I described what “focused attention” means to the scientists who study it. I asked what the runners looked at when they were running. Did they focus their eyes and their attention on a mark, like the finish line or the end of a straightaway?
I also asked if they used an expansive style of attention. Did they turn their heads to see the bend ahead or the people on their left and right? Did they move their eyes around so they could see everything off to the sides?
Though tracking the competition is tempting, they admitted, every one of these Zenith Velocity elites said they used something similar to Samuelson’s visual technique. They all said they used narrow focus more than anything else, or were certain it would work better than the alternative for beating the pack.
What We See Is the Problem
Tabling the fact that these athletes never worry about the imminence of swimsuit season, there are many facets of their daily experience that differ from mine, and from those of other people who don’t find themselves among the athletic elite. One big difference is clearly how they look at the space around them: they don’t seem to pay it much regard. But they also seem to hold a different perspective on what constitutes a challenge. Research, in fact, confirms that the physical state of our bodies literally changes how we perceive exercise. Across the board, evidence suggests that people who are tired and burdened by extra pounds see walkable or runnable distances as being longer than do people who weigh less and have more energy. The same is true when we look at staircases we might climb, or hills we might hike up. When it’s harder to get up and around, we visually experience our environments as posing greater challenges.
In one University of Virginia study, sixty experienced runners who routinely jogged three miles or more at least three times a week agreed to answer questions both before and after they went out for a jog. They knew they would go on a run, taking any route they liked, as long as they started at the foot of one particular hill and ended at the foot of another. Before they started and when they ended, the runners estimated the slope of each of these hills by moving the swinging arm on a protractor to match the incline they saw before them.
Despite the fact that all were fit runners, the participants reported that the hills appeared markedly steeper when they were tired. In fact, it looked up to an additional 50 percent steeper when the runners were tired compared to when they weren’t.
In my own lab, I’ve found that it doesn’t take a miles-long jog to make the world look like a more taxing place to get around in. We measured the circumference of people’s waists and hips as an indication of overall fitness. Then we asked our participants to estimate the distance between themselves and a finish line to which they would carry weights. They did this by indicating the location of the finish line on a mostly blank map; it showed only the outline of the room we were in, and a marker representing their starting position. Their job was to indicate on the map where they thought the finish line was.
Although the participants didn’t know it, their waist-to-hip ratio was a reliable predictor of where they placed the finish line. People who were less physically fit indicated that the finish line was farther away from them than did those who were more fit. The same perceptual exaggerations that happen when people are tired appear for people who are struggling to manage their weight on a daily basis. The exercise looked more daunting to people likely to find it a struggle to complete.
Learning to See an Easier Exercise
This led me to ask: If perception is part of the problem of exercise, could perception be part of the solution? My research team and I designed an intervention that trained people to look at their surroundings differently, as a technique for helping them exercise better and more easily. We set out to teach people to look at the corner store they are walking to, or the playground they are racing toward with their child, in the same way that Zenith Velocity runners and other world-class athletes look at the finish line. We hoped this would improve the quality of exercise even when a person isn’t suited up for competition.
Two of my students, Shana Cole and Matt Riccio, started by asking people working out in a community gym if they wanted to test their exercise ability. We explained that we would put weighted cuffs on their ankles that would add 15 percent to their body weight. They would walk as quickly as they could to a finish line—a moderately challenging, but not impossible, exercise.
Before the groups set out, we gave them separate coaching on where to focus their attention. One group was told to keep their eyes on the prize, like Samuelson and the Zenith Velocity runners. They were to imagine their eyes as a spotlight, shining just on their goal, the finish line, and to avoid looking around. The other group could look around at the walls, the basketball hoop to the side, or the other gym patrons as they naturally would.
Before they started the exercise, the participants each estimated how far away the finish line appeared to be. They gauged the distance in a few different ways, but regardless, we found that the group told to keep their eyes on the prize estimated that the finish line was 30 percent closer than the group who looked around naturally. A narrow focus made the exercise look easier.
But did it improve performance? To test this question, the exercisers walked as quickly as they could to the finish line and then reported how much effort it required. The narrow-focus group said that it required 17 percent less effort than the other group did. This result wasn’t just subjective. We also timed how long each person took to complete the brisk walk. The narrow focus got the walkers to the finish line 23 percent faster than the other group. I can put that increase into perspective. Let’s say you’re a man and you’re considering running the Berlin Marathon. A 23 percent increase in speed would mean that you’ve gone from a respectable time of 2 hours and 45 minutes to being only 5 minutes off the fastest time ever run on a record-eligible course. Kenya’s Eliud Kipchoge ran the Berlin Marathon in under 2 hours and 2 minutes in 2018.
Narrow focus is a literal directive for how to look at the surrounding world, changing both how we see the workout we are about to tackle and how good we are at completing it. But the reason behind the effectiveness of this visual strategy lies inside our own minds. People who keep their eyes on the prize experience more effective workouts because the proximity they perceive directly changes their own confidence in themselves. When a goal looks closer rather than impossibly far away, our mindset inspires us to double down on the pursuit of challenge.
Seeing Our Savings Successor
Narrow focus can also improve our fiscal health, pushing us (at least mentally) to the retirement finish line faster.
By the time we reach retirement age, most of us feel like we don’t have enough money to live the life we hoped to have. More than 60 percent of Americans surveyed by the Federal Reserve in 2017 don’t think or are unsure if their retirement savings are on track. Our feelings aren’t wrong. In that same survey, the Federal Reserve found that a quarter of working adults reported having no retirement funds saved or invested in any form. It’s not that everyone without retirement savings accounts is just independently wealthy. In fact, an analysis released in 2019 by the Employee Benefit Research Institute found that over 40 percent of American households in which the official head is between their mid-thirties and mid-sixties are projected to run short of money in retirement. This fact hits unmarried individuals harder than others. Single men in the lowest pre-retirement wage bracket have an average retirement savings shortfall of $30,000, while single women need another $110,000.