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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 21st, 2023

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  • Think about it like this: There is an almost endless amount of stuff around us at any given moment that we could be aware of. If we factor in the things that are not actually there but we can still think about, then there are infinitely many things we could be paying attention to at any moment.

    But we only have a finite amount of energy to do it. The more energy we use to think about one thing the less energy remains to think about everything else.

    I wouldn’t say that we are ignoring things when we concentrate. Because to me when you ignore something you are actually aware of it but choose to ignore it. When you concentrate, you just don’t have enough energy left to be aware of other things.


  • I used to have this problem, too. Both when trying to fall asleep in the evening and after waking up in the middle of the night for any reason.

    What really helps me is putting on an audiobook or podcast that I like but already know (this part is important because otherwise I will just listen to it for the rest of the night because I want to know what happens) and setting the volume to very low. I set the sleep timer to 15 minutes and most of the time I’m asleep way before it turns off.

    I had to experiment a bit to find audiobooks that hit the sweet spot of being engaging enough to keep my mind from wandering but not so much that I can’t drift of to sleep but once I found a few, it’s been a real game changer.



  • Not only more readable than A and B but I would argue it’s also easier to remember who did what a few sentences or paragraphs earlier since Alice and Bob invoke slightly less generic mental images than A and B. For example one is a woman and the other one is a man, maybe even some person or character you know.

    And now that I’m thinking about it, the different gender also makes it easier to keep track of who does what because different pronouns are used (at least in English and many other languages).










  • That’s true. I meant we stopped actively using them when building new houses. Though now that I think about it, even that is maybe not true everywhere. But at least it’s something you could change once you identify the problem. Microplastics have permeated everything, they can be found in the depths of the Mariana Trench. There is no getting rid of them (as far as we know).