Episode Overview

Podcast: Something You Should Know
Host: Mike Carruthers
Guests: Dr. Zelana Momini (Behavioral Scientist, Author), Mark Brackett (Founding Director, Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence)
Date: September 25, 2025
Episode Theme:
This episode explores two major themes: the science behind focus and distraction, and practical approaches to understanding and utilizing emotional intelligence. Host Mike Carruthers and two expert guests discuss why modern life has become so distracting, strategies for regaining concentration, and how emotions influence our behavior and relationships—plus concrete tools for better emotion regulation.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why People Cheat – The Hormone Connection

[03:57 – 06:23]

• Key Insight: Cheating often isn’t deterred by appeals to morality.
• Hormonal Influence:
  • Research suggests elevated testosterone increases risk-taking and reward sensitivity, while cortisol (a stress hormone) gives a reason to cheat.
  • Cheating can reduce cortisol, making it a form of stress relief for some.
  • Lowering stress levels (e.g., via yoga, meditation, exercise) is more effective at reducing cheating than moral persuasion.
• Takeaway:
  • “Cheating lowers levels of cortisol and reduces the emotional stress, suggesting that cheating is in itself a form of stress relief…”
    — Mike Carruthers [04:57]

2. Focus & Distraction in the Modern World

Guest: Dr. Zelana Momini, Behavioral Scientist
[06:25 – 28:15]

Defining Focus

• Beyond Mental Concentration:
  • Focus is “deciding what matters most and shaping your life around that.” — Dr. Zelana Momini [06:38]
  • It is not just discipline, but an act of survival and meaning-making in a noisy world.

Cultural State of Distraction

• Attention Fragmentation:
  • “Most of us, in fact, feel more anxious and restless and less satisfied. And I think most of that comes from the fact that our attention is divided.” — Dr. Zelana Momini [07:36]
• Perpetual Connection:
  • Modern tech (phones, smartwatches, Slack) creates constant interruptions; notification pings, content feeds, etc., never stop.

Reward System & Addiction to Checking

• We’re “trained to expect quick dopamine hits... so we have essentially trained ourselves to seek out distraction.”
  — Dr. Zelana Momini [09:01]
• Grabbing your phone during every downtime erodes deep rest and focus, even if it feels innocuous.

The Attention Economy

• Devices and apps are “designed to compete for our attention because your time on a screen is their product.” — Dr. Zelana Momini [12:16]
• Cultural and social pressures reinforce the need to be instantly available, perpetuating stress.

Embracing Boredom as Renewal

• Leaving devices behind, even briefly: “It feels good to untether yourself because you don’t have it, so there’s nothing you can do.” — Mike Carruthers [13:52]
• Boredom resets the mind, improves creativity and problem-solving:
  • “Letting yourself... just drive without listening to music or a podcast... can actually be the most productive thing you do all day.” — Dr. Zelana Momini [14:15]

Music & Focus

• Slow, lyric-free music may help for deep work; lyrics compete with your brain’s language centers, lowering comprehension/retention:
  • “For tasks requiring cognitive load... silence does outperform music.” — Dr. Zelana Momini [15:54]

Non-Digital Distractions

• Visual clutter (desks, homes), unfinished mental tasks (“mental load”), and mind wandering also sabotage focus.
• “Visual chaos equals cognitive chaos.” — Dr. Zelana Momini [20:15]

Practical Strategies for Focus

• Closing Loops: Before deep work, take two minutes to clear visual clutter, write down stray tasks, and “close” open cognitive loops.
• Focus Blocks: Work in contained, intentional periods with true breaks (not social media scrolling).
• Write Distractions Down: When a stray thought (like groceries) interrupts, jot it down and return to deep work instead of following the thread.

Regaining Control

• Focus is “an act of essentially rebellion... to say, you know what? I’m not going to do this anymore.” — Dr. Zelana Momini [27:26]
• “When we silence our phones and our notifications, if it is urgent, they will find you. And if it’s not, it can wait.” — Dr. Zelana Momini [23:19]
• Internalized urgency is mostly manufactured by our tech habits and can be resisted.

3. Unlocking Emotional Intelligence

Guest: Mark Brackett, Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence
[29:20 – 50:20]

Understanding Emotions

• Emotions encompass the “full gamut of human feelings and emotions and moods.” — Mark Brackett [30:34]
• Most people oversimplify: “Happy, sad, anger, fear...” but there are precise gradations (e.g., peeved vs. enraged).

