Thinking doesn’t have to feel so hard.
WSJ April 27, 2024 Michaeleen Doucleff
As a college student 25 years ago, Andrew Westbrook struggled to stay focused in class. He certainly had the capacity to concentrate; he could do it intensely when he really loved a topic. “When you’re totally engrossed in a good book, thinking can feel effortless, or even magnetic,” he says. But when it came to his other work, thinking was difficult or even painful. “I would fail an exam and then face the shame and guilt that I felt about that, especially since I knew I could do better,” he recalls.
Westbrook achieved academic success in the end, becoming a neuroscientist. Today he leads a laboratory at Rutgers University, where his research is helping to upend long-held beliefs about why we struggle with certain cognitive tasks. He is part of a movement in neuroscience that is offering new tools to make mental work easier and more enjoyable. “There are things we can do to sort of instantaneously play around with how effortful something feels,” Westbrook says.
For decades, scientists hypothesized that cognitively demanding tasks, such as writing or solving math problems, require more energy than easier tasks like scrolling TikTok or looking out the window. If hard thinking is metabolically costly, it makes sense that it would eventually make us run out of fuel. “That was an attractive hypothesis at first, and it seemed to work,” says neuroscientist Todd Braver of Washington University in St. Louis. “But unfortunately, those studies couldn’t be replicated.”
In fact, our brains perform massively complex and metabolically costly computations all day long. Just looking around the room requires the visual cortex to perform many demanding computations, Westbrook points out, but we don’t perceive it as difficult or draining. “Whether you’re engaged in a cognitively demanding task at work, or you’re staring off into space, your brain is using roughly the same amount of energy,” he says.
What feels more challenging is when a task requires the brain to go against its usual habits. Cognitively demanding work, such as complex accounting or writing a nuanced email, often requires the coordination of many different brain regions in novel patterns, while silencing circuits that frequently fire together. “So we have to suppress our usual tendencies, while boosting pathways that are lower in strength,” says Braver.
Studies have found that pushing against our brain’s habits triggers an emotional response, making us feel uncomfortable. “It’s aversive, and it just feels bad,” says psychologist Michael Inzlicht of the University of Toronto. But he points out that emotional responses are subjective: They are interpretations of sensations in our bodies and brains. And we can influence how much we pay attention to these sensations and even how we interpret them.
“Some people might construe thinking as effortful, but not as something to avoid. And some people might even view the effort as enjoyable and rewarding,” Inzlicht says. “Look at how people love to do crossword puzzles and Wordle.”
In fact, studies suggest that we often overestimate the struggle and pain required to complete cognitive tasks. “When you’re thinking about a demanding task in the future, it often feels much worse than when you actually are engaged in the task,” Westbrook says. But this initial overestimation can lead us to procrastinate, or even avoid the task altogether.
“ Studies suggest that if we can kind of get past that initial hurdle of starting a task, then thinking becomes easier,” he says.
In a study published in the journal Science in 2020, Westbrook and colleagues found one way to do just that: Pay attention to the benefits of completing the task, instead of the effort required. The researchers gave participants the choice of solving an easy memory puzzle for a small amount of money or a much harder puzzle for more money. The options were displayed on a screen, and participants’ eye movements were tracked as they decided which puzzle to attempt. When people spent more time looking at the reward for the challenging puzzle, they were more likely to choose it. “The results suggest that if our mind’s eye, or our attentional focus, is on the benefits of an option, then sure enough, over time we’re more likely to choose to do hard things,” Westbrook says.
So the next time you’re struggling to start a task, stop focusing on all the pain it may involve or the consequences of failing. Instead, think about how good it will feel to finish it and the rewards that will follow. You can even promise yourself a little reward afterward.
You can also try inducing the state known as “flow,” in which people enjoy performing extremely complex mental tasks that most of us find painful, Westbrook says: “It’s almost like they’re so immersed they don’t notice the effort or hard work.” A study published in the journal Nature Communications in 2022 suggests that one key to triggering flow is resolving uncertainty. To pump your motivation to write emails, for example, you could set a time limit: how many can you write in 15 minutes?
Finally, it helps if you don’t have to make a decision to focus every day. “Instead, habitize the exertion of mental effort,” says neuroscientist Matthew Botvinick of University College London. Habits are tasks we do automatically, without considering their costs or consequences. For example, most people don’t contemplate whether or not to make coffee in the morning. They just go ahead and brew a cup because it’s part of their routine.
To make cognitively demanding tasks a habit, try to do them every day at the same time and in the same place. Add a ritual before you start, such as turning off your phone and launching an app to block distracting websites. “You’ll teach yourself that mental exertion pays off under these certain conditions,” Botvinick says. After a few weeks, concentrating deeply won’t just feel easier; it will actually be easier.
Michaeleen Doucleff is a science journalist and the author of “Hunt, Gather, Parent: What Ancient Cultures Can Teach Us About the Lost Art of Raising Happy, Helpful Little Humans.”
Corrections & Amplifications
Matthew Botvinick is a neuroscientist at University College London. An earlier version of this article misspelled his name as Mathew Botivinick, and it incorrectly gave his affiliation as Stanford University. An earlier version of this correction didn’t include that his first name was misspelled in the original article. Also, a study on inducing a state of “flow” was published in 2022, not 2020 as an earlier version said. (Corrected on April 27 and 29).