// Event Boundaries
My dear friend Ben Lowdon sent me an Instagram reel and I’ve gone down a rabbithole.
That happens a lot. This one is good though.
The reel suggests that athletes, and in this case Michael Phelps, use something called event boundaries to their advantage in order to calm their nerves before a competition.
What are event boundaries? Let me tell you what I know so far.
Event boundaries shape temporal organization of memory by resetting temporal context
Event boundaries are relatively new in experimental psychology. They explain why you sometimes forget what you came into a room to do. Everyone experiences that from time to time, which is a relief.
The theory is that our brains dump their working memory or temporal order memory (TOM) as we cross a threshold from one space into another. This is to make room for the flood of additional information we need to process quickly to ensure we can operate effectively, like the dimensions of the new space, any exits, obstacles, threats. Stuff like that. We don’t need the old stuff about the old space, so it gets wiped.
Cool. Makes sense, and this obviously sends the interaction designer in me for a loop as i think about interactive software. I’m thinking about how we form mental models of virtual spaces and how event boundaries might apply to them. The use of pages vs states in the flows we design. Digital interaction as it crosses thresholds in physical space. The rabbithole opens.
Anyway what Michael Phelps used to do, apparently, is give himself a positive affirmation as he encountered event boundaries. Specifically he’d think about something positive that he’d done, not something that he wants; Reminding himself that he’s a badass. That way, when his brain drops its cache it erases what was causing him anxiety and he replaces it with something entirely more positive.
The more you do it the more positivity your brain generates.
“Your brain is the original algorithm. The more you do, the more you get”.
I’m going to try it, and see what happens.
I'd love to tell you more.