3 Helpful Things to Know About Your Brain

“The human brain has 100 billion neurons, each neuron connected to 10 thousand other neurons. Sitting on your shoulders is the most complicated object in the known universe.” Michio Kaku, Physicist

Our brains are the most complex object in the known universe - each one more powerful than the most advanced computer. But our brains evolved in a very different environment from our modern world, and some of the automatic programs they are running have become outdated and need to be upgraded to function optimally now.

Here are three helpful things to know about our amazing, beautiful brains.

1) Our world has changed dramatically, but human brains have remained essentially the same.

Scientists now think that our brains are about the same size (relative to our body size) as our human ancestors of 200,000 years ago. The human brain evolved over millions of years, and there was especially rapid evolution from about 800,000 to 200,000 years ago during times of big climate fluctuations and the human race needing to adapt to survive. But there hasn’t been much change since then.

Imagine how different the world was 200,000 years ago - our ancestors living in small nomadic tribes, focused on day-to-day existence. Agriculture was invented only about 10,000 years ago, telephones and electricity 150 years ago, and the Internet 35 years ago.

So while our world has changed dramatically, and the pace of change is rapidly accelerating, our brains have remained essentially the same as those of our ancestors who lived in a world dramatically different than today’s. This has big consequences for our modern lives.

2) The ancient survival parts of our brains take up the biggest chunks of brain real estate and energy, and run almost entirely outside of the conscious awareness of the newer, more rational parts of the brain.

The challenge is that our survival brains evolved to navigate in an era entirely out of sync with our modern reality. This part of our brains can’t tell the difference between something scary on a screen and a hungry tiger coming towards us. It also can’t tell the difference between a negative comment on social media and the profound threat to our ancestors of being kicked out of the tribe.

So, we have this mismatch between our survival brains and the modern world. It’s like we are running vastly outdated security software.

3) The wonderful news is that our brains are built to adapt!

We can learn to use other parts of the brain to help calm the older survival parts so that we are not constantly reacting to perceived stresses in our environment.

That’s what I’ll be writing about in this blog: how we can empower ourselves by learning more about how our amazing brains work, and how we can learn to upgrade our brain functioning to truly thrive.

We can learn simple, but powerful, techniques that can make a profound difference in how we think, feel, and experience the world. And that can free us up to live our best lives and make a difference.

I’d love to hear from you. Please send your questions, comments, and suggestions to: liz@happybrainlife.com.

Have a wonderful day!

Liz