Host: Dominic Gourley (Human Synergistics Australia)
Guest: Dr Jen Martin (Associate Professor & Science Communicator, University of Melbourne)
Episode Summary
Why do we think and behave the way we do? In this episode of Culture Bites, Dominic Gourley speaks with Dr Jen Martin – scientist, author, and communicator – about the fascinating science behind our habits of thought and behaviour. Drawing on her new book Why Am I Like This?, Jen explains the psychology behind impostor experiences, procrastination, multitasking, flow states, and more. Together, they connect these scientific insights to leadership, personal development, and the Human Synergistics Circumplex framework.
Topics Discussed
- Impostor Experience vs Impostor Syndrome – why it’s more helpful to see it as an experience, not a permanent condition
- Negativity Bias – why our brains cling to negative feedback and how to reframe it
- The 10,000-Hour Rule – what the research really says about mastery, deliberate practice, and privilege
- Flow States – how we get “in the zone,” what’s happening in our brains, and how to find the Goldilocks zone of challenge
- Procrastination – the neuroscience of putting things off and why forgiving ourselves helps
- Multitasking Myths – why most of us are just task-switching (and losing 23 minutes each time)
- The Power of Silence – how quiet time calms our bodies, sharpens our minds, and even rewires our brains
Key Insights
- Reframe impostor feelings as a signal that you’re growing, not failing.
- Deliberate practice matters more than hours logged – feedback and adjustment are key.
- Flow happens when tasks are not too easy, not too hard, but just right.
- Procrastination is human, but self-forgiveness reduces the likelihood of repeating the cycle.
- Multitasking is a myth for 98% of us – protect your focus by turning off notifications.
- Silence is medicine – just two minutes can restore calm and clarity.
Resources & Links
- Get Dr Jen Martin’s book: Why Am I Like This?
- Dr Jen Martin’s website: scidocmartin.com
- Connect with Dr Jen on LinkedIn and Instagram
- Connect with Jen on LinkedIn and Instagram
- Learn more about Human Synergistics and our Leadership and Culture Consulting Solutions
Stay Connected
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Full Episode Transcript:
Dominic Gourley
Welcome to culture bites. My name is Dominic Gourley. I’m a consultant with Human Synergistics Australia, and I’m joined on the podcast this week by Doctor Jen Martin. Hey, Jen.
Dr Jen Martin
Hey, Dom, thanks so much for inviting me. I’m very, very much looking forward to chatting with you.
Dominic Gourley
I’m looking forward to it too. Maybe before we dive into it Jen, maybe a little introduction for those who don’t know you. Yeah. Introduce yourself for our listeners.
Dr Jen Martin
Happy too. So. So I’m a scientist by training. I spent many years working as an ecologist trying to understand what animals do and why they do it. But a few, a few events led me on a slightly different path. And these days I consider myself so it’s still a scientist, but also a science communicator. So my day job is at the University of Melbourne. I’m an associate professor there, and I lead a teaching. Team. With our goal being to support science students across all disciplines to be more effective and engaging communicators, which is just amazing work, I yeah, we work with the best students, which is such a joy. And then other things I do are quite a bit of writing about science radio gigs on a couple of different radio station. Basically, my goal is to do all sorts of different things to make science more accessible to people and for people to feel like science is, you know, part of their everyday world and something that belongs to them rather than this thing that’s kind of done off in labs by people in lab coats. So yeah, I get to do lots of different fun stuff. I’m very lucky. That’s amazing. Yeah.
Dominic Gourley
I’m I’m one of those people, by the way. Like in school. I kind of miss. My calling is, well, maybe not calling too much job but but in in in later years I became much more interested in science, particularly a bit of a space nerd nowadays. So love that kind of stuff and it’s really thanks to people like yourself and communicating it out to the layman, so to speak, you know, because it’s fascinating stuff.
Dr Jen Martin
Yeah, cool. I mean science A is hugely fascinating and B is relevant to all of us. You know, we’re all making decisions all the time about, you know, our sleep hygiene and what we eat and how we travel. School and and what sort of health practises we engage in and you know whether we want solar on our roofs and, you know, there’s a million things all of the time around us that are based on science, but not everyone’s had the opportunity to study science and and not that many scientists have had the opportunity to learn how to communicate their work to different audiences. So it’s a, it’s a pretty exciting space to be part. Of.
Dominic Gourley
And Speaking of communicating, and you mentioned you’re an author and what I thought we would do today, Jen, you’ve got a book. Why am I like this? And I thought it’s kind of relevant because what do we do at Human Synergistics? We measure thinking and behaviour and sort of people learn to do different things. And what’s fascinating is why do we do it? Like what’s under some of those? And I’ve picked out a few from the book. We can’t do it all, unfortunately. But it’s a gorgeous book, gorgeously illustrated as well, yeah.
Dr Jen Martin
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Holly jolly. Who’s the? Who’s the artist who illustrated it. She’s just amazing. I think that’s by far the best part of the book. Even if you don’t wanna read it, just make sure you get it to look. At her amazing illustrations.
Dominic Gourley
Dude, it’s actually a great little 1 cause the chapters are also like what 3-4 pages generally and so it’s great. You can pick it up, do 1, you know.
Dr Jen Martin
Yeah, each chapter is. Yeah, each chapter is like 6-7 hundred words. So each one actually began as a breakfast radio segment, which I then wrote up so that people could, you know, access the information and and find out where I’ve done the research and where the information had come from. So, yeah, the whole book began on radio, which means all the topics are, you know, things that I think I can get a breakfast radio audience. Interested in thinking about and you’re right, it fits in very closely with the work that you do at human synergistics because it’s all about understanding why we do the things that we do and how we’ve yeah, developed particular habits of of behaviour and thinking that may or may not serve us well.
