Marketing media is designed to connect with consumers and influence their behavior. These messages may be more distracting than one realizes. Emails with a call to action (encouragement to sign up, buy, or recommend) regarding promotions, arrive at all hours (including holidays) and often persuade a time-sensitive decision to be made.
There is a common misconception that it is easy to resist social media coaxes to 'buy' but marketing psychology has become increasingly sophisticated. Chances are, those working to reach their target market have put a lot more thought into persuasion than their market has placed on discernment.
Research Based Decisions
Practitioner training and experience drive choices behind personalized herb-prescriptions, along with manufacturer education. Practitioner relationships with product vendors are essential; one-sided marketing messages viewed in cursory email glances lack depth. Visiting a vendor during a conference or by phone can allow for a focused, sincere and engaging dialogue.
Social media and email platforms are not open dialogues between informed parties, and often lack deep query driven information exchanges. Discussion allows a practitioner to inquire if the product is germane to their immediate knowledge and professional training. They can learn how the product line invests in the East Asian medical profession and which conferences the company presents their inventory at for a closer look.
Decision Fatigue
A practitioner has many decisions to make with their highly skilled purchasing power. Slowing down and centering actions and purchases based on an overall guiding philosophy could prevent gaps in focus. Roy Baumeister writes about "decision fatigue" in the Journal of Consumer Research.1 His research found that consumers with distractions often make bad purchasing choices.
Those equipped with standards (ideals), a monitoring process (tracking decisions), and a capacity to change (an ability to apply ideas appropriately) can apply these to outweigh decision fatigue. He writes that a person with high self-control makes purchases based on "long-term value and benefits." Willpower researcher Kelly McGonigal goes further saying, "The development of willpower (I will, I won't, and I want) may define what it means to be human."2 McGonigal's work points to the investment of significant energy to develop clear goals that prevent being caught up in whims.
Baumeister discusses in his research that when a person exerts themselves in a decision-making capacity they may effectively exhaust their ability to make wise choices in subsequent encounters. With so many distractions in the modern world, how do folks recover attention for the things they value? Albert Einstein, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, and Henry Rollins each made one less choice, wearing the same basic outfit, to save their attention for other areas of interest.
Practitioners make choices all day, every day for the best possible outcomes. For some practitioners, too many decisions lead to analysis paralysis; where overthinking causes inaction. Take for example, a practitioner who performs a general search for a 'back pain' formula. Flooded with too many options a practitioner may lose confidence in their ability to think clearly and ultimately chose not to prescribe a product.
Alternatively, when a practitioner bases their initial query upon a Chinese medical pattern such as 'Wind Damp Cold Bi with Liver and Kidney Deficiency' they can easily find Du Huo Ji Sheng Tang (Angelica Pubescens and Sangjisheng Decoction) as a suitable solution. Limiting distractions and holding to a small set of core values is beneficial when finding the correct herbal formula for a patient.
Considering the Cost of Lost Attention
Practitioner clinical success is reliant upon proper diagnosis. Arriving at this diagnosis requires an ability to focus on patient symptoms using all of one's senses. Author and professor Cal Newport argues that the highest value specialized individuals carry is the ability to think deeply. Newport discusses how difficult it is to achieve meaningful results from deep thinking due to the many distractions of modern life such as social media and email.3
Newport's most recent book, "Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World," addresses the impact of social media and email, noting that, "Technology is intrinsically neither good nor bad. The key is using it to support your goals and values, rather than letting it use you."4
The average employee spends 90 minutes per day resetting the mind from email interruptions. East Asian medicine practitioners spend a good part of their day face to face with patients, but checking social media and email between appointments or while patients retain needles can distract practitioner mindset and offset time that could be spent more deeply contemplating treatment strategies.
Split Focus
Tending to email feels like a positive move for business success. However, captivating email can easily dominate thought, and for folks in leadership roles, this is costly. Russell Johnson published his findings on email behavior in the Journal of Applied Psychology.5 Johnson found from existing research that email alone isn't the problem, but rather, the transition in and out of email that leads to a distracted focus.
