You may be aware that the two sides of the brain have very different functions. The left side (called the left hemisphere) is more logical and the right side more intuitive.
However, when the brains of geniuses have been studied it has been found that their genius may have been down to their ability to use both sides of their brains at the same time. Scientists call this Whole Brain Thinking.
As we will see later in this article Whole Brain Thinking can be incredibly powerful, but first it is important for you to understand the different functions your left and right brains perform for you.
Left Side
The left side of your brain is extremely good at logical, objective and analytical thinking. For this reason this is the side you use when you are engaged in logical tasks like doing a math problem or processing language while listening to someone talk).
It is linear which means it can only processes one piece of data at a time. The left brain looks to establish patterns and seeks order out of the chaos of the billion bits of information it receives every second. It is analytical meaning it looks for proof and evidence. It is also critical – it chooses to accept or reject new information based on past accepted patterns. Because it is logical this means that it will process data regardless of the consequences.
The Right Side
Your right brain has the upper hand at the more creative tasks, such as art, writing a poem or appreciating music. Your right brain is intuitive – it is not logical.
It is concerned with the whole picture (holistically), rather than individual parts.
It is used when interpreting facial expressions and also being able express your own emotions.
Unlike the left brain the right brain doesn’t have to process one piece of data at a time – it can process multiple streams of thought at the same time. It can absorb multiple streams of disconnected information simultaneously.
The right brain is where our imagination lives, it’s where we can use bits of our existing experience and combine them in our mind to make up new ones.
It can recognize abstract concepts such as ‘love’, ‘young’ and ‘peace’ – conceptual things that have no physical form, and are instead made up of feeling and ideas.
It is concerned with the ‘semantics’ – the meanings behind symbols and images. For example if you could show each side of your brain a wedding ring – the left side would say “A gold band of metal that is exchanged by a couple on their wedding day”. Your right side would say “A declaration of love, eternity, a binding between husband and wife, symbolizing that they want to be together forever.”
Can you see the difference? The left side can only understand what the object is – the right side can appreciate the meaning behind it.
Because the left brain can only see parts, it cannot see how individual parts can join together to form the picture, if you showed it a ‘join the dots’ picture, it would only be able to focus on one dot at a time, whereas the right brain can immediately see the whole picture.
Note: It is important to note that neither side of the brain should be seen as ‘better than’ or superior to the other because they both do important jobs for us in our daily lives.
The Immense Power of Whole Brain Thinking
Recent research has found that the best state for your brain to be in is when both parts of your brain are working together at the same time. This is called whole brain thinking. Trust me when I say this is a very powerful mental state to be in.
Whole brain thinking is thought to be the secret behind the amazing abilities of the geniuses of this world. People such as Albert Einstein, Mozart and Da Vinci.
Most of us have what is called a ‘brain bias’ – that is we use one half of our brain more than the other. Some of our brain bias is genetic; the rest is to do with the environment we have experienced so far during our lives.
Most people now have a left brain bias. This is unsurprising because left brain thinking is nurtured in school and most jobs (unless you work for an advertising company or something similar where you are encouraged to be creative on a daily basis).
Some people might say “Well thinking mostly with my left brain has got me this far in life and I’ve never noticed any problems – why do I need to change it now?”
The answer is that while being good at left brain thinking is good – you can literally skyrocket your problem solving abilities when you add the right brain to your mental arsenal.
This is because when the left brain is presented with a problem that it cannot solve based upon something it has seen before it will quickly give up.
The right brain however can ‘connect the dots’ between seemingly unrelated things in order to solve a problem and present you with a solution.
The Secret of Whole Brain Thinkers
The two halves of your brain are connected in the middle by a dense network of nerve fibers called the ‘Corpus Callosum’. Containing over 300 million neural fibers, it is in effect an information highway controlling the traffic between the left and right brain. If part of the right brain wants to talk to part of the left brain, the signal simply has to go through the corpus callosum.
Therefore it is not a surprise that a stronger, thicker corpus callosum means the brain is able to communicate more effectively across the hemispheres of the brain leading to whole brain thinking.
A recently released study revealed that Einstein had a mammoth of a corpus callosum. This was possible due to previously lost photos of the original autopsy being found. Einstein was not just a mathematical genius – he was also highly creative. In fact he came to many of his scientific breakthroughs by using highly creative and unusual thought processes.
Because of brain-bias, it is unusual for someone to be both mathematically gifted (left brain) while also being highly creative (right brain). And it is even more unusual for someone to be able to incorporate creative thinking to a left brained task such as math.
The moral of the story is that having a thicker corpus callosum enables better communication between the right and left sides of the brain.
How to Become a Whole Brain Thinker Easily Using Brainwave Entrainment Technology
The best part about this is that we can use certain technologies (such as brainwave entrainment) to actually increase the size of our own corpus callosum and become whole brain thinkers!
This means that we have at our disposable an easy way for tapping into the genius that up until now has been been only available to…
Under one tenth of one percent of humankind!
From the very first time you listen to your first brain entrainment track, your brain will begin adjusting and reorganizing its neurons and creating new neural pathways so that it can think faster, more effectively, and easier than ever before.
