Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
intensive mental work can have a comparable refreshing effect on
brain performance.
In cases of too much stress, relaxation methods, small breaks, and mind-
fulness exercises can help to reduce the stress level to a more suitable one.
Finally, some drugs like alcohol, antidepressive medication, and
sleeping pills (all in the category of
“
this drug can influence your ability
”
to drive a car
) have a deactivating effect. They make people less wor-
ried and more relaxed. Unfortunately, these drugs disturb the dynamic
system of activation and deactivation. The general level of control
decreases. For this reason, they have to be considered as dangerous,
and the combination between such drugs and work should be avoided.
Case 1
In this case, the people involved were very stressed until all the acute dan-
ger was eliminated. After short medical treatment, they sat together
and discussed what had happened. At that moment, extreme low stress
replaced high stress, a signal of emotional shock. After a few days, the
people involved realized that they had been lucky. During this period,
they again had a high arousal level when they talked about the incident.
The next assignment on the site was again a high-arousal moment. It
took a few assignments before the arousal was more or less normal again.
Case 2
Doing some breathing exercises can help a nervous student who has
failed her previous driving exam to become more relaxed. A placebo pill
(with the message that this drug is good to become more alert and still
relaxed) can influence the self-talk and lead to a better performance.
6.2.3 Dedicating Our Alertness to a Task
Once we have optimum alertness, we still need to use it for the safe exe-
cution of a task. Even when we reach the optimum level, we only have
a very limited capacity of consciousness compared to the complexity of
tasks we sometimes do (Kahneman, 2011). Without the support of the
nonconscious system, the conscious system would never be able to per-
form a safe job. The best the conscious system can do during the task is
to be empty, to create a sort of naked attention, not focusing on any-
thing in particular but being very aware of the whole situation and