Ablenkung. Wie bleiben wir trotz ständiger Erreichbarkeit gesund? Mit Thomas Ihde

The main thing is health, this is the conversation about the exhibition at the Stapferhaus. Here in Lanzburg, at Radio Argovia and as a podcast. Hello everyone and welcome to the Stapferhaus. I am very happy that they have appeared so numerous. This is the second event in our talk series about the exhibition "Hauptsach gesund". Today it is about how we can go around in a digital way. In a time when the mail, push notifications, WhatsApps and news articles are practically permanently available and have been sent to us. With this, we display 88 times a day our mobile phone. In a wake time of about 16 hours, this means that we display our mobile phone every 11 minutes. What does this do with our boss and our health? Can we concentrate on something at all? And how do we find a new digital balance? Today we are going to find a way to find out how we are not just dedicated to the exhibition, but also to be part of our attention. My name is Lisa Gniers, I am the project manager for Research and Conception in the Stapferhaus. And next to me is Thomas Ide. Thomas Ide is a psychiatrist and head of the hospital Frutigemeirige and Interlaken. He is the president of the Stiftig Prometesana. And he is a long-term columnist in the newspaper "Beobachter". In all these activities, he is committed to mental health, to the family, to the workplace, in business and politics or in the lives of each individual. In his education, he spent a longer time in the US, especially in Alaska. Besides his work as a psychiatrist, he also completed a degree in neurology, i.e. for the teaching of the nervous system. Private lives today, partly in Switzerland and partly with his family in Scotland. He likes to go hiking, goes hiking in the desert and walks in the cold sea. Welcome Mr. Ide, how are you? Thank you for the invitation. Thomas Ide, when was the last time you went out of the house without your phone? Whenever I go swimming in the water. Just for the bath? Exactly. How many emails do you post on your post? In my professional context, I post about 150 emails. And in private, I post about 50 emails. And then I post all the social media with text messages. Endless. How much time do you take a day to answer them? Luckily, there are people who support me. A couple of people. And how do you estimate your average time? About two hours a day. Ok, check it out now. Imagine you are at work, you try to read a text, to understand something. Then an email pops up on the screen. A handiwork on the desk. And maybe there is a colleague who wants to have some coffee. Our attention is very important. What does this do with our Kirm? Yes, it does a lot. We talk about multitasking. And unfortunately it doesn't exist for our brain. Our brain is only trained on monotasking. That means we have to use our attention constantly from this topic to this topic. It takes a huge apparatus to take action. And this action is not particularly well developed in our relationship. One of the reasons why we are working today is 300 years ago. We are working because the brain is working to change the whole thing. We were looking for groups that need to switch between two to six times higher energy consumption. This is also exciting. In this study, people also asked what animals think. Do animals belong to people who have twice more energy consumption or six times more? The question is, do animals think they are multi-taskers? Or are they people who need more calmness and concentration? And that didn't correlate at all. So, self-examination and that's what makes you feel comfortable here? So, someone who works in the advertising industry that is very lively, is able to be creative and creative. In some cases, they need a lot of energy. And the bookkeeper who said to himself, he needs calmness and concentration is not that bad at all. Exciting. And is it then born as good as multitasking? How much energy does that cost me? Or can I train it? Unfortunately, not much. It fits our brain. But at a completely different pace than the development at the moment. So, the equalization of several tasks is exhausting. But that's just one of the reasons why this constant reachability is exhausting for us here. In our previous conversation, it was said that we are now in contact with much more people than our grandparents did. And that this is exhausting as well. It's actually great when you communicate with a lot of people in contact. Why is that exhausting for us here? It's a two aspect of the relationship. But that's actually the case, or that we hear a lot today with the young people. The morning ritual is not only about the coffee or the hot chocolate, but also about reading the social news. And that they already have a relationship. And that's why relationships are almost enriching, but also exhausting, because it's about emotions. A connection between a good friend and a good friend is less often a connection between things, but more on the relationship. I'm happy to hear that from my best friend again. I'm a little bit surprised, because he's leaving tonight. So, emotionally much more happens there. And at the same time, our relationships are much more regulated. In terms of relationships, we think more about how to present ourselves, but also about what fits into the relationship. And the regulation of emotions is already something that is exhausting, which has a high energy consumption. I would like to hear what you said at the beginning. Emotions are more exhausting than matters of communication for the brain. Can we measure that? Yes, you can measure that. Emotions regulation is a new series in focus, even when it comes to health campaigns. There