The opening lecture. Why we sit outside, why every class starts with ten minutes of nothing, and the one technique that makes a thought easier to put down
22 February 2027
Where. Outdoors. The exact spot moves week to week and goes up on this page by the Friday before. Being outside is not a vibe decision, and there is a reason for it further down. It does mean the class starts on time and cannot start late, because there is nowhere to wait.
One sentence up front, unearned#
The next four weeks are about the thing you already recognise. Catching yourself overthinking, out loud, in a room where everyone else is doing it too. No framework first. You will have a stack of your own examples before anybody offers you a theory about them.
But you get one sentence now, and it is deliberately unearned. We think a spiral repeats because the thinking never gets to finish.
That is where the course gets its name, and it is the argument the whole semester builds toward. It should not mean much to you yet. That is the point. The empty slot, in week 5, is where we make the case properly and show you the research it rests on.
Take it as a promissory note. If it has not been paid by mid-semester, say so on the forum.
The first ten minutes#
Every lecture and every crit in this course opens the same way. Ten minutes of guided attention, no phones, no talking, no outcome. We call it the detox, which is a slightly silly name for sitting still. The name is deliberate. If it had a solemn name you would take it too seriously, which is the one thing this course is against.
You will learn the format properly in week 3, when a meditation teacher runs Ten minutes, guided and we stop improvising. Until then it is sit, breathe, notice, stop.
The evidence here is real but modest, and worth being precise about, because “meditation fixes your brain” is a claim the internet makes and the research does not. Jain and colleagues (2007) ran a randomised trial and found mindfulness meditation reduced rumination more than relaxation training did, so it is not just the sitting down. A 2022 meta-analysis of trials in depressed patients found a small-to-moderate reduction in rumination overall. Meanwhile a large controlled trial published in Science Advances in 2022 found no structural brain changes from an eight-week mindfulness course compared to an active control. So there is a real effect on the thing we care about, no magic, and anyone who tells you it rewires your brain is going further than the data.
Why we are outside#
Bratman and colleagues (2015, PNAS) took two groups on a ninety-minute walk. One group went through a natural setting, the other along a busy road. The nature group came back reporting less rumination, and showed reduced activity in the subgenual prefrontal cortex, a region associated with repetitive self-focused thought. The urban group showed neither.
One study, one ninety-minute walk, one measure. It does not prove that holding a class on a lawn makes anyone think better. But it is a good enough reason to try it instead of a windowless room, and it gives us something to watch for over the semester. You get to find out whether it works on you.
You can suggest venues. The standing constraint is that everyone can get there and everyone arrives on time. An outdoor class does not survive a slow start.
The one technique for today#
From Steven Hayes’ work on acceptance and commitment therapy comes cognitive defusion. The simplest version of it is a sentence stem.
I’m having the thought that I’m going to fail this.
Not “I’m going to fail this.” The difference is six words and it is the whole technique. It does not argue with the thought, disprove it, or replace it with a nicer one. All three of those take the thought seriously enough to fight it. It just puts a small gap between the thought and you, so the thought becomes something you are having rather than something that is true.
We will use this stem all semester. It sounds ridiculous the first few times. That is fine; so does the name detox.
How this room works#
Overthinking runs straight into things people have not told anyone. So here are the rules, stated once and then just true.
- You can pass. In any activity, at any point, without giving a reason. Passing is a normal move and nobody follows up.
- Nothing you share is marked. The assessments look at how you notice and reason, never at how much you were willing to say out loud.
- This is a course, not therapy. It is genuinely useful and it is not treatment. If something here opens a door you would rather have help with, ANU Counselling exists and is free.
- What’s said here stays here. Including the funny things, which are usually the ones people most regret repeating.
Teaching team
- Marisol Quaye, convenor