Left brain by Tyler Bordan

Left Brain Myths and Neurological Facts

Written by Tyler Borden

Narrated by Thomas Cassidy

Copyright 2018 by Vincent Newt.

Production copyright 2018 by Vincent Newt.

Introduction

The most obvious sign that our brains function asymmetrically is the near universal preference for the right hand, which goes back at least as far as the historical record takes us. It has long been a powerful source of symbolism, with the dextrous right associated with positive values and the sinister left with negative ones. This has often led to stigmatisation of left-handed individuals, sometimes forcing them to switch hand use, occasionally with grievous consequences.

Superstitions about left and right were compounded by the discovery in the 1860s that speech was based predominantly in the left hemisphere of the brain. Since language itself is uniquely human, this reinforced the idea that brain asymmetry more generally is a distinctive mark of being human. Because the left hemisphere also controls the dominant right hand, it came to be widely regarded as the dominant or major hemisphere, and the right as non-dominant or minor.

Nevertheless, further evidence that the right hemisphere was the more specialised for perception and emotion also led to speculation, some of it far-fetched, about the complementary roles of the two sides of the brain in maintaining psychological equilibrium. Testing of each disconnected hemisphere again revealed the left to be specialized for language and the right for emotional and non-verbal functions.

Chapter 1 Creativity

What's the brain got to do with it?

Among the many applications of neuroscience in the business world, we are increasingly seeing it unlocking the secrets of creativity and innovation. It's not surprising that this is the case. Creativity is the lifeblood of organisations. Ideas are the currency of performance, progression and development, and they take organisations into the future. So understanding creativity has many benefits.

What is actually going on in the brain during the creative process has been a persistent question for behavioural psychologists. Their findings are eagerly latched onto by designers of the next leadership or creativity programme that comes along. With the boost given to neuroscience from recent developments in imaging and computational power, it's time to dispel a big myth about creativity and to paint a new picture.

Left brain, right brain, or all brain?

The right brain is the creative side, and the left is the logical side, right? Most of us knew that this was far too simplistic to be true, but we still rolled it out when the occasion warranted it. Several cognitive neuroscientists have disproven the theory that the seat of creativity resides in one side of the brain or the other. It is, just as we suspected, far too simplistic.

The creative process goes through a series of stages from the initial inspiration to actually creating something. Would Einstein be considered a great creative mind if he had the initial creative impulse but never followed anything through? We wouldn't even know about many of his ideas if that was the case. Of course, this involves a number of cognitive processes as well as qualities like drive, commitment and motivation.

Mental Teamwork

Not surprisingly, different areas of the brain are employed and work to bring an idea to light and to fruition. It's almost like mental teamwork, different parts of the brain working together. It's not left or right side, but a combined effort. Of course, the brain is a huge and complex network that we are just beginning to understand, but there is evidence that thought processes like decision making and idea generation originate from interactions between multiple and distributed areas of the brain operating in a large, intricate network.

Which areas of the brain will be used during a creative activity depends on the activity itself. Brainstorming in a session with colleagues, writing a song, or designing a new children's toy are all creative processes, but they are vastly different activities.

The Attentional Control Network. This network is activated when concentrated focus is required, like when solving a complex problem or designing something that needs your complete attention. When you are completely immersed in a task, it is likely that you are employing this network.

The Imagination Network. This network becomes active when we use our past personal experiences to create simulations, such as when we think about the future, or tried to come up with alternative scenarios to situations.

The Attentional Flexibility Network. This network is responsible for monitoring external events and internal thoughts. It directs traffic to the other two networks based upon what information is required to fulfil the task at hand. Each of these networks may work together, be employed at different stages of the creative process, or work individually.

I'm going to talk about the left hemisphere of the brain. Why is this risky? Well, if you go out into the world, you'll find people who describe themselves as left brain dominant or right brain thinkers. Then you find people who sneer at the first group, saying that the left brain, right brain thing is a myth. It is. And it isn't.

People aren't dominant in one half over the other. If you're creative, then you use both sides of the brain. If you're analytical, it's the same story. Any category of mental tasks like language processing or perception uses both hemispheres. They work together. But a car's engine and wheels work together to get you somewhere. You wouldn't call them the same thing, though.

It's a mistake to say that only the right hemisphere is creative. It's also a mistake to say that the two hemispheres are identical. We often see personality changes when someone experiences brain damage. That isn't surprising. What's interesting, though, is that when the damage is localised to one hemisphere, it leads to reasonably predictive changes. A healthy left brain, for example, notices detail in the environment. A healthy right brain sees the bigger picture and how all these elements come together to create a cohesive scene. Damage one hemisphere and perception changes.

The left hemisphere favours precision in other times, while the right deals with generalisations in the present moment. Language processing straddles both hemispheres, but the left tends to handle most of it. Of course, the brain is complicated. If nothing else, then neuroplasticity can alter this balance. Still, it's an interesting generalisation.

Viewed through the lens of hypnosis, we can see a pattern between the hemispheres. Hypnotic inductions often use language and focused attention to encourage trance. The subject may pay attention to a specific sensation. Like all activities, it uses both hemispheres, though the induction favours the left.

What about the trance itself? As you move deeper into the hypnotic state, the details fade. You gain a sense that everything connects. Ideas form following bizarre chains of associations. Is this why hypnosis is such a powerful workout for your brain? Shifting back and forth between the two hemispheres must strengthen the connections between them. Using the strengths of one to prompt a response from the other, practicing the art of shifting between them as you rewire the neural highways into denser. If true, it gives you a template for your own hypnotic experiences, whether self-guided or induced in another. You'll see stronger results by using this idea. Either dive deep into one style of thinking or switch between the two. How you combine these processes is unique to you. A fingerprint that identifies your style or a dance with two moves. Embrace it. Experiment with it. You might just notice your hypnotic experiences enrich in strange and unusual ways. It's not as though you need a neuroscientific basis for hypnosis. After all, the evidence is that it works. But this model gives clues as to how the trance state evolves over time.

Essential Oils

Can odours affect the left brain as well? Odour-induced feelings do influence thought content and the thinking process, mental concentration, and perhaps even rational judgment, which is a left brain activity, but only indirectly. They can also affect our moods, which are not only complex but transient. Moods can strongly affect and determine every behaviour from eating habits to social conduct.

