Context

My brain is plastic, its fantastic 🎵

I was listening to an interesting interview today on the Waking Up app (wakingup.com) between Sam Harris (Wikipedia) and Adam Gazzaley (Wikipedia). In it, they discuss the cost of multitasking, and Gazzaley’s ground-breaking, FDA-approved prescription videogame, Endeavorrx (product site).

Reflection

I was surprised to hear them distill why they thought meditation is effective as a practice to improve focus. Our brains work incredibly well at improving circuits that fire together.

Things that fire together, wire together ¹

It’s sort of like bushwhacking. Walking through dense forest is tough, then a little path clears, the dirt packs harder, plants make way and mother nature bends around the force. Stop walking the path, and she fills it back in. Our brains do this work in disparate areas of cognition: memory, problem solving, creativity, anxious rumination, flares of rage, etc. These circuits have no value judgements attached in the brain, they aren’t labelled “beneficial” or “harmful”. If you practice things over and over, your brain does the growth part on its own.

I found that fascinating!

The FDA approved videogame is a different story, but also really cool sounding. I wonder in the future it will become common to medicate our problematic brain habits with fun videogames! Or the videogames we play become standardized around certain practices that promote healthy circuits instead of the obsessive and negative ones.

So many of the things we do each day are things we have been doing for many days previous. Our brains find these grooves and keep practicing the same routes. The conversation really spurred on some introspection, the double-edged nature of our brains. I’m constantly improving my ability to do whatever I’m doing in each moment, whether I choose to or not.