Newsletter #4: When we DON’T Pause

How not pausing promotes poor decisions, more mistakes and the worst version of ourselves

Jul 02, 2023

man wearing blue pants walking on street

Before we get deeper into why and how to pause, it’s important to look at what happens to us - our brains, out decisions, our values - when we don’t pause. While it’s nice to consider the beautiful and kind world we’d have if everyone paused regularly :), it’s often the flip side, the negative consequences of not pausing, that will be the wake up call to be more Pauseful.

Also a caveat here: there is no category of “pause research." Much of what you will read is borrowed from various areas of experimental psychology and neuroscience looking at effects of multitasking, forced breaks, forced rushing etc all in the hopes of better understand the benefits of pausing. What follows is a high level summary of that mixed research and we’ll return to delve into some of the specific topics in future posts.

With that as an introduction, let’s try to answer the question:

What happens when we don’t pause:

1. We make poorer, more biased decisions

This can be simple like making a less healthy choice at the vending machine or more serious like making a biases decision that impacts many.

On the simple side: In an experiment performed by researchers from Rush Medical, vending machines were equipped with a delay function for unhealthy choices.1 Basically when someone chose the candybar instead of the apple, a 25 second countdown timer would start. The researchers found that during the countdown about 5% of the participants changed their choice to a healthy option which they could immediately. This may not seem like a lot of potential people, but if we’re honest with ourselves, we make these hangry choices many times during our day and week, especially when we are rushed. Also, on a population level this change at the vending machine is huge. It is estimated that over 100 million Americans use vending machine each day and those small changes can make a large societal impact.2

In another food related experiment, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pennsylvania looked at what happens when we have time to consider what we are going to have for lunch.3 In the experiment several hundred employees were asked to place lunch orders as early as 7 am and right up to the time of lunch. What they found was that there was a dramatic difference in what was ordered. Basically, for every hour in advance of lunch that the order was placed, it contained 38 fewer calories. Follow up experiments where the level of hunger was controlled appeared to show that hunger did not seems to matter as much as the amount of time allowed to reflect on the decision.

What happens when we have to make more impactful decsions beyond salad versus french fries? Researchers at the Department of Neuroscience, Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania examined what pausing for even 50 to 100 milliseconds before making a decision. These experiments demonstrated that these brief pauses allowed participants to focus on the most salient information to make the most accurate decisions.4

Similar research has also shown that when we don’t pause we tend to make potentially biased decisions. In the Harvard business review article “The hidden traps in decision making.” researchers noted that “Decision makers display a strong bias toward alternatives that perpetuate the status quo.”5 Their recommendation were to pause and:

“Always view a problem from different perspectives. Try using alternative starting points and approaches rather than sticking with the first line of thought that occurs to you.”

Basically taking time to pause can help us not “shoot from the hip” and make a decision that is less likely to be anchored in status quo thinking.

Bottom line: When we don’t pause we tend to make worse decisions that are anchored on base urges or status quo thinking.

2. We make more mistakes

Not pausing can also have real impact on a human scale. Much research has been done in the realm of surgery where not pausing can have very dramatic impacts. In one recent experiment, researchers wanted to evaluate the impact of a Micropause (MP), defined as a formal 20-second break for every 20 minutes of work.6 The authors designed an experimental crossover study where 16 surgeons were tested three times for the effects of MPs. They were tested in a controlled situation before any surgery and twice after a prolonged operation of at least 2 hours. One of the operations was conducted without formal MPs (WOMP) and one was conducted with formal MPs (WMP). Muscular fatigue and surgical accuracy was evaluated with a device for measuring mistakes made when following a predetermined path.

Conclusions: The authors found a clinically significant and statistically significant difference between the MP and WOMP groups in all areas tests. MPs prevented “the effects of fatigue associated with surgery including accuracy (number of errors).” Most striking was that there were 7 times the number of errors noted in the WOMP (no pause group) versus the control group.

