Two Sylvias' Weekly Muse: October 16, 2022

Issue 25

Hello Poets, Writers, and Creatives!

In each of our Weekly Muse installments we encourage you to write poems, read poems, submit poems, and keep a journal, all of which keep your mind actively engaged in a concentrated manner. Cognitive scientists call this state “directed attention,” and for many of us, we are in this mode for a majority of the day.

We often think of fatigue in terms of our bodies, but our brains also experience a form of fatigue whenever we do tasks that fall into the category of “directed attention” and when we are subject to loud noises, a bustling environment, and when we multitask. Just about everything we do involving a screen—computers, phone, tablets, TV—involves “directed attention.” Digital media in all forms can make our brains exhausted, according to studies.

How can we relax and revitalize our minds throughout our busy day? Cognitive scientists suggest that we move from “directed attention” to a state called “soft fascination.” “Soft fascination” involves f…