So what happens? Older stimuli in the limbic system release neurotransmitters. Endorphins reduce pain, stimulate sexual feelings, and produce a sense of well-being. These are also feel-good hormones. Endorphins are endogenous opioid polypeptide compounds. These are big words that simply tell us that hormones are created by the body and have similar actions to opiates. They are produced by the pituitary gland and the hypothalamus during strenuous exercise, excitement, and orgasm, and they resemble the opiates in their abilities to produce analgesia and a sense of wellbeing. Endorphins are workers' natural fever relievers. The term endorphin implies a pharmacological activity. It consists of two parts, endo and orphan. These are short forms of the words endogenous and morphine, intended to mean a morphine-like substance originating from within the body.

Encephalins reduce pain, produce pleasant euphoric sensations, and create a feeling of well-being. These feel-good hormones are a type of endorphin that are particularly euphoric. They are either of two naturally occurring pentapeptides, methionine and leucine, isolated from the brain, which have potent opiate-like effects and probably serve as neurotransmitters.

Sterotonin helps calm and relax. In the central nervous system, serotonin is believed to play an important role as a neurotransmitter in the modulation of anger, aggression, body temperature, mood, sleep, sexuality, and appetite, as well as stimulating vomiting. Serotonin is found exclusively in the human gastrointestinal tract. About 80 to 90% of the body's total serotonin is found in the gut. In the blood, the major storage site is platelets, which collect serotonin for use to help with post-injury vasoconstriction.

Noradrenaline acts as a stimulant that helps keep you awake. Noradrenaline is one of the catecholamine hormones and chemically related to adrenaline and crucial to help us maintain alertness, drive, and motivation. This hormone functions as an important neurotransmitter in the sympathetic nervous system and in the central nervous system. Levels of neural adrenaline often are significantly reduced in people with depression or who attempt suicide.

These are all complex hormonal activities. They are orchestrated by the limbic system by way of the hypothalamus. Your emotional or instinctual reactions that get registered in the limbic system get translated into physical responses like your fight or flight, sexual impulses, or the expression of pleasure. These are pretty important hormones that keep us safe and keep our species alive.

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Chapter 2 The Law of Attraction for the Left Brain

The Curse of Doubt

What a lot of people experience as they try to incorporate the law of attraction and other abundance practices into their lives. As a left brain spiritual seeker myself, this has certainly been my own nemesis. There is an interesting paradox here. There are many practices that can work if you can apply your whole mind and heart to them. The problem is, many of us need a dose of understanding to go along with it in order to satisfy our own rational mind.

Not having the understanding of the underlying process can result in doubt, which will then become a distraction to the process we are involved in. In the case of the law of attraction, the explanations are usually in terms that the rational mind has a hard time grasping or relating to our common experience. We hear about quantum physics, thought vibration, the higher or creative self, and so on. Again, these things may in fact be true, but how does one grasp this and assimilate it into their own experience if they tend to be left brained?

There are three main pillars underlying the process of attracting what we want. I use this myself. The results are real. You will also feel more like you are traversing the unknown with a sense of understanding at your back.

Inattentional Blindness. We will see what we expect to see. Considerable research has been done on this. It is amazing what we do not see that is right in front of us because we do not expect to see it. Go to viscog.beckman.uiuc.edu/flash/movie/15.php for a short video demonstration of this phenomena. Before you go, the task is to count the number of times the people in white shirts pass the ball back and forth to each other. Try it again, only this time focus on the black shirt.

Has anyone had the experience of buying a car and then suddenly seeing the same car a lot more frequently than before you bought the car? Pregnant women have told me that during their pregnancy they see pregnant women everywhere. If we put our mind on something, then we are more likely to see it, or to see something related to or leading to our goal. This is one of the advantages, not the only one, of having a clear vision of what we want. If we are particularly good at visualizing what we want and tend to be a little more right-brained, then things start to appear almost as if by magic.

Number 2 Subconscious Communication. We are always expressing ourselves whether we are consciously aware of it or not. No matter how hard we try, the facial expressions, the body posture, and the quality of our voice will betray what we are thinking above and below the threshold of our own awareness. Whatever dominant thought patterns we are running will come out in one or more of these ways. Here again is an example of how important it is to have our vision clear and constantly running in our mind.

We form impressions about people rather quickly. One of the reasons is that our subconscious, as a communicator in its own right, picks up the cues from the other person and forms a reaction that we may not even be aware of. Google "in Automacity" for a lot more information on this. The subconscious communication can cause us to be attracted to or cause others to be attracted to us, seemingly with no conscious intervention by ourselves.

Number 3. The third pillar is action. If we don't take action, what happens to us will be more a result of what other people want, not what we want. The other very interesting thing about action is its compounding nature. Action on top of action builds our experience, causing each subsequent set of action to be more effective. Some small individual actions within a set may seem like failures, but they really are lessons upon which to build.

How many times have we set out on a course towards a particular goal, not knowing how we're going to get there? I think we did this frequently as children, in part because there was less dialogue telling us, "I can't." How many times have you ended up somewhere as a result of a long course of action and wondered, "I never would have thought I would end up here." It seems like magic. The great thing is that the two types of people, left and right brained for a convenient label, can end up in the same place by using basically the same process. Clear vision is always the starting point, though. Without it, we will only get what others want us to have, or what our dominant scarcity thinking will allow us to have.

Jim Andrews is a professional spiritual and life coach and the author of The MindTech Principles, one of the most comprehensive self-growth manuals available today. Blending spiritual, scientific, and personal experiences, this book will answer many of your most important questions about why we do what we do, and how to get what we want.

Let's make information on how to communicate more effectively actionable for left brain thinkers. A complaint I hear fairly often from people in the science and technology sectors when talking about their communication challenges, especially regarding listening skills, is, "I'm running into all that touchy-feely stuff. Why don't they just tell me what to do and how to do it?" Most often, they are frustrated and worried about their future because they have been told that while they have the technical skills, they don't have the necessary people skills to do the job. And they've heard of others who were let go because they couldn't manage the people side of the job.

