The Psychology of Procrastination
Have you ever wondered why we procrastinate? Often, people procrastinate because they overestimate the amount of time they have left to perform all their important tasks. Another reason is that people overestimate the motivation they will have in the future when there's no more time left to accomplish these tasks. For others, they underestimate the amount of time it will take them to complete certain activities. Finally, some people also procrastinate because they think that they need to be in the "proper frame of mind" to perform the task.
Aside from these, there are many other reasons why people procrastinate. No matter what your reason is, procrastination is something that you consciously have to avoid. The more you try to avoid this, the more your brain learns to accept that procrastination isn't an acceptable habit, and you should change it. When you start seeing it as a habit to break, you can start employing the strategies we discussed in Chapter 11 to break this habit and replace it with something better.
How Neuroplasticity Impacts Procrastination
There is one particular study that shows the effect of neuroplasticity on procrastination (Güntürkün, et. al., How brains of doers differ from those of procrastinators, 2018). The researchers took a unique neuroscientific approach to procrastination using fMRI brain scans. Through this study, they discovered a relationship between difficulty to initiate action and the volume of gray matter in the brain. According to the researchers, state-oriented individuals who have a higher tendency to procrastinate are those who have higher-volume amygdalas.
The reason for this may be that those who have a higher-volume amygdalas have already learned from their past experiences. Therefore, they are more extensive when it comes to the evaluation of their future actions and the possible consequences of those actions. This, in turn, causes them to hesitate, and when they do, it may result in procrastination.
So where does neuroplasticity come in?
Remember that neuroplasticity occurs when new neural pathways are created in your brain, reorganizing the structure and functions of it. Therefore, you can teach yourself new tricks through neuroplasticity. This means that even if you have a high tendency to procrastinate, you can consciously prevent this by employing the different strategies that promote neuroplasticity.
Defeating Procrastination Through Neuroplasticity
Procrastination is seldom a good thing. Often, it leads to negative consequences. So if you want to defeat this bad habit of yours, try employing these neuroplasticity-focused pointers:
● Learn to accept reality.
You must accept your own tendency to procrastinate. If you're in denial, you won't be able to work on this issue effectively. Have compassion for yourself so you can approach the situation in a more positive, brain-affirming way.
● Disconnect from technology.
Often, technological devices are the main cause of procrastination. When these gadgets are around, you can't help but pick them up and browse through blogs, social media sites and more. If this sounds familiar to you, then you should start disconnecting from these devices, especially when you know that there's work to be done.
● Learn to prioritize.
The more you learn how to prioritize your tasks, the more you will see how urgent they are. And when you see the importance of these tasks, you might feel more motivated to start working on them right away.
● Focus on your tasks.
Another reason why you might procrastinate is that you try to do too many things at once, so you feel overwhelmed. The next time you have work to do, you remember that feeling and it makes you want to do something easier or more enjoyable. If you want to avoid this, try to focus on doing your tasks one at a time. Start with the most important ones and work your way down. If you need to take a break, do it. This is a lot better than procrastinating.
● Don't aim for perfection.
Finally, whenever you do something, try to do your best even though it isn't perfect. When you strive too hard for perfection, this might make you feel apprehensive about the tasks you need to do. But if you loosen the reins a bit, you become more willing to perform these tasks.
Chapter 15: The Power of Neuroplasticity
From all the information we have discussed, you can see how powerful neuroplasticity truly is. How incredible is the fact that we can change the structure and functions of our brains in different ways in order to improve our lives? In addition to the conditions we have already discussed, you can also use neuroplasticity to help you overcome the following issues.
Defeating Addiction Through Neuroplasticity
Addiction refers to a physical and psychological inability to stop yourself from consuming a substance, drug, chemical or activity even though it causes you physical and psychological harm. Sometimes, addictions may cause a person to be unable to stop partaking in certain activities. When you suffer from an addiction, you feel like you can't control yourself.
Does this sound familiar?
Developing an addiction is a lot like forming a habit. When this happens, your brain creates a new path to support your addiction. And the more you stick with it, the stronger the path becomes. Fortunately, you can also use neuroplasticity to retrain your brain to get rid of the addiction to help yourself recover from it. Common treatment options for addictions include holistic interventions such as intensive psychotherapy. And when you pair these with neuroplasticity, you strengthen the recovery pathways that are created within your brain as a result of therapy. Then your brain starts to learn how to enjoy the process of recovery, which in turn helps improve the condition.
Defeating Phobias Through Neuroplasticity
By definition, phobias are irrational and exaggerated fears. Often, the term "phobia" refers to the fear a person feels toward a certain trigger. There are different types of phobias that may develop, and, depending on the severity, they can have a significant impact on your life.
