There’s a nuance to being able to do things for yourself that will contribute to your understanding, focus and perspective. When everything seems to be clouding our focus and keeping us occupied, sometimes even stopping us from being able to rest and sleep, it can seem like nothing can assuage the torment of a racing brain. Preoccupation with the smaller details for some people can be all consuming, particularly when it comes to being obsessed with elements that may appear beyond our control. But as humans we are hardwired to respond to things in certain ways, and it is possible that we can use these processes to change how we perceive the world about us and thus how it effects us.
One of the gifts of our wonderful brain is the ability to IMAGINE. Our frontal lobe development has allowed us the capacity to be a Life Simulator, letting us learn from our mistakes and perceive how things ‘may be’ if we act in a certain way or even how we ‘feel’ about an event. Unfortunately this can also bring with it the ability to create forbearing realities when indeed there is none there to be had. Our creative abilities don’t always serve us well as we can sometimes simulate events that keep us in a fearful or negative state when in fact ‘there is no boogey man under the bed’.
Psychologists talk about how focus can determine how we perceive our own world. Our brains lets us ‘predict’ how something may impact on us by imagining essential details and then measuring those details in relation to our daily life experience, sometime with less than optimal results. This impacts on our ability to feel contentment or safety and even on our daily security. We all want to feel secure in our lifestyle, in the choices we make, in our home and in our workplace. So often when it does feel that the weight of the world is weighing heavily on us as individuals, it turns out that we have more control than what we may think and there are a few easy tricks we can employ to assist with this.
Narrow vs Wide Focus
When we focus on an element that is negative and let that imbue into other areas of our life, we are creating a wide focus of effect. We are taking a singular occurence and we are applying that to our breadth of daily experience and all that that entails. From what to have for Breakfast in the morning to career choices and life decisions, each aspect of our focus can be impacted from which lens we choose to use. So when an issue of negativity arises, sometimes we can ‘paint the world’ with the tarred brush. Applying damaging impact to all areas of our life.
Conversely, we should be choosing how to qualify a singular element and give it the weight that it deserves only when we consider the percentage that this element has on our daily experience. Something that may appear large and looming can be diminished in size if we apply a relative size to it. It may matter today, but in 12 months will it matter more? Selecting when things impact on our life in reality to their impact is an important perspective to achieve. Sometimes making a seemingly daunting task smaller in comparison to our life, can indeed reduce it’s impact on our feelings.
Contrast Effect
Things change when we compare them to other things. Retailers use this ploy very well in marketing. They always have the ‘Aspirational Item’ somewhere close by on the shelf. Take a wine shop - you have 3 bottles of wine valued at $5/$10/$25 respectively. When choosing a wine for a gift, many of us would choose the $10 bottle, not wanting to appear too cheap but not going too far above our means. If I add another bottle of $50 value, how does that change what the perceived value of the gift is? How many of us would naturally reach for the $25 bottle with this change in the available selection? In this way, we can also get bound up in the desire or ‘want’ of a certain item. “My life simply isn’t worth living unless I have that Louis Vuitton Bag”. But if we live in the here and now and take our contrast lens to the situation, choosing to use the dusty vinyl bag that Grandma gave you for Christmas 3 years ago instead of needing to have the luxury item can be a great way of keeping your desires within a certain aspect ratio. Wanting something as opposed to needing something is a good measure of how to use the contrast effect.
Surround Yourself with Something Bigger
Turns out that all you need is a holiday! Gotta love the diagnosis from any doctor who gives this information out. But how often does that happen? Science supports the theory though that we should be getting out and being inspired! One of the best ways to douse a worry-some head is to change your perspective to be involved with something bigger than your current self. Think about it, when we holiday, we often take walks, travel, see things we haven’t seen before. Things of great beauty, natural wonder, impressive engineered creations that we marvel at and stand ‘in awe’ of. Turns out that this is one of the best things you can do for your mental state.
Standing in a natural awe inspiring scenes has the ability to decrease certain brain networks and have a direct impact on our ability to let our minds wander or become self obsessed. The Default Mode Network (DMN) was an area of interest to The University of Amsterdam’s Michiel van Elk, who conducted experiments aimed at measuring people’s responses to being in awe inspiring states. In an experiement involving 32 people and MRI scans to track brain activity, images of natural phenomenon, funny animals and neutral landscapes were played to track how brain activity responded to the stimuli. Turns out that the awe inspiring imagery had the capacity to downgrade the DMN which is associated with self reflection and inward focus. Additionally, those people involved in watching awe inspiring scenes also increased activity in the fronto parietal network which is connected with externally focused direction in the brain.
The summation of the study concludes that awe inspiring input helps to draw us away from internal and self directed reflection, and draws us out into the external world, encouraging us to be more externally connected and in touch with the greater world around us, effectively dampening our inward and self defeating tendencies. So finding things that inspire awe in you, whether it be a concert, a building or a natural landscape is indeed a great way to get out of your head and be more connected with the world around you.
So when events and life seems to be getting on top of you, remember that there are ways that you can immediately control your responses to events and situations. If you feel inundated, try one of these simple techniques that may help you get beyond your own frame of mind and free you from your own creative imagining.
