How to Use Our Brain Effectively

The first step on how to use our brain more effectively is by learning at least a little bit about this fantastic ‘thing’ we have within our heads. Unfortunately it doesn’t come with a manual – it would be so helpful!

Within our heads we keep this precious and incredible organ that represents just 2% of our total weight and is always switched on, never turns off, since we were born to until death no rest, even when we are sleeping.

Made of 100 billion very small cells called neurons. These neurons work in groups and the groups interact with each other forming a huge network of information. When you think about a lime, one group has the green information, another one has the round information, another has the texture information and another has the sour flavour bit and so on. You can even have groups of neurons that store other information about lime connecting it with a sad or happy memory that can make you have some other emotions attached to a lime.

The point is every one of us has our own memories, beliefs, skills, abilities stored in these groups of neurons. Therefore every time we encounter a situation in our lives these groups in connection with other groups are going to fire off and make us respond in a certain way. It can make us react in exactly the same way every time we have a specific stimulus.

However when we do something new a group of neurons will form new groups connections creating a new network of neurons. If we do it only once it will not create strong connections in these networks. If you repeat it again and again it will form stronger connections that will last. This is the process that the brain uses to learn and can serve us immensely but it can also make it difficulty to break unwanted connections i.e. bad habits. Luckily neuroscience tells us that we can also break the unwanted connections. If we are really willing to stop any mental or physical pattern we just have to continuously interrupt the pattern until we get the neurons network to stop working together in that particular way.

The learning process occurs is two ways through our intellect where we have to study long and hard to master a subject or through experience and the latest is the most powerful one. That is why we never forget how to ride a bike or drive.

The frontal lobe is an area of our brain located in the front. The frontal lobe is responsible for our focus and concentration. It allows us to make choices and decisions. It represents our free will.

When making choices we have two ways to do so, first is the biological response that allows us to save our lives in a danger situation the famous fight or flee reaction. The groups of neurons interact with other groups activating an entire network to have a response that will save our lives. However the same applies to habitual behaviours. Which not always are good ones.

The second way to make choices is by using the power of your frontal lobe, the power of focus and concentration and separate ourselves from the environment and observe. Observe as if we are outside the scene of our experience, as if we are a second person. If we, using the power of observation, can unplug unwanted neuron connections and plug new connections than we have the power of building an entire new network. A new ‘me’ and a new ‘you’. Observing we can realise – I have these neuron connections that fires and cause me to blame someone or something else for the unwanted results I have in my life.

Being observers of ourselves we are using our consciousness to make our brain examine all our choices and possibilities. We can make our brain work for us and not against us. Plug and unplug we have the power!

How We Perceive Reality And How To Change It

Behind perception there is a very sophisticated process that involves the way our brain interprets the information we receive from our senses. The interpretation is directly related to what we believe and feel about the information being input.

Neuroscience explains that we don’t see with our eyes. The job of the eyes is to send data to be processed by the brain. The eyes send the picture so the brain can interpret it using our memories, emotions and beliefs. The same applies to all our sensory system.

The amount of information sent to our brain from our sensory system is a staggering 400 billion bits per second. Just for us to understand how much information that is I’ll give an example. 8GB (gigabytes) is enough to store 8 thousand songs and 8GB is equal 68.8 billion bits. That is definitely a lot of information. Of course our brain has to process it and get rid of the info that doesn’t match our memories, emotions and beliefs.

It seams surreal, almost impossible that our brains can take this amount of information each second. However when we think that while we are driving although we are not aware of it our brain is receiving information about the temperature, the texture of our clothes, the pressure of the seat belt, the pressure of your feet against the pedals, the noises around, every single thing we see, all the number plates and advertisements. That’s when our filters begin to work and keep just the important information in and pushing to the very bottom of our subconscious the ones our brain considers not important.