you have noticed that you have to focus more on it, that you bring more people in today, that you regulate emotions is important, but you still have to learn how to do it. Or if we are on social media, they are interested in staying in this picture for as long as possible. And that's what they do, but they are rather strong emotions, and unfortunately not only happy, but also angry women. It's a feeling, for example, that is always released on social media. And for angry women, it's a feeling that is very complex and difficult for us to regulate, and we all have to do with it. And what is actually more demanding here? Exactly. It is a relatively exhausting task. We are now talking about the regulation of emotions. We can also say, we always think a little bit about what others think about us, especially when we write a message. Then we often think, we could come up with this, if I say so. It's probably more extreme with an Instagram post or a TikTok video. Yes, what does this do with us, when we always think about what the others could think about what I'm doing here in the world? This has become a very important research field. I think most of us know about emotions today. It has almost become a bit of an answer. The microphone is now sold, but I think it's getting closer to the point of emotions. But it is like this, when you look at the emotions, what actually works there. And then you notice, that being here and now, which is so important in the emotions, when I'm standing under the shower, when I'm just under the shower and I feel the water, but I'm not really inside. When I think about it, yesterday at night, the colleagues said this and that, what does it mean? Or to think about it, today I have an important session, how to prepare for this, while I'm under the shower, but really just to be here and now. Attention means, especially when you're here and now, when I look more from the outside, and think about what the others think about me. I'm really happy with what I'm doing here. And now, when we go back to the social media, when I post something there, at the age of 16, that's exactly what's going on in the foreground. I'm really thinking about how things are going to turn out, who's going to think positively about me, who's going to criticize me. And at the moment, research, that's an absolute luxury. So the evolution came from that we might do this 10 minutes a day, maximum. And now we do it a lot more. We are in the so-called optimization society, where we constantly think about what others think about me, how could I work better, how could I work differently. And that's a reason for today's creation, also from the 13-year-olds today. Because it's clear here that we do it a few minutes a day, but we do it all the time. And that needs too much capacity, right? That's true, yes. And you can see that very clearly in the evolution. But you talked about the desert trekking. Because earlier we were in Sahara for the trekking, we worked with Bedouins together. And that's one of the basic differences that we noticed. Bedouins don't have any optimization culture. They really only spend 10 minutes, even a month, when they think about what we could do in the desert with our camels. What could we do better? And our Swiss people, and Swiss people who came with us, had constant suggestions on what they could do differently. But we could also say, it's basically meaningful when I think about how I work differently and how I communicate with others. When I completely adjust this, then it won't be a pleasant time for me. No, of course it is. And in Bedouins, there are really some suggestions that I would have thought about. You could adjust that in about 150 years. But it's also important that we make a clear distinction or that we really say, this is time in my day, in my week, where I think about what I could do differently. But that we don't make it parallel all the time. That we make a clear distinction is a very simple recommendation, but it also has an effect. That would be three things. You look at yourself from the outside, you think about others, you communicate more with people. And you do many things at the same time. That's strength for the brain. About something else that we talk about, is that when I post something on social media, you can like it. And that these likes do something with my brain. That's like a positive reaction. What happens here in the brain? It has something else positive for itself. There, certain botanical substances are obtained. Endorphins. The hormone that is responsible is for joy and for reward. The situation as a five-year-old when the older one puts his hand on the shoulder and feels that he did it well. That's what happens with a like in our brain. And that's why there's something in it. But you can imagine, if I put my hand on the shoulder every two minutes, this effect is not quite the same. Then he suddenly gets angry when I put my hand on the shoulder when he would do it 728 times a day. And then he suddenly does it every day. He gets very insecure and has a stress reaction. And at the same time the botanical substances and the hormones are limited. We don't have a little amount of supply. The body doesn't compensate with the reward and the recycle of all these things. It's more about a feeling of inner emptyness or even depression. And there's a kind of withdrawal, if I don't have so much on the day or if I don't get any reactions. The professional group of the influencer and influencer is unfortunately the most uncomfortable professional group in the meantime. They don't have much to do with the society. There's a lot of difficulty. For example, it's one of the professional groups with the highest depression rate or