Interesting Facts I Bet You Never Knew About Tunnel Vision

A realization just hit me in the face at my warrior sculpt class of all places. It was at the very end of class and the instructor approached me quite embarrassed and said “I feel so bad I swung right around you in the parking lot and because I was rushing to the class, I almost cut you off. I must have had tunnel vision.”

To which I replied. “Not to worry. I didn’t even notice. I must have had my own tunnel vision.” You see I was also rushing to the same class with my six-year-old in tow. It was a busy Saturday morning and if I didn’t get her to the kids area and checked in on time I wouldn’t even have a space to put my yoga mat. No luxury to even look up or around as I made a beeline for the child’s center.

The conversation really took me aback. I realized in that moment that I have been using tunnel vision for years as a coping mechanism. And I suspect many of you working moms are doing the same.

Understanding Tunnel Vision

There are two definitions of tunnel vision so to be clear, we are not talking about a lack of perspective and openness or “tendency to focus on a limited point of view.” It’s more the literal definition, “defective sight in which objects cannot be properly seen if not close to the center of the field of view.” Like in my gym example, I literally did not see the instructor as she apparently cut me off and rushed right by.

When I started looking into tunnel vision, I came across Dr. Rich Gasaway, a former fire and EMS provider turned PhD, speaker and author focused on situational awareness. Here is what I learned after reading an article about understanding tunnel vision.

Tunnel vision is actually a stress reaction from a hormonal chemical dump that changes your psychological, cognitive, and physical performance
It’s more accurate to describe as “tunneled senses”
When you are experiencing tunnel vision, you run the risk of missing important cues
According to a Johns Hopkins University research study, tunnel vision can turn down the volume on your hearing

This could be why studies show that eyewitness testimony in trials is often unreliable. The stress reaction shuts down senses, which makes their observations inaccurate (heard one gunshot versus six)

But why does this matter for busy working mommies? Well go back to my parking lot/ gym example. That could have been a fender bender or worse. It’s also the likely reason why I took two purses out with me one night. Or why, when I am in a rush to get my kid into the school I can seem like a real bitch because I don’t even look up. To this point, if you, like me have been letting tunnel vision work as a survival tactic, it’s risky business. But what can we do?

How To Manage

According to Dr. Gasaway, here are some techniques to help us successfully manage this phenomenon;

Be aware of it coming on when stress arises
Use breathing techniques to dampen the stress reaction
When you feel yourself being sucked into T.V., resist it and start scanning your environment