Do You Want to Become More Vigilant or More Relaxed?

We’re all aware that people vary on all manner of attributes, from height to political predisposition.

An under-considered continuum is vigilance: Some people are hyperaware of all new input, while others are blissfully blithe.

Here is a portrait of a high-vigilance person and one of a low-vigilance one.

A high-vigilance person

He’s aware of every bodily sensation and, if of ambiguous origin, directs his high vigilance to picking the worst-case yet realistic cause. “What’s the risk/reward of going to the doctor now? How long should I wait?”

Even when fully immersed in his work, he notices what’s going on around him: what others are saying, that sneaked glance, what’s popping up on his second screen, and any of the aforementioned sensations.

You’d think that his omnidirectional vigilance would make him a poor listener, but in fact, he’s good: listening carefully to what’s said and how, simultaneously able to think ahead to how he wants to respond.

He considers his high vigilance a mixed blessing. On one hand, it enables him to pick up lots from his environment and to avoid problems. On the other hand, he's not happy about the stress of being ever on high alert.

A low-vigilance person

It’s not surprising that she’s a meditator and does yoga. She finds it easy to be fully present, in the moment. Little distracts her. She exudes calm.

While she doesn’t consider ignorance bliss, her default is to avoid overstimulation and so she pays attention only to the quite significant. For example, she reads the headlines but tends to read further only if she might want to do something about it. She can immerse herself in a novel or Netflix for hours with few other thoughts intruding.

She eats healthily but doesn’t get hypervigilant about it: She’s not the type to read nutritional labels. She knows that broccoli is better than canned chili. That's enough vigilance for her.

She’s a pretty happy and relaxed person.

Where are you on the vigilance continuum and are you content there?

Do you care to move either way along that continuum? Some people like where they are. For example, a high-vigilance client said, “I feel alive being so vigilant and it improves my success and keeps me out of trouble. It’s worth the added stress.” On the other hand, another client who is happy being low-vigilance, said, “I’m grateful to be able to go through life peacefully.”

Other people would like to move one way or the other on the vigilance continuum. If so, might it be worth trying to make that a new habit?

Becoming more vigilant

If you want to be more vigilant overall, should you write “vigilant” on your palm and, until it becomes habit, look at it every time you drink something? Perhaps you want to be more vigilant only when doing certain activities, for example, while walking down a dark street, when at a meeting at work, or listening to your partner. If so, you might write those activities on your palm, for example, dark, meeting, partner.

Becoming less vigilant, less on-alert

If you want to be less vigilant, should you write a reminder on your palm? It might be the obvious such as “Relax” but one of my clients wrote, “It’s okay." If you want to be less vigilant in a particular circumstance(s), you might write those, for example, at home, playing ball, bedtime.

If you're not content with your place on the vigilance continuum, that may be changeable. Perhaps even the simple tactic of writing a phrase on your palm may help.

I read this aloud on YouTube.