Dominic Gourley
I love it and it’s some concepts that like us familiar with, but it’s really interesting to learn sort of what was the background and where did it come from beforehand. So if we maybe start with one and we’ll work through a few different ones if we can, Jen, let’s do it to have a chat do. If we dive in one that grabbed my attention straight out of the gate was why do I feel like I’m going to be found out.
Dr Jen Martin
Yeah. Yeah, I think Imposter syndrome is a topic that. You know, we’ve all heard about. We’ve all thought about probably most of us have experienced it. We’ve wondered whether to admit to other people that we’re feeling like an impostor. The interesting thing to know is that the psychologist who described the phenomenon first, which was back in, I think, 1978 psychologist Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Imes, they later. Came back and said they wish they’d never called at the imposter syndrome. Because it sounds like a a medical disorder, you know, it sounds like a problem they wish they’d called it the imposter experience to highlight the fact that most people, particularly if you are challenging yourself to do new things and you know, particularly if you’re becoming more senior in your job and therefore being challenged to do things you’ve never done before. The vast majority of us are gonna have times when we think, you know, I I don’t actually know how to do this. And somebody’s about to tap me on the shoulder and tell me I’m not smart enough or not experienced enough or not good enough and I shouldn’t be here and. And you know, when you start speaking with the people around you, I really encourage you to talk with your. Colleagues, you know the people you work with, the vast majority of people. If they feel safe enough to be honest, will say, Oh yeah, I feel that way all the time.
Dominic Gourley
I think that’s fascinating, actually. So the imposter experience, rather than imposter syndrome, which implies as well it’s a temporary state like we experience it, you know. Every now and again, rather than it just is and I think that’s important because a lot of people say, like I have imposter syndrome, like, it’s just a thing I have and it can’t. Yeah, can’t be changed is what I hear in the subtext of that.
Dr Jen Martin
Yeah, but I mean, yes, I totally agree. And it probably you know, they are feelings that probably heightened or feel less, you know, less of a problem at different stages depending on who you’re working with and how well supported you are and whether the tasks are. Familiar to you or not, but I think for many people it is something that can kind of stick around. You know, there’s a suite of characteristics that tend to go with these feelings of impostor wism things. Like being very frightened of making mistakes and failure, and that can come from experiences from your childhood, a real tendency that when you do succeed somewhere rather than kind of standing up and and celebrating that success and feeling positive about it, rather attributing that success to, you know, ohh, I was just lucky or someone. Made a mistake or you know, so I I do think there are kind of common feelings that go with this impostor ISM and it can take. Real dedicated effort to change our thinking and to celebrate the successes and to recognise that making mistakes that you know we have to make mistakes. If we’re gonna learn. And one of my very best friends. She has a fantastic attitude which I always try and channel, which is that if she’s not feeling like an impostor some of the time. It probably means she’s just settling and doing the same things over and over again, and she’s no longer challenging herself to learn new things because if you’re not challenging yourself to learn new things, then maybe you don’t feel like such an impostor because you’re quite comfortable with the familiar.
Dominic Gourley
I love that. So it means it’s an indication you’re on the edge of your knowledge or expertise and you’re actually learning and growing, I love.
Dr Jen Martin
That, yeah. So we should see it as a really positive thing every time we have that sense of, Oh my gosh, I really don’t know if I’m gonna be able to do this very well. And I really don’t know if I’m gonna be able to live up to people’s expectations around me. Actually, this is a fantastic.
Dominic Gourley
Great, great friend.
Dr Jen Martin
Opportunity to realise that. Yeah, exactly. We’re right on that edge of challenging ourselves to develop and to grow, which I I think it’s a really fabulous reframe. And I use it all the time. So academia, where I come from is an environment in which, you know, imposter syndrome is absolutely right there. You know, it’s the whole kind of individualistic competitive environment where, yeah, feeling like a fraud, I think is pretty pretty normal. So I actively engage with that, reframe a lot.
Dominic Gourley
Yeah, you’ve sparked, there’s there’s a research area for me, perhaps, or maybe someone’s done this, but just when I was reading through it, you know you. Or just as you’re speaking. Then you talked about people attribute their success to luck, chance, you know outside. Forces. Which in Circumplex language I know you’re accredited as well as is dependent.
Dr Jen Martin
I am. I’m a big LSI fan.
Dominic Gourley
There you go. And so so I hear dependent and that you know, so it’s like I don’t have the agency things happen to me and either I get lucky or I don’t. So there could be an element of that or that perfectionistic or I need to appear perfect. But I know I’m not and no. One is, but there’s a dissonance there between what I’m trying to present and what I I know I am.
Dr Jen Martin
Yeah. And I think there’s huge room for anxiety, right? If our perception is that the people around us value us because we’re perfect, and because we’re good at everything. But on the inside, we have this inner monologue around. Actually, I have no idea what I’m doing. And every time I’ve appeared perfect. The past it was just a lucky, you know, a lucky break. That’s exhausting. I mean, that’s just a terrible way to go through your days.
Speaker
Yeah.
Dr Jen Martin
Which I guess is maybe where LSI one and LSI 2 would be interesting, right? What are we telling ourselves versus what are people actually perceiving of us in terms of things like perfectionism and dependence?
Dominic Gourley
That’s it. You know? And. And so I always ask in coaching people like, what’s the evidence for that view, you know? And as you talk about in the book, it’s often, you know, people miss the successes and kind of remember the gaps. That kind of stuff. So.
