Our world around us is a reflection of who we are and what we perceive to be.
Before we even talk about ‘brain hacks’, we need to understand a little bit about our brains and how they work. In order for our brains to function, we need energy, and it is glucose that provides the energy for our brains to function, and it takes a lot of glucose to fuel our brains. Although our brains are 2% of our total body weight, it uses 20% of our total glucose demands. This makes our brains are highly dependent on levels of glucose to be able to make decisions and have self-control.
In terms of decision making, our brains require the same amount of glucose no matter the ‘size’ of the decision that we need to make. Our brains cannot differentiate between a ‘huge’, life impacting decision – like to take that next job, or a ‘small’ decision – like what to wear for the day (although these ‘small’ decisions can be completely life changing).
With the large amounts of glucose it takes to fuel our brains, to make the brain function as efficiently as possible, our brains have developed ‘shortcuts’. These shortcuts represent our view of the world around us. So far, 188 different types of mental shortcuts have been mapped. Shortcuts are essentially narratives or dialogues that we ‘run in our minds’, much like the grooves on a record player.
Many of these narratives have originated from the ages where there is massive growth in our brains, that is our world as we see it up until the age of about 8 years old. In our early years of life, we form our own construct of the world, how it operates and how we ‘fit’ into it, through our own experiences and others that we observe. As we go through life, our shortcuts can be further refined and defined through our life experiences.
These shortcuts are so powerful as they determine everything about us, our environment, how we live our life, how ‘successful’ we will be, and even how ‘happy’ we are. The funny thing is that these shortcuts developed by our brains to help us make sense of the world, may or may not enable us to see and think about things clearly. For instance, following a conversation, my version of it will always be different to your version, despite us both being in the same room, having the same conversation. For our brain to naturally think differently, it takes a lot of energy to make that happen.
So now that we know a bit more about the brain, let’s talk about ‘brain hacks’. A ‘brain hack’ is just that, a tool or method that can break through these shortcuts of the way we see, and think of ourselves and our environment that our brains have built over time. One of the simplest ‘hacks’ is a question, that helps you see, feel, and think differently. More complex ‘hacks’ help to re-write the way you remember your past, overcome trauma, change habits or break intergenerational cycles.
My coaching programs are full of these ‘brain hacks’, ways for us to break through the realities that our minds have created for us, to see our worlds differently, ways for us to show up differently, and ways for us to alter our environments and of course our future paths. If any of this interests you, drop me a line at info@afreshapproach.com.au or book in a quick meet and greet here: https://calendly.com/afreshapproachcoaching
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