Through Psychology - Making the Most out of your Brain (I)
The Most Complex Organ!
Our Brain is the most complex organ in our body! Everybody knows that we are only aware of a small percentage of what our brain is actually able to do!
Sometimes, when talking to people about our brain, one might feel we are just waiting for the neuroscientists to come with great outcomes of the later experiments on how to improve our brain activity. But if we just keep waiting, our brain is not trying its best!
So, let us all exercise this GREAT organ we have!
First, understand how it works!
We must first understand how our brain works, since birth to these days. Looking at your own brain from the inside will allow you to understand in what stage are you now and how can you make the most out of it.
From birth to childhood, the brain only functions through senses and images.
Our brain is ready to capture everything that we need to keep us protected: that important person that makes us feel calm in the chaotic world we aren't familiar with. After birth, the brain starts paying attention to other stimuli that had already received during pregnancy: taste, touch and smell.
As soon as the baby is born, he automatically knows that he needs to be fed; by being fed, he senses the comfort of feeling safe and this is how he will make sure he is next to the one responsible for his protection.
The baby starts touching things, he touches his mother's skin and feels its warmth and softness. He needs that to feel calmer and secure. So, he is developing the sense of touch.
He feels the characteristic smell of his mum. The baby is already familiar with that sweet smell. And again, he feels safe and calm.
The audition develops a bit later, but then again, at first it only functions to assure the baby that mum is somewhere close to him just by hearing her voice.
One of the first images we have is of our mother's face right? So, the brain starts shaping how a human face must look like according to that first blurred image we have.
This is really important as it allows us to identify with that species and to try to survive just by calling out for that face. Our vision is blurred so we can only cling to that image to feel safe as we develop and grow.
Because we already feel safe in this world, we start exploring it with all our senses. It is how we get to know it. During those first two/three years, as we still don't know how to use words, we start building our dictionary of images.
Every object starts having a place in our brain just because our mum is pointing at it or grabbing it - she makes we feel that THING there is important and has a meaning for both of us.
Then, we start adding the features of that object so we can start distinguish it from the others: the touch, the colours, the smell, even the taste! We also start pointing to them and making specific sounds so our mum can understand that we are trying to communicate.
During childhood and first school years, we start labelling and organizing that information.
All that information has to have its own place. That is what happens when we start kindergarten and formal education, we learn to categorize, to memorize only the important information, to force ourselves to pay attention.
So our brain starts developing the parts responsible for receiving the information captured by our senses. It starts forming categories, drawers, as I like to call them.
Those drawers are responsible for how we see the world.
Adolescence and the analysis of that information.
Then, our brain has to do something with that information. This is when we grow up enough to start analysing the information we receive from the outside. At this time, we are required to give a synthesis of what we learnt, to summarize the information we have.
During teenage years, our brain develops a very important area responsible for all that. An area where the senses and perceptions get together to give a meaning to the information received.
It is said to be an entirely human area because it develops through significant relationships that allow us shared meanings and the freedom to create our own meanings. So this area is at the beginning of what makes us humans and individuals with a structured self.
On my next post, I will talk about how the nervous functions are structured throughout our development and what can we do to improve them!
You can read more here! All the contents are my own thoughts or interpretations I made from scientific articles! Feel free to share this contents as long as you quote my name!