Dr Jen Martin
Well, that’s. I mean that’s a whole another thing. That’s the negativity bias that is this idea that we’ve evolved to pay very, very careful attention to anything that has the power to harm us because that was essential during human evolution. So that means in a situation, for example, where you’re being given feedback, you might get 15 pieces of really positive. Feedback and one piece of negative feedback and the only thing that you remember and the thing that you ruminate on was the negative feedback, because that’s the one that has the power to, you know, to have a big impact on us, which if it’s, you know, there’s a predator out there trying to eat me and I need to discern which is the predator versus which are the.
Dominic Gourley
Uh-huh.
Dr Jen Martin
Favores it makes sense to pay a lot of attention to the animal that’s about to attack when it’s work, feedback or any other feedback you know, it’s not helpful to ignore when we’re being told that yes, we’ve contributed well here and we’re making a solid contribution and all the rest, and to only pay attention to the one comment that is telling us here’s an area we could have done better. But that’s the negativity bias, and it’s very strong.
Dominic Gourley
I love it, so I’m I’m digging away from that one. It’s not a syndrome, it’s an experience. And I’m gonna start calling it that from. Now on Jen. Yeah. Yeah, dude. Yeah, I think that’s really powerful. And the other one was you’re learning. Right, rather than failing, I love that as a reframe as well, right?
Dr Jen Martin
It’s it’s, it can really help. I think it’s it’s it’s all in our own heads and if we can reframe that sense of, I don’t know what I’m doing into, I’m learning something wonderful here. You know, that makes all the difference.
Dominic Gourley
Amazing. I’ve got another one that popped out, another chapter, which was around why am I not a master of anything? It’s gonna pop out and I guess brought to fame and the Malcolm Gladwell book. Outliers and a lot of us have probably heard of the 10,000 hour rule and all that. But where did it come from?
Speaker
Yep.
Dr Jen Martin
Originally, yeah, so this is one that’s really worth paying a bit of attention to because I think, I mean, I think there’s a lot of good stuff in Malcolm Gladwell’s book. I’m not here to diss the book at all. But he took it from a study that was done in the early 90s, I think 1993. And it was done by a Swedish psychologist, and they were interested in looking at violin players who were training at the. West Berlin Music Academy so quite an elite music school and their question was, what is it that sets apart those who end up being brilliant and succeeding in terms of? Becoming performing musicians versus those who are good enough to get accepted into the Academy but don’t succeed in the same way. And so they did a whole lot of looking at violinists and how much time they’d spent studying, and it turned out that they came out with this very nice conclusion that the best violinists had spent on average. 10,000 hours studying the. Lynn, by the age of 20, I might say so. That’s a lot of hours. Mm-hmm. Whereas the very good violinists had had spent less time practising. And so that 10,000 hours from that study got taken, and Gladwell went and found lots of examples. I think he talked about, you know, that The Beatles had played more than 10,000 hours or they’d performed in front of live audiences for more than 10,000. Hours between 1960 and 1960. Before and you know that was really important and there was a whole lot of other examples, but later research has shown that that it’s, I mean, unsurprisingly, it’s not that simple. And 10,000 hours of practise, it depends what sort of practise that is. You know, you can’t just sit there and do the same thing over and over again for 10,000 hours and expect to be. The virtuoso you. Practise involves having an expert who can give you feedback and you have to be able to take on that feedback. You have to be able to practise and correct mistakes. And yeah, I think they went back and looked at that original study and and the 10,000 was an average. It wasn’t the exact number. It depended on a whole lot of other factors. So there’s been quite a bit of research since then really looking at. What really is deliberate practise and how big of a role does it play in different you know everything from music to chess to sport and it turns out that there’s a whole lot of other things I think, particularly when they looked at elite Sports. Full practise was only explaining a tiny percentage of the differences in how successful different sports people was. There’s a lot of other things, you know, there’s genetics, there’s there’s having the privilege of access to experts. There’s your personality, there’s how, how deeply committed you are to, you know, to taking on things, how good you are at taking on feedback. You know, there’s there’s a whole lot of different things here, and I think there’s good messages for us to take from this, that, yeah, committing a lot of time to something you care about is an excellent start, for sure. But there’s no guarantee there’s a lot of other things that are involved.
Dominic Gourley
Hmm, no, it’s interesting. I remember Speaking of axes. I remember in the book he talked about Bill Gates. Like his school, his high school or primary school, whichever it was happened to have one of the computers, and it was pretty rare back then. And then they figured out a way they could get unlimited time on it and and all of this. So he racked up the 10,000 hours. But it’s interesting, you say it’s a it’s an average. So some were obviously a lot more and some were probably less so. There’s probably someone who was a virtuoso. 6000 hours or whatever it was.
Dr Jen Martin
Yeah. No, that’s absolutely what they found. So I can’t remember exactly what the range was from lowest to highest. I do remember that they found some people, you know, had accumulated. I think it was like 27,000 hours of practise or something. I mean that.
Dominic Gourley
That’s crazy.
Dr Jen Martin
It’s, you know that. Yeah, it’s just unbelievable.
Dominic Gourley
And for memory, it was kind of 10,000 hours was roughly 10 years. If you sort of did 4 hours a day or something like that. But what I love the concept. I’m really taking away from that though is 1 like, it’s not all practise but practise does matter. But it’s the kind of practise. And so you mentioned deliberate practise there. And So what finds deliberate practise.
