Espresso Shot 36: THE DOORWAY EFFECT

Nicoa introduces the "doorway effect," a method she learned from Michael Phelps to combat anxiety by replacing negative thoughts with positive affirmations as you transition between rooms, leveraging the brain's practice of dumping short-term memory. Nicoa also shares a personal practice of using mirror work (see LOUISE HAY's work) to boost self-esteem, recounting a client's experience as well as her own habit of affirming her body in the mirror, which significantly improved her body image. She encourages viewers to explore these techniques further, referencing resources like Louise Hay's books on mirror work and self-love.

MORE INFO :
The doorway effect is a psychological phenomenon that causes short-term memory loss when moving from one location to another, especially through a doorway. It's also known as the "location updating effect".

Here are some examples of the doorway effect:

• Running upstairs to get your keys, but forgetting what you're looking for when you reach the bedroom
• Opening the fridge door and reaching for the middle shelf, but forgetting why you opened the fridge 

The doorway effect occurs when our attention shifts between levels. When we move to a new room and think about different things, our brain forgets our goals. 

The doorway effect was first observed in a 2011 study by researchers at the University of Notre Dame. In the study, participants walked through a doorway into a new room and then took a quiz about an object in their backpack. Their responses were slower and less accurate after walking through the doorway. 

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Transcript

Nicoa Coach: 0:02

Sometimes don't you just need a quick moment of inspiration, or maybe you just need a moment of caffeinated contemplation to reflect on life. That's the idea behind my weekly Coffee with nicoa espresso shots. I'll be sharing short jolts of inspiration in each clip, in addition to my longer Coffee with nicoa interview episodes. Make sure to subscribe so you never miss an espresso shot or a full length Coffee with nicoa interview created just for you. Hey everybody, welcome to your espresso shot. Boy, do I have a new trick for you today. I'm actually pretty excited about it. I didn't realize I'd already been doing this in my lifetime, and now I want to train you to do it too, so that you can feel as good as I feel when I practice this methodology. So here it is, and I actually learned it from Michael Phelps. Recently, I saw there was a post about how he overcomes anxiety, and he has this trick. He said he's feeling anxious. He's got a lot of negative feelings going on in his mind, a lot of thoughts that he uses a trick called the doorway effect. I don't know if any of you have ever heard of it, but it's actually scientifically backed up by this concept called location updating effect. So when you go from one room to the other, your brain has a practice of dumping short term memory so that you don't have to carry what was happening in the previous room into the next room. I know it's kind of a high level, but think about it this way, you're walking from one place to the next. Those of you who've ever walked across the house and forgot what you were in that room for, that's the dumping effect. That's the doorway effect. Now here's the actual trick. So what Phelps was saying is he goes, Listen, when I get super anxious, or I'm having like Sunday scaries or whatever he said, I go back to this trick. And every time I go through a door, doorway or a door frame of any shape, size, whatever he goes, I say a positive affirmation. And the science behind it says, not only do you say something positive to yourself, say something that's proven for yourself. You know, I have phenomenal coping skills. I always figure things out. I am a badass. I know that this too shall work out. I am capable. I am successful, whatever the phrase needs to be for you to help you release that negative energy or dump the old thought, right? You're dumping the past thought, that short term memory of where you were ruminating about something negative, and you're adding in some new thoughts to help you rewire the brain neurons so that you can step into that version of you that actually believes all of that, because it's true. Now, it takes practice to remind yourself, but where the mind goes, energy flows. So if you find yourself ruminating and you're a little bit overwhelmed by some negativity, then this is one of the practices. Now here's another practice, and I do this all the time. I use mirror work. Now I had a client once where we were in the middle of a conversation, and I said, you know, what is there a mirror near you? Would you stand up and let's play for a minute? And we walk into this bathroom that was near her office. And I said, can you stand and look in the mirror and look at yourself? And right before we got there, she said, I need you to know that this is very uncomfortable for me, and obviously that opened up an entirely different topic of conversation for us. But we were able to practice using the tool of looking at herself in the mirror, saying her name, and using that conversation with her mirrored self to give herself some positive affirmations and some positive feedback about where she was in life and what she preferred to think about herself. It took us a lot longer than I thought it was going to take, but just the fact of standing in front of the mirror and seeing herself, look herself in the eye, give herself some language that she had not heard from others, even though she had been historically looking to others for that feedback. This gave her the empowerment to actually have that insight and have that conversation with herself, to remind herself that she is a badass, that she is beautiful, that she is worthy. I do that all the time. Yes, I am the cheesy woman talking to herself in the mirror. Not only do I do that, I've thought about this concept of the doorway effect, and I thought, You know what I do? No, do not laugh at me. I mean, this is way TMI. But I do this thing where if I have to get up in the middle of the bathroom, middle of the night for the bathroom, which I do frequently, and if I have to get up and go to the bathroom after I go to the bathroom, I stand up and if whether the light's on or not, I pull up my pajamas and I tell. My body. I love it. I know I've probably shared this before. I have no you know, I'm not modest, but when I do this practice, I have noticed, and I started doing it about three years ago. I started doing it because I knew that I had an unhealthy relationship with my body, and I needed to find a way back to loving my body. So every chance I got, I looked at myself naked in the mirror. So if I had on my pajamas, I'd pull my T shirt up or my pajama top up, and I would be like, I love you body, and then I would go back to bed. Sometimes I said it just to myself because I didn't want to wake anybody up. But it's now a practice. And guess what? My relationship with my body is 99.9% better than it's ever been. Now it's obviously not the only work I do, but that type of practice, and I'm going from one room to the next, and I'm actually going to the bathroom every time and looking in the mirror becomes habitual, and my body and my mind begin to believe me. Can you use the doorway effect? Do you talk to yourself in the mirror? Do you make eye contact with yourself? The work around? Mirror work? Louise Hay, look it up. There are a number of books mirror work, the power is within you. Love yourself, heal your life. I love all those books I'm just looking over at my bookshelf. Do the work and research it further. If you want to know more about the doorway effect and that dumping effect of short term memory, then go search it right now. Take response ability for your life by design and recognize that there are a ton of easy tools out there that can help you help yourself. Thanks for listening. 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