Using Mindfulness to Combat Cognitive Underload in Train Drivers

Chris Langer, Human Factors Advisor, Mindfulness Trainer

Key points:

• Repetitive or monotonous routes can contribute to the mind wandering and increase safety risks

• Mindfulness is an effective technique for combating cognitive underload in train drivers and a way of preventing safety incidents

• Neuroscience provides the scientific backing for the effectiveness of mindfulness meditation

• Studies in the transport sector show its clear potential to change habits and improve safety performance.

‘Cognitive underload’ can be a real problem for train drivers. In plain English, this means that driving the same monotonous route can make it difficult to concentrate. If your mind isn’t suitably stimulated and kept alert, it tends to wander. You might also name it ‘boredom’, but that word doesn’t quite do it justice.

Train drivers can find their levels of alertness slipping as autopilot takes over. This can lead to mistakes and safety critical incidents. Drivers sometimes report not being able to recall the last few minutes of their journey.

Long, repetitive routes with only minor variation in the scenery outside can compound the problem. In fact, this is one of the reasons cited for the derailment of a high-speed train at Santiago de Compostela in 2013, which lead to the loss of 80 lives. The route’s sheer monotony is likely to have contributed to the driver’s catastrophic loss of concentration.

In general, traction and cab controls have become much easier to operate, as better human factors design, and improved technology, bring a greater level of safety and driver comfort. This is simply the result of the natural trajectory of progress. But reducing the mental and physical effort required to operate a train has created an unexpected side effect - there is now more for the brain to consciously monitor, creating the right conditions for attention to drift off.

As a train driver, it is important to notice when your mind begins wandering. It is heartening to hear drivers talk about some of the individual techniques they use to prevent this happening: scanning the environment, risk-triggered commentary, completing cab drills, drinking caffeine, or even chewing gum. However, it is recognised that these techniques are either based on unproven theories, or only superficially useful. None of them fundamentally address the issue of the mind wandering.

If we are looking for a higher standard of evidence, we may need to turn our attention to the neuroscience behind mindfulness-meditation. For instance, neuroscientist Sara Lazar’s work has shown in controlled studies that regions in the brain associated with attention and memory undergo change and improvement with meditation practice. And these changes are visible on the brain scans of those who have participated in eight-week mindfulness programmes.

Amongst other things, Lazar has highlighted the positive changes for meditators in the posterior cingulate, involved in the mind wandering, and in the left hippocampus, which assists in cognition, learning, memory and emotional regulation. These areas of the brain are relevant in the context of train driving, or any other driving for that matter.

Mindfulness-meditation targets the primary cause of many safety incidents: distraction and the mind wandering. It has been effectively used with train drivers in both the UK and Spain, with London bus drivers, and with frontline operatives in the nuclear sector. If we want to train higher levels of attention and increase safety performance, it seems like an obvious form of training to implement.

Its adoption is already widespread in the technology sector. Companies like Google have capitalised on its ability to produce positive outcomes in mental focus and wellbeing. Being far more than a passing fad, it is something of a mystery why it hasn’t yet caught on more in the transportation sector.

Mindfulness meditation is for more than just stressed-out corporate executives. Not only are the benefits in terms of attention, mental performance, and resilience understood, they are also backed by scientific studies. That is more than can be said for many other mental techniques which remain untested. If we’re looking to break through plateauing safety performance, practising mindfulness offers one possible path to success.

About the M4 Initiative

The M4 Initiative provides a range of cutting-edge training interventions to improve health, safety, wellbeing and business performance – for frontline workers and their managers. A full range of workshops and courses on are offered on mindfulness, wellbeing, and stress reduction, concentration, regulating emotions, sleep optimisation, and conflict reduction.

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