Dr Jen Martin
I don’t know if there’s a strict definition. I guess there probably is, but I think my understanding is that it’s mostly around actually getting feedback and then being deliberate in not just kind of doing what you were already doing over and over again and assuming that you’re gonna get better, it’s being willing to engage with, OK, this aspect of it. I I’m not doing well. You know whether we’re talking. Tests or basketball or or violin and being willing to engage with that, you know that sense of OK, here’s something I need to do differently. And I’m willing to keep practising over and over again until I can do it differently and do it better. I think that’s the main thing because, you know, if you think about if I sit down at a piano. Know and play for four hours a day for the next 10 years. If I don’t have any input from anyone else, I’m unlikely to get terribly good. I mean, perhaps if I have real natural, you know, natural ability and a genetic tendency and a whole lot of other things, perhaps I would, but I don’t think there’s a guarantee that everybody could become really good with that amount of time. Whereas if you bring in a teacher. Who I like and who I feel connected with and who I listen to and who’s willing to give me honest feedback and who can give me strategies for how to take on board that feedback. Those four hours become a hell of a lot more useful every day, don’t they?
Dominic Gourley
Actually, it reminds me of a I saw a clip on Instagram as Kobe Bryant. And he was talking about how nowadays, parents like push their kids and they’re they’re training them on all these, like fancy skills. And he’s like, you know, the basics, the basics, the basics. But he said, and I thought was quite funny. He asked Michael Jordan what were you doing when you were 14? And Jordan said playing baseball. So he wasn’t even. Playing possible, you know. And so I thought that was.
Dr Jen Martin
Good answer. And that’s the thing, right? I mean, that’s also talking about transferable skills. I mean think of some of the really elite sports people out there who’ve changed sports completely and end up being brilliant at two or three or four of them because to some extent, you know perhaps deliberate practise is all about some basic skills which can then be applied in different ways.
Dominic Gourley
I’ve got another one here. Jen, why do I work better when I’m in the zone? And so a lot of us have probably heard of bean and flow or flow state, but. Yeah, like, where did that come from? What does it?
Dr Jen Martin
Mean. So the term flow was coined by a Hungarian psychologist who, when you look at his name, spelled you have no idea how to spell it. But I did practise in order to be able to do radio interviews when the book was first published, and my understanding is that you pronounce it me high. Chicks and me high. But that’s not what it looks like anyway. A Hungarian psychologist. And yeah, it was back in 1990. I think that he came up with that term. It basically describes, and I hope everyone listening will be able to picture a time when you’ve been in this situation where you are just absolutely immersed in whatever you’re doing in the. Moment. And that means that you’re you lose track of time. You’re not really aware of of yourself as an entity. You’re not kind of judging yourself anymore or or self analysing yourself anymore. You’re not necessarily even thinking about what’s going on around you. You have a sense of mastery. You know you are. Just completely and utterly focused on whatever it is that you’re doing. And if you’re really in flow, chances are you’re doing that thing. Whatever it is, it might be writing, it might be running. It might be playing music, could be any number of things, but chances are that you’re doing that thing really well at the time that you’re in flow. And I think a lot of people have experienced it and talked about this feeling of just kind of being, not necessarily invincible in the sense that, you know, whatever you’re doing, you’re the best in the world and you’re gonna win. Just this sense of I’m right where I need to be and I’m doing this thing in a way that brings me great satisfaction and I’m, you know, I’m just loving this moment.
Dominic Gourley
And So what does the science say about like, what gets us into the flow or how do we get into the flow?
Dr Jen Martin
Yeah. So there’s kind of 2 levels of that. There’s stuff that’s going on in the brain which we can talk about in a second. But in terms of seeking opportunities to have that experience, the research suggests that the key thing is looking at that relationship between whatever the task is that you’re doing, whatever the activity is, how hard it is for you. And whether you’re good at it or not. So it’s kind of like this Goldilocks state, where if the thing that you’re trying to do is very difficult for you and very challenging, you’re probably not gonna end up in a state of flow because you’re more likely to end up being really frustrated that you’re not better at it or. Or, you know, or scared that you’re gonna make a mistake and you’re gonna fail. But on the other hand, if you’re doing something that you find very, very, very easy, it’s unlikely you’re gonna get fully engrossed in it. You’re more likely to just. You. Know they’ll find it a bit boring, a bit uninteresting, or just kind of, you know? Yeah, I’m going through the, you know, going through the motions. So we need that Goldilocks zone. Between the stress of something that challenges us, but not so easy that that you know that it’s boring, and so, you know, think about a musical instrument, I think is a great example and somebody who is, you know, particularly. The immersed in that creation of music, there’s a whole lot of physiological stuff going on. Our muscles, particularly in our face, relax. We have reduced blood pressure. We have a slowed heart rate and our brain. What’s going on in our brain changes. So the part of your brain involved in kind of, yeah, being critical and judgmental and. Monitoring yourself and controlling yourself and, you know, being ready to criticise and judge you. Self. So this is where this is your prefrontal cortex. Some of that gets shut off when you’re in flow and you end up in this much more kind of open state of creativity. And some of the best evidence for that comes from looking at piano players when they’re improvising. You know, picture of jazz piano players sitting at the piano and and improvising. When they’ve scanned the brains of those people, there’s just a whole lot of different stuff going on. Instead of being self censoring, they’re just in this state of creativity and flow.
Dominic Gourley
I love it, so it’s not the overthinking with the prefrontal cortex and kind of thinking about my thinking and all of that. It’s just. Went in there. It’s right the Goldilocks of.
Dr Jen Martin
Yeah, we’re in there. Yeah, we’re in there and we’re doing it. And we have this sense of kind of, you know, it’s just so liberating to switch off some of that self censorship. I think that many of us are, you know, are doing all the time.
