How to Stop Zoning Out in Conversations and While Reading

Zoning out is the moment your eyes stay on the page, or on the person talking, and your attention leaves without telling you. If you are trying to work out how to stop zoning out, start with the good news that it happens to everyone, a lot. The fixes that make the biggest difference are boring ones (more sleep, shorter blocks of work, listening with a job to do), plus one sharp sensory cue you can use to pull yourself back into the room.

Why do I zone out so much?

In 2010 the Harvard psychologists Matthew Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert built an iPhone app that pinged people at random moments and asked what they were doing and what they were thinking about. About 2,250 adults aged 18 to 88 sent back roughly 250,000 answers. Their minds were on something other than the task in front of them 46.9% of the time. Across 22 everyday activities, the rate stayed at 30% or higher for every single one except making love.

Reading gets no special treatment. Jonathan Schooler, Erik Reichle and Diane Halpern put off-task thought at 20 to 40% of reading time in 2004. Six years later Reichle, Andrew Reineberg and Schooler tracked the eyes of four students reading Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility over a dozen or more one-hour sessions (Psychological Science, 2010). When the students drifted, their eyes kept moving along the lines, but the eye movements stopped reacting to how hard each word was. That is the page you finish and can't recall a word of.

Check your sleep first

Hans Van Dongen, David Dinges and colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania kept 48 healthy adults aged 21 to 38 on 4, 6 or 8 hours in bed a night for two weeks. The results, published in the journal Sleep in 2003, showed attention lapses in the 4 and 6 hour groups piling up day after day, until their performance deficits matched up to two nights of total sleep deprivation. Their own sleepiness ratings barely moved after the first few days. In the university's words, they felt "only slightly sleepy" while their reaction times fell apart.

If you zone out every afternoon, write down your hours in bed for a week before you blame the meeting.

Break long tasks into shorter blocks

In a 2016 study, Jeffrey Wammes and colleagues prompted 154 students during lectures across a 12-week semester and collected more than 5,000 answers. Minds wandered about 33% of the time, and the rate peaked in the third quarter of each lecture.

You can use that pattern. Work in blocks of 25 to 30 minutes, then stand up, drink a glass of water and look at something far away for a minute.

How to stop zoning out in conversations

Listening is passive, and a passive mind wanders. Give it a job:

• Ask one follow-up question about a detail the other person just mentioned. You can't ask it without having heard it.
• Repeat their point back in a sentence ("So the delivery is late because the supplier changed?").
• Watch their face while they speak, eyes and mouth, rather than a spot over their shoulder.
• In meetings, take notes by hand. Writing keeps your attention on what is being said.

If you get caught drifting, say so. "Sorry, I lost you for a second, can you say that last part again?" costs less than nodding along and answering the wrong question five minutes later.

How to stop zoning out while reading

Read with a pencil in your hand and write one plain sentence at the bottom of each page saying what it said. If you can't write the sentence, you zoned out, so go back. Read the hardest paragraphs out loud. Keep sessions short, using the same blocks as above.

Practice changes the numbers too. In 2013 Michael Mrazek and colleagues at UC Santa Barbara gave 48 students either a mindfulness class or a nutrition class, 45 minutes, four times a week for two weeks. The mindfulness group's GRE reading comprehension scores rose by the equivalent of 16 percentile points.

Give your senses something sharp

Therapists teach a grounding drill called 5-4-3-2-1. You name five things you can see, four you can touch, three you can hear, two you can smell and one you can taste. Guides on zoning out list faster anchors as well, such as a strong scent, cold water on your hands or a strongly flavored hard candy.

One spray of Dragon Breath and you're back in the room

Dragon Breath is a mouth spray made from chilcuague (Heliopsis longipes), a golden root from Central Mexico that Mexican ethnobotanists have recorded being chewed and used as a spice. Here is what chilcuague is and where it grows.

One spray and for a second it tastes earthy and a little peppery. Within about 10 seconds a bright, electric buzz spreads across your tongue and mouth, like a fizz you can't ignore, and your mouth floods. Then a clean, fresh feeling lingers. For those seconds there is nothing else to think about, and when it settles you are in a present state, switched on for the conversation, the meeting or the page in front of you. It is the kind of presence people mean when they say someone is in the zone, with no tension in the jaw.

Dragon Breath – Chilcuague Extract

50 ml mouth spray. Wild-harvested chilcuague root, dual-extracted. 250+ sprays.

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In your pocket, at your desk, before the meeting

Customers put it in their own words. "Oh wow, the saliva flow," one said on camera after a first spray. Another, in a reaction video moments after one spray, said "Definitely energized."

It lives in your pocket. One spray before a meeting, one at your desk before you open the report you have been putting off, one when the 3pm coffee wears off and the screen starts to blur. Start with one spray, and once you know the feeling you can go up to five. A 50 ml bottle holds 250+ sprays, and the extract stays sealed in Miron violet glass, away from air and light, which loose root or powder can't offer. If the drift comes from plain tiredness, our guide on how to feel more awake instantly has more quick fixes.

Questions people ask

Why do I zone out when people are talking?

Listening asks nothing of you, so your mind fills the gap with its own thoughts. Killingsworth and Gilbert found minds wandering at least 30% of the time in almost every activity they tracked, conversation included. A follow-up question or a handwritten note gives your attention something to do.

Is zoning out the same as daydreaming?

Researchers call both mind-wandering. Daydreaming is usually chosen, while zoning out happens before you notice. In the Wammes lecture study, 19% of answers were intentional drifting and 14% unintentional.

How fast does Dragon Breath kick in?

Within about 10 seconds of one spray you feel the electric buzz across your tongue and mouth, and your mouth starts to water.

What does chilcuague taste like?

Earthy and a little peppery for a second, then the tingle takes over and a clean, fresh feeling lingers after it.

Can you stop zoning out completely?

Nobody in the research managed it. Killingsworth and Gilbert found minds wandering in every activity they tracked. What you can change is how fast you notice and come back, with enough sleep, short blocks of work and a sharp cue like one spray of Dragon Breath.