Unfortunately, in today's time and resources constrained workplace, they have been offered only limited opportunities to improve their situation. And, given that it's rooted in deeply ingrained behaviors, the usual answer of sending them to a single event, such as a one or two-day course to improve their communication skills, rarely results in improved performance. Courses, no matter how good, and reading up on the subject alone, usually provide only limited improvement. It is a classic example of what Jeffrey Pfeffer refers to as the knowledge-doing gap in his book, The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into Action. The knowledge is there, but unused.

Poor interpersonal skills are the result of behaviors that have been developed over the course of their life and cannot be changed by sitting through a few seminars. The behaviors are the result of ingrained habits that need to be altered, and to do that without some form of ongoing help is extremely difficult. It's also more difficult when the advice and recommendations provided don't seem to make sense and aren't actionable by the person most needing them. It's scary to try something new, something different that you don't really understand and that you're not sure others will accept because it's different. It's human nature to fall back to using the tried and true methods, even if the results are unacceptable. This is the deepening career-limiting rut that so many of the people I talk to have found themselves stuck in.

In the past, there were sometimes others in the organization who were skilled at dealing with people and could act as mentors, to be a sounding board for new ideas and provide a safe environment where they could try out new ways of communicating without fear of looking foolish if it didn't work out as expected. Today, that is rarely the case.

People with strong analytical skills, the so-called left brain thinkers, have an amazing ability to identify what's important, connect the dots, and then come up with a better way of reaching their desired solution. These skills apply to communication challenges as well as scientific or engineering ones. They just have to be given the tools and shown how to use them. It's time we put an end to the myth that scientists and engineers can't communicate. They can. They just have to be shown how to do it their way.

On the Brain, the Soul, and the Afterlife

Central to all the Abrahamic religions is the doctrine of an afterlife. Adherents of these religions believe that after this earthly life, people will continue to live on in another state for an eternity. This doctrine has influenced many human activities as well as inspired many beliefs. The earthly existence is considered a transitional phase, a temporary abode in which individual destiny in the afterlife is determined. Some people will go to heaven and others to hell. Those who go to heaven will never face suffering again. It is a comforting notion. It is also a notion that has been essentially refuted by recent scientific research.

The notion of an afterlife necessarily postulates the existence of an intangible, immortal part of the human. This part of the human is commonly called the soul. Now, this soul supposedly contains all the intangible parts of a human: self-awareness, feelings, intelligence, emotions, and personality. When the physical body dies, this intangible soul supposedly continues to live on into eternity. Depending on the person's activities before death, the soul is cast into either eternal rewards or eternal damnation.

In the past, it was nearly impossible to test the soul hypothesis. This is because little was known about the human mind. However, nowadays, through such technologies as CAT (computed axial tomography scans), PET (positron-emission tomography), and the more familiar MRI (magnetic resonance imaging), scientists have managed to map out the entire brain, together with all the functions of its various parts. This is because the brain is an electrochemical system and shows higher electrical activities in the areas that are active.

Through the brain scans, it has been established that virtually every function of the human has a corresponding part of the brain. Some functions correspond to specific parts of the brain, while others correspond to diffused areas of the brain. There is no single dimension of the human that lacks a controlling brain part. Further studies into the brain have shown that when a particular brain part is disabled, the corresponding functions simply cease. For example, when the Broca's area in the frontal left lobe of the brain is destroyed, the person stops speaking, a condition called Broca's aphasia. If, however, the right parietal lobe is stimulated, the right angular gyrus may become excited and an out-of-body experience results. Massive damage to the left brain hemisphere will result in a person with severe depression. Individual happiness can be enhanced by activating another part called the septum. Surprisingly, religious experiences also have a corresponding brain part: the temporal lobes. Epileptic attacks on these lobes have been known to make people hyper-religious, and so on and so forth. Suffice it to say that all human experiences have corresponding parts of the brain.

Now, a question arises. Since all human experiences are apparently dependent on the physical brain, how can they survive death? After all, in death, the brain disintegrates completely. The parts directly responsible for emotions, personality, consciousness, etc., get destroyed. Claiming that these human facets survived death, hence, is like claiming that a person can continue to see even after the eyes have been removed. For just as sight is a function of the eye, consciousness and personality is a function of the brain.

All these things make you wonder if religion is legit, and although scientists have tried to debunk the myth of the soul so many times, they were always left with unanswered questions, and inexplicable phenomena have often tested of some kind of soul, spirit, or afterlife. Can we always scientifically back up those beliefs? Unfortunately, that is difficult, but that's where a person's conviction comes in. All those convictions are often based on intense beliefs, theories, and experiences, or feelings that have unconfirmed, unseen truths scientists cannot explain. In fact, many scientists, including the famous Einstein, are believers in God and the existence of an afterlife. Certainly, this says something about a certain IQ that still believes that this short life cannot simply be all there is to it. A higher purpose is, according to numerous philosophers and intelligent individuals, inevitable. What you believe is up to you, of course.

Chapter 3 Pros and Cons

Left Brained

Engages whole body and mind of a child. Students are often treated as an active learner instead of a passive learner, which usually involves sitting. This helps with student engagement.

Uses demonstrations and assessment to analyse progress. These forms of assessment are more progressive and most times a more effective way of analysing progress in comparison to test-based assessment.

Promotes creativity of students and teachers. Less lecture-based learning and more of helping the students create something unique to their person.

Incorporates cooperative learning. Cooperative learning lets the students take over their learning experience by allowing students to learn from one another and teach each other in small groups, with the teacher giving guidance and basic information of the lesson to those who need it.

Incorporates problem-based learning. Problem-based learning is a student-centered pedagogy in which students learn about a subject through the experience of problem-solving. Students learn both thinking strategies and domain knowledge. (Google definitions, 2014).

Fascination with brain-based learning led to increased attention towards brain function in relation to education. Things that we'll look deeper into include executive function and metacognition.

Incorporates practical simulations. Simulation is a technique for practice and learning that can be applied to many different disciplines and trainees. It is a technique, not a technology, to replace and amplify real experiences with guided ones, often immersive in nature, that evoke or replicate substantial aspects of the real world in a fully interactive fashion.

