Introduction
Although our brains are highly developed and capable of doing remarkable things, like solving complex math problems, they aren't perfect. There are times when our mind oversees things completely and deems certain things more important than others. Have a look.
Try to guess what's odd with these pictures :
1.
2.
3.
Were you able to get them? The answers are :
1. The lady has an extra finger.
2. There's a phantom arm floating around.
3. The man has only one ear.
Colgate created this ingenious ad-campaign to promote their dental floss. The campaign was successful because it proved that food that remains on your teeth draws more attention than any physical defect. There is simply so much going on in the world around us at any given moment that our brains cannot attend to each and every detail. As a result, we can sometimes completely miss major changes that happen right in front of our eyes.
The Invisible Gorilla Test
Many of you might know this, but it is really interesting! All you have to do is pay attention and count the number of passes the players wearing white shirts make with the basketball. Easy right! Go ahead and try it out.
At some point, a gorilla strolls into the middle of the action, faces the camera and thumps its chest, and then leaves, spending nine seconds on screen. Did you see the gorilla? This video is from an original research by Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris. When the actual study was carried out at Harvard University, it was found that half of the people who watched the video and counted the passes, missed the gorilla. It was as though the gorilla was invisible.
This is one of the best known experiments in psychology. This experiment reveals two things: that we are missing a lot of what goes on around us, and that we have no idea that we are missing so much.
Mind Hacks
Our minds can be deceived pretty easily. They can be made to believe stuff quite conveniently as well. There are loads and loads of things going around at any given point of time, but does your brain take in account, everything? No, it doesn't. It sees only what you feel is important to you. Your brain listens to you, just as you listen to your brain. Here are some mental hacks you can try out :
1. If you are gloomy and sad, an act of faking a smile will make the brain act like its happy just because a smile is linked with joy. After a while, your brain will automatically sync with your smile and make you feel genuinely happy.
2. If you have a lot of work and you're procrastinating, remind yourself of the next day's tasks at night before sleeping. By doing this, your brain begins working on 'how to complete them', while you sleep.
3. The brain doesn't understand true or false very well. Tell it a story a 100 times and the brain will believe that its a real story. You can brainwash yourself.
4. Pomodoro Technique : You set yourself a timer of 25 minutes to do some task uninterrupted, with complete focus. NO checking messages, emails, making calls etc. Once the time is up, you give yourself a 5-10 minute break. Our brains are wired for rewards, so this is one way to make it more productive.
Happy Mind Hacking!
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