Dominic Gourley
Can the flow state ever be hijacked for nefarious purposes or not so useful? This is Jen.
Dr Jen Martin
What are you thinking? That’s a good question. Like procrastination.
Dominic Gourley
Well, I’m. I’m. So I’m thinking, well, I’m thinking for me particularly like Doom scrolling the Instagram feed, which I mentioned earlier, I saw Kobe Bryant, but I just wonder cause it’s kind of, you know, rewarding on on one of one it’s easy and you can get into that habit of you just scroll like scroll like scroll you know on and on.
Dr Jen Martin
Yeah, my look, I I don’t. I haven’t read any research on it, but my sense would be that that is a very different state to being in flow. Because it doesn’t. You know, you’re you’re not. There’s no creativity. There’s no sense of mastery. I mean, I don’t know. Maybe you feel a sense of mastery when you’re scrolling, scrolling, doing scrolling. But I don’t think so. I feel like Doom scrolling would be more a much more passive activity then cause, remember, flow is all about doing something that you find a bit difficult.
Dominic Gourley
Well.
Dr Jen Martin
Not really really difficult, but a bit difficult, so you get this sense of agency of ohh you know I am in this. I am loving this. I am just doing this thing. I don’t think any of us get that from doom screw.
Dominic Gourley
That’s a different thing.
Dr Jen Martin
And if anything, we just, if anything, we just end up feeling pretty crap when we’re doing scrolling because we know that we yeah, we know that we could have spent that time way better doing something different.
Dominic Gourley
That was a waste of time. Yeah afterwards. Look, and it’s probably a good segue into the next one, which is why do I keep? Putting things off. It’s going, but what does science have to say about?
Dr Jen Martin
Nation look, procrastination is one of my favourite topics because I think it’s just one of those things that unites us as humans that we all do it and and look. Some people will swear they never do and look probably they’re telling the truth. It’s not for me to assume they’re lying, but research has found that pretty much everybody. Everybody procrastinates there’s evidence that I think it was something like 1/4 of people in one study’s decided or defined themselves. They said procrastination was one of their defining personality traits. Wow, which is pretty full on. And I guess I think it’s also easy to imagine that procrastination is this very recent thing that’s only been around since we had the option of doom scrolling, you know, on on Insta. But there’s some really lovely quotes that show that actually, it’s been around forever. So there’s a very, very famous story about an Egyptologist who. Translated some hieroglyphics from 1400 BC and they were translated as this. Friend, stop putting off work and allow us to go home in good time. 1400 BC so you know this is not a new thing. No, we just have more things to procrastinate with now.
Dominic Gourley
And and nothing’s changed. Well, that, that’s interesting. It’s even easier now to perhaps do it.
Dr Jen Martin
Yeah, and procrastination is this like?
Dominic Gourley
But it’s always been.
Dr Jen Martin
It’s this for us, you know, it’s this fundamentally frustrating thing, right? Cause the definition of procrastination is that we voluntarily delay doing something despite knowing that we’re gonna be worse off for that delay. So it’s all about when we have something we need to do, we know we need to do it, but we don’t do it. Even though in that moment we already know that we’re gonna end off worse off for it. So it’s this incredibly frustrating, you know, situation to find ourselves in and and the basic. Story in terms of what’s going on in our brains is that you know, you’ve obviously you’ve got multiple different parts of your brain. But if we imagine one of the earliest parts of our of the mammalian brain is called the limbic system. And then we have the more recently evolved prefrontal cortex and the prefrontal cortex we know is all about kind of higher level thinking and making decisions and. Planning and, you know, making sure we’re doing what we need to do. Whereas neuroscientists talk about the limbic system as being like you’re in a four year old and the limbic system is much more interested in instant gratification. So we’ve got this battle where the prefrontal cortex, part of us, knows that actually, I really need to write this thing or whatever the task is. But there’s a part of our brain that doesn’t want to grapple with this difficult. Thing I would much rather do something fun in that moment, and I think the key thing to understand there is. That you know, it can be hard in that moment to deal with doing a task if we’re immersed in these feelings of impostor ISM. You know, if the task that you need to do, you don’t feel very confident with doing, and it’s gotta highlight these negative feelings of I’m not good enough. I don’t have enough experience. Why did they ask me to do this thing? I don’t. Know how to do it? Like, who wants to feel those negative emotions? I’d much rather just go onto Instagram and have fun looking at, you know, silly video. So it it makes sense that we avoid putting ourselves in situations where things feel hard.
Dominic Gourley
It’s kind of that choose your hard, hard now or hard later, because I was interested in the book. It talked about it, did a study of college students and in the US, I think and it said short term in the short term, procrastinators were less stressed than others, presumably because they chose fun over study. But in the long term, they got lower Marks and experienced greater stress and illness.
Dr Jen Martin
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker
Yeah.
Dominic Gourley
Compared to non process.
Dr Jen Martin
Yeah, there’s this great visual that we show our students every semester. That kind of maps out what procrastination is doing, and on the horizontal axis is time and on the vertical axis is feelings of shame, anxiety, stress and basically procrastination is that period between when you know what the task is that you need to do. To you and that time until you begin working on it. Your feelings of shame and misery just go up and up and up and up and up. And you eventually hit crisis point. And when you’re at crisis point, you suddenly go, OK, actually, I’m gonna have to start working on this. But if you think about your horizontal access, the amount of time that you have available from when you knew. You needed to do the task to when the task has to be finish. Could now have been halved or even more in that time that you spent procrastinating. So the issue is that, yeah, in the long term you end up in this terribly stressful situation because you still have to do the task, but you’ve just got half the amount of time or less to.
