You Brain - lazy bastard

Brain - lazy bastard

Have you noticed that the older you get, the less willing to undertake for the work, which is unusual for you, or is associated with a high concentration of attention and skill development of strangers?

Let me tell you a little secret. Reading newspapers (authors) work on specialty familiar, the use of the native language and chat with your friends that you are well aware, visiting favorite restaurant, watch your favorite TV series ... - all this, as all of us favorite, leads to the degradation of the brain.

Your brain - a lazy bastard (like you), and therefore tends to reduce the energy costs of an activity by creating a sort of "macros" - programs that you run from templates.

Biologist Richard Simon at the beginning of the last century called the program "engrams" - physical or habit memory footprint left by repeated exposure to a stimulus. Engrams can be represented in the form of paths that neurons "tread" in your brain by performing the same action. The more we do it, the less energy it spends on our brains.

On the one hand, this is a great Superpower - really, why spend extra energy to perform the same type of action? However, the downside of this ability - reducing our brain plasticity.

The fact that we use the longer engrams, the less work the basal ganglia in the brain. Their main function - to produce the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, which helps neurons to "cut through" the new path information among the noise of our brain (about it you have going on right now, after reading this sentence).

Think your way to work or school. If you are driving on the same route more than six months, your actions become automatic so that you can simultaneously perform other actions - to read, listen to music, answer the mail. In a favorite restaurant you do not have to squeeze out of himself acetylcholine and think about what you take for lunch, you already know by heart all the menus. For another fake smile you will immediately recognize the alarm, and you will not need to strain to decipher the communication signals.

It would seem, what is all this change? And then, that our lives - a continuous source of changes beyond our control. For most of them, we have to adapt, and in this "race chameleons" survives the one who faster others will change their color in the color of the environment and will be able to sneak up close to the insect (which is less and less in times of crisis).
You can cut (as it did recently with thousands of doctors) your department's objectives may change, and you are required to learn new skills (and if you do not manage, you, again, cut) you fall in love with the Chinese woman and want learn Dungan language, spoken by her relatives, and so on.

Therefore, the plasticity of the brain is necessary to constantly maintain and train. Imagine that your brain - is concrete, which after some time will harden.

The image of "hardened" brains you will make more sense if you look at most of the 70-year-old who can not master the timer on the microwave sensing hostility all new performing years of the same type of action (or reproducing patterns of thinking). These "paths" in their heads turned in the holes and tunnels in the rocks, and "dig" into the next cave passage nearly impossible.

Your task - constantly stirring this "mental mix" and not allow it to harden. Once we relax and begin to use the engrams, some part of our brain is solidified, and we do not even notice it.

What to do?

I selected the top ten most simple, but very effective techniques.

Keep an eye on him. If you ever feel uncomfortable because something is wrong (for example, your favorite website design changed or disappeared in the store favorite yogurt), clinging to this feeling by the tail and start his "spin". Why not try all yogurts or not to start doing your?

Do not re-read already read the book. Not to revise already viewed movies. Yes, it's a very pleasant psychologically feeling - to plunge into the cozy little world, in a life familiar characters, no surprises, you already know the end, and you can enjoy the little things, which for the first time did not notice, swallowing a book for an hour (or viewing season over the weekend). But at the same time you take in new books and movies you the chance to discover something completely new, depriving your brain of alternative education of neural connections.

Look for new routes. Try to look for new routes to familiar way home and back, to find alternative shops, cinemas and other infrastructure at the point of your life map. It may take more time, but it can bring a nice bonus - for example, lower prices in the shops, less people in a movie theater.
Look for new music. If you are a music lover in your iPod tens of thousands of songs and you think that your taste is very rich and diverse, then I hasten to disappoint you - often we listen 50-100 familiar tracks, pleasant to us all for the same reason: we have adapted to them, and our brains do not need to spend additional resources for processing and interpretation.

In a world of hundreds of thousands of Internet radio stations, and even if every day to switch to a new, still our life is not enough to re-listen to them all.

Look for new friends and acquaintances. Yes, it is, of course, it's great when there are friends who are pleasant to gather every Friday and discuss football or a new dress Beyonce. Psychologically comfortable.

But most of us live in metropolitan areas, why limit your range of 4-5 people, most often chosen not by us, but "imposed" circumstances - school, college, work?

Social tools inherent in us, a very strong influence on our way of thinking, and sometimes it happens that we are under the influence of certain friends change point of view, a set of interests, and sometimes even their occupation.

Get children. Children are a permanent source of chaos and uncertainty in your life. They - live "mixer" in your head, destroying the all the templates and reshapes your established routes in new ways.

I have three sons of all ages, who every day bring something new to their questions, behavior, inquiring mind and continuous experiments with everything around. You will not notice how your thinking liberated, and you begin to think differently.

If you have children you still can not, then you can start with the dog. It is, first of all, requires a walk (and the fresh air is good for the brain). Second, the draws you into involuntary communication with other dog lovers. And, thirdly, it can also be a source of chaos (mine, for example, when running after flies, does not pay much attention to the obstacles encountered in its path).

Stop criticizing. "What a terrible design!", "How disgusting they did isolation!", "How uncomfortable to sit in these new chairs!" - These and millions of other posts to Facebook, from the mouth of your colleagues and your own are indicative of resistance to change, suddenly come in life. Changes, which often can not influence. Or you can, but having put a lot of effort, are not worth it. Agree, because there are more interesting things to do than to require restaurant complaints book and write slander on hamovatogo waiter?

Much more useful for your own development will take these changes and to motivate the brain continue to live in a new reality.

Your response should look something like this: "The new menu? Excellent, and some old dishes have become boring! "," The new road repair, you need to look for a detour? Well, it means that in a month there will be no such potholes, and is being renovated, I know about this area is something new! "," The new operating system? Super! I now have a new entertaining adventure - get the control panel! "

Stop hanging on people "shortcuts." It is very convenient - rather than to understand the person to reflect on why he did it - succumb to weakness and a "brand" it by connecting to one or another psycho. She changed her husband? Whore! Drinks with friends? Alcoholic! See "Rain"? Belolentochnik!

Each of us is under the influence, perhaps even greater pressure of life circumstances, than the same Rodion Raskolnikov, but many are his thoughts, described by Dostoevsky, interesting, and neighbor-razvedenki with two children - something vulgar and unworthy of attention.

Experiment with flavors. Despite the fact that evolution has superseded by the wayside, our olfactory receptors, the smells still have a huge impact on us. And if you have a favorite eau de toilette that you do not change for years, it's time to change it. And this should be done with some frequency.

Learn foreign languages. And it does not necessarily fall in love with the Chinese woman, you can find another motivation, related, for example, with professional interests or hobbies. Foreign words and semantic fields associated with them are often different from your mother tongue, and their study is perhaps the most effective tool to train your brain plasticity (especially if you deviate further from the tourist lexicon and delve into the cultural characteristics).

We should not forget that our brain is arranged much more complicated than many people think. Engrams associated with listening to the same music, affect the way we communicate with friends. Unexpected feelings from the smell of food in the new restaurant can awaken in you a desire to overestimate the words and actions of a loved one (understand and forgive). A walk after work on an unfamiliar street to touch up on the idea of ​​how to find a suitable solution to the problem that has arisen at work. Therefore, the above-mentioned life hacking is best combined.

And maybe one day, years of commercials in 30, when your grandson will bring you a new gadget, which is a cloud of nanobots, you do not say, "Oh my God, remove from me the humming crap!" And plunge into it hand and said, "Wow!" - and immediately ask: "and how does it work and where you can buy this?"