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Is Our Attention for Sale? | James Williams

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Text - Entrepreneurs: Generating income, creating jobs

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Text - Entrepreneurs: Generating income, creating jobs

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Entrepreneurs - generating income, creating jobs

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Worksheet: How to Do Nothing - Introduction

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Worksheet: How to Do Nothing - Introduction

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How to Do Nothing - Introduction worksheet

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How the 8-hour working day became a global labour standard in 1919

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Being overwhelmed with emotions and anxious thoughts can happen to all of us. Finding presence in situations like this is a coping skill you can learn. This article explores the 54321 grounding method you can easily apply to your coping skillset.

How Does The 54321 Grounding Method Help With Anxiety?

All of us, at some point or another, have experienced overwhelming anxiety. Whether you're trying to rein in runaway thoughts at 3 am or you're struggling to cope with escalating work demands, anxiety is always characterized by one thing: it pulls you out of the present moment.

When we're consumed with worry, stress and anxiety, it's our that race. The human mind, marvelous machine that it is, can conjure up a whole universe of possible scenarios, terrifying outcomes, fears and "what ifs." But, most of this "thought traffic" inhabits either the past or the future - not the present.

There are plenty of effective ways to combat an anxiety spiral, including medication, therapy, and adopting a mindfulness practice like yoga. But the beauty of the 54321 grounding technique is that you practice it in real-time, right here, right now.
Read more: Learn to identify common triggers for anxiety or negative behaviors by applying the HALT technique.
The Body Lives In The Present
"What if I fail and everyone judges me?" "I'm afraid. I can't do this." "I shouldn't have done that..."
Anxious thoughts like these may objectively threatening, but are nothing more than electrochemical flutters in the brain, skipping right over the present moment and dwelling on past regrets or future fears. If we are being steamrolled by thoughts, we disconnect from the present and get carried away, like a small boat being tossed on choppy waves. But if we can remain aware of the present, we can cultivate better emotional health .

There is only one way to reconnect to the present: through the body.

The body can only ever be in one place, and that's the here-and-now. While your mind can untether and run itself ragged on any number of anxious thoughts, your body is never anywhere else but , with your breath.

If we want to calm anxious thoughts and reorient to the present, we must do so via our five senses. This is where the 54321 grounding technique can help.

How To Anchor Yourself With The 54321 Grounding Method

The 54321 grounding technique is simple, yet powerful. Like gradually attaching anchors to the boat, this method slowly pulls you back to earth.

First, take a moment to become mindful of your breath. Just a few deep breaths invite your body back into the moment, slowing everything down. Then, become aware of your environment.

Look For 5 Things You Can See: Notice the wood grain on the desk in front of you. Or the precise shape of your fingernails. Become aware of the glossy green of the plant in the corner. Take your time to really and acknowledge what you see.

Become Aware Of 4 Things You Can Touch: The satisfyingly rough texture of the car seat. Your cotton shirt against your neck. If you like, spend a moment literally touching these things. Maybe notice the sensation of gravity itself, or the floor beneath you.

Acknowledge 3 Things You Can Hear: Don't judge, just hear. The distant traffic. The voices in the next room. As well as the space between sounds.

Notice 2 Things You Can Smell: If at first you don't feel like you can smell anything, simply try to sense the subtle fragrance of the air around you, or of your own skin.

Become Aware Of 1 Thing You Can Taste: The lingering suggestion of coffee on your tongue, maybe?

Repeat this process as many times as necessary. Take your time and notice how you feel afterward. You can also settle down and browse grounding meditations for anxiety relief including guided 54321 practices:

No matter how far your mind wanders, the present moment is always here, waiting for your return. The 54321 grounding technique can help pull anxious mental energy back into the body, grounding and calming it so that you can release stress and focus again, in the here and now.

Insomnia, cravings and addictions, stress management, PTSD flashbacks and panic disorders can all be de-fused, slowed and calmed this way. Any time the mind dissociates from the moment, carrying us off with it, reconnecting with the senses can pull us back again. Anxiety is disembodied , but root back into the body and you give yourself a way to manage anxiety.
Read more: Your breath can be a strong anchor to pull yourself back into the present moment. In another blog post, we explain what makes simple breathing techniques for anxiety so powerful.
A Calm Mind Is An Effective Mind

Naturally, grounding in the present moment doesn't magically make all your problems disappear. But with a balanced, grounded mind, you can better explore those challenges in life that you may wish to address, not with anxiety, but with calm, centred awareness.

