Fear – our brain could be playing games – 4

Most people talk about how our brain has evolved from the reptilian brain over multiple millinea. Most other animals didn’t have the real estate in their heads to allow for their brains to grow and evolve. Human beings had the real estate and therefore we have been able to evolve. Zebras a hundred thousands years back looked exactly the same as they do today. Human beings a hundred thousand years back and now are totally different.

Now this evolution doesn’t mean that the oldest part of the human brain – the lizard brain – does not exist. It still does. As in lizards its main function is to preserve the life of the lizard. And it believes that it can do it by conserving energy. So whenever you take into a direction where it needs to expend energy, it dissuades you by giving you resistance, by throwing massive negative ideas at you to make you feel scared.

Yesterday I wrote about being fearless versus being reckless.

Being fearless does not mean an absence of fear. It means that when you see resistance, or when fear throws its head up, you realise that there could actually be something worthwhile in that direction. Its just one way for your brain to give you an indication that there’s something new, which it has not encountered before and therefore you need to take a judicious call and move forward.

Your brain is a habit forming, pattern recognition system. If it cannot see a pattern it throws up alarm bells that it will need to spend more energy to do work and therefore it should be avoided because it has to save that energy for your survival. Anytime you learn something new this is what will happen till the new becomes old.

Without being reckless, welcome the fear as a sign of progress for yourself and move forward.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Fear – our brain can be playing games – 2

Brain size, Energy, Fear, Human Brain

Today’s will be a very short post. I generally write based on what I have experienced during the day or what I have read and found worth sharing with you.

Two days back I wrote a post with this heading and its my thesis, I am not sure if there’s a scientific backing to the fact that its brain which plays games in making us fear things because it wants to conserve energy. For all those who have not read that post, the brain consumes between 20-25% energy compared to the remaining body while its sizeis only 2% of the body. The second point is that the brain believes that its first agenda is to ensure your survival and therefore wants to conserve energy for that rainy day.

Tomorrow I intend to be a going to a place which is little distance from where we stay. I have been there more than 50-60 times. But because of the Covid lockdown we haven’t gone outside our home location for more than 18 months.

Just this fact that I planned to go got my brain working in overtime in trying to show me all the reasons to not go and creating fear and panic.

This time however, I used this new logic which I have created and just asked my brain to relax. It did quieten up.

I will try more experiments like these whenever I am feeling a little scared and will let you know.

Meanwhile if you could also try this and let me know your results in the comments section below.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

The curve balls that life throws at us

Character, ego, Energy, Fear, Human Brain

Life has a queer way of throwing curve balls (sudden challenges) at us, when we least expect it. That’s why curve balls or googlies (as they are called in the game of cricket) are so effective in getting the person “out”.

Life throws these curve balls to see how prepared we are to handle them and then navigate them and come out a winner. And no one will ever live a life without getting their fare share of curve balls. The type and duration of the challenge may change from person to person but everyone will get them.

Its how people navigate these challenges is what builds character of the person. The bigger the challenges that a person has encountered and successfully managed , more humility the person generally has. Most of the so called “great” people are also some of the most down to earth because of this reason. They recognise the fact that nothing in life is permanent and you never know when things can change within a matter of minutes. That is also one of the reason why, when we are younger we tend to be brash with a lot of ego, but as we grow older, we become more modesthuman

I used to think of the major challenges that life had sent my way and would wonder the typical response “why me”. Then over the years I have read hundreds of books, auto-biographies etc. and one common element in most of them has been the fact that all these people had as many or even more challenges than me.

That’s when I realised the significance of what Tony Robbins says “life happens for me not to me”. I need to build the capabilities to handle the “curve” balls. As I build the capabilities, I will become more successful.

Here I will tie it in with what I wrote in my post yesterday. Fearing the curve ball is a game which your brain plays on you. Most curve balls are not life threatening, but your brain makes you feel scared , because it wants to conserve energy , to use the energy when your survival is at stake.

If you can tame your brain to handle these situations and build capabilities, you can move forward at a much faster and higher level. As they say – a plane will not be able to take -off if it does not get resistance from air. It uses the resistance to get the lift -off.

Till next time then – build your capabilities and love to play the curve balls.

Carpe Diem!!!

Fear – your brain could be playing games

Brain size, Energy, Fear, Human Brain, Worry

A few posts back I had written about how we tend to procrastinate because our brain does not want to expend energy.

Based on what I have been reading, I have a feeling that even fear could be your brain playing games on you. The whole premise below is my own deduction without any scientific evidence to the effect.

As a kid, I used to be scared of everything. Some of that changed as I became around 7-8 years old. I had a friend named Jaimee who used to stay in the apartment above us. My father had bought one small cycle for me. He used to prod me to keep cycling in spite of the fact that I would keep falling.

Once I became proficient in riding my small cycle he pushed me to ride a bigger cycle which we would bring on rent. As I developed the ability to ride bigger bikes, I also got more confidence in myself.

After reading so many books on the research on brain activity, I have been reviewing from my memory a lot of the episodes in my life where I was scared.

Most of the places where I feared something, I have realized, I was not confident of handling the situation because I had not been in it before. Whenever there was someone who gave me the support I would be able to do things without any issue. But whenever there was no one, my brain would show me all the terrible consequences I would face.

Now I realize that brain eats so much energy, even though its so small in size. So the brain’s first objective is to save energy to ensure survival. So whenever it feels you intend to make it do work, the brain throws ideas to make you feel scared. This fear then stops you in your tracks and you back away and the brain feels happy because it did not have to spend the energy.

Now obviously in case someone is pointing a knife at you, then there’s actual danger to you and you need to be careful, but most other times my feeling is that the brain is trying to save energy.

Think about it.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!