bone-out rate. Today there are practically no influencers who do it for over 5 years who don't post at any time. They don't post for 3 months. But for me it didn't go well. I would like to connect with the number of factors that are required here. They communicate a lot. They look a lot at themselves. They do that because they get so many feedback and they don't get over it or are aware that they do that. Is this connected? If it goes on like this for longer periods of time, then there's more risk of mental illness? The problem is that some people like it, others feel positive. But it's the commentary function that makes strong emotions what they have to protect. It's a positive part. It's what it does and what it does for it. But there are very critical comments that are very personal and difficult for them when it comes to the emotional regulation. When you meet we all know that. We have a few days with us. We won't be immune to that. With all of us or with the whole society the number of mentally ill is extremely increasing in recent years. Especially with younger people. They would say this is a consequence of our long-term stress because of all these things. That's true. You don't have to see it that easy. It's not that easy for our mental illness. The numbers show a continuous increase before the invention of the iPhone, of Facebook or of TikTok. It accelerates but it's a general social development that shows that our mental functions have become very important today. That's why we're here. Young people especially in the burning point of their development are they affected by this activity or is it different when we talk about development? Our brain has a wake-up phase and due to adolescence it's a life-changing phase. That's why it's important to think about who you want to be and what's my identity. That's what we try to do. We're interested in music for half a year and it's different when it comes to music for half a year. When it comes to relationships I think about what kind of relationships I want to lead, what I want to love, what I want to see in life. It's active. That's the phase in the life where most new relationships are created. That's why it's such a vulnerable or vulnerable phase for our brain. That means what happened there has a lot more influence. That's what's always been the case and that's what's always been the case. Or if you go to a doctor in the hospital, the average patient is 82 today. Psychiatry has a lot of young people in the age group of 15 to 21 years old. That's where I tend to show psychological stress. Does that mean you have long-term success in your brain or can it change again? It can both. It can lead to changes that you can't compensate so well. Fortunately, our brain is quite plastic and our youth is dealing with the subject more often than my generation. My son is a big fan of the subject when it comes to how I deal with the social media today. How do I protect myself? Let's talk about that later. One thing that interests me is how we are talking about this topic. We are already talking about it. But in the historical point of view there is still a new development. Mails are available in Switzerland and Facebook was founded in 2004 and Instagram in 2010 and TikTok in 2017. That's still an old technology and in that sense our environment is still old. How do you look at the moment in the story we are talking about? At the moment we are at an exciting point where the tempo is really accelerating. The topic of artificial intelligence that is galopping at the moment is at a higher speed than the TGV from Interlochen to Paris. We have already approached that. I had already noticed that our brain adapts relatively quickly. There is a little story that was mentioned before. We used to live in Alaska. In Alaska, if we think from here to the north we all think. How was that with this winter depression in Alaska? We always say winter depression. Winter is only 6 months. It's not that bad. In Alaska, there are different groups of people. For example, the Upiks and the Upjacks from Dalyutz have lived here for 3000 years already. They know no winter depression. They can't imagine that. They look at each other and say Thomas, it's dark at night and never get depressive again. For them, it's fully integrated. Biologically, they adapt. Psychologically, they adapt. There are other people here in Alaska. They know winter depression. They have been wandering for 700 years. That means our brain needs more than 700 years to adapt. We see the problem with the development of our brain at the moment. I can't do that. In 700 years, we will have a tiktok. Then our brain will adapt. That means we have to compensate. Good. Let's talk a little about compensating, about ideas for change. I would like to take some tips from you. How to deal with all this. I ask you some specific questions and would like to answer some short questions. How long does it take to recover from a overload? If it's in the state of emergency, it's very long. If the burnout is developed, there will be depression. Without treatment, it will take 6 months to 2 years. That shows why we have to intervene early and keep up with our energy and our psychological and preventive care. If I'm not in the burnout, how long will it take to recover? To recover is not something passive. It's an active process. We have to invest time and look at how to recover in the best way. Active recovery takes a lot of time. It has to move from 2 to 4 hours a day. That means if you have a stressful phase, you have all the time to go back to the hospital. Try to recover on the sofa. Maybe work even more because you can't laugh. There is still time. No, this is the time when you have to double it. You