He goes on to say, "Like most tools, email is useful, but it can become disruptive and even damaging if used excessively or inappropriately." Practitioners are often clinic managers with numerous transitions between treating patients, processing payments, billing, and managing an herb-pharmacy. Fitting in non-urgent social media and email amidst other necessary clinical tasks may seem like an indulgent escape, but it is likely adding to increased stress and poor decision making.
Dr. Richard Mackinnon of the London-based Future Work Centre and his team analyzed email behaviors of nearly 2,000 various types of workers in the U.K. He and his team noted, "Whilst it can be a valuable communication tool, it's clear that it's a source of stress of frustration for many of us."6 Mackinnon writes that email stress "could be negatively impacting our productivity and wellbeing." It may also be possible that a distracted focus stemming from scattered social media and email behavior overrides practitioner discernment. Technology can be a tool in the clinical setting when a practitioner has clearly defined actions that center their focus and reinforce their values.
Centering Resilience
Centering the practitioner mindset towards an optimal patient experience is a practice that carries on outside of the treatment room throughout life. When attention is distracted, mental energy becomes diffuse. A "limited time offer," or "soon ending" sale does more than distract you; it may encourage you to make a decision that wasn't necessarily on your 'to do' list.
Spending unnecessary time within email rather than targeting more profound curiosities may point to a lack of priorities. Try returning to the roots of Asian philosophy. The Zen expression 'mushin' may be helpful in considering various approaches to social media. 'Mushin' in Japanese and 'Wuxin' in Chinese ("no mind") is a mental state. 'Mu' relates to 'the absence of' and 'Xin' relates to the 'heart-mind' collectively meaning the "mind of no mind."
To enter a state of openness that can clear a path for deep work and false disruption, one may look to cultivating a practice of 'mushin.' Through behavior modification and principled action, a practitioner can view email from a seasoned mindset that disallows email narrative to drive rational behavior. Author David Allen captures 'mushin' beautifully with this vision, "Imagine throwing a pebble into a still pond. How does the water respond? The answer is, totally appropriately to the force and mass of the input; then it returns to calm. It doesn't overreact or underreact." When a practitioner is still mulling around ideas from an email opened between appointments, it can be challenging to center for a patient visit.
Tools For Readiness
- Decide: Determine essential technological tools and set guidelines for engagement. Which websites help refine focus toward pattern differentiation? Keep in mind Baumeister's concepts of: crafting standards for purchasing, monitoring purchase activity, willingness to make changes when necessary.
- Organize: Set up a priority email address separate from advertisers.
- Automate: Minimize reasons to open email. Use scheduling software solutions (changes directly update to the calendar without email, text, or social media notifications). Generate autoreply templates within email.
- Delay: Prevent back and forth communication distractions by batching and scheduling email replies for specific times.
- Prohibit: Turn off notifications. Keep email, and social media accounts closed until a scheduled time.
Email and social media bring value with the cost of distraction. "If there is a secret for greater self-control, the science points to one thing: the power of paying attention. It's training the mind to recognize when you're making a choice, rather than running on autopilot."2 Email can easily become a 'to do' list. Time-sensitive sales can tempt clinical purchases to be made based on a fear of missing out. A pressure-driven cycle of rushing to buy, before a promotion ends, creates future distractions tempting a practitioner to sell a product before it expires. Disarm social media and email to reclaim a clinical focus based on intelligence, not based on sales and hype.
References
- Baumeister R. Yielding to Temptation: Self Control Failure, Impulsive Purchasing, and Consumer Behavior. Journal of Consumer Research, Mar 2002; 28(4):670-676.
- McGonigal K. The willpower instinct: How self-control works, why it matters, and what you can do to get more of it. New York: Avery/Penguin Group USA, 2012.
- Newport C. Deep work: Rules for focused success in a distracted world. New York : Grand Central Publishing, 2016.
- Newport C. Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World. New York: New York: Penguin Group, 2019.
- Christopher C, Johnson RE, et al. "Boxed in by your inbox: Implications of daily e-mail demands for managers' leadership behaviors." Journal of Applied Psychology, Sep 17, 2018.
- Kelly C, Mackinnon R. You've Got Mail! Research Report 2015 The London-based Future Work Centre, 2015.
Click here for previous articles by Shellie Rosen, DOM, LAc.