The idea of dilating my gaze came after listening to this podcast episode: How To Build Endurance In Your Brain & Body - Huberman Lab. In a brief mention at the end, Dr. Huberman shared the idea of alternating between contracting and dilating your visual window during an endurance effort to consume energy more efficiently. As an aging former athlete, I’ve remained interested in human performance and still like to challenge myself, so this practice was on my mind during a bike ride not long after I listened to the episode.
During that ride, I realized I was already naturally doing this – relaxing my visual field – during some rides and that when I did so, I got into a creative, mind-wandering state. The creativity helped me in so many ways (problem solving, conversation rehearsing, lesson designing, future planning…) that I began to incorporate it every week or so, by heading out on a long(er) run or bike ride and intentionally letting my mind go, by “dilating my gaze.”
As I put these words to what I was doing, I realized that it was valuable for me to figuratively “dilate my gaze” for other reasons, too, beyond the creative benefits of mind wandering. It helped me to calm myself when my sympathetic nervous system response was detrimentally dominant. It helped me to get out of my head and stop worrying about what others thought of me, allowing me to be more genuine and connect better with them. It helped me to put my problems into perspective. It helped me to see someone else’s perspective. As a leader, it helped me to take a “balcony view” of leadership – getting to a new vantage point and seeing collective strengths rather than overfocusing on any one thing.
My natural tendency is to hyperfocus. While plans and focus are valuable, I took this to an extreme. The idea of “dilating my gaze” became aspirational for me and became a reminder to get creative, see things from a fresh perspective, look at the bigger picture, and appreciate how others’ unique strengths came together.
Wherever your tendency falls on the continuum between focus and relaxation, it can be beneficial to intentionally change your gaze.
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