Why our brains tune things out and how to overcome it when you need to

Recently, I was scrolling through TikTok when my brain failed me. I watched a video of Donald Trump chastising CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins for “not smiling” after she questioned him on issues regarding sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

And I scrolled.

I didn’t take a break. I didn’t get angry. I did not consider the consequences of having a person – let alone a president – ​​utter such insulting words to another human being. However, I am not a monster. While writing this column, I reflected on these remarks and found them abhorrent, unprofessional and sexist.

My brain hasn’t failed because I don’t care. This failed due to an evolutionarily useful neurological trait called habituation. Realizing this made me want to find out exactly how it affects our lives and how to overcome it – and when we should do it.

Habituation is the brain’s way of normalizing our experience of the world so that we can continue living. It’s an elegant neural shortcut. Without it, we would not be able to filter out irrelevant stimuli and would instead be paralyzed by sensory overload.

Right now, there’s trance music playing in the cafe where I work, my ski jacket is bulky on my shoulders, and a bright light is shining nearby. However, until I consciously thought about them, my brain had quietly ignored them, habituating itself so that I could focus on those words.

It is remarkable that this ability begins before birth. During the last trimester, fetal brain activity suggests that babies may already be getting used to repeated bursts of light and sound, learning to put aside familiar stimuli in order to attend to something new.

Habit frees up neural resources so we can quickly focus on new stimuli that might kill us, nourish us, or contribute to our well-being. “We see this ability in every species on Earth because it is important for survival,” says Tali Sharot of University College London.

Our ability to habituate can also help us cope with grief or chronic pain, normalizing distress to make life more bearable. A striking example of this comes from research on people with locked-in syndrome, who are fully conscious but cannot speak or move except to blink or move their eyes. When asked about their happiness, the majority reported being satisfied: the longer they had been locked up, the more likely they were to report having a decent quality of life.

Habit can also motivate progress. For example, when excitement about a new job fades, satisfaction stagnates due to habit. Sharot says this waning spark of enthusiasm fuels our desire to move forward. “Our reaction to good things softens over time, so we are motivated to explore and progress.”

But habituation is not always helpful. If we ignore chronic pain, for example, we risk delaying seeing a doctor. If we normalize toxic behaviors at work or at home, we can tolerate what should never be accepted.

Inability to get used to it is also a problem. “Almost all mental health problems are characterized by some sort of addiction deficiency,” says Sharot. Studies suggest, for example, that people with depression disengage more slowly from negative events than those without depression. In other words, they have difficulty adjusting to bad news, which delays their emotional recovery.

Sharot’s recent, as-yet-unpublished work hints at another problem: People who repeatedly make risky financial decisions blunt their emotional response to danger, thereby increasing their risk-taking over time. They have become accustomed to a climate of risk. “You can see how this can be relevant to stockbrokers,” says Sharot.

At a trivial level, habituation also explains why our homes seem smaller than they once did, or why new clothes quickly seem uninteresting, leading to overconsumption.

Back up and slow down

So how do you get out of the habit? How can we relearn our brain to notice?

One path is mindfulness, in which you deliberately increase your awareness of the present moment. Studies have shown that this reduces the risk of getting used to things like food – think of how you can easily overeat without thinking because you no longer really notice what you’re tasting.

Another solution is to simply take breaks, which can sometimes seem counterintuitive. Leif Nelson of the University of California at Berkeley and Tom Meyvis of New York University have shown that interrupting pleasant experiences – music, vacations, etc. – actually makes them more enjoyable, because breaks disrupt the habit. Likewise, they found that despite our natural tendency to take breaks from unpleasant experiences, this makes them more irritating because it prevents habituation.

Novelty helps too. If you run the same route over and over again, you’ll enjoy it a little less each time. “Just doing a different route every once in a while means you’ll enjoy it more,” says Sharot. The same goes for moving furniture around your home, sitting in a different seat in class, or putting away clothes for a short time. “All these little things…you’d be amazed at how much joy you can feel from presenting new information to your brain. It can make a huge positive difference,” says Sharot.

However, where dishabituation may matter most right now is social media. “Over the last decade, we as a society have become accustomed to very rude behavior online. We are starting to get used to bad things happening very quickly on a global, political or social scale,” says Sharot. Constant exposure makes shock normal, meaning we no longer react to it appropriately. Of particular concern is children’s increasing exposure to Internet hostility. A number of studies have shown that exposure to media violence desensitizes children’s emotional reactivity to future violence, both in the media and in real life, and has been associated with an increased risk of violent behavior in late adolescence.

The solution, Sharot says, is as simple as walking away. “We need to see the world with fresh eyes again,” she says. “Small changes can have a huge impact. »

I took this advice to heart by deleting social apps from my phone for a while, booking a few shorter stays rather than long vacations, and even changing gyms to expose myself to a new environment. The hope is that I will not only feel more joy, but also a more vivid emotional response when I return to social media, so that my brain can once again notice the things that truly deserve my attention.