Comment by reg_dunlop

Basic a high priority stimulus arrives. It is actually fascinating how this get sorted out, but the salience network say, gets a signal like, user stubbed toe, massive spike of cortisol along with pain signals filtering in from that part of the brain that manages them. When your brain gets bored it is effectively lowering its threshold to trigger "do something" <time wasters, phone scroll, etc.>. The brain is just wired up to constantly process predictive activity. By staring at a whole it stops registering stillness as a thing to activate this process of hunting for stimulative activity. This effectively lets your brain be more calm with no stimulation as it has learned this is not a "threat" state.

Being a modern human is hard. We were not really built for our life post industrial revolution. We evolved to always be ready for threats. The fact that our brains have adapted so well to modern life is amazing and why we have gotten to where we have as a species vs. others. However, it has costs. Our brains our wired to run the DMN loop non stop. So you can do two things. With traditional meditation you make your salience network stronger. Every time your DMN interrupts your meditation and you flex your salience network muscle so to speak you are training it to shift back to the lower DMN activity state. And with wall staring you are changing the brains calibration of what no stimulation means. Both contribute synergistically based on my understanding. (contribute to being less distractible).