A short YouTube talk by Dr. Nicole Cain about using "pattern interrupts"—small scene or sensory changes—to shift mood and productivity. She retells a factory experiment where changing light bulb wattage temporarily boosted productivity, then explains how intentionally changing a scene (lighting, furniture layout, mirrors, decoration) can help people out of ruts, anxiety, or depression. The clip ends with practical, low-cost suggestions and a call-to-action pointing to additional resources.
Chapters
Hey, everyone. This is Dr. Nicole. And today we're talking about a pattern interrupt and depression. And so today I am sitting outside, and I'm doing a project with Shiva. And so I want to start out by telling you, you a little bit of a story. And the story goes back to, there's this big business, and the business was trying to figure out how to help people be more efficient in this big factory. And so they measured efficiency in terms of how much output was done and how quickly it was done and how much revenue this company was bringing in. And so they found that productivity on General was kind of just like a flat plane ebbing and flowing, but overall, it was pretty flat. And so they're wondering, what can we do to shift the brain in order to shift the productivity? And how can we do that fairly inexpensively? And the answer to that is why you find me outside today. So what they did is they made one small change, and the small change was that they changed the lighting in the factory. And what they did is they just shifted the wattage of the bulbs just a little bit. And what they found when they shifted the wattage in the bulbs is that productivity went way up. And so they're trying to understand how is the shifting of the wattage in the light bulbs changing productivity in the workers. And so as they're studying it and as they're analyzing it, weeks and months go by, and they start to notice that upward trend of productivity started to flatten out, and it went down again. And so they're wondering, okay, so there was something that happened with the change in the light bulbs, but it isn't working anymore. What's happening to the neuropsychology, the workers, where productivity is going down? And so what they ended up doing is they switched the light bulbs back to the original setting, and they found that the productivity went back up. So after years of analyzing the data and the results, they found that doing a pattern interrupt, they found that changing a scene variable was enough that it was able to help workers change productivity. And so in anxiety, we talk about changing this scene. This is part of the 4S model that I created. And this applies to depression, too. So if you're feeling depressed, if you're feeling overwhelmed, if you feel like you're stuck in a rut, changing the scene can make a big impact. And so that's what we're doing today is Shiva and I are here, and we're working on changing the scene. And so Ashley is our administrator, and she's been working amazingly well. But she's been feeling kind of like she's in, like a little bit of a slump with her office. She's been feeling like it's used for storage, and it just isn't like a place where she feels like she's loving it and thriving. And so we're moving furniture around and I bought these mirrors and I'm gonna be spray painting the mirrors. And so I have this really beautiful spray paint. And I think I brought the bottle inside, but I have this beautiful spray paint, and it's gonna be kind of a satiny gold color. And there's a couple things that this will do that will enhance the mood, it will enhance bright function, it will enhance concentration and productivity. And so what that is is it's all about seeing, shifting. And so your brain is very associative. When you see something and you pair it with something else, like a smell, your brain will associate those two together. And so the lighting, you can start to associate lighting with certain moods. If you go into the office every day and there's a safety 60 watt light bulb, your brain will pair the office with that 60 watt light bulb. But if you change it to a 75 watt light bulb, or if you put mirrors up in the room and start bouncing the light in different ways, it can actually change the associative networks. And then the brain has something fresh and new to think about. So if you're dealing with depression, if you're dealing with anxiety, if you feel like you're stuck in a rut, think about doing a slight change, a pattern interrupt. You could rearrange your furniture, you could change the wattage in your light bulbs, you could decorate a little bit. And it's easy to do that on a budget. And so today we've been doing just a really brief live on how to shift your state. If you feel like you're stuck, if you feel like you're kind of at a plateau and just not getting the results that you want, even though you've been working really hard, try a scene change. Learn more about the awesome cool stuff that we have for free going on by clicking in the link in the bio. We have stuff in there. You'll love it. I think it'll make a really big difference. And as always, if you have questions, leave us a comment or a dm. I have an amazing team. Haley and Brooke and Chandler and Paul and just people who really, truly, deeply care. And we are here to answer questions that we can, of course, if it's medically related, loves, go to your doctor but generally speaking, we're here to point you towards resources, and we've got your back. All right, this has been. Dr. Nicole. I'll see you later. Bye.