There's plenty of scientific evidence to support the idea that the brain simply works better when it's relaxed. The limbic, or emotional brain, is like a "router" for incoming information. When we're stressed, incoming information is passed to the unconscious "monkey mind," where we respond reactively and unconsciously. But, when we are calm and composed, our amygdala and hippocampus feed sensory information through our "higher" executive brain, allowing us to think and behave with calm rationality instead. This means that even if you're facing a genuine crisis, your best option is always to cultivate tranquillity and composure.

This 54321 grounding method is not simply a trick to distract a hyperactive mind. When practiced frequently, you may notice more long-term benefits. You may find that fears and anxieties are seldom based in reality, but are mere stories you tell yourself - albeit very compelling ones! You may gradually observe that when you fully inhabit the present, you feel safer and calmer, and less liable to getting whisked along with racing thoughts.

The 54321 Grounding Method: An Antidote To Anxiety?

This technique is about mindfulness and brings us into the powerful yet simple grace of the ever-flowing moment. Things are seldom as bad as your thoughts might tell you they are. You learn to savor your sensations, noticing the graceful pace of things, the uncomplicated "suchness" of life. Isn't it comforting to know that the moment is never late, never rushed, but always arriving just where it is, perfectly on time in every instant, over and over again?

Even when you're not tackling anxiety, you may be tempted to absorb yourself in the moment anyway, watching how life ticks along pleasantly, whether you stress about it or not. Become more adept at giving yourself permission to step outside of your thoughts for a while. Notice your brain working, and how your body responds. Can you let thoughts pass, just as they are?

Our physical body is how we interface with the rest of reality, the five senses like tethers anchoring us to the moment, which makes the 54321 grounding method so powerful. In time, you can develop the opposite of anxiety: trust. As long as you have breath in your lungs, you are alive and well and fully embedded in the present. In fact, this is where you have always been!
Don't miss reading how anxiety effects body and mind and what common risk factors are.

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The 54321 Grounding Technique For Anxiety - Insight Timer Blog

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The 54321 grounding technique is an effective coping skill for anxiety and panic attacks by serving as an anchor for the present moment.

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paul gigot kimberley a. strassel jason willick jillian kay melchior journal editorial report facebook culture facebook facebook instagram teen facebook instagram teenagers social media girls mental health facebook teenagers mental health teenagers body image instagram facebook inc. cl a instagram inc.

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WSJ Opinion: Facebook, Instagram and Vulnerable Teens

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Journal Editorial Report: The social media giant's role in making girls miserable. Images: AFP/Getty Images Composite: Mark Kelly

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We mean to make things over,
We are tired of toil for naught
With but bare enough to live upon
And ne'er an hour for thought.
We want to feel the sunshine
And we want to smell the flow'rs
We are sure that God has willed it
And we mean to have eight hours;
We're summoning our forces
From the shipyard, shop and mill

Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest
Eight hours for what we will;
Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest
Eight hours for what we will.

The beasts that graze the hillside,
And the birds that wander free,
In the life that God has meted,
Have a better life than we.
Oh, hands and hearts are weary,
And homes are heavy with dole;
If our life's to be filled with drudg'ry,
What need of a human soul.
Shout, shout the lusty rally,
From shipyard, shop, and mill.

Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest
Eight hours for what we will;
Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest
Eight hours for what we will.

The voice of God within us
Is calling us to stand
Erect as is becoming
To the work of His right hand.
Should he, to whom the Maker
His glorious image gave,
The meanest of His creatures crouch,
A bread-and-butter slave?
Let the shout ring down the valleys
And echo from every hill .

Ye deem they're [sic] feeble voices
That are raised in labor's cause,
But bethink ye of the torrent,
And the wild tornado's laws.
We say not toil's uprising
In terror's shape will come,
Yet the world were wise to listen
To the monetary hum.
Soon, soon the deep toned rally
Shall all the nations thrill.

Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest
Eight hours for what we will;
Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest
Eight hours for what we will.