Dominic Gourley
Do it in I. To my shame, Jen, I shouldn’t say this to to professor, but. In my undergraduate, I used to pride myself on the three day essay I called it. It was sort of day one or this is like 3 days out from due date. You know, go to the library and just like, photocopy the hell out of books. Day 2 read them and highlight them. And I had a quite a good system for doing that. And then day three. Right, the thing terribly stressful. And it was funny because I had all the time in the world, really. Where I went back to university and later days, you know, now that I’m working. And so I’m much less time and guess what? First weekend I’m on it. I’m working on it cause I had to like there was no option so I didn’t have time for a three day essay it wasn’t possible.
Dr Jen Martin
Yeah. And you also learned from experience that that, that crisis point.
Dominic Gourley
That’s correct.
Dr Jen Martin
Well, just that it’s miserable and that feeling of being so angry with yourself because you know it’s all your own fault. You did not have to get yourself into that position. You you had many other options. Available to you. And you didn’t take them, which leads to one of my favourite bits of research about procrastination. There was one study that found that one of the best things you can do. If you’ve procrastinated in the past is to forgive yourself for procrastinating, and that’s been shown to make it less likely you’re gonna procrastinate next time. And I think that. That’s because when we procrastinate, we build up all these negative feelings about our ability to get things done and and how useless or you know, capable we are. And if we forgive ourselves and have self talk along the line. So if you know you did your best, you had a lot of things going on. You tried really hard, but you didn’t manage it. You know, if we’re kind to ourselves and talk to ourselves in that way. It’s less likely that next time we have a big task, we’ll end up in this horrible quagmire of procrastination again, because we’re not just immediately going to that negative place, and it’s kind of a self fulfilling prophecy. If you expect it to be horrible, it’s probably gonna be horrible trying to get this task done.
Dominic Gourley
Yes. And therefore you put it. Off.
Dr Jen Martin
Yeah, yeah.
Dominic Gourley
It’s not fulfilling.
Dr Jen Martin
Yeah, exactly.
Dominic Gourley
I’ve got another one which is pretty famous and in the work zone probably in life, but that’s why can’t I multitask?
Dr Jen Martin
Yeah, multitasking is such a tricky 1, isn’t it? I still try to multitask all the time, even though I’ve known the science for a decade that it’s impossible. Do you multitask or try to multitask?
Dominic Gourley
Look, I did laugh because, you know, we it talks further on and we’ll we’ll talk about. There are some people who can do it and do it well, but it’s a. Very small group. Of people I am well aware that I could not multitask and so if I try I I will fail. So I I have to concentrate on things for sure.
Dr Jen Martin
Yeah. The best thing about that research about people who are actually very, very good about multitasking. So they’re called Super Taskers research has shown that the people who are most confident in their abilities to multitask and who are most confident that they belong to that really 2% of people who are highly skilled multitaskers. The more you think you are one of them, the less likely you actually are, and probably the worse at multitasking you are so.
Dominic Gourley
And and I like. And I like, Janet said, saying that 90% of people think they’re in the two percents.
Speaker
Yes.
Dr Jen Martin
Yeah, exactly. What does that say? That’s like I’m sure there’s stats out there that says something like, you know, 80% of people think that they’re in the top 10% of good drivers or something. And you’re like, yeah, let’s.
Dominic Gourley
Uh-huh.
Dr Jen Martin
Think about those numbers.
Dominic Gourley
Are there someone listening to this podcast right now? Jen saying I hear what you’re saying to him, but I actually am a super Tasker. I am good at it.
Dr Jen Martin
But I’m one of them. There is actually a website I can’t remember it off the top of my head, but I’ll I can send it to you to go in the show notes. I’m pretty sure there is a website where you can do the tests to work out whether you have these extraordinary multitasking ability so.
Dominic Gourley
Interesting.
Dr Jen Martin
The research that looked into super task is they got them to do a driving test at the same time as doing quite complicated maths problems at the same time as having to memorise a whole lot of digits and true super taskers could do all of those things at once, no problem, I cannot.
Dominic Gourley
Fascinate. I’d love to do that. That’d be a great little. Exercise in a workshop or something. Just show that you can’t.
Dr Jen Martin
Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’m right. I I’ll check. I I could have just completely made that up, but I think that it’s there. I will, I will.
Dominic Gourley
OK.
Dr Jen Martin
Look for.
Dominic Gourley
It. And so I guess you know, there’s the 2% who can do it. Why can’t the the remaining 98% of us, why doesn’t it work for us, Jen?
Dr Jen Martin
I think it’s because what we think of as multitasking. What we’ve convinced ourselves is multitasking. Researchers actually say we should call it task switching, so we’re not actually doing. Two things or three things at the same time. We’re just very quickly switching between them and our perception is that that switch is instantaneous and we’re not losing any time and it’s completely fine to be working on a report one moment at the same time as keeping on top of your inbox at the same time as talking to your colleague for a quick phone call. You know, we think I’m managing to do all of those. But when researchers have actually gone in and measured, how long does it take somebody to get back to the point of working effectively and whatever their first task was, which I think in the study was getting something written and the research showed that it took an average of 23 minutes for someone to get back. Back to writing effectively again and some of the study volunteers never got back into the flow of writing. You know it it never became, you know, they were never back in that mode of I’m clear on what I’m writing. I’m making progress here. I’m getting the words down, whatever it is. And then they’ve done lots of studies which are obviously really important to understand on things like if you’re. Talking on your phone while you’re driving, we know that that has a huge and people say ohh. But you know if I’m talking to a passenger in the car, why does that make any difference? But the research suggests that talking to a passenger in the car, that person is also aware if assuming they’re not vision impaired, you know they are also aware of what’s around you and will be responding. To things that you might need to have a really quick reflex response to. Whereas if you’re talking to someone on the phone, they can’t see where you are and you get caught up in the conversation and I think. They showed it was the equivalent of having a blood alcohol reading of about .08 having a phone call while you’re driving. Very different to having somebody in the car with you. And then there was a.
