Distraction Can Make You a Faster Cyclist

I had a personal trainer for a month a few years back and he pointed this out. I was running with a heart rate monitor (belt around chest type). He pointed out that my heart rate fell 10 bpm when I switched from watching readouts on the treadmill to watching whatever was on the many TVs. Same speed and incline, but if I focused on something other than those numbers, I relaxed and it became easier.

It's interesting to see a real test of this. The clever bit in here was asking the cyclists to count red circles on the screen occasionally, ensuring the TV had a large share of their conscious attention.

Very cool. I think that this is reflected in a lot of physical activities. From my personal experience with martial arts, I've definitely seen some (anecdotal) evidence to support the notion that you move more efficiently and correctly when you aren't thinking your way through it. It's cool to see some experimental support for this.

I'm kinda day-dreaming (on calm mountain hills), and indeed your can climb hours, kinda forgetting about the effort

I wonder if this works for all cardio workouts that requires repetitive motion?

Like distraction might be bad if you're in boxing/mma but would it be beneficial with something like long distance running wherein you're distracted?