Here is the catch. The judgement our brain makes is solely based on our memories, emotions and beliefs. If the information doesn’t match these criteria then it is filtered. Therefore the world we are able to perceive is compromised by our beliefs, emotions and memories. In the same environment people can perceive the world around them quite differently. Inside our little world that we swear is the real world we create our realities.

How many times have we said to ourselves “of course, why didn’t I think about this before”! Or when we see a very creative and simple invention and we think: “It is so simple and logical why wasn’t I able to invent this myself?”  Simply because our filters were preventing the information to access our conscious mind. We are confined in an imaginary boundary that allows us only to experience what we know.

To perceive outside that boundary, to experience more happiness, more creativity, more imagination, more intuition, to be wiser and insightful we need to break this boundary. A way we could do this is by increasing our knowledge. More information in our neuronal nets will expand our perception. Asking questions to ourselves is another way to get outside the boundary. Is my emotional state affecting the way I perceive the experiences I have?  Are my decisions based on my emotion state? We can also experience new emotions. We can do that by finding out which emotion is more predominant in our everyday life and substitute it consciously with a more positive one.

Being attentive to our behaviour will help us to perceive when we are falling into the same old habit then once trapped we can switch the behaviour/emotion until we do it unconsciously.

How Our Mind, Body and Soul Became So Disconnected

History is a very powerful tool which certainly helps us to have a better understanding of the present facts. We hear a lot about how the mind, body and soul have become so disconnected and there is this avalanche of alternative therapies which try to make ourselves whole again. Let’s look historically and see if we can understand it better.

The Sumerians were the first known civilization around 4000 B.C. According to historians they were very organised socially and politically. In the science field they developed studies of mathematics, astronomy and other sciences. They also studied and developed astrology and had a strong belief that the stars controlled all events in the universe as well as our fortune. Polytheistic the Sumerians thought the gods controlled all aspects of their lives including the forces of nature.

The next stage of evolution brought us the almost unbeatable power of the church – the age of priesthood. The church axed the worshiping to gods and established their own truth and laws and proclaimed their omnipotence over everything including death condemnation – Welcome to Inquisition Time! Any intuitions, significant dreams or science findings could be a reason for a human barbecue. The disconnection had begun.

However the truth always finds a way to emerge. Nicholas Copernicus to the horror of the church proclaimed that the sun was at the centre of our universe, not the earth. He was lucky enough to die from natural causes before the church barbecued him. Later Galileo Galilei presented Copernicus’s ideas as proven facts but he was forced to recant and was house arrested by the church. Some people say that he was not burned because he and the Pope were friends.

Later came Rene Descartes announcing to the world that the universe and humans were mere machines that worked like clocks. Then Isaac Newton came with his classic mechanics finds plus a lot more. The mechanic approach was then applied to everything within the sciences. Disconnection was strongly implemented!

The discoveries of these scientists were crucial to our material development today but it came with a high price. We became disconnected in such a way that our minds and bodies were dissected and disassociated by the medicine science. Leading us to believe that if we are not connected within ourselves then, the events outside are not related to us at all. Truth again had to find a way to emerge.

Einstein then came with the quantum theory saying that the so called physical world was not physical at all. Einstein along with other scientists investigated the matter in such a profound level that they were absolutely amased with the finding – PURE ENERGY – something that was more comparable with intelligence, consciousness or information. Re-connection had now begun!

The little atoms in their orbits were energy packets and between them is this pure energy so powerful that one cubic centimetre – a sugar cube – has more energy than all solid matter in the universe. Mind blower!

The quantum theory basically says that everything in the universe is connected and our intention can impact results.

The world is changing radically and time urges us to be more sensible in the way we behave, in the way we think, in the way we perceive everything around us. It is time to stop, observe and change.

You must be thinking how will this information help me? If everything is energy and as scientifically proved energy attracts similar energy, then thoughts, behaviour and beliefs are energy with a specific consonance being sent out and attracting similar energy. We are creating our own reality every second….. Now I ask, what can YOU do to make this information work for you?