What Algae Taught Me About Resilience
The science of changing ourselves
In the 1960s, ecologists the world over were faced with an intractable problem: our lakes were blooming with blue-green algae at alarming rates. From Lake Washington in America’s Pacific Northwest to Lake Zurich in Switzerland, local accounts reported cloudy, green waters above shallow lake beds, with fish dying in droves. Lake Erie, one of America’s Great Lakes, was pronounced a “dead lake,” with the others following a similar trajectory.
In response, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD, tasked Swiss ecologist Richard Vollenweider with organizing a global team of scientists to tackle the problem. In 1968, Vollenweider presented his findings in a single chart, with each dot representing a lake. The x-axis represented the the lake’s depth (i.e. lake health), and the y-axis represented the amount of phosphorous. The chart showed a clear correlation with a decisive conclusion: phosphorous from human waste was causing the lakes to degrade.
We now know that lakes naturally occupy one of two primary steady states. The first, known as oligotrophic, consists of a deep lakebed, clear water, and a healthy mix of flora and fauna. Over millennia, natural sediment deposits may raise the waterbed, accumulating nutrients like phosphorous, which drive the growth of algae, which in turn steal oxygen from the water. This eventually leads to the second state, called eutrophic, which is inhospitable to many fish yet allows the algae to continue to thrive through the cycling of nutrients. When humans got involved, dumping phosphorous in the form of detergents and fertilizers, the process accelerated to a timescale of mere decades.
Luckily, this process can be reversed. Over many millennia, lakes will naturally fluctuate between the two states, with rising and falling concentrations of nutrients. But we can also accelerate their reversal through coordinated cleanup efforts. If caught early enough, simply absorbing excess phosphorous using shellfish or kelp will do the trick. Even the supposedly dead Lake Erie was able to return to its healthy state.
Laws of Attraction
I came across the story of Vollenweider’s discovery while studying systems ecology, the science of how nature maintains balance and responds to disturbances. Tracking references to his work through papers, reports, and eulogies, I found that his insight struck me in revealing how simple shifts can cascade into massive changes. How is it that one variable—in this case a fundamental plant nutrient—could fundamentally alter lakes all over the world? And what does that mean for the resilience of other living systems, including ourselves?
In the realm of complex systems, the two states of a lake are considered attractors, points towards which a system tends to evolve. When a system, like a lake, is sitting at one of its attractors, it is in a state of equilibrium. Shift its state slightly, say with a small change in phosphorous, and the lake will self-regulate back to the attractor state. But cross a certain threshold of disturbance, known as the attractor’s basin, and it will transform rapidly until it reaches a second attractor state.
Like lakes, we are complex systems. We now know that our brains are filled with attractors, creating coherence among the chaotic firing of neurons, contributing to our experience of consciousness. In our bodies, too, we regularly feel attractors take hold. As an example, imagine yourself starting a run. Initially, it takes effort to transition from standing still to running. But once you are running, your body takes on its own momentum, continuing to propel itself with little to no additional conscious effort. In fact, it would take conscious effort to slow down. With intention, you can bring your body to a walking state, and eventually back to standing still. Here, we might say that your body possesses three attractors: standing still, walking, and running.
Our lives are full of attractors, states that continue to propel themselves automatically until we consciously alter them. These might look like well-worn routines or our highest flow states or our stagnant inertias. Recognizing them—and how to gracefully traverse them—can help us navigate life with greater resilience.
Tracing Loops
The driving forces behind attractors are known as feedback loops. A feedback loop is a process in which a change in the amount of a resource kicks off a chain of events, which either dampen or compound the original change. Feedback loops are considered negative if they keep the system balanced and positive if they accelerate change. In a complex ecosystem like a lake, there are many feedback loops, with some regulating the system around an attractor point and others shooting it off in a new direction. For example, a balanced web of plants, fish, and nutrients comprise a negative feedback loop, whereas the proliferation of phosphorous and algae drive a positive one. Keep in mind that calling a feedback loop “positive” simply denotes compounding change, which may result in an outcome that is beneficial, detrimental, or neutral to the health of the system.
Understanding feedback loops is key to obtaining and maintaining beneficial states of being. Let’s look at two examples of how attractors manifest in our daily lives and how we can guide their feedback loops in our desired directions.
Healthy Habits
Say you are looking to build a new healthy habit—in this case, increasing your level of exercise. You are starting at a particular attractor state, which consists of a mostly sedentary lifestyle. The first step here is to identify yourself as within a sedentary attractor state and label its qualities so you can more quickly identify it in the future. What does it feel like to be sedentary?
The next step is to identify the negative feedback loops that are reinforcing your sedentary state, making it more difficult to change your behavior. Negative feedback might look like:
- Lethargy in the body
- Feeling more comfortable staying indoors
- Demoralization regarding perceived performance or body image
With your particular negative feedback loops identified, you can begin to disrupt their natural cycling by inserting a positive feedback loop. Positive feedback will accelerate change by reinforcing the behavior of exercising. It starts with a simple change in behavior in the right direction. You might start with small movements, walking, or any activities that simply get you going.
The size of the behavior you choose is not important. Positive feedback loops, by their nature, inherently compound on themselves, like algae blooming in a lake. So once set in motion, even at a small level, they will grow over time until you naturally reach a new attractor state. What is important is that you select activities that yield benefits reinforcing the desired behavior.
