How to push the reset button on your brain and unleash your creativity.
When our lives are eroded by work, we often feel guilty about taking time off during vacations and end up checking our work e-mail. However, the importance of “hitting the reset button in your brain” is discussed, as constant exposure to information and keeping your mind running at full capacity can rob you of creativity and inspiration.
Hit the Reset Button in Your Brain – NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/10/opinion/sunday/hit-the-reset-button-in-your-brain.html
The amount of information we receive in a day today is five times greater than it was in 1986, or the equivalent of 174 newspapers, according to a 2011 study. There are 21,274 television stations around the world, which air a total of 85,000 hours of television programming in a single day, and 5,999 hours of movies are uploaded to YouTube every hour of every day. Including what may or may not be true, it is as if people today are bombarded with information from all directions every day.
However, human conscious processing capacity is limited, and many people are overwhelmed by the waves of information.
There are two important elements of the human brain when it comes to paying attention to something: the task-positive network and the task-negative network. The task-positive network is activated when a person is immersed in a task and is referred to by neuroscientists as the “central executive system. On the other hand, the task-negative network, or “imaginary mode,” is active when the brain is thinking without a break, and the two modes switch like a seesaw in the brain.
The two modes switch like a seesaw in the brain. Thanks to these two modes, humans built the pyramids, discovered penicillin, and decoded the human genome, and the existence of the imaginary mode is essential to intuitively grasp the essence of things. The imaginary mode, in which multiple ideas and thoughts can be combined, produces great creativity and inspiration. Even if you think you have solved a problem after concentrating and thinking it through, you have not really solved the problem, and the solution to the problem will suddenly appear when you are walking, shopping, or otherwise not required to sustain your attention. This is because while we are thinking incessantly in fantasy mode, we are able to make connections between things that we could not make before.
Another important element in the central executive system is the “attention filter. Attention filters tell our brain what to pay attention to and what to ignore, and they were developed to detect danger, such as predators or critical situations. In today’s information overload, people are exposed to everything from Twitter to Facebook to email, but our attention to any one thing is not something we can keep for long. This is the curse of information today.
In other words, the information we get from Twitter and Facebook is stored in our brains along with important information such as, “How do I reconcile with my friend with whom I had a fight? This results in the brain wasting a lot of energy. Therefore, if you want to be more creative, productive, and energetic, you should not just spend time on social networks, but rather compartmentalize your life and set aside a certain amount of time to enjoy them.
The same can be said for email. When you are in the middle of a thought and an email comes in, it distracts you from your focus and what you are doing at that moment. You hear the ringtone and wonder, “What’s in the mail?” Who is it from? “Is it good news or bad news?” It is better to distance yourself from the email than to ignore it, worrying about “What’s in the mail?
It has already been shown by Vinod Menon and Daniel J. Levitin at Stanford University that the switch between fantasy mode and the central executive system is controlled by a region of the brain called the insular cortex. According to the results of this study, if the central executive system and the imaginary system can be described as a seesaw relationship, the insular cortex, which switches on attention, creates a situation in which an adult is placed on one side of the seesaw and the other side, on which nothing is placed, is suspended in the air. The switches work differently for everyone, some switches are smooth, some are rusty and hard to switch, but in any case, too many switches make us as confused and tired as we would be if we used the seesaw at high speed.
When we refrain from multitasking and focus on one task for 30 or 50 minutes, followed by rest, creativity comes naturally. As some studies have shown, a walk in nature or listening to music can also switch the brain into fantasy mode and give us the perspective we need. In other words, this is the act of “hitting the brain’s reset button.
The idea that “problems are not always immediate and can take time to solve” can also be effective in many decisions. For example, according to estimates, medical errors are the third leading cause of death in the United States, but people don’t want doctors to “get the answer now,” they want them to “get the right answer. There is nothing wrong with taking a break to do so. It may seem repugnant to hear that pilots and air traffic controllers take breaks during work, but resets are necessary, and in fact they take frequent breaks. It is important to understand that overwork reduces work efficiency.
Biologically speaking, rest is a “balm”; a 10-minute nap improves cognitive function and vitality and removes drowsiness and fatigue. When we begin to take regular vacations away from work and take time for naps and meditation, we can be in excellent shape to solve the big problems that lie ahead in the world.