Mindup brain how to#

This part of the brain doesn’t immediately react to stimuli but instead stops, looks at them assesses them, balances them, calms them down, governs them, dampens the extremes of polarity, and allows you to think before you react. While it may be highly effective if you’re in danger of being knocked over by a car when a swift reaction could save your life, being in constant survival mode is not the wisest way to live.Ĭompare this, if you will, with a different scenario, where stimuli come in and make their way into the higher and more advanced part of your brain known as the medial prefrontal cortex or executive center. This is also known as ‘ systems 1 thinking’ which originates in the more subcortical amygdala and results in you reacting without thinking. The subconscious mind stores all your perceived previously imbalanced associations and dissociations.Īs a result of these imbalanced and lopsided perceptions, associations, or dissociations anyone or anything that reminds you of that individual or event (secondary associations) can result in an immediate reaction or response to seek or avoid. Perceptions that have been stored in an imbalanced way are called the subconscious mind. From that moment on, each time you see that particular breed of dog, your body may subconsciously tense and go into fight-or-flight mode. As such, you’ll experience either an impulse towards it or an instinct away from it.Īn example of this could be a large breed of dog that jumped up on you and frightened you as a child. If you have a stimulus resulting from a so-called positive previous experience where you perceived there to be more upsides than downsides, or from a so-called negative previous experience where you perceived there to be more downsides than upsides, you'll likely stay in the lower functioning part of the brain because it will be registered in your subconscious ‘mind’ as something to seek (prey) or something to avoid (predator). The lower you go into the subcortical and lower and more primitive part of the brain, the higher the probability of your reacting without thinking. In other words, if you have a stimulus, the higher you go in the brain, the higher the probability of your thinking before reacting. Anywhere from the amygdala down into the hindbrain is where you tend to react before you think.Īnywhere from that area up into the cortex area is where you tend to think before you react.

There's an area of the brain called the amygdala. The amygdala versus the executive center in the brain. As a result, you have a greater likelihood of having a more objective and governed response.

Mindup brain how to#

However, as you move up in the brain and have a larger number of interneurons, the more likely you are to be active than reactive because you have more options on how to perceive that stimulus. The resulting knee-jerk response is something you have no conscious control over – hence the widely used phrase, “having a knee-jerk reaction” to an individual or situation.

Think of a simple monosynaptic reflex, as an example, a test many doctors perform by hitting your knee with a reflex hammer. As you go up in the brain, the greater the number of interneurons, and the lower you move down the spinal cord, the fewer the interneurons. These additional associated stimuli then combine with the new stimuli as it moves up the spinal cord or brain stem into the brain and summates into experiences through associative interneurons. As it does, it also gets associated with previous experiences you've had that then get additionally associated with the stimulus. You have photoreceptors, audio receptors, smell receptors, taste receptors, tactile feeling receptors, temperature receptors, pain receptors, and pressure receptors, to name but a few.Īll the externally received information comes in via the receptors and goes into and up the spinal cord and brain stem and into the brain. Dr John Demartini explains the difference between your subconscious and superconscious minds so you can move from being reactive to proactive on your journey to self-mastery.Įvery time you receive stimuli from the outside world, you experience them through one of your sensory many receptors.