Shisa Kanko: This Japanese Method Can Help You Avoid Mistakes

Associated with railway workers, this technique may help anyone – especially those with ADHD.

Culture & Parenting Reporter, HuffPost

If you’ve ever left the house only to wonder whether you turned off the stove or unplugged your curling tongs, you’re not alone. However, this uncertainty doesn’t have to be your destiny.

In Japan, railway operators use a simple but powerful technique to avoid mistakes. And this method might be exactly what you need to stay focused on everyday tasks. It’s called “shisa kanko”.

“Shisa kanko essentially means ‘pointing and calling,’ which is used to improve attentiveness and accuracy,” said Joy Gallon, a licensed therapist with Thriveworks. “It was developed as a method of ensuring safety on the Japanese railway system. Operators are trained to focus on and point at an object such as a signal or stopping point and verbally ‘call out’ the name of the object.”

Research by Japan’s Railway Technical Research Institute in 1994 found that the practice of shisa kanko reduced incidents of human error by almost 85%.

“Because the practice uses eyes, hands, mouth and ears, it actively engages the senses,” Gallon said. “Studies have shown that it increases the blood flow to the frontal lobes, which is where our reasoning, logic and ability to see future consequences of current actions lie.”

In other words, it’s a multimodal system for attention and memory.

“The brain has to see something, say something and do something, so we are using our visual system, our motor system and our auditory system,” said therapist Rachael Bloom. “This reduces error because if one ‘system’ fails, there are two backup systems that have the same information.”

This approach is important for high-stakes daily tasks such as operating a train system – as well as smaller, mundane things like using a curling iron.

“Our brains are built for survival, so we spend a lot of time operating based on habit,” said time........

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