Cons

Lack of support from experts. There are very few experts willing to back up brain-based education. Those who do are typically for profit.

Lack of scientific data. There is a lack of concrete evidence proving that brain-based education is any more effective than other techniques.

Separate students into specific learners, left brain, right brain. Students are unique individuals who should not be boxed into a specific type of learner. Focusing on these aspects of learning can often take away from the general effectiveness of the education.

High cost. Brain-based education always comes with a price, some heftier than others.

New to the field. Brain-based education has only been around since the start of the 2000s. In terms of education history, it is a newborn infant.

Vague. A lot of brain-based learning uses descriptions and techniques that are foggy and often confusing.

Being Creative

The right brain, left brain myth and flow. Most of us find it hard to imagine bestselling authors struggling with their manuscripts or suffering from writer's block. Instead, we assume they have something special we have to find or develop, and research in vain for the magical formula. In reality, that wonderful state in which the words just flow from our fingers is caused by certain kinds of brain activation, which means there's nothing mystical about it. You can still enjoy the euphoria of being in that state, but better understanding what's happening while you're there, or while you're having trouble getting there, can help you increase your ability to get there at will.

Sometimes it feels like someone or the muse is whispering in your ear, or like you're channeling someone or something else, or even that you've just written down what's really happening in your fictional world. Some writers have even returned to their desks to find wonderful material in their own handwriting that they have no memory of producing.

Flow is actually a way of referring to creative disassociation, and disassociation is a natural phenomenon in which some parts of the brain disengage or split away from the others. It's what happens when you don't remember your drive somewhere because you've been thinking about someone else, or you miss out on part of the conversation because you're daydreaming, or time flies by because you're enjoying a book or a movie.

The Experience of Flow

Flow is always a positive experience. In fact, some people refer to it as optimal experience. And flow doesn't just happen for writers. Athletes call it being in the zone. Chess players, surgeons, dancers, programmers, and others also experience flow when they're completely focused on doing the thing they love. Though everybody's experience is a little different, there are certain things many people report, including:

Distortions in the experience of time. You realise that you've been writing for three hours when it felt like one.

Euphoria. A feeling of calm, competence, or enhanced creativity.

A softening in the boundaries of the self, or a sense of wholeness or spiritual unity.

Another mystical experience of some kind. Basketball players, for example, will sometimes say that the hoop seems bigger when they're in the flow.

Finding the Zone

Zygzen Mihaly describes flow as that perfect balance between challenge, task difficulty, and ability, personal skills. This means that if a task is significantly beyond your ability, you will feel anxiety. For example, let's say you're computer illiterate and you need to install a new PC card or circuit board in your computer. A friend is talking you through the process on the phone, but since you've never even seen the inside of a computer before, you're afraid you're either going to electrocute yourself or fry an expensive piece of equipment. You're probably very anxious.

If the task is well within your ability but presents little challenge, by contrast, you're bored. Washing the dishes is tedious because it's so easy and repetitive that you could probably do it with your eyes closed if you had to. If the task is a challenge to your skills and you're interested in conquering that challenge, you're on the right path to achieving flow.

Okay. Great. Now, how do I achieve flow? First, the bad news. You can't make flow happen; all you can do is learn to remove obstacles in its way. If you're a good typist and can type without looking at the keyboard, you know that as long as you don't think about what your fingers are doing, you're fine. As soon as you start thinking about how fast you're hitting the keys, you start to make mistakes. The same thing happens to athletes who are asked to explain how they do something so well. If they try to demonstrate immediately afterward, they have more trouble than usual because now they're analyzing their movements rather than just doing them.

The Good News. Once you know what flow is and what it feels like, you can start to pay attention to how you got there and increase your ability to do it on purpose.

The Right Brain, Left Brain Myth

Neurologist Alice Flaherty argues that creativity is due to a balance of frontal and temporal lobe activity. In other words, the trick is not, in fact, to get out of your left brain and into your right, but to increase activity in the right hemisphere, or reduce activity in the left so it matches the activity on the other side. Most people don't realise that if you really got all the way out of your left brain, you wouldn't be able to write. The left brain produces language, and in many people, the right brain is completely non-verbal. That is, if we severed that single connection between your right and left hemispheres, the corpus callosum, pronounced corpus callosum, and ask the hand controlled by the non-verbal side of your brain to write words, it either wouldn't be able to, or it could only write extremely simple, extremely familiar words, like your name.

Brain Lateralization. Both sides of your brain work together at all times. But as your brain developed when you were a child, it lateralized functions. In other words, it placed the control centers for some functions on the right side and the control centers for others on the left. People's brains are organised in similar ways, so we can point to a diagram like the one to the right and say with relative certainty that your brain is organised this way too.

Musicians use the left lobe to listen to music, and non-musicians use the right. That's a good example of how experience can change brain organisation. Musicians can hear and identify the logical parts to music. Others usually just listen for enjoyment.

Broca's, pronounced Broca's, area is a specialized part of the brain in the left frontal lobe responsible for language and speech production. Sometimes after a stroke, patients cannot speak until they've worked with a speech therapist. That's because Broca's area was affected by the stroke.

Wernicke's, pronounced Wernicke's, area is a specialized part of the brain in the left temporal side lobe responsible for language comprehension.

The Critic and the Muse Don't Get Along

Unfortunately, the left frontal part of the brain is also responsible for that little voice that's trying to edit while you write, and creative drive is actually much more strongly correlated with good creative output than skill. In other words, if your brain functions normally (i.e., you don't have a tumor), you have the desire to write creatively, and you can shut up that little critical voice, you've got all you need to achieve flow and produce the good stuff. You can get the critic back out when you actually edit, but wait till then. So ignore that critical voice until later, because while you may not produce bad work while it's around, you can't write good stuff either if you're not writing at all.

Increasing the Flow in Your Life

The parts of the brain that are affected by the flow experience are also active during meditation, and for many religious experiences. But you don't have to take up yoga to be more creative. What you need to do is pay attention any time you realize you have been in a flow state. Different things work for different people, but here are some approaches you can try:

1. If there's a TV show, movie, or book that you love so much that the rest of the world disappears for you while you're involved with it, think about what it is about the show that intrigues you so much. Write about the characters, themes, or ideas that keep you riveted. Try to incorporate some of them into your own writing because they activate that part of the brain you want involved. They're the kinds of things that will bring flow to your writing.

