- Have you ever wondered if there is more to intelligence than what’s inside your head? In this article, you will discover how you can think outside the brain and use your body, your environment, and your social network to boost your cognitive abilities.
- If you want to find out how to think better, faster, and more creatively, don’t miss this opportunity to read the full article. You will learn how to harness the power of the extended mind and apply it to your personal and professional goals.
Table of Contents
- Recommendation
- Take-Aways
- Summary
- Involve your body, surroundings and other people to enhance your thinking.
- Calm your mind and tune into your body’s cues to think more clearly.
- Use objects as thinking aids – or look out the window – to extend thinking into your physical environment.
- Include other people in your thinking processes; sometimes, groups can tackle problems too big for one brain.
- About the Speaker
- Genres
Recommendation
The acclaimed author of The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside Your Brain, Annie Murphy Paul, wants you to harness the more profound potential of your mind – by getting out of your head. In an enlightening, hour-long Talk at Google about her book, Paul confirms that thinking happens best when you access the wisdom of your body, physical surroundings and social connections. She offers simple research-based exercises to awaken your deeper mind and access its knowledge.
Take-Aways
- Involve your body, surroundings and other people to enhance your thinking.
- Calm your mind and tune into your body’s cues to think more clearly.
- Use objects as thinking aids – or look out the window – to extend thinking into your physical environment.
- Include other people in your thinking processes; sometimes, groups can tackle problems too big for one brain.
Summary
Involve your body, surroundings and other people to enhance your thinking.
The human brain evolved to allow you to interact with your environment, handle physical objects and engage in social relationships. But Western culture encourages you to believe cognition happens only in your head. As a result, you become “brain bound” – forgetting that your body, physical surroundings and social relationships can contribute to thinking, problem-solving and creativity. The idea that your brain functions like a computer doesn’t reflect reality and isn’t helpful.
“The brain is this quirky, idiosyncratic biological organ that evolved to do very different tasks from the ones we expect it to do.”
Brains work best by “looping” information through your body, environment and others. You can use processes that would otherwise lie dormant by gathering ideas from these extra-neural resources into your cognitive thought processes. This is the idea behind “mind extension,” articulated by philosophers Andy Clark and David Chalmers.
Calm your mind and tune into your body’s cues to think more clearly.
Interoception is the capacity to sense the cues and signals that arise in your body. You can tune into your interoception by calming your mind, closing your eyes and turning your attention inward. Thirty seconds will be enough to become aware of bodily sensations and processes. Or do a body scan – a more structured practice of focusing on each body part, from head to toe. Research shows people’s interoception improves when they practice body scans regularly.
“We’re just now kind of remembering that there’s a lot more to the human, to us as human beings, than brains.”
Some people find working while standing helps them stay alert. And movement, too – such as dancing or exercising – can enhance thinking.
Use objects as thinking aids – or look out the window – to extend thinking into your physical environment.
Studies show when you feel drained after focusing for a long time, simply looking out the window for 40 seconds can restore attention. When people take a break from work, they often pick up their smartphones or check the news, which doesn’t allow the brain to rest from cognitive work. Instead, when you look out the window, your brain focuses differently – a scientific process called “soft fascination” – enabling it to recover. Going outdoors works even better: Research shows spending time outside is the fastest and most powerful way to refresh your attention.
“We are exquisitely context sensitive so that we think differently, we think different kinds of thoughts depending on where we are.”
By moving information and ideas out of your head and into your physical workspace – such as by using a whiteboard, sticky notes or physical models – you can see the information with fresh eyes and apply additional mental capacities, such as spatial memory.
Include other people in your thinking processes; sometimes, groups can tackle problems too big for one brain.
You can enhance your thinking by sharing ideas and information with others, such as experts, peers and groups. For example, teachers often find students help them extend their minds, as does the practice of teaching itself; writers commonly turn to writing groups or editors for mind extension. Storytelling, debating, peer teaching and other social activities can all extend participants’ minds.
Research shows cognition can even happen within a group mind, when individual minds merge to form collective intelligence. Throughout history, humans have used synchronized movements – such as marching, exercising and dancing – to transform individuals into cohesive groups. Combining brain power could enable humanity to solve global problems that can’t be solved individually.
About the Speaker
Annie Murphy Paul is a senior writer for NPR’s Hidden Brain podcast and a former senior editor at Psychology Today. She is also the author of Origins: How the Nine Months Before Birth Shape the Rest of Our Lives and The Cult of Personality Testing: How Personality Tests Are Leading Us to Miseducate Our Children, Mismanage Our Companies, and Misunderstand Ourselves.
Genres
science, psychology, self-help, education, philosophy, neuroscience, cognitive science, creativity, productivity, and personal development