really have to say, "I don't have much time left. I have to take care of it 4 hours a day." What activities are good for recovering from the brain? We know a lot today. We know passive recovery. Look at the sofa, at the TV, drink a beer, or look at Rosamund Pilchner. It works very well. It's not very good. Really? That's what most people would do. It's not good. It's just a no-summer game. We need exactly the same amount of energy that we produced. Active recovery is a bit better. For example, where I have the back of my neck, there is a wall at the top, 800 m high, relatively dusty, not as arched, but rather like that. If I go up there, it's my mid-week ritual. At the beginning, I think a lot and I feel a lot. I feel a lot of pain at this arch. If I'm down again, I was physically fine, but something happened in my head. It was brushed and there was room for a new one. It keeps me very well. I produced twice as much energy as I used to. So walk up mountains. What would be something else? Active recovery can mean doing an exercise where you can talk with someone on the phone who is doing well and doesn't give you problems. It can be very concerning. It doesn't have to be something that you do for yourself. I heard that it could help to do activities in which you are not good and that it's good for the animal if I paint something. That's why there are comfort zones. There, more nerve connections are created than the autobahns that you have in your brain that you always drive or walk on, or your train tracks. They also have different life experiences that have a deeper effect. That makes sense. The best recovery is something totally trivial. There is an old concept around God. I was a little worried for the young audience. I talked to a medical student in '24. I never heard that term. It's a miracle for mental and mental recovery. It's exciting. The term is "must" or "must" "Must" means like a protected time that I don't do anything consciously. For example, I used to live on the train when I was waiting for the train. Today there is a year when trains are on the train. Not very often, 7 minutes. You have 6 minutes and there you have two options. What we are doing today is that here, we are reading music with someone on the phone answering the questions etc. Before that, we didn't have that much time and we just waited for 6 minutes and there was a little bit of a mess. So we just looked at where we can feel how hot it is and actually the system of the brain didn't activate. There was a bit of a bimodus in Neudeutsch and it didn't happen for about 2 minutes and most of the time he studies something from the outside. This simple activity has been known as the activity that we can enjoy with the best and the most sustainable with very little effort. We said that this is a bit of a problem that we don't have a long-term life anymore. Would you also be able to play for a little longer? Exactly. The long-term life is actually a form of music. It is not activated in the first place and at some point we have an idea that we can do now. There is something out of the long-term life. And there you can see that in our eyes this has taken off. There is one group that is the exception. Today we are talking about health in a broader sense. There is one reason that I could say that there is a certain advantage of smoking. Because every smoking person will say that they have to go. I know that. I have that 6 times a day, 20 times a day, especially if I don't smoke. I don't want to comment on that. What do you have for hand-in computers to protect yourself from distraction? I take a look at the so-called push-up. Where you are actively saying that there are three positions. I don't tell you what those positions are. It could be good, it could be difficult. But don't take a look. I am very aware of that. I have to make a distinction between private and professional. In private, I have a timetable when I take a look at my reports. This means that my friends know what they know when Thomas looks at his notes. They don't expect a report on a social platform within 10 minutes. And do you have two days or is it a bit of a rhythm? I don't answer all of them immediately. I have to say that we are at the next topic. Fluid is so big today that you have to keep an eye on it. You have to be able to cover the same things that come. In the past, we were at the office. There were maybe four offices and all of us in the office had a kind of report where we had the calculations. Those that you have to pay immediately and those that can wait. A report that you want to answer. And we have to create digital today or work with a different system. So you can cover the things inside. The complexity is high today in life. There are a lot of channels today. If you can't cover things, it's difficult for all of you to come here. And that's something that shouldn't be underestimated. If you can cover private information about how they will look at you to think that you still have to answer that this week. I can do that next month. I work there with one system, one single note. There I have my pendency lists with different hierarchies. And there I also have one system. It's a separate and the same system, professional and private. I cover everything there and then I know when to forget. I'm curious. For me it's the same in the audience. Sometimes I would like to leave the phone at home for a day. But sometimes it's also stressful for me because I think if I do that now, I might have to react to 15 messages in the evening. And on the other hand, I did it with someone else. And maybe the person says "Would you recommend me to leave the phone at home or do you say it's stressful for me?" I would recommend you