Once I explain the basic concepts of bandwidth, I tend to get some particular questions fairly regularly.
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Do some people have more bandwidth than others?
No, not really. For the most part, we--as humans--all have about the same amount. There is some variation, but not as much as most people would guess. People with fully-functioning brains basically have the same bandwidth "capacity." Bandwidth is not some form of "intelligence" (whatever that is), but rather is more like a physiological limit on how much "thinking" we can do in a moment. This is why it's more useful to talk about how much bandwidth we have available, rather than how much we have. |
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If we all have the same bandwidth capacity, why would we have different amounts of bandwidth available?
There are three main things that affect bandwidth availability:
There are three main things that affect bandwidth availability:
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1. Bandwidth Health - Bandwidth is a function of our brains. Our brains are part of our bodies. So when our bodies aren't healthy, that often means our brains aren't healthy. When our brains aren't healthy or functioning at their full potential, then our bandwidth isn't fully available. There are also certain regions of our brains that are most relevant to our bandwidth--like our prefrontal cortex. There are certain brain "conditions" (e.g. addiction, chronic stress) that reduce prefrontal cortex function, and thus lead to less available bandwidth.
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2. Bandwidth Drains - Here’s the tricky thing. Mental bandwidth is the part of our brain processing that we can “conscious control” over, but actually, a lot of things drain our bandwidth that are largely out of our control. I use this term to refer to the things that use up our available bandwidth, but don't contribute to the things we are trying to do. In the literature, experts often discuss "cognitive interference" as off-task thoughts that use up "attentional resources," and that is a good way to think of bandwidth drains. Bandwidth drains are generally out of our direct control,
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3. Bandwidth Demands - I use this term to talk about the things we intentionally use our bandwidth for. Different brain tasks have different demands, so some things we try to do have greater bandwidth demands than others. Depending on what we are trying to do (or forced to do) in a particular moment, we will be devoting a different proportion of our bandwidth to these intentional bandwidth demands.
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How do I get more bandwidth?
Since we all have about the same amount of total bandwidth, it's not really useful to focus on "getting more" bandwidth. However, we can think about ways that we can 1) develop strategies to improve our bandwidth health; 2) reduce the exposure to and impact of bandwidth drains; and 3) increase how efficiently we meet bandwidth demands.
We can also take actions to reduce the bandwidth demands for others. In fact, this may have more impact than trying to manipulate our OWN bandwidth. Consequently, if we can help high-level decision-makers to take bandwidth into consideration, we may be able to free bandwidth on a population--rather than an individual--level.
Check out the "Bandwidth Freedom" section for some strategies for making more of your bandwidth available.
Since we all have about the same amount of total bandwidth, it's not really useful to focus on "getting more" bandwidth. However, we can think about ways that we can 1) develop strategies to improve our bandwidth health; 2) reduce the exposure to and impact of bandwidth drains; and 3) increase how efficiently we meet bandwidth demands.
We can also take actions to reduce the bandwidth demands for others. In fact, this may have more impact than trying to manipulate our OWN bandwidth. Consequently, if we can help high-level decision-makers to take bandwidth into consideration, we may be able to free bandwidth on a population--rather than an individual--level.
Check out the "Bandwidth Freedom" section for some strategies for making more of your bandwidth available.