Two thoughts on this research:

First the acronym for not pausing (WOMP) reminded me of the circus style soundbite that happens after something unfortunate happens to a character in a cartoon or silly sitcom: WOMP, WOMP, WOMP... The conclusion of the study should be “Dont work without a pause or you will get WOMP’d!”
The second sad reflection came after reading the study commentary. This is a direct quote:

The authors note that despite very positive responses using MP with the tested surgeons, few of the surgeons in the study continued to use MPs spontaneously after conclusion of the research! It appears even highly intelligent and motivated professionals have a difficult time breaking ingrained, but possibly adverse, habits.

Bottom Line: Pausing leads to more mistakes and it is not about our education or classic training to undo this. Even when it is staring us in the face we tend to revert to old patterns that can lead to mistakes.

That commentary is one of the most impactful statements I have ever read regarding the power and elusive nature of Pause. It basically sums up that as positively impactful the benefits can be, we tend to ignore them and revert to our old patterns regardless of our level of training and intelligence. This hit me personally as I could see how quickly, despite all the rationale reasons, I would go towards non-pause and how it would push me towards a negative decision or mistake. It is essentially the reason the Power of Pause exists. I knew that if I didn’t spend time on really understanding, appreciating and incorporating Pause (and hopefully helping others do the same), I would continue to positively regard the concept, but ultimately go back to old patterns: eating too fast, making rash decision and being the unmindful version of myself.

And that leads us to the next thing that happens when we don’t pause.

3. We become the worst version of ourselves

We’ve reviewed how not pausing can lead to poor, biased decisions and more mistakes - in spite of our best training and education. So, what if we take this to the next level and look at how not pausing affects not only our decisions but our behaviors. Unfortunately the same is true. When we are rushed, when we don’t pause, we end up acting from our most self-serving urges. We like to think that no matter what the situation or stressor, that we will rise above. We like to think that our professional training, our good senses, our education, our upbringing, etc will prevent us from reverting to the less evolved version of ourselves. I am sorry to burst that bubble and say it is simply not true.

We may have examples we can recall in our own lives if we are honest with ourselves when we’ve turned into the version of ourselves we are not proud of, but some research might be helpful to convince you:

The Good Samaritan Experiment

Many of us have head of this classic experiment. To summarize , in the early 70’s Professors John Darley of Princeton University and Daniel Batson of the Princeton Theological Seminary wanted to examine what factors influenced people to do the right thing - especially those who are supposed to do the right thing. As subjects they chose students training at the Seminary. The student were told that they needed to give a presentation about the Good Samaritan proverb in the Bible. This is a famous story about how a group of holy men passed over a person in need while a regular dude (Good Samaritan) stopped to help a brother out. It is often used to make the point that our actions in the moment are a more important judge of who we are as compared to our training, status, titles or certificates on the wall.

For the experiment, they had the seminary students fill out surveys in one building asking about why they joined the seminary and then dismissed them to get to their talk (their task) with three potential scenarios:

1) Don’t rush, you will have plenty of time to get there;

2) You have time but should get moving so you won’t be late; or

3) You are already running late and can’t believe you are still standing here

As they left for the talk the students were instructed on directions which, unbeknownst to them, would entail passing by a person in clear distress (groaning and coughing).

If the scenario sounds EXACTLY like a modern version of the Good Samaritan Proverb - WHICH THE STUDENT HAD BEEN STUDYING IN DETAIL TO PREPARE FOR THEIR PRESENTATION! - only with researchers hiding in the bushes - you would be right. To give the subjects little excuse to not stop, they made the person in the alley an acquaintance of the student and made the alleyway only 4 feet across. This was not only a Samaritan across the desert, it was literally a person they knew who they had to STEP OVER.

The result were shocking with 60% of the students not willing to help because they had to get to their next gig which was… drum roll please… to give a presentation about stopping to help a person in need.

When the researchers broke it down based on rush factor, they found that:

• 63% of the students in the “you have plenty of time” group stopped to help.

• 45% of the students in middle “you have time, but get going” category stopped to help, and

• Only 10% of the students in the “you will be late” category stopped to help.

