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The Academic

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There’s Something Unnerving About How the Mind Works

5 min read7 hours ago

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Photo by Milad Fakurian on Unsplash

I asked my friend a few years ago what he thought about manifestation. It was a topic I wanted to learn more about, but I always ended up feeling more confused than when I started.

“To fall asleep,” he said, “you must pretend to be asleep first. No one can fall asleep with their eyes open or with disturbing thoughts running around in their head. It’s impossible. You have to relax and let go. You must prepare to sleep if you want to sleep. That’s how pretty much everything works in the universe.”

Today, science says this is possible because of neuroplasticity — the brain’s lifelong ability to change, adapt, and reorganise itself.

Many studies show that what we focus on or pay attention to, the brain gets better at finding. So, when we focus on the good, the brain gets better at looking for more good. When we focus on the bad, the brain gets better at looking for more bad. It doesn’t matter if that’s healthy for us or not; the brain goes where it’s directed.

For most of my life, I belonged in the latter group. The group that looked for the bad. I wasn’t sadistic or a doomsayer; my mind was just wired for danger because that’s how I grew up…

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The Academic
The Academic

Published in The Academic

The Academic is a top tier, peer-reviewed publication on Medium brought to you by a global community of subject-matter experts.