Pay Attention or Invest It: A Small Reframe That Changes Your Week

Where Attention Goes, Energy Flows... and Four Words Most People Miss

During the pandemic, I spent a lot of time in peer support work with healthcare workers. People came in with the whole storm... staffing, the news, a family argument, a patient they couldn't stop thinking about. I'd help where I could and pass people to other resources when needed.

One small technique kept coming back. Not from me. From them.

They'd return weeks later and tell me "That thing... I used it with my kids. I used it before a hard conversation. I used it in the parking lot before going in for a shift."

The thing was an exercise called "5-4-3-2-1."

You may have heard of it.

It looks like this:

• Five things you can see.
• Four things you can hear.
• Three things you can feel.
• Two things you can smell.
• One thing you can taste.

You pick each one and let your attention rest on it for a beat. The color of the grass outside. The hum of an air conditioner. The watch on your wrist. The trinket on the desk that reminds you of someone you love.

Most people don't make it to smell and taste. By that point, the body has already done what it came to do.

Why it works

Anxiety isn't only in your head. It has a physiology — increased heart rate, shallow breathing, racing thoughts, sometimes a flare in the nostrils or tightness in the chest. That physiology is both caused by the anxious thought and actually reinforces the anxious thought.

Cause becomes effect. Effect becomes cause.

They feed each other.

5-4-3-2-1 doesn't argue with the thought. It doesn't resolve the situation upstream that you couldn't resolve from here anyway. What it does is divert your attention long enough for the body to come down half a notch... which is often enough to handle whatever's next.

That's the actual goal. The technique doesn't make the storm go away. It lets you show up to the conversation, the patient, the kid, the meeting, the dinner - without dragging the whole storm in with you.

The bigger principle

There's a line you've probably heard.

Where attention goes, energy flows.

My hypnotherapy teacher added four words that I've never forgotten.

Where attention goes, energy flows… and that thing grows.

The argument you keep replaying - grew. The news segment that tightened your chest - grew. The colleague's comment you've now turned over six different ways - grew. The relationship you keep returning to with patience and curiosity - also grew. Probably more than you noticed.

Whatever you give attention to, you're growing.

Conversely, what you turn your attention away from starts to diminish a bit. 5-4-3-2-1 saturates your attention just long enough of a physiologic reset.

Pay vs. invest

Here's a small reframe that changes the rest of the day.

We say we "pay" attention. Pay... as in hand it over, spend it, lose it to whoever has their hand out.

I don't think that's the right verb.

Try invest. You invest attention. Whatever you put it on is going to compound.

That's true of the good stuff: the kid, the skill, the relationship, the book on the nightstand.

It's also true of the unhelpful stuff: the news scroll, the replay, the rumination, the suspicion about a colleague.

You don't get to opt out of the verb. You only get to choose what you're funding.

The exercise

Two questions, asked honestly:

1. Where am I currently spending my attention? What's draining out without return? News I don't act on? Conflicts I can't resolve from where I'm standing? Background noise that leaves me a little more tense than I started?
2. Where am I currently investing my attention? What's compounding because I keep showing up to it? A person? A skill? A practice? My own breath?

The first list is usually longer than we'd admit.

The second is usually shorter than we'd want.

The honest answer is the beginning of the week you actually wanted.

One thing to try this week

Use 5-4-3-2-1 once today. You don't need to be anxious. You can do it in line at the grocery store, or before a Zoom you're not ready for, or while you wait for the kettle.

Notice that you're a little calmer after, anyway.

Then ask the two questions.

Then choose what you'd like to grow on purpose.