{"id":3855,"date":"2010-03-25T03:00:16","date_gmt":"2010-03-25T08:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/?p=3855"},"modified":"2010-03-25T03:00:16","modified_gmt":"2010-03-25T08:00:16","slug":"learned-what-alcohol-does-to-your-mind-attentional-myopia-psyblog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/2010\/03\/25\/learned-what-alcohol-does-to-your-mind-attentional-myopia-psyblog\/","title":{"rendered":"Learned :: What Alcohol Does to Your Mind: Attentional Myopia &#124; PsyBlog"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>Very interesting, very curious what effect alcohol would have on my actions.<\/h3>\n<blockquote>\n<h3>Alcohol myopia<\/h3>\n<p>According to a growing body of evidence collected over the last three  or more decades, people&#8217;s Jekyll and Hyde behaviour while drinking can  be understood by a simple idea which has some intriguing ramifications.<br \/>\nThe alcohol myopia model says that drink makes our attentional system  short-sighted and the more we drink, the more short-sighted it becomes.  With more alcohol our brains become less and less able to process  peripheral cues and more focused on what is right in front of us. It&#8217;s  this balance between what is right in front of us and what we don&#8217;t  notice around the edges that determines how alcohol affects us in  different situations.<br \/>\nHere are a few effects which imbibers will recognise immediately:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>An ego boost<\/strong>: when people drink, they often feel  better about themselves. This may be  because the attentional  short-sightedness induced by alcohol makes all our shortcomings float  away and so we feel closer to our ideal selves. This is probably one of  the reasons it is so potentially addictive, it is self-actualisation in  bottle form.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Real worries can get worse<\/strong>: if we&#8217;ve had a bad day  and we sit quietly with a drink, alcohol can make it worse because all  the peripheral cues which are potential distractors are cut out and all  we see are our problems.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Pleasure in the moment<\/strong>: the flip-side of this  attentional focus is that if, while drinking, we are doing something  enjoyable, we find it easier to ignore any nagging doubts or stray  worries wandering through our minds. We can be totally in the moment  listening to music, watching sports or talking with a good friend.<\/li>\n<li><strong>In the zone<\/strong>: it&#8217;s even possible that for some types  of task it may increase performance as we let go of our insecurities.  Perhaps that&#8217;s why so many writers wrote with a glass of whisky at their  side.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>via <a href=\"http:\/\/www.spring.org.uk\/2010\/03\/psychology-of-alcohol-attentional-myopia.php?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+PsychologyBlog+%28PsyBlog%29&amp;utm_content=Google+Reader\">What Alcohol Does to Your Mind: Attentional Myopia | PsyBlog<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Very interesting, very curious what effect alcohol would have on my actions. Alcohol myopia According to a growing body of evidence collected over the last three or more decades, people&#8217;s Jekyll and Hyde behaviour while drinking can be understood by a simple idea which has some intriguing ramifications. The alcohol myopia model says that drink &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/2010\/03\/25\/learned-what-alcohol-does-to-your-mind-attentional-myopia-psyblog\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Learned :: What Alcohol Does to Your Mind: Attentional Myopia &#124; PsyBlog&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-learned-today","category-reposts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3855\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}