2. Write what you think is garbage. Seriously, write the worst stuff you can come up with. In fact, set a goal to write things you've never let yourself write before. Write the most self-important Mary Sue story ever to hit the internet. You don't have to post it. Write that love letter that's so embarrassingly titillating that you'd have to leave town if anyone you know ever saw it. Write about what you'd do if you could say anything you wanted to your co-workers, boss, or clients. If you don't feel comfortable writing or keeping these things in your home, get a safe deposit box at the bank and keep them there. Safe deposit boxes are surprisingly affordable, often only $20 or $30 a year for small boxes. You can also get a post office box and mail yourself your finished pieces. Don't destroy them, though. Some of the best stuff you'll ever write is the stuff that disturbs you the most.

3. Set aside time that won't be interrupted by distractions. You can't achieve flow when the phone keeps ringing, or your partner keeps asking when you're going to fix dinner, or you're worrying about whether that project is done yet. Make that time sacred. Some people advocate sitting in front of the screen or writing tablet throughout that time, even if you don't write a word. But if you find that torturous, you won't do it, so keep other things around you will enjoy doing if you're not overcome by inspiration. Think silly, because flow is a playful kind of state, and grimness isn't going to get you anywhere. Don't bring in work or bills or try to catch up on your emails.

Many people find flow in quiet, repetitive tasks they enjoy. Knitting, beading, drawing (even if you're really bad at it), or playing the piano, or even organising things like photographs, for example. If you can't or don't want to do any of those things, think about what you enjoyed doing before you had so many responsibilities. Buy a few of those comic books you never buy anymore. Do they help you get into the flow state? Download some pictures to colour from the internet and borrow some of your child's Crayolas. Better yet, get some for yourself. A big box with lots of colours. Play dominoes. Paint flowers. Do something that's a guilty pleasure. Something you deprive yourself of far too often. These are the things that will help you find flow most easily.

4. Every time you find yourself in flow, spend a few minutes thinking about how it feels and how you got there, and then... Whatever it was, do it again, soon.

How Much of Your Brain Are You Using and Is It Ever Full?

Despite advances in neuroscience in recent years and the whole discipline gaining more coverage from pressrooms to boardrooms, some of the most basic questions about the workings of the human brain are still causing some confusion. Some myths still abound, like the left brain, right brain myth, which is still regularly trotted out, despite it being proven that in a normal healthy adult, the left and right side are well connected and interact freely, with networks of neurons operating across the brain to complete most tasks. Below are a couple of other common brain questions that we know more about since the advances in neuroscience.

Has anyone ever said that you are only using 10% of your brain in an attempt to prove that you are not reaching your potential? If you haven't heard it there, you may have heard it in a Hollywood movie or two. It is a popular myth that has been debunked well and truly by neuroscience. We use most of our brain most of the time, but some of us are more adept at making the neural connections. The lab images of fMRI scans of the brain, with parts lit up or activated, are only indicating the parts of the brain with increased blood flow and electric activity. The uncoloured parts of the brain are not idle, but ticking over in the background in most cases.

A recent study by a team of MIT researchers published in Science Magazine shows that our brains are active in many regions, even when attempting the most basic of cognitive tasks. "Such a wide distribution of information is incompatible with the notion that we only use a small fraction of our brains," said study co-author Earl Miller, a professor in MIT's Department of Brain and Cognitive Science. The notion that the brain is highly compartmentalised and that separate sections look after separate cognitive functions is a convenient one, but is complicated by the fact that seemingly unconnected areas of the brain are widely involved in neural activity. "They might not show up as active on the fMRIs though. They're showing you the tip of the iceberg, sticking above the water, when actually below the water there's a lot of processing going on everywhere," Miller says. "Some areas may process motion more than colour. Some may process colour more than motion, and sometimes you can see the information rising up in one area before the other, but generally, information is distributed all over the cortex."

Can Your Brain Ever Be Full?

Ever feel like your brain is telling you it's full and there's no room for anymore? Wouldn't it be convenient if we could just throw out the few bad memories and free up a little space for new information? We are well used to talking about memory capacity being surrounded by computing equipment that has rigid limits. While these limits now tend to be in terabytes rather than gigabytes, are our brains subject to similar capacity restrictions?

Cognitive psychologist at the University of Missouri, Nelson Cowan, says, "It's not like each memory takes up a cell and then that cell is used up." It is believed that long-term memories are encoded in neural patterns. Because your brain has a limitless ability to knit together these patterns, the number of memories stored should be limitless too. While this doesn't mean that you can recall all of these memories clearly, it does mean that they are there, and can be added to. Your brain can never really be full of these memories. It's never out of hard drive memory space. Recalling the information clearly is the problem for many of us.

With working or short-term memory, the equivalent of computer RAM, it is much easier to see it hitting full capacity, like when we need to store many quickfire pieces of information and we can only cope with a fraction of it. Researchers have found that most people can remember a maximum of seven random letters, for instance. Only when they are assigned meaning can they be recalled more effectively. And by doing that, we are turning short-term memory into long-term memory.

Chapter 4 Seven Left Brain Characteristics We All Need

The brain is divided into two cerebral hemispheres, the left and the right. This is known as lateralization, and scientists and psychologists have been studying how lateralization affects brain function since the 1960s, or if you want to be hyper-historical, since perhaps the 1860s. Either way, we have come to associate certain characteristics with each side of the brain. There is still much debate concerning fact versus fiction, but this post is interested in what we think we know about the more logical hemisphere, the left brain. If you'd rather not choose science, use this course on whole brain thinking to get the most out of your mind.

