MIND POWER

TRAIN THE BRAIN!

How to sharpen your thinking

A 2020 study undertaken by Queen’s University suggests that the average person has over 6,000 thoughts a day – a rate of roughly 6.5 new thoughts a minute during waking hours with approximately 90 percent being repetitive. 

Worrying about an unfinished project, an upcoming performance review or issues that demand your attention makes you more stressed and unhappy. 

The mental chatter, relentless information overload, overflowing email inboxes and deluge of verbiage contribute to brain fog and mental fatigue – and they disrupt our ability to process and produce.

Director of the Stanford Centre for Precision Mental Health Dr. Leanne Williams used high definition brain imaging technology to identify different biotypes or short circuits that are responsible for thoughts and emotions, which eventually get stuck in a loop. Many of us experience this at some point when we say things such as ‘now, where was I?’ 

Psychiatrist Dr. Daniel Amen, who has amassed neuro scientific research on it, explains that thoughts release chemicals triggering electrical transmissions across our brain – and they impact how we feel and behave. 

He warns about problematic thoughts such as thinking in terms of always, never, should, and must and have to, as well as blaming, guilt, personalising and mind reading tendencies, emphasising that care for our brains can positively influence our lives. 

Our brains – including the neural pathways that don’t serve us – can be tamed by strengthening our prefrontal cortex (controlling reasoning, memory and conscious awareness), to identify and replace irrational and harmful thoughts with realistic, affirmative and helpful ones. 

The way forward includes a fundamental shift from our autopilot reactive and habit driven existence to intentionality, which is a strategic overhaul of our mental operating system. 

Stem cell biologist Dr. Bruce Lipton counters this by claiming we are victims of our genetic inheritance and that to make our brain work for us, we must first master our perceptions. Consciously shifting our belief systems and internal narratives can move us from a state of survival to one of growth. 

Here are some neuro language programming (NLP) strategies, which aim to change the internal map that dictates our external reality – by focussing on the language that we use, both internally and externally, we can literally programme our mental operating system for high-level success.

REFRAMING This refers to changing the meaning of a situation by transforming the context or frame through which you view it. For example, the difference between seeing something as feedback rather than a failure.

Context reframingasks: ‘In what other situation could this behaviour or event be useful?’ Similarly, content reframinghelps us focus on ‘what else could this mean?’ For instance, if a client is being highly critical, you can reframe the customer as being highly invested in achieving the best possible result.

ANCHORING This technique is used to create specific internal states on demand and mapping them to a physical touch or a specific word. This enables you to trigger that peak state instantly before an important event.

Recall a time you felt absolutely unstoppable. As the feeling reaches its peak, press your thumb and forefinger together firmly, and repeat this five to 10 times. Eventually, physical touch (the anchor) will automatically fire the neurological state of confidence.

SWISHING This is used to replace a self-sabotaging mental image with a high-performance alternative. It works by changing the sub-modalities (settings) of your thoughts. To begin, visualise the behaviour you want to change as a large, bright picture on a huge screen in front of you. 

In the bottom corner, place a small dark picture of your ideal self who is productive and energised. Mentally swish them by shrinking the large negative image till it turns black and white, and enlarge the small positive image until it fills the screen in vivid colour. Repeat this rapidly until the old habit no longer feels right. 

REFLECTING To be successful, NLP emphasises that you don’t need to reinvent the wheel but can follow the internal syntax of someone who is already successful.

Reflect on his or her belief systems, their actions, and any specific words they use to describe challenges and opportunities. By adopting these mannerisms, you can install the same ‘success software’ in your own mind.

Making your brain work for you is the ultimate skill in an age of exponential complexity because it is a dynamic system that’s capable of profound evolution.