There are no lights inside the skull.
There’s no sound either.
All you’ve got to go on are streams of electrical impulses, which are only indirectly related to things in the world.
So perception – figuring out what’s out there – has to be a process of informed guesswork.
The brain combines these sensory signals with its prior expectations or beliefs about the way the world is to form its best guess of what caused those signals.
Let me repeat that: the brain doesn’t hear sound or see light.
What we perceive is its best guess of what’s out there in the world.
Instead of perception depending largely on signals coming into the brain from the outside world, it depends as much, if not more, on perceptual predictions flowing in the opposite direction. We don’t just passively perceive the world, we actively generate it. The world we experience comes as much, if not more, from the inside out as from the outside in.
– Anil Seth
Okay, but how do you make the most of it then?
The good news is that, since reality as we know it is essentially just completely made up, you can guide that process.
One of the most basic techniques I like to use to make the most of my brain is to write things down.
I used to not write things down and just hope for the best, but that never works.
Because the more you task your brain with remembering things, the more shortcuts it’s gonna come up with.
And that means it’s gonna forget things.
Or change them to be more convenient, essentially creating inaccurate accounts of the past.
Writing the stuff that needs to be remembered down, frees up the RAM in your little head computer to work on the important job: thinking.
Cuz your brain was designed to think, not to store information.
But thinking is resource-guzzling work.
Meaning that the more you use your brain for what it was meant for, the more tired it’s going to get.
So, the next thing you’ll want to learn is how to keep that engine chugging.
Taking care of the basics: eating, sleeping, exercise, socialising and having downtime are all crucial when it comes to producing quality creative work.
Without that, your brain won’t work because it’s using whatever resources it has to keep you alive and surviving, one day at a time.
Once you’ve made sure the basics are covered, you can move on to being a master of propelling your brain through the day by using your to-do list creatively.
What I mean by this is that you can learn to recognise the dips in your mood.
And you can address and prevent them.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been accused of having something called “gigglemug”.
Yahan, you heard that right.
I only recently learned it’s a word.
It basically means a habitually smiling face. Kind of like a reverse resting bitch face, maybe?
All I know is, that I’ve always had people come up to me asking things like, “What’s so funny?” or “What are you smiling about?” when I’ve just been going about my usual day, not even thinking that I was smiling.
But then I realised, my gigglemug might very well be a result of how I manage my brain.
Here’s what I’ve found to be generally true (but this isn’t ultimate truth), if you have a lack of…
- serotonin, you get grumpy,
- dopamine, you get frustrated and demotivated,
- oxytocin, you get depressed and unhappy.
Knowing what cause and effect does what helps you to pepper the right kind of things into your daily to-do list.
For instance, I add seemingly inane tasks to my to-do list, such as eat lunch and go to the loo and play WoW for an hour and drink coffee.
By adding tasks to my to-do list that I’m gonna do anyway, such as eat lunch or go to the loo, I’m giving myself easy wins.
When I check those easy things off the to-do list, I get a hit of dopamine that propels me into the next thing.
And enough of those little things give you a big enough boost to sail through the bigger stuff.
By adding things that I know I’ll enjoy doing, such as eating a piece of chocolate and watching a fave show for 10 mins and playing a game, I’m boosting my serotonin and oxytocin.
Plus, those are more things I get to tick off the to-do list, fuelling the dopamine.
My work, and creative work in general, often revolves around long-term projects.
This makes it an integral part of your life as a professional creative to know how to break those long-term projects into smaller chunks to keep yourself motivated.
Some days that means getting super granular, when you’re out of balance.
And on the good days, managing your brain makes achieving even the big goals feel like a breeze.
Want to get more out of reading books?
Grab this FREE guide on how to start a reading journal, complete with review templates, reading trackers and bingo sheets.
Understand yourself better as a reader, engage more with the books you read & make space for creative self-expression. Get it now!
“When Sasha Barrett gets bitten by a snake on a mission, her squad captain’s quick actions not only save her life, but also make her realise something she may have known all along…“
