The jaw jive jiggles those neurons forced to count sheep

Do you have a monotonous, aka BORING beyond belief, task you need to do ?

The natural tendency of your brain wants to switch off and/or go on a wild wonderful little adventure, but if you tune out……….. OUCH. Complete autopilot mode creates disasters. You need to be with it – a little.

This week’s Neurotechnology Tip will help you stay focused a little longer, even when the task is BORING.

The secret…………… chew on it.

Counting sheep

Researchers from Cardiff University persuaded 38 people to sit through a 30 minute audio in which a list of numbers from 1-9, was read out in a random manner.

1-2-3……….7-2-1 – not exactly riveting stuff.

The kind of task which might bring on a snooze attack. BUT snoozing was out of the question…..

Participants needed to keep their ear tuned in and report when they heard a sequence of numbers which included an odd-even-then odd number e.g. 5-4-3.

The participants scored “brownie” points based on accuracy and speed. In addition to their performance on the task at hand, the researchers also sort feedback on how they felt, before and after the count-a-thon.

Chewing the cud

Half the participants were offered a piece of gum at the start of the study – so they had something to chew on, whilst they kept count of the numbers.

The other half, just chewed on the numbers.

Jaw jiggling stops the zone out

The participants just chewing on the numbers started out strong, out performing the folks who were chewing the cud.

But when the “boredom” set in – their brains were gone.

The participants whose jaw had something to do, seemed better able to hold on till the end. So in the end, they outperformed their non-chewing counterparts.