The Human Animal has become the...stuff it is thanks to a vast set of features; the particular one i am going to talk about today is the one i deem most important: curiosity
Image CC0 Creative Commons - Photo Credit to Teddy Petrosky on UnsplashInformations are everywhere in the World we inhabit.
How could it be otherwise?
But here's the thing: can you really wrap your head around the actual number of the subtle and/or bold informations our mighty brains have to process on a day-by-day basis?
There you are, eager to consume your daily dose of pornography, some high-powered Ad makes it through your advertisement blocking extension while you navigate into your bookmarked video; "69, Mature woman in your area...that lives..."
You are quite pleased by the current state of this woman's wellbeing but you were distracted right there!
Sneaky ads, Videos on autoplay, infinite scrolling, self-refresh. Carpet bombings of informations that assault our conscious state with flashing colors, sensational titles, cute animals, and, why not, examples of human attractiveness.
Image CC0 Creative Commons - Photo Credit to Nicolai Berntsen on UnsplashAdvertisements has been playing around our neurological pathways and psyche for decades and the situation has become even more so evident in the digital Era. So evident one that it's overloading capacities have adopted the hiding in plain sight strategy.
All these stimuli don't help a healthy growth of the brain. Being numbly interested in everything can make us numbly uninterested on just one simple thing, like dedicate our time in one simple task.
Is it a coincidence that attention deficit disorders have been sprouting so well in the last decade?
Are you really engaged when you scroll through social network's feeds, clicking correlated or autoplayed videos on YouTube?
But the human brain is one resilient organ, just like its host. There's no need to retreat in the woods and abandon technology. Although it would make you a prey for the wilderness
which is always as nice as it sounds.
A quiet environment, unplugging from unnecessary browsing, and why not, adopting a more metacognitive (thinking about your thoughts) perspective in life WILL improve your quality of life.
Going in autopilot down the streets, being completely at the mercy of ads and arousing impulses that play on cognitive biases, makes you a victim, in one way or the other, at times mildly, others severely.
Try to think about the thoughts you generate while you run your errands, walk down the street. Why do you think what you think? Are you aware of what is going on in your mind?
Image CC0 Creative Commons - Photo Credit to Aurélien - DesignaticMeditation
There we go, another new-age malarkey
Except that it's not. Plenty of scientifical studies in the realm of neurology and psychiatry have demonstred the application of meditative practice - to name one Mindfulness -
as extremely beneficial for one's sense of wellbeing, awareness of one's own
thoughts and fears.
But why would it work?!
Being practical people, meditation trains your metacognitive capabilities. I'll be brief on one of the simple mechanics behind the most basic of the meditations:
Sit comfortably. Close your eyes. And just think abour your breathing. Deep breaths but just as deep as you can get them naturally, without forcing yourself.
Inhale...Exhale...Inhale...Exhale...sure the standing cat earlier on reddit was...oH DAMNI IT! I can't avoid distracting myself.
To which i reply: G R E A T.
Now you realize that. Calmly move back on to concentrating on your breathing. You will be distracted again, sooner or later, and that's where meditations works like a workout; it trains your brain to focus. And it makes you notice when you are not. This, done few minutes a day, consistently, WILL train your metacognition and be more aware of everything.
Everything on the nature of the thoughts the circulates in your brain, more aware of the beauty of the smallest things, etcetera.
My personal experience? Struggled with depression, anxiety, procrastinated a lot , and had a really hard time to focus, even on the things i liked such as watching tv-shows or short videos i was interested in. Now my control over myself has increased by many orders of magnitude. I meditate as much as i feel like, usually 10-15 minutes before sleeping and that's about it.
And not only the way we think has implications in the way we think but also on the physiology and structure of our brain's neurochemistry/physiology.
Some interesting resources in case you were interested:
- https://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-01-mindfulness-meditation-brain-weeks.html
- https://liveanddare.com/benefits-of-meditation/
With true heartfelt hope, that this was not pleasant and interesting to read, yours
- Destrudo