Unlock The Holiday Beast

This episode explores a unique productivity hack that can help you get things done in time for your Christmas holiday.

Hey guys, this is your host Sayar Henry and I’m back with another episode. This week, I’m going to talk about an interesting productivity hack that has been on my mind since a couple of weeks ago.

The reason I want to do it this week is because many people around the world are getting excited for the holiday season. I mean by the time you guys are listening to this episode, it’s most likely to be on the final day of the FIFA World Cup 2022 or a few days after that. And you know Christmas is also just around corner, so the third week of December is going to be overwhelming with a lot of different activities in different places. Some people get rest. Some people get married. Some people travel. Some people stay home and binge watch Christmas-themed movies. And at the same time, some people — I mean many people in Myanmar — are not fortunate enough to do or to expect to have any of those. It’s crazy how contrasting things are happening all at once even in the same territory of a country.   

But one thing remains the same. If you get too distracted with the holiday spirit around you or by your own emotional response to that, you will not get much work done this week, and you are not going to have a guilt-free holiday on Christmas. So whether you are a lucky person who is getting ready for the holiday with your loved ones, a less fortunate person who needs to struggle for oneself, or a driven person who is committed to a greater cause, this is the week you want to get the most work done. After all, everyone needs a good rest on Christmas. So if you’re ready to learn how to get some serious work done before your holiday, or how I summon the productivity beast within me for this particular purpose, keep listening.

Several years ago, I watched a YouTube video in which a scientific guy or an expert whose name I can’t remember now was talking about the movement of our eyes and how it can affect our state of mind. Although I can’t recall most of what the video was about, something sticked to my memory — that our eyes are windows into our brain. 

Since then, I occasionally started to notice how quickly or slowly my eyes moved whenever I was seriously working on something. And I’ve learned that every time I am super focused on a task and feeling unshakable, which I’d like to refer to as my beast mode, my eyes move very slowly and steadily. I’ve also noticed that my eyes tend to be fused with the right amount of tension and relaxation, which helps me stay interested and focused on the task at hand as well as to keep moving forward without burning out too early. I think, in retrospect, that’s how my eyes behave whenever I’m in the flow state.        

Now here comes the fun part that I’d like to share with you today.

A few weeks ago, I happened to think about this relationship between eye movement and brain performance again. Then all of a sudden, something hit me. I had an idea. It was a hypothesis based on that eye-brain relationship. 

It was like this:

If, when my brain is functioning at a high level, my eyes move very slowly or steadily, controlling the eye movement and voluntarily slowing it down could induce some activities in my brain that may boost its performance or enhance my ability to focus.     

In another word, I was viewing the eye-brain connection from an opposite direction. 

I mean if the brain’s activity can be reflected in the way our eyes move, controlling these movement at our will should trigger some signals in our mysteriously fantastic brains, doesn’t it?  

Well, that was just an exciting hypothesis that is not even backed by some scientific research. It’s all playing out in my mind. And if you have been listening to my podcast long enough, you would know that I’m the kind of person who really wants to test things out. Whenever I can come up with a fresh idea, I feel the urge to experiment it. I just have to.

So yours truly decided to experiment this hypothesis. And this is what I did.

Over the past few weeks since I got that idea, I tried to control my eye movement whenever I wanted to shift my mind to a more desirable state. 

For example, whenever I felt rushed or excited about something, I slowed down my eyes’ horizontal movement and observe if that makes it easier for me to calm down. As a matter of fact, it did! 

And then in another situation, I felt overwhelmed and unmotivated because of some complicated issues in my personal life. At that time too, I put all my attention on my eyes and voluntarily slowed it down as further as I could. After a brief moment, I noticed I felt a lot more stable, and I could think more clearly. 

Then the other night, when I was supposed to start working on the script for this episode, I was feeling down and sleepy. So that night, I frequently reminded myself to focus on my eyes, control it to not move too quickly, and successfully managed to keep myself from falling asleep. It was because of this technique that I even managed to write the first 20% of this episode that night!    