According to research, there is a possibility that we are "biologically prepared" to fear certain things. However, we also learn phobic responses when we observe them in other people. That is why you will often see children who have phobic parents grow up into adults who have the same phobias.
This is another condition that you can apply neuroplasticity to. If you learned your phobia, this means that you have the potential to unlearn it as well. For instance, if you have a fear of heights, this doesn't mean that your brain already came wired with that fear. So you may "unlearn" your phobia through a process called "desensitization." This is where you expose yourself to what you're most fearful of which, in our example, is heights) while under controlled conditions. This exposure is coupled with different techniques that aim to help you relax in order to dampen the effect of the fear.
When you repeatedly submit to this kind of therapy, it may help you overcome your phobia. As you expose yourself to the thing you fear the most, a new path in your brain is created that tells you that you shouldn't be bothered by the thing you're afraid of. The more you expose yourself to your fear while also experiencing the relaxation techniques, the stronger this new connection becomes, until your brain gets rewired through this controlled learning technique.
Defeating Insomnia Through Neuroplasticity
This is another common condition that a lot of people all over the world suffer from. Insomnia is a sleep disorder where people aren't able to either fall asleep or stay asleep throughout the night. Unfortunately, this disrupts your body's natural healing process, which, in the long run, can have devastating effects.
When normal people sleep, there are several neuroplasticity changes that occur, and some of these are crucial to making memories stronger. If you're not able to sleep well because you're an insomniac, you may start experiencing abnormalities in your neuroplastic processes while you're awake.
In order to defeat this condition, you need to come up with a proper bedtime routine to help you fall asleep at the appropriate time. From meditation to learning ho
w to wind down and more, there are several ways to do this. Come up with your own bedtime routine and keep practicing it every night. Although it may not work right away, we have established that the more you practice certain behaviors, the more your brain will start accepting them as part of your life. This means that, over time, your bedtime routine will become a habit that helps you fall asleep faster and stay asleep throughout the night.
Neuroplasticity and Lifestyle
Neuroplasticity is truly a wonderful thing. Although we’ve had this skill from the beginning, we should all feel grateful that scientists and researchers discovered the concept so that we can learn how to promote and apply neuroplasticity in our lives. Throughout this book, we have talked about different kinds of conditions and issues that you can overcome through neuroplasticity. We have also discussed several real-life tips, strategies and exercises to promote neuroplasticity as we target specific issues in our lives that we want to improve.
As a final piece of advice on the matter, if you want to promote neuroplasticity, you must also ensure that you live a healthy lifestyle. This includes:
Exercising regularly
Learning how to manage stress
Balanced nutrition
Lots of mental stimulation
Combine these with everything else you've learned in this book and you're sure to have a recipe for success!
Chapter 16: Binaural Beats and Brainwave Entrainment: Does It Increase Neuroplasticity?
By now you have armed yourself with enough information to help you improve your life through neuroplasticity. As a bonus, we will be talking about binaural beats and brainwave entrainment. Just like neuroplasticity, these are fairly new concepts that are just beginning to gain popularity as more and more people learn about them.
But can they improve neuroplasticity? Of course! In this final chapter, we will be discussing the fundamentals of binaural beats and brainwave entrainment. You will see how they can benefit your life and your neuroplasticity journey.
What Is Brainwave Entrainment?
Throughout this book, we have learned all about neuroplasticity, its benefits and how you can use it to improve your life in different ways. Now let's look at another self-directed neuroplasticity intervention method known as brainwave entrainment. This is a fascinating concept. Ever since it came out, it has generated a lot of interest, and now a lot of people rave about because it can help reduce stress, induce sleep, facilitate your awareness, assist with mindfulness and meditation training, enhance the functioning of your brain and do so much more.
Brainwave entrainment refers to a way of producing a specific brainwave frequency. This is achieved by synchronizing your brain waves to the desired frequency using an external auditory stimulus. When you hear a rhythmic beat, your brain will start to sync its activity in order to match the beat. This is known as the "frequency following response."
Although the technology of brain entrainment is fairly new, the concept itself has been around since music came to be. Through our history, a lot of different cultures made use of rhythmic drum beats and chanting to enter into a trance or a trance-like state. This happens because of the hypnotic quality of the rhythm, as well as the rhythm's ability to induce various states of consciousness. Basically, different kinds of beats have effects on the mood of a person. For instance, slow beats can relax or soothe you, while quick beats make you feel energized.
Our brains are continuously producing electrical activity, even when we're sleeping. Research has shown that you can actually record this electrical activity using brain waves or brainwave patterns. Then you can adjust and influence those brain waves when you stimulate them using specific types of tones and beats. This is the process we know as brainwave entrainment.
