The pre-frontal cortex is that part of your brain that is involved with decision making, creativity, prioritising, leadership and people management. It does not function unless the conditions for its function are optimal. When there is too much going on, it ‘chunks’.

 When it is fatigued it is just like a muscle that gets tired and can not generate power anymore. So if you have overstrained your higher brain functions it is very similar to having done biceps curls with heavy weights, non-stop for half an hour…… you hit failure! If you have overused your prefrontal cortex’ s energy, you need to give it a rest before expecting it to function again. David Rock describes the prefrontal cortex as being like a small stage in a theatre. It is disastrous if there are too many actors on it at one time. We need to get some actors off and start again if a reasonable performance is to be given. We need to see to it that only the correct and most critical actors are on the stage at any time. The stage must not be crowded by irrelevant people. If we translate this into brain terms, it is crucial that we do not try to hold too many thoughts in our minds at the same time.

Trying to multitask, or think about two or three things at a time is disastrous. Being online and in contact all the time is also catastrophic to our brains. Every time we get interrupted we waste huge amounts of brain power trying to re-focus. When I think of the busy schedules and high demands on our attention made by society it is clear to me that we need to give our pre-frontal cortex plenty of rests and we need to clear the stage often. We also need to prioritise very wisely. This will enable us to utilise its resources carefully so as not to waste them. Tr

ying to remember things wastes precious pre-frontal cortex energy. So write down whatever is filling your head. Have a pen and paper ready to jot down ideas, thoughts or chore lists as soon as you can. Multitasking not only wastes energy, but it reduces the ability of a brain of genius intelligence to a brain with the intelligence of an eight year old, almost immediately. We have been misinformed about this and this misconception has led to many brains needing long term recharging and functioning at less than optimum levels of function.

 So my second intention is to preserve the energy of my pre-frontal cortex by doing one task at a time, to completion so it does not waste space on my ‘stage’, and to keep as few thoughts as I can in my mind at a time. I am making spring cleaning my mind a priority, finishing tasks I have started a must do, and managing my time as I choose a rule. I can’t do justice to answering my phone whenever anyone wants to talk to me, so I won’t allow myself to do it. I will answer emails when I can and I will trust that anything truly urgent will get my attention timorously.

 I hope these intentions are useful for you too. Remember the Body Brilliance philosophy is: Instead of settling for feeling ordinary, do what it takes to feel extra-ordinary! Sue

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 5th, 2010 at 10:40 am and is filed under The Trek of A Lifetime. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.