FOCUS, ATTENTION, & AWARENESS

Through the captivating experience of tracking sound moving around you from all directions, you are exercising the brain’s mechanisms for focus, attention and awareness.  

The brain consists of various neural networks that are responsible for different functions and modes. The Default Mode Network (DMN) is active when we are daydreaming, planning, ruminating, etc. The Task Positive Network (TPN) is engaged when focused on an activity. The DMN and TPN are mutually exclusive and cannot be active at the same time. The Salience Network regulates the two by delegating which network should activate in response to varying conditions or stimuli. When the DMN is overactive it gets inserted and interrupts the TPN and your focus, attention and level of awareness is compromised. 

Conversely, during an AudioElixir session you are actively engaging open awareness attention whereby you are not ruminating in the DMN, nor are you doing an activity. This strengthens your resistance to defaulting into the DMN. As you are experiencing the AudioElixir session, inevitably you will go back and forth between mind-wandering and being fully present with the sound. When you actively go back ‘into’ the sound, this also strengthens the resistance and promotes greater regulatory control over the DMN.

By practicing not letting your mind slip into the ruminating Default Mode, yet remaining engaged without being active, you are training your Salient Network to increase your capacity for attention and cultivating a heightened state of awareness.