The researchers also used the surveys to look at dispositional factors such as if the students were strongly religious already as well as if they entered the seminary for intrinsic reasons such as “I have a strong inner desire to help others,” or extrinsic reasons such as “to get into heaven or a good congregation.”

The researchers surprisingly found no correlation based on these dispositional factors, meaning those who said they were strongly religious or at the school specifically to help others, were no more likely to actually help than those who didn’t have those qualities and aspirations.

What mattered most was not the level of education, dedication or desire to help others, it was something much more simple - whether or not they were busy and more so if they were in a rush.

Although a classic study, the basic premise of Good Samaritan Experiment has been replicated in various other settings. In 2014, the Dutch neuroscientists Ruud Hortensius and Beatrice de Gelder at Tilburg University used fMRI to better understand brain function in subjects watching a person in distress. During these moments the researchers found heightened signals in areas that registered the basics details of the situation (such as in the visual cortez) but not areas related to cognitive evaluation or appraisal. Basically, the initial response observed was reflexive - let me check everything out and make sure I am also not in danger. This is our sympathetic, fight-flight-freeze (3F) mode taking over to help protect us.

This suggests that the first reaction of any witness to an emergency is reflexive, rather than reflective or cognitive. Subsequently, feelings of sympathy or empathy arise that, in turn, lead to reflection and the conscious decision-making process of whether or not to help. In the Good Samaritan experiment being given a task as well as being late for that task appeared to heighten the sympathetic thinking to the point that these trained seminarians where largely unable to move into their reflective mindset to help out.

Bottomline: While we think our actions in the moment are based on higher level factors such as our training and background, it often ends up being much more basic and reflexive factors not indicative of our higher selves when we are busy and rushed

Putting It All Together

When we look at how non-pausing negatively effects our decisions, behaviors and actions, we have to ask ourselves:

1. How often am I in that mode?

2. What can lead me out of that mode?

To answer the first question I assume that if it is anything like me, it is very often possibly feeling like ALL… THE... TIME. As busy professionals, parents, caregivers, involved citizens etc it can seem like we are always on the go (remember the concept of social acceleration we spoke about in a previous post). This has been when I have made some of the choices and moves I regret the most (will discuss in a future post). It is also the time when we get into automatic mode. At work when we run behind on our tasks (in-basket and portal message, deadlines, quotas, whatever it might be for you) we go into the reflexive mindset. MUST CATCH UP. This may be harmless momentarily but when it extends and now we are interacting with food, people, patients, clients, drivers who are between us and our task, it can be the set up for the Good Samaritan (INSERT YOUR NAME HERE) edition.

Another way to look at this is above and below the line thinking. I was first introduced to this concept by one of my favorite meditation and mindfulness teachers Tara Brach. If you haven’t check out her amazing podcasts or her books including Radical Compassion, please do so at www.tarabrach.com. Here is a link to an excerpt of her book which discusses this concept which was originally popularized by Joseph Campbell.7 https://www.tarabrach.com/radical-compassion-chapter-one/?cn-reloaded=1 As she explains it:

Above the line is everything we are conscious of, and below the line is everything outside our conscious awareness—a hidden world of fears, aversion, conditioning, and beliefs

As we go about our day, similar to the Seminarians, we are often living below the line, fear of being late, aversion to having to keep doing long after we want to, conditioning that this is the only way that is acceptable and the belief that if we buck the “Don’t just stand there” mentality that there will be consequences.

So now we turn to the second question What can lead me out of that mode?

If anyone guessed Pausing - you win the prize :) But seriously the answer to going above the line is awareness. Our sympathetic 3F mind is all about NOT being aware and staying comfortably below the line. For true emergencies this reflexive mindset is possibly life-saving. For day to day living it can be harmful to ourselves and others.

So what is the fastest way to be more aware - Mindful Breathing.