Opposites Attract. Here's just a brief introduction to the left side of the brain. First of all, let us remind ourselves that each side of the brain corresponds to the opposite side of the body. The left brain controls the right side of the body, and the right brain controls the left side of the body. Interestingly, most people show a tendency to favour one side of the brain over the other, and there are stereotypes to fit. Generally speaking, the right brain is associated with creativity, intuition, and subjectivity. The left brain, then, is associated with logic, analytics, and rationale. Neither side is considered better than the other, although people with each type like to claim otherwise. If you would rather be one side or the other, that is unfortunately beyond your control. You may be able to use both sides as you wish, but any tendencies you have are written in your DNA. So while the war between sides of the brain rages, recent conclusions are that using the whole brain is always preferred. There are similar opinions that the left-right dilemma is mostly false. Sure. Different parts of the brain control different things. But are we really associated so strongly with one side that we can classify ourselves against that criteria? For the time being, there isn't conclusive evidence either way, but let's examine what we think we know about the left brain's characteristics, whether or not they dominate our tendencies.

Number 1 Left Brain Characteristics, LBC Logic

While the left brain is not known for its creative prowess, it is associated with certain things that definitely require or are useful for a degree of creativity: writing and language in general, reading, remembering, critical thinking, and speaking. This may be useful to keep in mind, as just saying the right brain is the creative side is more of a generalization and not entirely accurate. The left brain processes information in a logical sense, that is, it likes to give preference to fact and to thoroughly investigate a matter before forming a decision. This would oppose the right brain, which would tend to make subjective or even emotional decisions. A left brain person would approach a problem systematically. Maybe they would form a plan of action. You can see how this logic would allow a left brain person to write, speak, and communicate clearly and effectively. You can learn how to think creatively, regardless of brain-sight, with this six-step course on how to train and master your mind for success.

Number 2 LBC Sequence

Sequence is similar to logic in that it prefers a systematic approach. But more specifically, the left brain is sequential in that it can dissect a whole problem or situation and break it down into sequences. Then, it can apply logic to examine each piece individually and in relation to the whole. Again, this makes left brain people very concerned with forethought and planning. Whatever the object is, the left brain will construct a series of stepping stones to attain it. Left brain people are right at home (no pun intended) with deadlines, schedules, regulations, etc. You can use sequence to improve your mind too. This post details yoga sequences to revitalise your entire brain.

Number three, LBC, Critical Thinking, Reasoning.

In other words, the left brain is exceptional at mathematics, even when subjects in mathematics become more theoretical. The left brain still excels at processing symbols and notations. Of course, the left brain's proficiency for memory helps them build upon past ideas and use sequences to further their ideas. Combine this with a propensity for logic and a left-brained person can make short work of difficult mathematical equations and theories. There will be occasions when the right brain's uncanny ability to rely on intuition comes in useful, but the critical thinking and reasoning of the left brain make it a far more reliable mathematician. Whether you have a tendency to side with your left or right brain, this great course on cognitive thinking and brain training can improve memory, clarity, and mental focus.

Number 4 LBC Speech and Language

The left brain dominates the language department, whether it's learning new languages, expanding your expertise, listening, talking, or responding, the left brain has you covered. Interestingly, this is another affirmation that listening is incredibly important and underrated, because the part of the brain that controls hearing is located in the left brain. This allows left-brained people to easily comprehend conversations in spoken language and respond accordingly. The left brain's efficiency with logic and sequence makes left brain people remarkably lucid writers. It is not difficult for them to think logically and then to translate these thoughts into words. It's as natural as objective thinking is to the right brain.

Number five, LBC, Self-Sufficiency.

This is something you don't often hear mentioned in the left brain, right brain conversation. Left brainers adapt more readily to their environments, although this isn't always a good thing. The downside of this is that the left brain likes to follow rules. This is a downside because sometimes rules need to be broken, and that's where the right brain comes in. Still, adjusting to new rules or environments can be a necessity, and the left brain takes it all in stride. When the left brain encounters a situation that is free of law or a way of ordering, it likes to create its own. Again, this just reinforces the belief that the left brain has an advantage when it comes to problem-solving, even creative problem-solving. This Neuroscience Now course can help you tweak your mindset to find success in any business situation through a left brain process of framing and logic.

6. LBC and the Arts

The left brain might have gotten the short end of the stick when it comes to artistic creativity, but that doesn't mean it's entirely inept. A logical, critical, and language-based mindset still has a tendency to create. As mentioned under science efficiency, let's look at where the left brain can make an artistic impression. Abstract art tends to be reserved for the right brain. Emotion is expressed without any recognizable form. Conversely, the left brain creates more literal art. Photography and film can be wonderful outlets for left brains with a creative tendency, as they allow abstraction but are ultimately rooted in something that is seen. But even a left brainer can tap into the other side's powers with this post on right brain exercise to stimulate creative thought. Obviously, left-brained people also make great writers. There may have been some right brain activity at work in the late Gabriel Garcia Marquez's magical realism, but the clarity he was able to create through this technique was likely a result of left brain power.

Number seven, New Ideas and Reality.

Left brains are not famous for creative, groundbreaking ideas, but then again, we aren't really sure how the two sides of the brain work, or don't work together. What we think we know is that the right brain can generate a new idea more efficiently and perhaps to a more intense degree than the left brain, whereas the left brain can take an idea, perhaps conceived by the right side, and run with it. In other words,

The right brain can initiate something, but the left brain can handle the planning, processing, logic, etc. Total success is not possible without both sides of the brain firing on all cylinders.

Expand the mind through brain training. Three fundamentals towards training the brain.

Memory loss is something we fear about. For most of us, it's a sign of aging. We tend to panic and become frustrated when we forget even just the simple things like names, where we store stuff, directions, etc. Memory is the power of the mind to store, retain, and recall information. It is a skill that should be nurtured. To develop memory, it requires practice, repetition, and patience.

The first step is to understand the human brain. The human brain has two very different ways of thinking. American Psychobiologist Roger W. Sperry, in his research in the late 1960s, concluded the following: The right brain is visual and processes information in an intuitive and simultaneous way. The other, the left brain, is verbal and processes information in an analytical and sequential way. The right brain, therefore, is regarded as creative, while the left brain is verbal. One is not better than the other. What's important is to be aware that there are different ways of thinking, knowing what your natural preference is. When we talk about memory, the left brain tends to need more attention. The left brain includes the ability to be analytical, logical, or sequential, rational, objective; it looks at parts. We can start by practicing memorization. The objective is to get the brain to be able to work harder, not to be a genius. I will be sharing with you three fundamentals that can help the memory.

