Just Seven Things

Exploring why and how we do what we do, and how we can do it better

Archive for the month “February, 2009”

16 Feb 2009
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Strokes of Insight

Enduring insights from My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor, because so much has been replaying in my mind (the following should be read as direct ‘quotes’ with some interpretation at points):
– The limbic system places an effect, or emotion, on information streaming in through our senses
– Our higher cortical cells mature …. and gain the ability to take “new pictures” of the present moment. When we compare the new information of our thinking mind with the automatic reactivity of our limbic mind, we can reevaluate the current situation and purposely choose a more mature response
– I allow myself to remember that all of my thoughts are merely fleeting physiology
– it only took 90 seconds for my bichemistry to capture and then release me
– sensory information streams in through our sensory systems and is immediately processed through our limbic system. By the time a message reaches our cerebral cortex for higher thinking, we have already placed a feeling upon how we view that stimulation – is this pain or is this pleasure
– when an incoming situation is perceived as familiar, the amygdala (whose primary job is to scan all incoming stimulation in this immediate moment and determine the level of safety – fear/ rage response) is calm and the adjacently positioned hippocampus (learning and memory) is capable of learning and memorizing new information
– we are feeling creatures that think (rather than thinking creatures that feel)
– when we experience feelings of sadness, joy, anger, frustration or excitement, these are emotions that are generated by the cells of our limbic system

Posted in Conscious and Unconscious, Happiness, Mindfulness, Neuroscience, Psychology and tagged , ,
06 Feb 2009

Our Ability to Focus is the Subject of a Battle in Our Brains

What is it with focus? The subject of thousands of books, essays and articles, the power of focus would appear to be undoubted – if more than a little mysterious in it’s workings.

From a time management perspective, it is recognised as one of the main tools of productivity. The greater your ability to access and the apply the tool of focus, the more you will achieve at an improved quality.

Interestingly, it is also fairly hotly debated as to whether the pure ability to focus rather than to have the split attention ability of multi-tasking is better. On this point I have always thought that multi-tasking skills just reflect the serial ability to focus on a variety of subjects.

The commonly agreed fact though, is that it is as though we are preprogrammed to lose focus. To be distracted by other events or thoughts: to worry about all of the things we’re not doing when we should be focusing on the task at hand. Read more…

Posted in Conscious and Unconscious, Creativity, Focus, Mindfulness, Psychology, Time Management | Leave a comment

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