This simple technique has been shown to change to have brain changing benefits including a 2019 study in Progress in Brain Research looking at short-term mindful breath awareness training and impact on inhibitory control and response monitoring. They specifically just chose breath awareness to study as “one particular meditation practice rather than complex mindfulness-based interventions.” Using EEG and other techniques, the researchers found that mindful breath awareness on its own:

“improved a behavioral marker of impulsive responding, indicating the relevance of mindfulness-based approaches for supporting health-related behaviors that are associated with deficits in impulsive control, such as substance abuse or over-eating.”

Simply put, being mindful of one’s breath can help us to more consistently live above the line. You don’t have to be a gifted meditator just someone who is willing to try.

But here is the difficult part. It takes practice and a willingness to risk the status quoo. It takes repeated attempts to make pausing and attempting to be more aware the new norm. To do this, you have to be willing to suspend your routines which, to be fair, may not be perfect, have worked ok up until now and risk being more mindful. Remember the micropause surgeons who were part of the experiment and who after seeing the data in front of them on how pausing could dramatically reduce mistakes, decided, “You know what, I’m good, I’ll continue with my routine…”

Living a more Pause filled life requires the willingness to trade in that routine for the work of instilling Pause in some of the more difficult moments of our day when we may be rushed, stressed, hangry and beyond to remind ourselves that we can choose to go above the line more than we do today. This choice and the pause techniques that follow, be it a mindful breath or others we will cover, create a new circuitry - literally - for going above the line when the easier thing that we have all experience is to stay below the line.

Putting It Into Action

So if this post has been convincing or more likely a gentle reminder of what happens when we don’t Pause and you want to shift, what is the best place to start?

There are three approaches here:

Start in an area that needs A LOT of help. Lets say you are a mindless eater (I chose that because it is often me at the dinner table). You will have a lot of opportunities to practice - Many, many meals to practice pausing, mindful breathing etc to get to the point of not being a speed eater (this is an upcoming post of Mindful Eating to help with this). If you are super motivated to be more mindful in a specific area and want to dive deep this is the best way to proceed.
Start in an area that needs a little help. Lets say you occasionally get distracted when you are with clients or when you are driving and you want to improve your presence in these scenarios. You many want to use these moments to instill pauses knowing it wont be too overwhelming as a starting point. This is a more gentle way to start and build confidence on Pausing.
Random acts of Pause. Another approach starts with the understanding that “You know what I am not really sure what areas need the most help but I know there are multiple areas that I know could be more mindful.” In this approach you might start by saying I’m going to find 3 opportunities today to instill Pause. These might be as you are eating breakfast and pause to slow down; as you are touching the doorknob before meeting a client or patient and chose to take a deep mindful breath; or as you’re walking to an important appointment where you might be late and take a moment to Pause with the intention of being more present on your journey.

All these approaches are valid and worthy of your attempt. You may also start with #1 and say you know that’s a lot to start with and move to #2 or #3. The point is not to beat yourself up for trying to incorporate Pause but to attempt a good number of opportunities (and there will always be opportunities) to help you build mindfulness over time. Going at your own pace helps to build inertia so that each new opportunity, no matter where or what it entails, will not seem foreign, will not feel overwhelming and allow you to more comfortably say “You know what, that felt: doable … good … like a new way of experiencing (insert the experience that often drives you below the line).”

So as a next step:

Pick a Pause approach that feels right and try it for a few days
As you go through your day see how it feel when you remember to Pause and how it feels when you don’t.
Notice how both scenarios play out. When you Paused and took that breath, what did you feel? Was there any space created to potentially make a better decision or have a more meaningful and fulfilling interaction than just getting through it? At other times when you meant to Pause but didn’t or tried to Pause and got pulled into old habits, what came up? Whatever comes up is fine and makes you more aware of the journey ahead as well as helping you calibrate your future Pauses attempts.
Most importantly, try to not judge yourself or situation in either scenario. Simply being brave enough to attempt to Pause in our chaotic days is a grand victory.

No matter how you attempt to instill Pause after reading this I would like to hear about it. Your victories, your near attempts, your stumbles, they are all incredibly valuable in moving above the line more of the time.

Until we meet again, May you find Pause in your day, RB 🙏

Power of Pause