to try it out. Because the difficulty is if you don't do it, you will actually say the fear that I have, something to miss or at the same time to solve something negative, it's horrible. Most people are afraid to look at it 88 times a day. And those who look at it 150 times are even more afraid of missing something. It's a complete paradox. And those who look at it every two days are relatively relaxed. What is the difficulty there? We actually have a lot of wishes for our IT. The companies that want to produce things, that the instrument would come or that the assistant could do it on WhatsApp and try to reach you say to me, "You are available again on the 6th of the morning." Something very simple that would make your life easier. And that's how you have to sort things out. For example, my friend in the circle knows drinking things. And she will drink them on WhatsApp or whatever you call it. That's not quite so drinkable. We use different channels. Another question I'll give you an example. I basically want to read some information about the political situation in Switzerland and in the world. I think that's a prerequisite for the participation of other democracies. If I read something or listen to it, I may feel powerless. I designed the news so that they can find the balance between the information on one side and not the total beating on the other side. I would like to limit the time frame and keep it regular. I would like to think about how I can implement it. Is it possible to do this at the same time and then we can discuss it for 4 hours or half an hour? Not just by myself, but by what I've experienced and received and what I'm afraid of for my children, etc. Or by what I want to do and what I know. I have my 4-hour walk and I can do that and I can concentrate on how beautiful the mountains are and how beautiful nature is today. I would like to have an emotional regulation with me. One more scenario. I'm at work. I can't get on with it. I think it's a bit boring. The way to handle the phone is quite easy. What would you recommend? Of course, I would like to know what you do at the hotel. But I would recommend to study there to learn how to use it. What does it do? How do I handle it? After the 4-hour walk I often have time for death. When a system of attention is hyper-activated it leads to inner learning or I feel good about it because I look at old photos when my son came to the world or whatever. What does it do? What does it do? What does it do? What does it do? In the previous conversation I found out that I had to look at my cell phone to keep track of the time when Thomas had an idea. But one of the hours I find the worst is such an hour where you can see everything but then you got ready and I'm so curious if you would do this to the audience why do you have such an hour? I would recommend to say that I'm very interested in technology and I think we don't have to go back there. It's very important to deal with these new possibilities. I have this time because of my reach. I have certain disadvantages especially as a chef because of one of my functions I'm the person who always needs to be reachable. We work very hard to protect the employees and to have clear working times and times where they don't need to be reachable. That's what we do as a chef. Because if there is an emergency situation I need to be reachable. You are a bit more independent of this other device here. From my phone. Because only the most important is coming through. Or I can just let it be there and if something is very important it would come here. You just mentioned how you work with the employees in the hospital that it should be for them there are also times when it's not reachable. There is a lot of security at the workplace and you think about it but most of the time physical security. We can also say in the sense of a psychological security it would be important that you are a bit more protected from obstacles at the workplace. Do you think there is a step where the employees could go? If there is a healthy workplace today everybody is talking I don't want to say anything even if it is a bit questioned. But that's not the main topic today. The main topic is the fact that you can organise work a lot more in terms of operations. That you are really concerned how can I do my work or how can I work as a team where we have these times where you can work out and concentrate on something important. We had a beautiful office up there before. They have an area where you can communicate with your colleagues but the price is that you concentrate means that you have to be aware of what you are doing. The newest generation of offices has a lot more work to do. For example, the Roshin Basel has a high building where you have to think about how to work and the first storm is the time of the meeting zone. The second storm you have already noticed what didn't really work. It has a lot more areas that I can take out and concentrate on something. This is one of the points that we are looking at today. It shouldn't be that you concentrate only in the home office because for a lot of people the home office is not just a home office. It's wonderful when I live alone. When I have three children who don't have a school I am really in the home office. It's a bit about the responsibility or how much I have to solve my work. I always find it exciting the difference between Germany and Rome. In many situations, for example, in a company in Friertburg I talk with the Wauldscher Belegschaft and the German Swiss Belegschaft in the name of the day. We here in Germany are very individual. We all have to answer our own questions about the business, what should be the policy for my health. I think