THE BRAIN- IS WIDER THAN THE SKY-
For- put them side by side-
The other will contain
With ease and You- beside
The Brain is deeper than the Sea-
For- hold them- Blue to Blue
The one the other will absorb –
As Sponges- Buckets-do
The Brain is just the weight of God-
For-Heft them-Pound for Pound-
And they will differ-if they do-
As Syllable from Sound- EMILY DICKSON
“IF YOU HAVE AN AVERAGE BRAIN, you’re capable of anything due to the complexity of the Brain: Brain process about 2 million per second. The Brain remains a great mystery in Neuroscience! – Prof. Ben Carson
“ WE ARE MAKING USE of only a small part of our possible mental and physical resources” – WILLIAM JAMES, THE ENERGIES OF MEN in 1908.
DO WE USE 10% of our Brain? Is this a Myth or Fact? Find out the answer at the end of this Blog, if you’re not cognitively lazy like my neocortex! Some Scientists have traced this assertion to misattributions of the words of Albert Einstein, Dale Carnegie, or Williams James. When we think about the Brain in numbers, it’s difficult to imagine that we take advantage of all its potential: 86 billion neurons with 100 trillion possible connections is an almost unimaginable amount of potential. Many people have called the Human Brain – with its 86 Billion neurons and hundred of trillions of connections- the most complex thing in the Universe. With its complexity, it’s believed to be a beautiful thing and more complex than a galaxy full of stars. Pause for a second what did you have for Breakfast? What factors influence your food choices? The relatively new field of Nutritional Psychiatry explores the link between diet and the Brain. Promising data from different Age groups and cultures suggest that Dietary Improvement can also lead to Improvement in Mood and Brain function. “You’re what your mother Ate.”
In his book how we learn, the author asserts why he thinks Our Brain Learns Better Than Current Machines. Most artificial neural networks implement only the operations that our Brain performs unconsciously, in a few tenths of a second, when it perceives an image, recognizes it, categorizes it, and accesses its meaning. However, the Brain goes much further: it can explore the image consciously, carefully, step by step, for several seconds. It formulates symbolic representations and explicit theories of the world that we can share with others through language. To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail! However, our Brain is much more flexible.
A few years ago I was on a Mastermind call with a mentor Chris, he was in the United States and I was living in England at the time ((See further details on 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth Mastermind on the website). The mastermind group is to bring together like-minded people who are dedicated and motivated to make effective and lasting changes to their Lives. Despite the fact I was in working in one of the Best Institutions in Europe at the time but was in a rut because I was not strategic with my personal development! During the mastermind program, Chris shared his reading strategy and as a result, he reads a book every week! 10 years Later, in my local library got chatting with a lovely white lady in her mid 60’. It quickly became apparent that we are both passionate readers, I told her about my Mastermind group 50 Books Reading Challenge, and quickly added it was going to be a stretch for me and she smiled revealing her youthfulness despite her biological age, she told me that she has been reading a book every day since the start of this year! The statistics came to mind “Average American read 1 Book a year. About 60% of Americans get through the first Chapter of A book per year. CEO read an average of 4-5 books per month. A great reader reads a book a day. Reader earn 5 times than people that don’t read!” Questions to ponder upon do you feel obligated to finish every book you start? If so, what keeps you going? How often are you pleasantly surprised? How often do you find that an unpromising book turns out to be a pretty good read?
According to Ericson, most people live lives that are not particularly physically challenging. We sit at a desk, or if they move around, it’s not a lot. They aren’t running or jumping, they aren’t lifting heavy objects or throwing things long distances, and they are not aren’t performing maneuvers that require tremendous balance and coordination. These “normal people” cannot run a mile in under 5 minutes or ten miles in under an hour; they cannot throw a baseball three hundred feet or hit a golfball three hundred yards; they cannot do triple gainers of the high board or triplex axels on ice skates or triple axels on ice skates or triple backflips in a gymnastics floor routine. The reason that most people don’t possess these extraordinary physical capabilities isn’t that they don’t have the capacity for them, but rather because they’re satisfied to live in the comfortable rut of homeostasis and never do the work that is required to get out of it. They live in the world of “Good Enough”. The same thing is true for all the mental activities we engage in, from reading a book to writing a book, from teaching a class to running an organization, from selling houses to performing brain surgery. We lean enough to get by in our day-to-day lives, but once we reach that point, we seldom push to go beyond good enough. What exactly are we doing to improve our brains? If you build more and larger fibers, you get stronger, If you improve your muscles’ energy reserves, your lung capacity, your heart pumping capacity, and the capacity of your circulatory system, you build endurance. But what changes are you making in your brain as you train to be a musician, a mathematician, a taxi Driver, a Surgeon, or perhaps use more than 10% of your Brain?
5 Ways to Optimizing Your Learning by Thad A. Polk, Professor of Psychology University of Michigan (My Learning Brain was supercharged after my running!)
- Adopt a Positive Mindset
- Be Strategic and Deliberate About Your Learning
- Learn Actively rather Than Passively
- Identify Good Resources of Information That Will Challenge You.
- Stay Active, Eat right, and get Enough Sleep.
Dr. Carol Dweck, Author of Mindset, suggested each morning remind yourself differences between the fixed and growth mindsets. Then, as you contemplate the day in front of you, try to ask yourself these questions (if you have a room on your mirror, copy them and tape them there, too!)
What are the opportunities for learning and growth today? For myself? For
the people around me?
As you think of opportunities, form a plan, and ask:
When, Where, and how will I embark on my plan?
BACK TO MY QUESTION DO WE USE 10% OF OUR BRAIN? According to current scientific thinking, this is a Myth. However, the more we know the less we know, right? According to Indres Viskontas Ph.D. Adjunct Professor of Psychology, University of San Francisco, we use all of our Brain –and the reality is the opposite. If you don’t use a part of your Brain for one function, it will get reassigned. Cortical real estate is competitive!
“IF I READ A BOOK AND it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is Poetry!”- Emily Dickson
ARE YOU curious how your neocortex stacks up? I have limited offers of Free Coaching Consultation and a Mastermind program on my website. (http://www.niranojomomdservices.com). We may not be able to use more than 10% of our brain however would you like to read 50 books this year? If the Answer is Yes then join the 50 Books Reading Challenge 2023! We are all part of a growing community, right? You’ll have to submit your e-mail address, but we’ll only include you on our mailing list if you ask us to!
Blog edited by Amazing Annabelle’s Neocortex!
GLOSSARY:
- ANDERS ERICSSON & ROBERT POOL, PEAK
- DWECK, MINDSET
- STANISLAS DEHAENE, HOW WE LEARN
- BRAIN ENERGY, CHRIS M PALMER MD
- A THOUSAND BRAINS, JEFF HAWKINS
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