Emotions vs. Appraisals

• It’s not the situation, but “how you appraise what happened” that determines the emotion.
• Example: Three people on a roller coaster can feel scared, bored, or thrilled — it depends on their appraisal.
  — Mark Brackett [31:35]

Emotional Granularity

• “Upset is a terrible word... because it means nothing.” — Mark Brackett [33:39]
• The more specific we can be about emotions (e.g., anger = perceived injustice, disappointment = unmet expectation), the better we can communicate, understand, and support each other.

Emotion Regulation & “Mental Time Travel”

• “There’s a great strategy that’s called mental time travel. In that moment you take a deep breath and you ask yourself is this really going to mean anything to me tomorrow or the next day or next month?” — Mark Brackett [35:49]
• Pause and assess intensity: sometimes let go, sometimes address the issue. Overusing suppression leads to resentment, especially in close relationships.

Courage in Expression

• It takes courage to talk about upsetting feelings, especially with people close to us.
• Many avoid it out of fear (“I’m not going to bring it up for fear of the reaction...”), leading to accumulating resentment. — Mike Carruthers & Mark Brackett [38:21]

Practical Scripts for Difficult Conversations

• Express need and make a specific request:
  • “When you were doing that interview with me... it made me a little bit uncomfortable. Next time, if you see that little signal, just give me some space so I can figure out how to answer the question. Is that okay?” — Mark Brackett [40:22]

Emotion Co-Regulation

• “No one should ever worry alone. We are social creatures...” — Mark Brackett [44:41]
• Being around calm or dysregulated people impacts our own nervous system (“co-regulation”). We can help others regulate by presence, empathy, and gentle coaching.
• Example: Reminding a friend why she left an unhealthy relationship, helping her sanity-check her current thoughts. [46:02]

Roots of Emotional Habits

• Family narratives (e.g., “everything is a ripoff”) can become default mindsets, but awareness brings choice:
  • “I realized, oh crap, I’ve become my father... that awareness now is an opportunity for me to say, do I want to be like my father?” — Mark Brackett [48:35]
• Building and maintaining healthy emotional habits takes effort, self-awareness, and intention.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Focus to me is both sort of an act of survival and also an act of meaning making.”
  — Dr. Zelana Momini [06:38]
• “Our default setting now as humans is distraction.”
  — Dr. Zelana Momini [13:52]
• “Every open tab or pile on your desk or whatever it is, every notification is an open loop in your brain.”
  — Dr. Zelana Momini [20:15]
• “The more granular we can help people get about how they feel, the better able we’re going to support them.”
  — Mark Brackett [33:39]
• “There’s a great strategy that’s called mental time travel... is this really going to mean anything to me tomorrow or the next day or next month?”
  — Mark Brackett [35:49]
• “No one should ever worry alone. We are social creatures.”
  — Mark Brackett [44:41]

Timestamps for Important Segments

| Timestamp | Segment | |---------------|-------------| | 03:57–06:23 | Hormones & Cheating | | 06:25–12:16 | Dr. Momini – What Focus Means & The State of Distraction | | 13:52–15:37 | The Power of Boredom & Healthy Breaks | | 20:15–22:25 | Non-Digital Distractions, Clutter, and Visual Noise | | 25:51–27:48 | Distraction vs. True Rest, Power Over Attention | | 29:20–31:35 | Mark Brackett – Emotions, Definitions, & Appraisal | | 33:39–35:49 | The Importance of Emotional Granularity | | 36:35–38:21 | Emotional Regulation: Letting Go vs. Addressing | | 40:22–41:51 | Scripts for Difficult Conversations | | 44:41–46:02 | Emotion Co-Regulation in Relationships | | 48:35–49:52 | Recognizing & Changing Emotional Inheritance |

Summary Takeaways

• Regaining Focus Means Rewiring Habits: Taking intentional pauses, clearing distractions, and redefining your relationship with technology are key to restoring attention.
• Distraction Is Engineered: Understanding the economic and psychological systems at play makes it easier to reclaim your focus as an “act of rebellion.”
• Emotions Are Complex, Nuanced, and Manageable: The richness of feeling can be better harnessed through specific language, brave conversations, and mindfulness techniques such as “mental time travel.”
• Regulation Is a Social Process: We don’t manage our emotions (or focus) in isolation—relationships, environment, and self-awareness are all intertwined.
• Cultural Patterns Are Changeable: With effort and self-reflection, even inherited emotional habits can be re-examined and adjusted.

For further reading:

• Finding Own youn Attention in an Age of Distraction by Dr. Zelana Momini
• Dealing with Feeling: Use Your Emotions to Create the Life You Want by Mark Brackett

This summary captures the heart and nuance of the conversation, highlighting practical wisdom and memorable exchanges. If you’re looking to rethink how you handle distraction or get more out of your emotions, this episode is rich with relatable stories and actionable tips.