From factories and workshops
In long and weary lines,
From all the sweltering forges,
And from out the sunless mines,
Wherever toil is wasting
The force of life to live
There the bent and battered armies
Come to claim what God doth give
And the blazon on the banner
Doth with hope the nation fill:
Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest
Eight hours for what we will;
Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest
Eight hours for what we will.
Hurrah, hurrah for labor,
For it shall arise in might
It has filled the world with plenty,
It shall fill the world with light
Hurrah, hurrah for labor,
It is mustering all its powers
And shall march along to victory
With the banner of Eight Hours.
Shout, shout the echoing rally
Till all the welkin thrill.
Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest
Eight hours for what we will;
Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest
Eight hours for what we will.

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I.G. Blanchard's lyrics makes the case for the 8-hours day -- one of the main goals of labor unions in the late 1800s. Laborers desired a balance to their day-one that includes "eight hours" just for themselves. And they will band together to get it.

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Returning to 'the Useless Tree' metaphor, "we could say that Old Survivor was too weird or too difficult to proceed easily toward the sawmill. In that way, the tree provides me with an image of “resistance-in-place.” To resist in place is to make oneself into a shape that cannot so easily be appropriated by a capitalist value system." (Odell, 2019, p. 5)

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A former Facebook executive has said he feels "tremendous guilt" over his work on "tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works", joining a growing chorus of critics of the social media giant.

Chamath Palihapitiya, who was vice-president for user growth at Facebook before he left the company in 2011, said: "The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops that we have created are destroying how society works. No civil discourse, no cooperation, misinformation, mistruth."

The remarks, which were made at a Stanford Business School event in November, were just surfaced by tech website the Verge on Monday.

"This is not about Russian ads," he added. "This is a global problem. It is eroding the core foundations of how people behave by and between each other."

Palihapitiya's comments last month were made a day after Facebook's founding president, Sean Parker, criticized the way that the company "exploit[s] a vulnerability in human psychology" by creating a "social-validation feedback loop" during an interview at an Axios event.

Parker had said that he was "something of a conscientious objector" to using social media, a stance echoed by Palihapitiya who said that he was now hoping to use the money he made at Facebook to do good in the world.

"I can't control them," Palihapitiya said of his former employer. "I can control my decision, which is that I don't use that shit. I can control my kids' decisions, which is that they're not allowed to use that shit."

He also called on his audience to "soul-search" about their own relationship to social media. "Your behaviors, you don't realize it, but you are being programmed," he said. "It was unintentional, but now you gotta decide how much you're going to give up, how much of your intellectual independence."

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in Lima. The social media giant has faced increasing criticism for its power to polarize. Photograph: Ernesto Benavides/AFP/Getty Images

Social media companies have faced increased scrutiny over the past year as critics increasingly link growing political divisions across the globe to the handful of platforms that dominate online discourse.

Many observers attributed the unexpected outcomes of the 2016 US presidential election and Brexit referendum at least in part to the ideological echo chambers created by Facebook's algorithms, as well as the proliferation of fake news, conspiracy mongering, and propaganda alongside legitimate news sources in Facebook's news feeds.

The company only recently acknowledged that it sold advertisements to Russian operatives seeking to sow division among US voters during the 2016 election.

Facebook has also faced significant criticism for its role in amplifying anti-Rohingya propaganda in Myanmar amid suspected ethnic cleansing of the Muslim minority.

Palihapitiya referenced a case from the Indian state of Jharkhand this spring, when false WhatsApp messages warning of a group of kidnappers led to the lynching of seven people. WhatsApp is owned by Facebook.

"That's what we're dealing with," Palihapitiya said. "Imagine when you take that to the extreme where bad actors can now manipulate large swaths of people to do anything you want. It's just a really, really bad state of affairs."

Facebook responded to Palihapitiya's comments on Tuesday, noting that the former executive had not worked for the company in six years.

"When Chamath was at Facebook we were focused on building new social media experiences and growing Facebook around the world," a company spokeswoman, Susan Glick, said in a statement. "Facebook was a very different company back then, and as we have grown, we have realized how our responsibilities have grown too. We take our role very seriously and we are working hard to improve."

The company said that it was researching the impact of its products on "well-being" and noted that the CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, indicated a willingness to decrease profitability to address issues such as foreign interference in elections.

* This article was amended on 13 December 2017 to correct some misspellings of Chamath Palihapitiya's last name from Palihapitaya.

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Former Facebook executive: social media is ripping society apart

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A former Facebook executive has said he feels "tremendous guilt" over his work on "tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works", joining a growing chorus of critics of the social media giant.