Browsing the internet is a simple, everyday task that we can take advantage of. Learning a new thing or two gets the brain working and helps us think. Reading emails, visiting educational websites, and checking the goings-on in the world will keep us informed and keep our brain working.

Number 2: Nutrition can help. Good nutrition provides energy for us to grow, develop, and do well in school, in the workplace, or in other daily tasks. It enables people to work productively and feel their best. Eating fish thrice a week will reduce cell inflammation, thus preventing memory decline. Dark, leafy vegetables and fruits give us the daily folic acid requirement.

Three: There are also supplements available in the market which are considered as memory boosters. Ginkgo biloba, or maidenhair tree, is not only a memory and concentration enhancer but also an anti-vertigo agent. Ginseng is an adaptogen which increases the body's resistance to stress. Foods rich in Vitamin E like asparagus, avocado, egg, milk, nuts, red palm oil, seeds, spinach, vegetable oils, and whole grain foods aid the circulation of blood and oxygen to the brain, which removes unwanted toxins.

An unchallenged brain will not expand and grow. The brain does not grow old. It deteriorates because it is not being used. Why brain training? The brain needs care, just like the body.

Brain connections: The two hemispheres. Let's continue to talk about the human brain and all the interconnected parts that serve different but complementary functions. It is made of two halves called hemispheres which develop at different times and have different functions. The right hemisphere develops first and continues to be dominant for the first three years of a child's life. This is where representations of early experiences that occurred before the development of language are stored. These representations constitute our implicit memory, totally non-conscious and being non-consciously communicated to other right brains.

The right hemisphere is dominant at birth and for the first two years of a child's life. It primarily processes non-conscious, non-verbal emotional information and is the main seat of empathy. It provides whole views of experiences, gestalts of processed information. Its contents are more intuitive than logical, social, and self-reflective. It is also the site of what is called implicit memory, which cannot be consciously recalled as there is no awareness of it.

When a mother and her infant communicate, they do so using their right brains. Not through logical verbal conversations, but through facial expressions, sounds, actions that convey emotions that infants and later children learn to identify and respond to, without having any awareness of this process as yet. A child and the maternal parent, particularly before the child's acquisition of language, communicate with one another exclusively at the body level. Mother downloading emotional information from the right hemisphere of her brain into her infant's right brain, which needs this input to grow. This process is not dissimilar from information being downloaded from one computer to another. We can see, therefore, that not only at the psychological level but at the physiological level as well, learning and maturation require physical and emotional interaction.

During the first few months of a baby's life, these communications simply refer to sounds, particularly the mother's voice, and pictures, particularly mother's eyes and her entire face, which for a while constitutes a baby's entire universe. This non-verbal affective system continues to operate throughout a person's lifespan. However, as the left brain with its circuitry for language and thinking develops, information from the right brain is progressively transferred to the left brain, which starts to become increasingly more important, leading the way for an effective experience to be both emotionally felt and verbally and intellectually processed. Emotional states are then expressed with the use of words and organized into logical sequences that are coherent. As words force us to engage both right and left hemispheres, this process leads to a balance between thinking and feeling, which is the hallmark of physiological health.

Why is it important to know all of this information? Aside from curiosity about how parts of our body work, it helps us understand how we feel and think as adults as well, as the way we interact, understand, and feel is profoundly affected by memories encoded in our brains of early experiences. When as adults we are attracted to a person and begin an emotional relationship, we return to the primacy of right brain to right brain communication. When we gaze into the other person's eyes, for instance, we feel the other's presence and respond in ways that are aimed at creating a deeper emotional connection and a limbic emotional resonance between us and them.

The left hemisphere, by contrast, presides over the logical, analytical, and linear processing of experience and language-based communication. This does not mean, however, that each hemisphere specializes in particular functions at the exclusion of others. Most human activities, in fact, require the integration of the two hemispheres, including experiencing emotions, which exist in both hemispheres.

Are you only using half of your brain? The left and right hemispheres of your brain. The right side of your brain controls the muscles on the left side of your body, and the left side of your brain controls the muscles on the right side of your body. Also, in general, sensory information from the left side of the body crosses over to the right side of your brain, and information from the right side of the body crosses over to the left side of your brain. That's why brain damage to one side of the brain affects the opposite side of the body.

Each side of the brain responds to specific stimuli and controls specific activities. For example, the right brain is used for spatial abilities, face recognition, visual imagery, and music, and the left brain is used for linear processing, math, and logical abilities.

Left Brain Functions:

Logic

Reason

Maths

Language

Reading

Writing

Analysis

Detail

Short-term memory

Repetition

Structure

Effort

Focus

Right Brain Functions:

Facial Recognition

Rhythm

Visual imagery

Creativity

Emotions

Dreams

Long-term memory

The bigger picture

Music and tone

Half the picture

The way we live in the Western world tends to discourage right brain activity. We are conditioned to think in a linear or logical fashion, to control, even suppress, our emotional expressions, to break ideas and pictures down into pieces. But when we are functioning from a left brain bias, we are missing out on the broader perspective offered by the right hemisphere. We may have difficulty in piecing images, words, or concepts together, and overall, we will lack vision in the fullest sense of the term.

Cross-crawl, an easy way to balance your brain. Cross-crawl derives its name from the way babies move when they are crawling. By using opposite arms and legs as they speed across the carpet, babies are assisting their developing brain by stimulating the left and right hemispheres at the same time. The original research and application of cross-crawl was used to help brain-damaged children. When baby walkers became popular, there was some concern that they got babies on two legs prematurely and encouraged skipping valuable brain-developing crawling time. In recent years, the simple act of encouraging the use of both sides of the brain at the same time has led to beneficial breakthroughs for children with learning difficulties and challenges with coordination. For adults, the simple cross-crawl exercise gets the right hemisphere back online for problem-solving and creative thinking. This helps reduce overall stress and anxiety and gets you thinking smarter.

How to Cross-Crawl: It's easy. Cross-crawl is simply an exaggeration of our normal walking. As an exercise in simultaneously stimulating both hemispheres of the brain, cross-crawl is done by marching on the spot, raising the opposite arm to leg at each step. That is, the right arm is moved with the left leg, and the left arm is moved with the right leg. Swinging the opposite arm and leg across the front of the body slightly increases the benefits. Practicing for just five minutes here and there throughout the day is enough to start generating real benefits.