So based on my not-so-scientific experimentation, controlling the eye movement seems to have an effect on our brain, attention, and focus. I cannot be certain if this would be the case for everyone else since I cannot prove it with scientific methods. But it seems to be working for me at least. 

So, in the next few minutes, after the break, I’ll try to explain why I think this technique seems to be working for me, and I’ll also guide you how exactly you can try it if you want to experiment it in your own way. Okay? 

*** Ad Break ***

And now we’re back to the show.

So earlier, I told you that controlling how fast or slow my eyes move provided me with some very interesting results. With some voluntary control over my eyes, I was able to calm my mind down, put my wandering mind back to focus, and keep pushing myself against sleepiness.   

But before using this technique, I already have another one that can calm my nerves down whenever I feel anxious. You see, I’m a person who strongly believes that we can deal with most stressful situations if we focus on what we can control such as our mind and body. 

So with that mindset, I’m used to asking myself a question whenever I start to feel anxious about something. 

“Are you in control?”

That’s the question technique I have been using for quite a while every time I get into an undesirable state of mind. For example, if I have to teach a class in a few minutes’ time and I’m still eating a meal, I tend to rush my eating process carelessly as I’m worried I may not have enough time to finish having my meal. So at such moment, asking if I am in control helps me realize that I don’t really need to eat in a rush, and that eating smart can solve this little issue.

So I’ve been accustomed to asking myself this question to calm myself down in certain situations. And guess what, every time I ask that question, my eyes move in a way that is similar to how they moved when I try to bring all of my attention to them.

So it’s suggesting that my brain is used to associating some positive state with this particular type of eye movement. So every time my eyes behave that way, my brain remembers to perform in a particular way. It’s like a habit. I think I may have trained it to be that way due to some repetitive exposure in the past. But the point is, simply by controlling even the most subtle movements of our body like that of our eyes, we may be able to stimulate our brain’s performance in favor of focus, clarity, and productivity. And I’d say that it is a really simple, yet interesting and effective technique. 

So if you are keen on trying this technique out in your daily life, I’m going to teach you how to get started step by step.  

Okay, let’s do it.

First of all, you need to accept that there is a relationship between focus and eyes. When people say focus, they tend to think it is about focusing the eyes on something external. But this one is different. This is not about getting your eyes to do the action of focusing. Instead, it is about focusing your mind on your eyes. Let your eyes be the target of your focus, not the other way around. 

As you focus on your eyes, try not to overdo it or put too much tension on them. Make sure that your eyes are relaxed enough. And then try to breathe in and out slowly for a few rounds. As you breathe, you can move your eyes around but try to stay in touch with them. Observe how fast or slow they are moving from side to side, corner to corner.

Now, I want you to think about all the memories in which you’re performing a task really well. It could be the memory of you sitting an exam years ago, or competing against others and winning, or doing something serious with a clear head. Once you get that memory, try to recall, or imagine how your eyes were doing at that specific moment. People may have different contours of the eyes, for sure, but eventually you’ll remember that there is a very specific movement or contraction of your eyes that is usually associated with your high-performance mode. Once you have figured that out, you might want to memorize it because that physical state of eye could become the key to unlocking your beast mode just like I did! 

So, if you have just managed to experience what I was talking about earlier, that’s great! Congratulation! You have unlocked something. 

But if you haven’t, don’t feel bad about that either. By listening to what I’ve been telling you on this episode, you’ve already expanded your knowledge.

And I know you will start YouTubing about this eye-brain connection related stuffs, so I believe you’ll eventually learn more about this in the near future.

And I feel like my job is done here.

Alright, ladies and gentlemen, you have been listening to Episode No. 47 of Voice of Sayar Henry podcast. I am your host Sayar Henry, and it’s been a pleasure for me to serve you with this episode. Thank you so much for listening and I hope this will help you stay focused, get things done, and help you take the good rest that you deserve this Christmas holiday.

Take care and stay safe wherever you are. I’ll see you in the next one. Goodbye for now!