brain then goes Intresting. Let's recreate thaaatttttt!!! You yawn.

Scientists have investigated whether continua yawning is connected to empathy and social awareness. Some studies have found relationships between social closeness and contiguous yawning but there are no consistent evidence to say that yawning automatically means that they are empathetic person(?)

The exact purpose of Contagious Yawning remains uncertain. Even the exact contect behind gawing is uncertain though there are many theories revolving.

It might involve social synchronisation or changes in alertness or mechanisms we haven't completely figured out yet.

So next time you yawn during a bore lecture don't feel guilty. You today may not be disrespecting the professor. Your brain could be regulating the temperature or changing its level of alertness or responding to Fatigue or participating in some strange social behaviour.

Or maybe your brain has simply looked at 8 am class and decided we are not designed for this.

You are sitting in the class. The teacher says Today's topic is very important.

You nod. Five seconds later....you are mentally living in Switzerland, running a cafe with your golden Retriever (that you don't have...you are afraid of dogs?) wondering whether penguins have Knees and how will the giraffe sleep with their long necks and planning whether what you will say if you meet your celebrity crush and the things you would do if you got a chance to go on a date with your crush.

Then suddenly Can you answer this question three? .Your sould returns to your body at approximately 5 minutes later. You blink. Shit. Which chapter are we on?

Congratulations. You have just zoned out. We all have done it.

Driving somewhere and realizing you dint remember the last ten minutes but still somehow going in the right path. Reading the same paragraph four times because your eyes are reading but your brain has already left the chat(literally). Walking into a room and forgeting the reason.

Despite how it ridiculously sounds, coming out is completely normal. Psychologists often refer to this as mind wavering. When attention shifts away from the task in front of you towards your won thoughts, memories,plans it imaginary situations.

In fact research by psychologist found that people's mind wander nearly half their walking lives. Their famous smartphone study reported that people were thinking about something other than what they were doing for 47% of the time.

Which means...if you are reading this while thinking about dinner then you are proving the study right.

So why does it happen?

One explanation is that Default Mode Network a network of brain regions that becomes active when we are not intensely focused on an external task.

Think if it as your brains screen saver. The moment your attention is not urgently needed, your brain says Di you remember that one embarassing thing you did 16 years ago? I do...let's relive and cringe. Or Let's imagine us winning and Oscar for absolutely no reason.

And mind wavering is not always useless. It helps with creativity or future planning or problem solving and reflecting in oast experience. Many people repostt getting their best ideas while showering or walking or staring our of a bus window.

But. It also has terrible timing. During lectures. Meetings. Conversations. Scholdings. Exams.

Basically every Situation where you will generally appreciate your brain staying where your body is.

Psychologists also found that boring repetitive or familiar tasks can make zoning out more likely because they require less concious attention.

Your brain gets suspeciously bored very quickly. The trick is not to eliminate mind wavering. Your goals is to notice the surroundings.

The moment you realise you have been mentally decorating your future beach house instead of listening to your professor... congratulations. You have already returned.

Your body attended the lecture. Your brain was in a paid leave.