Our bodies have a natural reward system, the release of neurotransmitters called endorphins, which associate exercise with pleasure and motivate you to continue exercising. You may also develop feelings of confidence, strength, and resilience that perpetuate the loop. If your selected activity is not yet strong enough—or your body is too resistant—to experience these internal rewards, you might initially supplement with external rewards like a snack or bath until the internal positive feedback grows strong enough.
Over time, the feedback will compound, drawing you naturally towards forms of exercise increasing in intensity and reward. Eventually, you will find yourself at a new attractor point, with new negative feedback loops taking over. As with running, it now takes less effort to continue your routine of exercising than to stop it.
You will naturally fluctuate between your sedentary and active attractor points over time. So when you are at your desired attractor, be sure to direct your attention towards sensing its qualities to build a memory of it in your body. What does it feel like to be in a state of low-effort healthy, exercise? With this in mind, you will know that it is possible to reach it again the next time you find yourself in the inertia of your sedentary attractor, making it easier to set new positive feedback loops in motion once again.
Flow States
As a second example, imagine that you are trying to start a new creative project, but you simply aren’t feeling inspired. Instead, you you find yourself indulging in distractions. Once again, you find yourself at a baseline attractor—in this case of procrastination. When here, remember to take stock of its feeling quality so that you can more quickly recognize it in the future.
What negative feedback loops are keeping you at this attractor of procrastination? Perhaps one or more of the following?
- Your mind hasn’t been creative in some time and is primed instead for unrelated tasks you have been performing more recently
- Your distractions trigger your short-term reward circuits, reinforcing a desire to continue engaging with them
- You can only make time in short spurts, sandwiched between other tasks of life, which doesn’t feel long enough to get into a flow
Once again, the task here is to short circuit the negative feedback loop by inserting a positive one. And usually that means forcing yourself to get started in whatever small way is possible. Sit down at your desk, or even get started lying in bed with your phone. Break the project down into the smallest units possible so you can find an achievable sense of completion having jotted down some ideas or an outline. As with exercise, the body finds natural rewards with creative work through the activity of neurotransmitters, in this case serotonin and dopamine. Similarly, we might find that it takes more than one sitting to grease the wheels, and so we might design a more rewarding external environment for ourselves to increase the power of positive feedback. This might mean setting the mood with music, tea, incense, or whatever brings you pleasure.
Over time, natural positive feedback will compound, drawing you deeper and deeper into your creative project, until you settle into a new attractor state. This state typically comprises the characteristics of flow: complete immersion, energized focus, and enjoyment. It now takes more effort to break out of the flow than to continue it. Savor this feeling and pay attention to the way it presents in your body. As you naturally fluctuate between the attractors of procrastination and flow, your body will remember that through compounding positive feedback, it will always be possible for you to return to flow.
Reining in Runaway Feedback
In the above examples, we found ourselves in undesired attractors and sought to transition, by inserting positive feedback loops, to more beneficial attractors. At other times, we might find that we simply cannot afford to allow ourselves to reach an undesired attractor because its consequences are too dire. In situations like the one we will explore below, the task becomes to shore up the negative feedback loops surrounding a beneficial baseline attractor.
Constructive Conversations
A common example can be found in our interpersonal relationships. A desirable baseline attractor among close friends is easy to identify: we feel secure and supported, conversations flow freely, and feelings are positive. However, the paradox of relationships is that the closer we are with someone, the easier it is for the dynamic to be disturbed by perceived breaches of trust. Consider a time when a friend violated an expectation you had of them. How did that made you feel? Perhaps this was the initial disturbance pushing against your stable attractor, or perhaps it was one in a long line of rocky perturbations.
Often times, strong relationships can recover from such disturbances, but it is also easy for positive feedback to quickly spiral into a vicious cycle: making false assumptions about the friend’s intentions, building up resentment, vocalizing blame, producing defensiveness in the friend, and neither party taking responsibility for the situation. The destination attractor in this case could be a dissolution of the relationship, which we hope to avoid.
In this case, we need to disrupt the positive feedback loop by inserting or strengthening a negative one. This might look like engaging in non-violent communication, focusing on your personal experiences of your friend’s specific, observable actions, instead of vocalizing blame and assumptions about them. Having space for both friends to safely share their experiences and make commitments to better support each other can diffuse the runway positive feedback and allow the relationship to settle back to its secure attractor. From there, you might focus on making deposits into each other’s “emotional bank account” through ongoing positive interactions, strengthening the attractor’s resilience to future disturbances.
Managing feedback loops in tumultuous relationships can feel more daunting than our first two scenarios because it requires the willing participation of a second person whose actions are beyond your control. Maintaining a stable attractor is not always feasible, but you can still do your part to sense and respond to disturbances in a healthy way.
Living with Resilience
On the surface, the realms of habit formation, creative flow, and healthy communication might feel radically different from each other, and in practice managing their feedback loops calls for specialized techniques. But just as we manage the health of our lakes by sensing and responding to disturbances, sensing our own attractor activity serves as a common foundation for living with resilience. The more you pay attention to your attractors, the more you will discover them manifesting in all areas of your life, settling into familiar states in work, relationships, mindfulness, and play. Being able to identify the feedback loops maintaining these states can empower you to intentionally reinforce or disrupt them. In all areas of our lives, algae blooms. Whether you let it grow toxic or restore yourself to clear water is in your hands.
Mind Cafe’s Reset Your Mind: A Free 10-Day Email Course
We’re offering a free course to all of our new subscribers as a thank you for your continued support. When you sign up using this link, we’ll send you tips on how to boost mental clarity and focus every two days.