In the past, the most commonly used method of utilizing certain brainwave states was via binaural beats. Here, you would play one kind of beat in one of your ears while playing a different type of beat in your other ear. The brain automatically syncs both beats to come up with a different beat that is basically a combination of the two individual beats playing in each ear.
The Different Brain Waves and Their Proposed Benefits
At the very root of your emotions, behaviors and thoughts is the communication that occurs between the different neurons of the brain. Brain waves are generated by electrical pulses from all of the neurons in your brain as they communicate with each other. Experts detect brain waves with the use of sensors that they place on a person's scalp. These brain waves are then categorized according to their bandwidths to provide a description of their functions.
To understand the concept better, you can think of your brain waves as musical notes. The brain waves that have a low frequency are like a drum beat that's deeply penetrating, while the brain waves that have a higher frequency are like a subtle flute with a high-pitched sound. Just like symphonies, these high and low frequencies connect and work with each other via harmonics.
Your brain waves keep on changing according to what you feel and do. When the dominant brain waves are the slower ones, you may start feeling dreamy, slow, tired or sluggish. On the other hand, if the dominant brain waves are the faster ones or those with higher frequencies, then you may start feeling hyper-alert or wired. Brain waves are extremely complex and reflect varying aspects when they happen in the different parts of your brain. The unit of measurement of brainwave speed is Hertz or cycles per second, and each of the brainwave frequencies has its own benefits. Let's take a look at these now:
● Delta waves (from 0.5 to 3.0 Hz)
These are the slowest brain waves, but they are also the loudest. Delta waves have a low frequency, and they're deeply penetrating. These waves are produced when you have a deep and dreamless sleep, or when you're practicing deep meditation. They suspend your external awareness. Regeneration and healing are activated when your brain produces delta waves. This is why deep sleep is important for the restorative healing process. The benefits of this brainwave frequency include:
Deep sleep that promotes natural healing, as well as the health of the immune system.
When you're in this state, your body releases anti-aging hormones such as DHEA and melatonin.
Also, the level of human growth hormone (HGH) increases because the pituitary gland is stimulated. HGH is important because it maintains the health of the joints, cartilage, skin and bone density. It can also help alleviate physical pain.
If you have too few of these brain waves, this causes poor sleep and an inability to rejuvenate the body and revitalize the brain. Conversely, if you have too much of these brain waves, this may lead to learning problems, severe ADHD, brain injuries and an inability to think.
● Theta waves (from 3.0 to 8.0 Hz)
These brain waves occur when we sleep, and they're also dominant when you meditate deeply. Theta waves are your gateway to intuition, memory and learning. In theta, your senses are hidden from the outside world. Instead, you focus on the signals coming from within.
This is considered a "twilight state" that you are only able to fleetingly experience when you drift off to sleep or when you wake up. In theta, you're beyond your conscious awareness. You're in a dream with your intuition and vivid imagery. This is where you hold your nightmares, fears and troubled history. Some of the benefits of this brainwave frequency are:
An increase in relaxation, emotional connection, intuition and creativity.
It promotes a more restful sleep, thereby helping improve your physical healing.
Beneficial hormones that are associated with longevity and health are released.
There is a reduction in stress, anxiety and mental fatigue.
If you have too few of these brain waves, this causes stress, anxiety and poor emotional awareness. Conversely, if you have too much of these brain waves, this may lead to depression, inattentiveness, ADHD, hyperactivity and impulsivity.
● Alpha waves (from 8.0 to 12.0 Hz)
These brain waves happen when our thoughts are flowing q
uietly, but not necessarily during meditation. Alpha brain waves promote "the power of now," which is when you fully experience every present moment. It's the brain's resting state, and it helps in the brain's overall learning, calmness, mental coordination, alertness and mind-body integration. Here are some benefits of these brain waves:
You feel more relaxed, your levels of anxiety are reduced and it also eases the effects of depression and stress.
It helps reduce the levels of blood pressure, along with chronic pain.
It increases happiness, energy, motivation, athletic performance and cerebral blood flow.
If you have too few of these brain waves, this causes OCD, high stress, anxiety and insomnia. Conversely, if you have too much of these brain waves, this may lead to an inability to focus, daydreaming and becoming too relaxed.
● Beta waves (from 12.0 to 38.0 Hz)
These brain waves occur when we are in our normal state of consciousness when we're awake. They dominate whenever we direct our attention to the outside world and perform cognitive tasks. These brain waves promote "fast activity," making us attentive, alert and fully focused on mental activity, problem-solving, decision-making and judgments.
This brainwave frequency can be divided further into three different bands, namely hi-beta (which involves excitement, thoughts that are highly complex, the integration of new experiences and high levels of anxiety); beta (which involves high engagement and actively trying to figure things out); and lo-beta (which involves musing or "fast idle"). The benefits of beta waves include:
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