it's almost a bit cleverer in Rome. We have to be protected there. We have experienced with the tobacco industry that we saw 40 years later. Tobacco industry knew from the beginning that their product is actually for sale. We know the IT companies and that the protection of this pollution hormone is similar to cocaine and that we spend more time there. We need more protection there. And there I would wish for more brave politics. Politics often says that these are so difficult and that these are so huge. No, these are on the market. When we as a society say that we want to have such a hand, we should protect it. I would like to talk about the elderly. I want to make a new conclusion. Because there are young people in the burning point of this topic, around social media. And many elderly people wonder how we can deal with this. How much should we regulate what rules we should apply. How can we continue this? Social media says young people use their hands for 3 hours a week and 4 hours a week. 84% use WhatsApp, 70% Instagram 73% Snapchat. What do they think when they hear these numbers? These are typical numbers that don't arise. It's exciting when you do workshops with these young people. They think a lot that something happened that went fast, that they asked themselves how we can go back there. We want more time to talk directly with each other. We want more time when these social media don't arise. They react a lot. That's the typical development we have as a human being. It's like a pendulum moving back and forth. How do you say higher than 30 years old or even over 50 years old? You would say that's hopeful that the new generation is active with each other. I have hoped that all of them will study informally and work for Google etc. And that this generation will bring more instruments that will help the youth to be protected. That's what's missing at the moment. That's why it's important to have media competence to deal with these media. It's one of the more important tasks to accompany older children. For health there are clear rules. No TV under three years, no play consoles for six years, no internet for nine years, no social network for twelve years. Do you think that's sensible? That's basically sensible. I think most have heard that Australia has set boundaries from 15 years old for social media. Albania stopped TikTok for a year to keep content and think about what it takes for young people to deal with it. I've seen videos about violence that suddenly became a part of a world where they realized that they're overreacting and are doing things that they really don't want to do. It impressed me that the state said "We'll keep content for a year to study better and think about what we want to do." And now to the parents. What else could they do to limit their access or would they recommend other things? The most important thing is the interest in the lives of their children in this digital space. Of course they can limit themselves. They choose the games that their parents find and their way on the platforms that their parents are not. It's also important to invest time and look at where they are in this digital space and how they spend their time and how they look at it. What's also interesting is that you can't just do it one by one with your own child but with your daughter and your best friend. What's also very important to me is a 13-year-old or a 13-year-old who doesn't go to the I-Crise 5 or any industry department alone. They wouldn't do that and if they come later to do things like that they always have the two best friends. They do it as a group. The problem of the digital space is that you're more alone. That's the problem for the young people. That's why the young people are animating that they are more together. I think it's exciting as an elderly person when you adjust so that the child is fully involved. You don't want the child to lose the connection to a group. Yes, it's a limitation that's protected but it needs a permission and that's short. You really have to use at least as much time as you can to protect yourself. They grew up and in an interview they said there wouldn't be a lot of talk if they wanted to have more contact with friends who are young and who are good at technology today. We talked about the difficulties of the new media and that's wonderful. As a young man I had a crush. I had a letter in Colombia that was a letter to him every month. He had a relationship with Amital. We saw each other once a year. He had a lot of fun with him. We could have a closer contact or with other young people who live in Australia or in the city of Zürich. We could have seen a different life there than in my own microcosm of my will in Amital. That wasn't the only disadvantage. Last question. We talked about the challenges and the many risks. But what is the best that the new technology offers? For the network it can be very inspiring. I know it's important to have a lot more access to information. We still have that. I saw it on the internet. I can use it very much. I can stay in contact with people who used to be in contact with me. Thank you. I will let you in for a small experiment. One for your home. I will give you three options and you can choose what you want the most. Either you try to open your e-mail account only for a week and not run while working. Option two. Put your hand in the bag as long as you can and just look around. Try something and keep an eye on it to see how you can create yourself. That's it. Thank you for coming. Thank you Thomas Ide and thank you all for coming. Thank you. Main thing is health. This is the conversation about the exhibition in the Stapferhaus. Here in Lenzburg, in Radio Argovia and as a podcast.