How the brain works and why fatigue stimulates creative thinking
Forming / / December 19, 2019
Fatigue stimulates creative thinking
Everyone has their own rhythm of life and the biological clock activity. Brain lark works best in the morning: at that time, such people feel more fresh and vigorous, are receptive and process information, solve complex problems that require analysis and logical building ties. In Soviet time the activity comes later.
But when it comes to creative work, search for new ideas and innovative approaches, turn on another principle: brain fatigue becomes an advantage. Sounds strange and implausible, but there is a logical explanation.
When you get tired, it reduces the concentration of a particular job and less eliminated various distracting thoughts. In addition, you remember less established connections between concepts.
This is a great time for creativity: you forget to hackneyed schemes in your head swarming different ideas that do not relate directly to the project, but they can bring to a valuable idea.
Not focusing on a specific issue, we cover a wide range of ideas, see more options and options for development. So it turns out that tired brain is capable of producing very creative ideas.
Stress alters brain size
Stress very bad for health. Moreover, it directly affects the function of the brain, and studies have shown that in some cases, critical situations can even reduce its size.
One of the experiments conducted on monkeys cubs. The goal - to study the influence of stress on the development of children and their mental health. Half of the monkeys for six months given to the care of their peers, and the other left with their mothers. After that, the cubs were returned to the usual social groups, and a few months later scanned their brains.
In monkeys, which are taken away from their mothers, the brain regions associated with stress, remained increased even after returning to a normal social groups.
For precise findings more research is needed, but it is terrible even to think that stress can so long to change the size and function of the brain.
Another study showed that rats exposed to constant stress, decreases the size of the hippocampus. This part of the brain is responsible for emotions and memoryOr rather for the transfer of information from short-term memory to long-term.
Scientists have studied the relationship between the size of the hippocampus and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but so it has not been clear whether it actually reduces stress, or people prone to PTSD, just have a small hippocampus. Experiment with rats has become proof that the excitement really changes the size of the brain.
The brain is almost incapable of multitasking
For productivity are often advised to perform several tasks at the same time, but the brain is almost can not cope with it. We think that we are doing several things at once, but actually just the brain rapidly switches from one to another.
Studies show that while solving many problems the error probability increases to 50%, that is exactly half. Speed tasks falls by about half.
We share the resources of the brain, pay less attention to each task, and significantly worse to perform each of them. Brain, instead of wasting resources on problems spends them on the painful switch from one to another.
French researchers studied the brain's response to multitasking. When the participants in the experiment was prepared second task, each hemisphere begins to work independently of the other. As a result, overweight affects the efficiency: the brain can not perform tasks at full capacity. When it was added to the third task, the results were even worse: the participants forgot about one of the tasks and made more mistakes.
Nap improves brain performance
Everyone knows that sleep is good for the brain, but how about a light slumber during the day? It turns out that it really is very useful and helps to pump some intelligence capabilities.
Improve memory
Participants of the study were to memorize the pictures. After the boys and girls that they could remember, they were given a 40 minute break before testing. One group at the time dozing and the other - awake.
After the break, researchers tested the participants and found that the group that slept, kept in the minds of much larger images. On average participants rested remembered 85% of the volume data, whereas the second group - only 60%.
Studies show that when information first enters the brain, it is contained in the hippocampus, where all the memories are very short-lived, especially when new information continues to come. During sleep, memories are moving into a new cortex (neocortex), which can be called a permanent repository. There's information is securely protected by "overwriting".
Improving learning ability
short sleep also it helps clear the brain of information, in which it is contained temporarily. Purification brain again ready to accept.
Recent studies have shown that during sleep the right hemisphere is more active than the left. And this despite the fact that 95% of people - right-handed people, and in this case, the left hemisphere of the brain is better developed.
The study's author Andrei Medvedev suggested that during sleep the right hemisphere "is on guard." Thus, while resting the left, the right clears short-term memory, pushing memories into long-term storage.
Vision - most importantly a sense of
Man gets most of their information about the world through vision. If you listen to any of the information, in three days you will remember about 10% of it, and if we add to this picture, you will remember 65%.
Images are perceived much better than text, because the text for our brain - a lot of small pictures, of which it is necessary to get the meaning. It takes more time, and the information is stored worse.
We are accustomed to trust the vision so that even the best tasters define tinted white wine as red only because they see its color.
In the picture below the highlighted areas which are associated with vision, and shows which part of the brain is affected. Compared with the other senses is a huge difference.
Temperament depends on the characteristics of the brain
Scientists discovered that the type of personality and temperament of the person depends on the genetic predisposition to the development of neurotransmitters. Extroverts are less susceptible to dopamine - a powerful neurotransmitter that is associated with cognition, movement and attention and brings a person a feeling of happiness.
Extroverts requires more dopamine, and for its production requires the additional stimulator - epinephrine. That is the more extrovert of new experiences, communication, risk, the greater the dopamine develops his body and become happier people.
introverts, on the contrary, are more sensitive to dopamine, and their primary neurotransmitter is acetylcholine. It is associated with attention and cognition, is responsible for the long-term memory. In addition, it helps us to dream. We introverts should be a high level of acetylcholine, then they feel good and relaxed.
Highlighting some of the neurotransmitters, the brain uses the autonomic nervous system, which connects the brain to the body and directly affects the decisions and reactions to the world around us.
We can assume that if artificially increase the dose of dopamine, such as engaging in extreme sports, or, conversely, the amount of acetylcholine at the expense of meditation, you can change your temperament.
Errors cause sympathy
Apparently, mistakes make us more sympathetic, which proves the failure of the so-called effect.
People who never make mistakes are perceived worse than those who sometimes makes mistakes. Mistakes make you more alive and human, clean atmosphere strained his invincibility.
This theory has been tested by psychologist Elliot Aronson. Participants were allowed to listen to the record of the quiz, during which one of the experts dropped a cup of coffee. As a result, it became clear that the sympathy of the majority of respondents were on the side of the awkward person. So that minor errors can be helpful: they have to you people.
Exercise the brain reboot
Of course, exercise is good for the body, but what about the brain? Clearly, the relationship between training and liveliness of mind still exists. Furthermore, happiness and physical activity is also linked.
People involved in sports, superior passive couch potatoes of all the criteria of the brain: memory, thinking, attention, ability to solve problems and challenges.
As for happiness, exercise trigger the release of endorphins. The brain perceives the training as a dangerous situation and to protect, produces endorphins, which help deal with the pain, if any, and if not - bring happiness.
To protect the neurons of the brain, the body also synthesizes protein BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor). It not only protects, but also restores neurons that acts as a reboot. Therefore, after training you feel at ease and see the problem from a different angle.
You can slow down time, if you take something brand new
When the brain receives the information, it is not necessarily supplied in the correct order, and before we understand the brain must represent it as necessary. If you come to the usual information on its processing does not leave a lot of time, but if you doing something new and unfamiliar, the brain long handles unusual data and arranges them in the correct order.
That is, when you learns something new, time slows down just enough, as you need your brain to adapt.
Another interesting fact: time is learned is not one area of the brain, and different.
Each of the five human senses have their own area, and involved many in the perception of time.
There is another way to slow down the time - concentrate Attention. For example, if you are listening to pleasant music, which gives you a real pleasure being stretched. The maximum concentration is, and in life-threatening situations, and exactly the same time, they move much more slowly than in a calm, relaxed state.
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