Cross-Crawl and CFS: One key benefit of cross-crawl is that it assists in the circulation of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). CSF performs the vital functions of protecting the delicate tissues of the brain from injury and bathing the tissues of the brain with essential nutrients. CSF is circulated by tiny movements in the bones of the skull and pelvis which occur during respiration. If the CSF is stagnated, it can result in inadequate communication within the central nervous system and difficulties with coordination. An inactive lifestyle with poor breathing habits can result in the flow of CSF becoming sluggish. The opposite can also be taken as true. Good respiration and gentle, regular exercise enhances the flow of CSF and improves coordination and communication within the nervous system.

Walking and conscious crossover. As adults, one key way to increase our personal performance on all levels is by taking regular walks. Walking encourages the left and right hemispheres of the brain to communicate and cooperate, particularly if the walking action is exaggerated by swinging the arms slightly more than usual. As we walk, when we put one foot forward, it is controlled by the opposite hemisphere of the brain. For example, if we begin with our left foot, the right hemisphere of the brain is brought into action. Then, when we put our right foot forward, the left hemisphere of the brain takes over briefly until we step out with the right foot. If, while walking, we swing the opposite arm (i.e., right arm with left foot and vice versa), we are encouraging the hemispheres of the brain to work in simultaneous cooperation.

Ancient Ayurvedic healing texts provide extensive information on different body types and specific activities for bringing the energies of the body into balance. Walking is one of only a few activities which are considered to be beneficial to all body types. It is a safe and self-regulating activity from which there can only be benefit.

The benefits of regular cross-crawl: The benefits of regular periods of cross-crawling include clear thinking, improved coordination and spatial awareness, left-right hemisphere brain balance, reduced stress, improved vision, emotional balance, improved memory, improved mental clarity, stimulation of the lymphatic system, spelling, writing, reading, and comprehension.

Cross-crawl variations:

Sitting: Moving the opposite arm and leg together, marching on the spot, reaching behind the body, touching one hand to the opposite foot, reaching with the opposite arm and leg in different directions.

Laying down: Laying on the back and raising opposite arms and legs.

7 good eating habits that can increase brain function. A well-balanced diet can work wonders on various emotional and physical aspects of your life. However, many people are unaware that developing certain eating habits can increase brain function. Here are seven habits that can help you accomplish this.

Number one, eat enough. The body requires a certain daily caloric intake to allow even basic functions like maintaining a regular heartbeat and breathing. If not eating enough can have a significant adverse effect on even your survival mechanisms, it is easy to postulate that the effects on your mental capacities will be significant. The average human requires a minimum of 1200 calories per day. Less than this will be detrimental to your thought processes. As an added benefit, eating the right amount each day will help ensure that you maintain a healthy weight.

Number 2. Eat foods high in phenylalanine. The exchange of information between neurotransmitters has significant effects on your mood and your productivity. When dopamine is released, it sends a message to the rest of your brain and body that all is well. Known as the feel-good chemical, dopamine is released when foods high in phenylalanine like beets, eggs, and almonds are consumed.

Number three, reduce your caffeine intake. When you're feeling sluggish, the first reaction most people have is to reach for a cup of coffee or strong tea. Unfortunately, drinking too much coffee will have the opposite intended effect on your alertness. Not only do you risk becoming dependent on it to function on an average day, but once it wears off, you'll feel more tired than before you drank it. By limiting your coffee drinking to when you absolutely need it, you stave off the dependent properties of the drug and help yourself feel more alert.

Number 4. Eat foods high in choline. Since new connections between neurons in your brain help improve memory, it is important to keep the process of connecting the neurons active. Foods high in choline such as cabbage and eggs will help you improve your memory. In fact, recent studies have shown that choline can even help reduce the advancement of Alzheimer's.

5. Antioxidants are key. Free radical damage caused by pollution in the environment can be prevented by eating foods like blueberries, edamame, and garlic. Damage to brain cells can result in a limited number of new connections between neurons, resulting in a lower mental capacity overall.

Number six, avoid bad sugars. Foods like chocolate and other candies high in sugar are known to cause a short burst of dopamine release in your brain. The negative effects of too much sugar on your weight are well known, but the mental effects garner less attention. Once the dopamine levels have receded, you will be left feeling more sluggish and less alert, and you will likely find yourself in a foul mood as well.

Number 7. Omega-3 Fatty Acids. Fish has been known as a brain food for decades, and it is not just myth. The presence of omega-3 fatty acids helps to improve firing processes between neurons. This results in more neurological connections being forged and, in turn, an increase in your brain function to help improve important areas of your life such as work functionality and your creative processes. It is best to pair mental exercises with these seven good eating habits that can increase brain function and stabilize your moods. A diet full of the right nutrients can enrich your mind as well as improve your overall health.

Conclusion: The left brain also seems to have a propensity for reality. You would not expect to find many metaphysical wanderings in the left brain. While this might limit the left brain in terms of considering all possibilities, it also prevents the left brain from getting lost in the impossible, unrealistic, or off-topic. The left brain prefers to stay rooted in and focused on reality. This is the epitome of the left brain: relying on logic, sequence, critical reasoning, and self-sufficiency.

Handedness and brain asymmetry are widely regarded as unique to humans and associated with complementary functions, such as a left brain specialization for language and logic and a right brain specialization for creativity and intuition. In fact, asymmetries are widespread among animals and support the gradual evolution of asymmetrical functions such as language and tool use. Handedness and brain asymmetry are inborn and under partial genetic control, although the gene or genes responsible are not well established. Cognitive and emotional difficulties are sometimes associated with departures from the norm of right-handedness and left brain language dominance, more often with the absence of these asymmetries than their reversal.

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Take a look at these other books too: Bipolar Disorder, Borderline Disorder, and Schizophrenia. Thank you.

This has been Left Brain, Myths and Neurological Facts, written by Tyler Borden, narrated by Thomas Cassidy. Copyright 2018 by Vincent Newt. Production copyright 2018 by Vincent Newt.