Dominic Gourley
So it’s almost like we’re it’s almost like we’re drunk at.
Dr Jen Martin
Work, Jen? Well, exactly. And then my my favourite multitasking study was because people say. But I can walk and talk at the same time. And that’s true. There is no reason why you can’t walk down the street and have a chat at the same time. But they did a great study where people, they got people walking down the street chatting on their phones. And then later they asked them what they’d noticed around them. And I think it was only about 1/4 or maybe 1/3 of people who’d been doing that. Who’d noticed that they planted a clown on a unicycle that rode past these people. And most people didn’t notice because they were too busy trying to walk and talk at the same time.
Dominic Gourley
I read that it sounds unbelievable. You’re like, how could you miss a clown on a unicycle like that? Must stick a mile out. But you’ve probably seen Jen, but there’s that video around selective attention with the counting the basketball passes. And the gorilla comes through.
Dr Jen Martin
Ah, with the gorilla. Yes, yes.
Dominic Gourley
And I missed it when I watched it the first time. I missed it too, and lots of people do I I use that sometimes fascinating cause. Like, how could you miss?
Speaker
And it’s fast.
Dominic Gourley
- Gorilla yeah. Or a clown on a news cycle. But we do. You know, it’s fascinating, isn’t it? And the big takeaway for me or, you know, kind of a shocking number is at 23 minutes that it takes.
Dr Jen Martin
Or a clown on a unicycle.
Dominic Gourley
On average, to get back into the zone, and some never do. Wow. So I’m writing something I’m working on saying I flip over, check my emails, or whatever it might be, and wow 23 minutes. That’s a lot of time to get back into it after that.
Dr Jen Martin
Yeah, I think the key takeaway for me is we have to be careful with email. I think email has become kind of a ban on all of our lives because it’s so easy to get that sense of productivity and you know kind of positive reward if you respond to emails quickly and if you kind of feel like you’re on top of your inbox for the day. But every time we. Prior prioritised emails, I mean, of course it depends on the nature of your job. Perhaps that is the essential part of your job and and absolutely. But for some of us for whom email is, you know, an important part of our jobs, but it’s not the core business of what we do. That temptation to just always have your email on and quickly check every time you see a notification thinking, oh, I’ll just check and deal with that quickly. You know, that’s just completely undermining our ability to actually focus and get stuff done, which I am hugely guilty of, no question, cause again, some of the other tasks feel difficult. I’d much rather just quickly shoot off an email. I feel like I’ve made that person’s.
Dominic Gourley
Life easier. Yeah. And. And I’m sure there’s a thing around. Like the notification little icon. Ohh, we reset it to 0 and you know, like all that. So.
Dr Jen Martin
Yeah. And I and and I think anyone who has any approval in their LSI knows that the sense of calm that can come from feeling like you’ve met somebody else’s expectations and they’re gonna approve of the fact that you’ve got back to them quickly. But actually you are undermining your ability to do good work in many cases by seeking that approval.
Dominic Gourley
So turn off the notifications. I I often do it with like the WhatsApp, the giant WhatsApp groups. It stresses me out because I get it. I’ve got like a running watch as well, so it gives me the notification on the watch and so it really stresses me out because it’s like my wrist is like shaking and it’s like no. So I just mute. I mute all the groups.
Dr Jen Martin
Yes, yes. Yes, me too. Yes. Yep, no, I’m the same. I think we just have to be more disciplined about turning off notifications, potentially just leaving our emails closed for multiple hours a day, knowing that the world is unlikely to end, and if there really is something urgent, somebody will probably find another way to contact us, I think.
Dominic Gourley
Can’t do it. Hmm. And that probably brings us to a good close on the last one, which is why does silence calm me?
Dr Jen Martin
And so yeah, this is some of my favourite research. It’s not new research. People may or may not have heard of it. So I guess the idea is that noise is really bad for us, but we are all quite we’re just used to it. So the actual word noise has a Latin derivation and it means queasiness or pain.
Speaker
But. Interesting.
Dr Jen Martin
And so noise in the modern world, I mean, people will certainly be aware of this idea of noise pollution being, you know, making it difficult for us to concentrate, making it difficult for us to sleep. People who live in noisy industrial areas are more likely to have heart disease, which is probably also from light as well as from noise. But, you know, there are lots of things going on in our bodies. If we’re exposed to a lot of noise. And I think the World Health Organisation, it’s quite old now, but back in already and I think maybe 2010 or 2011, they did a report on this huge, you know, burden of disease basically that’s coming from us all being exposed to too much noise. So on the flip side, if we think about what then might be the benefits of silence. And this research that I really, really like again, it’s quite old now the research, but basically they wanted to. Understand how different music impacts you physiologically. So in terms of, you know, your kind of your heart rate and that sort of stuff. So the research has got people with headphones to listen to these two minute tracks of a few different music styles. I think there was jazz. There might have might have been R&B, rock, whatever it was. And at the time that they were listening, the volunteers were being measured for things like their. Blood pressure and their breathing rate and all that sort of stuff. And so the whole research was set up to look at how the rhythm and the melody and the tempo and all of that of the music impacted people. School, particularly according to whether the person had a musical background or not, and they found some interesting stuff. So from the musical point of view was all interesting. But the thing that they found, which they hadn’t even set out to look for, was that because they wanted people was kind of, you know, bodies to reset between the different kinds of music. They made them have listened to two minutes of silence. In between those six different music styles. And it was the two minutes of silence that had a huge effect on people they saw physiologically, that people went into this really calm state because we don’t get a lot of silence in our lives. We fill it with, you know, with noise and music and talking all the time. And other researchers looked at, yeah, silence in all sorts of different ways and. It turns out that we often avoid silence because we find it a bit stressful. We’re worried about getting caught up in our own thoughts and and ruminating and feeling anxious.
