Safety and Altered States of Mind
Is there a way that we can apply altered states of mind to improve personal safety?
Under a five-minute read…
I was listening to an internet personality that built a successful business by researching and providing information on success. He alluded that most successful people, those charismatic leaders that create change, are competent at entering altered states of mind.
I recently interviewed for a health and safety position and it got me thinking about behaviour-based-observations and a behaviour called mind-on-task. The more we attempt to keep our mind-on-task, the more our brain will try to get us to space-out and think about something different. Eventually, you will space-out. Your mind will wander. That puts you at risk.
One of the best ways to overcome risk is to remove or control all the risks by removing or reducing the hazards. You or your health and safety teams do this with a task hazard analysis and risk assessment.
The key is to do this analysis from an altered state of mind. Why? Albert Einstein said, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
You designed the task, but you can’t see the problems from your current state of mind. That is because you are in the state of mind in which you created them. That is why even after doing hazard reduction assessments you may still find that you or your employees are having accidents.
I developed a fantasy-based thought-technology review-process that changes your state of mind called ‘Parent-Child,’ that creates an altered state of mind. It works like this.
Do the following, all in your mind, except for writing notes. It helps to do this with one or two others who also use the same technique and to record the altered-state task breakdown and assessment on the whiteboard as you work through a task.
1. Take a job that makes you space out and do a typical job task breakdown. That should give you steps, hazards and controls. Hopefully, you have already done this as a part of best practice.
2. Now think of a six or seven-year-old child that you know.
3. Pretend you are teaching that child the task that causes you to space out.
Your subconscious brain does not know what is real or not, so this will work. Your instinct is to automatically care for a child and to train him or her systematically and safely. That is how we maintain the species. Your brain will act as if the child is really there.
You will potentially perceive things like that the fantasy child is too weak and too short; there may be dangerous traffic or surroundings that are too loud. Perhaps they will need PPE and you will have to teach them how to use it. You will see that they can easily mix up directions that may be complex. They may need to reach over dangerous areas.
The ‘pretend thinking,’ will cause you to stop and rethink everything you thought about the task and the way that it is done. You will perceive all kinds of issues. I find it best to do this assessment in the actual work area, so you can become aware of more potential hazards.
Make it a task rule, that you cannot physically (or perhaps metaphysically – pun intended) help the child, so you have to get them to do the task and will need to find new ways to deal with current hazards and newly perceived hazards.
4. Record the new steps, new hazards and new controls that you come up with.
Ask! Is there any of these hazards that can affect you or your employees while doing the task? If so, put the controls in place and go back to doing the spaced-out, but this time a little safer, task.
Of course, that doesn’t stop you from rotating people through needed mindless-tasks or perhaps even automating the tasks.
NB: Spacing out of a mindless task is normal for the brain so expect it to happen and take actions to prevent potential hazards.
Now try this and eventually teach it to every one of your team.
Until next time.
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Dale
Want to know a little more about the mind. I recently created a new free site blog on Tumbler, under Mind Hacks by Dale. Check it out, maybe learn something, tell others https://mindhacksbydale.tumblr.com.