We are a culture of convenience and automation. Making things easier in our busy lives is considered a virtue. This even extends to our minds – the 24/7 media and entertainment outlets work overtime feeding us a steady stream of content. As a result we don’t need to do much heavy mental lifting ourselves.
But there is one problem. Much of what we do in consuming today’s always on information and entertainment sources is done passively. We spend too much time in receive mode. The effect is most dramatic when watching television. In November 2012, Psychology Today magazine reported the following effects on our brains when we turn on the tube:
- Studies have shown that watching television induces low alpha waves in the human brain. Alpha waves are brainwaves between 8 to 12 HZ. and are commonly associated with relaxed meditative states as well as brain states associated with suggestibility.
- While Alpha waves achieved through meditation are beneficial (they promote relaxation and insight), too much time spent in the low Alpha wave state caused by TV can cause unfocussed daydreaming and inability to concentrate.
- Researchers have said that watching television is similar to staring at a blank wall for several hours.
- In an experiment in 1969, Herbert Krugman monitored a person through many trials and found that in less than one minute of television viewing, the person’s brainwaves switched from Beta waves– brainwaves associated with active, logical thought– to primarily Alpha waves. When the subject stopped watching television and began reading a magazine, the brainwaves reverted to Beta waves.
- Research indicates that most parts of the brain, including parts responsible for logical thought, tune out during television viewing.
- Advertisers have known about this for a long time and they know how to take advantage of this passive, suggestible, brain state of the TV viewer. There is no need for an advertiser to use subliminal messages. The brain is already in a receptive state, ready to absorb suggestions, within just a few seconds of the television being turned on. All advertisers have to do is flash a brand across the screen, and then attempt to make the viewer associate the product with something positive.
So the easy answer is to not watch so much television. But of course TV is just one of our many forms of media and entertainment that we consume all day long. A more potent antidote to our passive consumption is to switch the brain into a proactive mode by asking some critical questions. The act of questioning immediately puts your brain into a conscious proactive mode.
Start by asking one of my favorite and deceptively simple questions – Why? Use it as the starting point to question everything.
Questions are the gateway to being intentional about our lives – identifying what information we want to acquire and then proactively acquiring it versus passively taking in what someone has decided to broadcast.
Asking the question is the first step. The second step is our own contemplation. What answers can we come up with ourselves based on our own knowledge and perceptions. We can surprise ourselves sometimes. Periodically we see that we haven’t stopped to really consider the question before but we have definite opinions about it once we start to be mindful about our own feelings.
Next is to go beyond ourselves and do an internet search and find the best information possible to learn more about the question. Avoid Google due to its censorship, manipulation, and privacy issues and instead try some of the newer search engines such as yandex.com, brave.com, and giburu.com.
The fourth step is to “triangulate” the information you are coming across. See where things overlap and where people and sources from different backgrounds agree – the truth tends to linger there.
Lastly, we can start to create sequences of questions. A good set I like to drive personal change with is Why – What – How. For example:
- Why haven’t I been able to lose ten pounds.
- What is holding me back (determination, schedule issues, wrong diet, etc)?
- How do I get back on track and ensure that I achieve the goal?
The more honest we can be with ourselves in answering the questions, the better. In the end, of course, action will be required and that’s where the rubber meets the road. But hopefully the questions and the process of answering them will spur on new motivation and insight. All change and progress starts by someone first asking a great question.
One of the most mind-expanding questions of them all of course is What-If? An an example:
- What if all people saw each other as inherently the same and connected? How would we treat each other? How would life be conducted differently?
What-If has the power to open our minds and can spur us into investigating possibilities, and hopefully, taking action in some way to improve our own world and the world around us.
A recent quote I posted sums it up well:
It’s no measure of health, to be well-adusted to a sick society – J. Krishnamurti
Or, a more current sentiment:
Remember, the Whole System Depends Upon You Not Asking Too Many Questions
Questions require no technology whatsoever, but they allow us to master and control the most basic elements of our lives (like the weight example above). The next fifty years will provide us unforeseen technological capabilities. It will also challenge us to make decisions about how to (or not to) use our technological capabilities. Hopefully we will all be up to the challenge. We clearly can’t afford to keep staring at that blank wall for much longer…
In Service to Your Highest Good,
~Jay Kshatri
www.ThinkSmarterWorld.com