Dominic Gourley
Ah.
Dr Jen Martin
This but the research shows that if we intentionally choose to be silenced and it can be just be a few minutes, it doesn’t have to be, you know, 1020 thirty minutes an hour, just a couple of minutes. And particularly if you can be in a natural setting, if you can be in a park or a garden. Huge, huge health games, like really big impacts on how we feel.
Speaker
Turn.
Dr Jen Martin
Both physically and. Really, silence is very.
Dominic Gourley
Powerful. Mean. It’s interesting, as you say in the experiment, it was 2 minutes, so it wasn’t an hour, it was 2 minutes and they could see a whole lot of benefits from it, which is fascinating.
Speaker
I’m.
Dr Jen Martin
No. Yeah, and. And one of the other really interesting studies was done with mice and they were looking at the effects of different sounds on the brains of of adult mice. So they had a music. Again, they had white noise, they had a few different sounds. I think they had baby mouse calls, which I guess they were assuming would cause a lot of stress for the adult mice. But again, they had to have a control for the experiment, you know, what are the mice? Listening to when they’re not listening to any of those things, and again, it was silence. And this one was really amazing. They found that if the mice had two hours of silence a day, their brains actually changed. Had this really massive effect that they were developing new brain cells, which I have, it must have been. I haven’t followed up on this research. I don’t know if it’s since been found that there’s any correlation at all in humans, but either way. It’s just fascinating to think that depriving ourselves of noise can be such a positive thing.
Dominic Gourley
Here’s the question is why? Yeah, I don’t know if if there’s a research on this specifically, but white noise so I tend to put on the white noise sounds at night when I’m sleeping. And I know in here it said noise can even affect us when we’re sleeping. And so I guess I’m curious, you know, the rain sounds the wave, the ocean noises or whatever is they’re stressing me out when I’m sleeping. Should I be doing that or should it be silent?
Dr Jen Martin
I haven’t read any research about it. It might be out there. My suspicion would be that if it’s a kind of a natural noise, it’s probably OK, but it probably comes down largely to how loud you have it. So I think the research suggests that our night time noise should be less than 40 decibels. Where? Something to kind of mark, that would be they say that the rustling of leaves in the wind is usually about 20 decibels, whereas a restaurant where there’s lots of people having a conversation, but it’s fairly quiet and contained is about 60 decibels. So I guess if you’re whereas a lawn mower, I think is about 90 decibels. So if you’ve if your white nose is quiet enough that it’s not too much louder.
Dominic Gourley
Wow, OK.
Dr Jen Martin
Then the rustling of leaves in the wind. It’s probably fine, and if it’s helping you to fall asleep, I mean, you know, we’re not necessarily talking about sleep today, but I think everybody knows. Sleep is just an absolute non-negotiable sleep is just absolutely essential to every aspect of our lives. So if it helps you fall asleep, it’s probably fine. Just try not to have. It too loud.
Dominic Gourley
Great, great insight and I love it. And for those listening to this podcast, thank you for listening. Now might be the time to turn it off and go for a walk. In the park.
Dr Jen Martin
Yes, definitely. And and, you know, resist that urge to Chuck in your headphones and listen to the news or listen to a podcast or an audio book, or call a friend. I think if we can just carve out little bits of time. Time where we can walk in silence and recognising that that’s actually a luxury. You know, there are many people in the world who live in noisy, noisy places and and silence is actually very hard to come by. So if we’re lucky enough to live in a place where we can find patches of quiet, I kind of feel like that’s, you know, that the onus is on us to really enjoy that.
Dominic Gourley
Hmm.
Dr Jen Martin
And savour it and recognise our privilege.
Dominic Gourley
Amazing, Jen, thank you so much for those who are listening in today and you want to learn more. We scratched the surface, really, of kind of six out of, I don’t know, there’s 30 or more different questions that are answered. So why am I like this by Doctor Jen Martin? Check it out. Get a copy of. It’s beautiful little book. Great for coffee tables and stuff as well. Cuz it’s just so pretty. As well, is it just? Book. I love it, gene. For our listeners out there, if they want to learn more, we could they catch you? Where could they kind of stay? Forms.
Dr Jen Martin
I do have a website that is woefully neglected, but if you wanna find me there, it’s side Doc martin.com. So ASCII as in science. Then DOC, I always joke that the only reason I did a PhD so I could call myself Doc Martin. So side Doc Martin. You can find me on LinkedIn as associate professor. Ben Martin, you can find me on Instagram. A side doc. Martin, if you are Melbourne based, you can hear me on Triple R Radio every Wednesday morning talking about science. I do various other radio gig. Yeah, if you wanna get in touch, just drop me a line sometime. It would be great to hear from some listeners and we can all think about. Yeah, some of these stories and and how the Ellis I I think interplays with some of these things as. Well.
Dominic Gourley
I love it. Jen’s great to chat. Thank you so much for being on the show.
Dr Jen Martin
Many Many thanks for having me, Dom. It’s great to chat with you.
Dominic Gourley
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