Supercharge Your Brain Performance: What Your Brain Waves do on Social Media

Have you ever wondered what social media is doing to your brain?

In a moment of intense curiosity, I decided to find out for myself. I purchased a brainwave monitoring device and strapped it on while performing some tasks.

Spoiler alert: the results are concerning…But there is hope.

Understanding Brain waves

The different data on the graphs below are:

•     Gamma waves (red) - deep concentration

•     Beta waves (blue) - focus and productivity.

•     Alpha waves (yellow) - aware, but relaxed.

•     Theta waves (green) - Deep relaxation, dreaming sleep

•     Delta waves (purple) - deep dreamless sleep

Making Breakfast

First up, breakfast. I strapped on the headset and went about my usual morning routine, and here’s what happened: my dominant brain waves were Beta (29%), Alpha (25%), and Delta (26%). This indicate that I was focused, but also relaxed as I prepared for the day. Gamma and Theta were each contributing 10%. The feature to notice is that all brain waves were generally in sync with each other.

High-Productivity Period

In the evening I had some work that I wanted to do. The family was out and I was feeling good. I strapped on the headset to see what happened when I got to work.

From the graph below, it is clear that Beta brain waves were dominant. They accounted for a massive 38% of brain function. Alpha (aware, relaxed) was at 20% and Gamma (concentration) was also very high at 17% of brain wave energy. As you’d expect, deep sleep Delta was minimal at just 6%. Across the two hours of this productivity sprint my brain waves were in sync with each other. All brainwaves fluctuated in a steady, interrelated manner, showing my brain was in the zone.

I rarely work past 5pm, but this sprint started at 6, and went for 2 hours. When I checked my work the following day it was close to 100% spot on. There was some editing to be done, but that is common for any writing process.

 Going to Sleep

Next, I monitored my brain waves while drifting off to sleep. As you’d expect, the brain waves slowed as I drifted off to sleep. From the 12 minute mark you can see the steady rise in the Delta (purple) brain waves. At the very end of the graph you can see that I was woken up abruptly!

Instagram Scrolling

And then, the big test: a 20-minute Instagram session. What is interesting about this is the values of Beta (38%), Alpha (23%) and Gamma (14%) are similar to peak productivity - 38%, 20% and 17% respectively. However, the synchronisation between them was not present. When some waves were up, other waves were down.

Further, the fluctuations between the highs and lows was much greater than in any other situation. This indicates that the brain in some instances is working against itself - sort of like trying to drive with your feet on both the break and accelerator at the same time.

Perhaps this explains why at the end of a session of social media scrolling we feel both tired and wired!

More Peak Productivity in the Workplace

In business we all want greater productivity. How can we use this knowledge to drive it?

For the last test I sat in meditation for 30 minutes. As you can see from the graph below, once I’d fallen into meditation (approx. 3 minutes) my brain waves very closely matched those of the peak productivity. Beta was at 38%, Alpha was at 22% and Gamma 15%. Deep sleep delta was the same as the peak performance state at 6%. As with all activities, the more you practice it the easier it is to achieve. When practiced regularly, my studies show that you can gain a 13% increase in productivity in just three weeks.

What Does This Mean?

From the date above there are a few conclusions that can be drawn. The first is that social media is not good for synchronisation between brain waves. Second, getting on social media when you can’t sleep has the opposite effect of what you are trying to achieve.

Finally, we can train ourselves to be more productive with meditation. In the Mindset Mastery program I teach this meditation. It’s what my clients use to drive a 13% increase in performance.

If this sounds like something you’d like for your team, let me know. I’d love to have a chat about how easy it is to achieve this.

As always, I’d love your thoughts on this - comment below.