Encourage Your Brain: Your Brain is On A Budget

Greetings all, it's Susan here with an Encourage Your Brain message. Neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett is the author of 7.5 Lessons About the Brain. Just finished the book, or actually I've read it a couple of times already, and she offers some really eyebrow-raising ideas in the book, but it's a fun, fast, fascinating read, so highly recommended. And one of the points that she makes early on in the book is that the brain's primary function is not about thinking, but for controlling the body body's resources. Like, it's constantly monitoring whether there's the correct balance of salt and water and glucose and all those resources needed to navigate life. And she calls this body budgeting, and the scientific term is allostasis. But she explains that, of course, our brains do think and feel and imagine and create hundreds of other experiences, but all of these mental capacities are consequences of this central mission to keep us alive and well by managing our body budget. So why is that important and to be aware of? So because we are all humans, we are wired to want things, to create things, to set goals, to get goals. And so if we don't have meaningful goals, that body budgeter that's controlling the show will send the message, hey, your bank account is low for energy and ideas and focus because this isn't meaningful. So you probably know what that feels like when you've been putting effort towards unmeaningful goals or working on a project that doesn't inspire you or being in an unfulfilling relationship and so on, it takes extra energy and feels heavier and harder. And conversely, when we are inspired, when we are working towards things that are meaningful, it does allow us to think better, to feel better, and to take action better. So do your brain a favor. If you've got a task on your to-do list that might feel a bit heavy, look for some level of purpose and meaning associated with it, 'cause it's gonna help spark that energy for the task. And in fact, I'm doing that right now. I got my second COVID shot this week, and the fever's been spiking up and down, and I'm kind of dragging a little bit. And so I said, woman, walk your talk. What is meaningful about getting out of bed and doing this message? And I thought to myself, I love sharing brain nuggets that make people's lives easier. So there you have it. And one little caveat on this, and that is to not plaster purpose over tasks that are continually not meaningful, because that's just strangling that sort of inner wisdom within ourselves that says, I really want different goals. So if that's the situation for you, explore how making a shift could be purposeful and meaningful, and then that's going to give you the body budget needed to navigate the change.