The command center of our existence lies within a three-pound, six inch piece of matter parked between our ears.
It contains 86 billion neurons and has the processing power to filter, encode, and store every single thing we have ever seen, heard, touched, smelled, or tasted. It is directly responsible for the entire experience of our reality and has evolved over millions of years to afford us the blessing and the sometimes curse of human consciousness.
Beyond the basics of regulating our body temperature, breathing, and heart rate, and controlling our balance and movement, the central part of the command serves a much broader function besides the physiological benefits of keeping us alive and upright.
It is here in the cerebrum that the core human activities of thinking, feeling, and remembering take place, enabling us to construct a worldview that is at once both a reflection of the collective events of our past and a predictive model for our future.
Serving as the epicenter of our problem-solving and decision-making abilities, among the brain’s numerous indispensable functions is to provide the lens through which we see our world.
In doing so, a series of invisible scripts that shapes how we internalize and process external circumstances becomes established, colored by the context of years spent building the mental and emotional circuitry that makes us who we are.
The inner workings of our brain software provides the code that allows us to speak, listen, learn, adapt, decipher, organize, and decide.
It equips us with the critical-thinking ability that allows us to tackle a particular problem, articulate a certain position, or develop crucial insights.
It aggregates data over time, categorizes sensory inputs, and attempts to weave a cohesive narrative for our identity so that we may calibrate our place in the world relative to others.
This entirety of this process is conducted via the delicate interplay of two opposing forces within our brain.
From an anatomical perspective, the brain is divided into two hemispheres that – while connected –serve two separate core functions, broken down as follows:
- Right brain, aka the “feeling” brain: Responsible for intuition, emotions, imagination, and creativity
- Left brain, aka the “thinking” brain: Responsible for written and spoken language, logic, reasoning, and analytics
A healthy balance between the two sides of the brain enables us to be more well-rounded individuals, but since it is nearly impossible to not have one side dominate the other everyone will exhibit a slant more to one side or the other.
So why does the left brain/right brain split matter?
From an internal perspective, the benefit of determining left vs. right brain thinking comes from the way it informs our ability to think more clearly and understand the likely source of particular thoughts.
If we can easily stratify whether our thoughts are being colored more by logic or emotion, we can seek to establish a greater equilibrium where we are using the power of “whole brain thinking” in the service of more productive thoughts, and in turn actions, that incorporate a blend of logic and intuition.
This same balance is highly applicable to our external world and can prove essential in interpersonal communication.
No matter whether it is with family, friends, colleagues, or strangers, we encounter a wide variety of personality types and traits on a regular basis, and seamlessly navigating through the matrix of those personalities while applying left and right brain thinking can set us up for greater success in both personal and professional relationships.
In the service of better understanding ourselves and others, once we have a foundation of how to strengthen each of them in our everyday life we may be able to think more clearly and operate more efficiently.
Some examples of how to strengthen each via activities:
Left Brain Exercises | Right Brain Exercises |
Journaling | Drawing |
New Language Immersion | Learning an Instrument |
Solving Puzzles | Design |
| Writing Non-fiction | Writing fiction |
There is no doubt some truth to the idea of left vs. right brain thinking, but of note is research over time has begun to find that these two hemispheres of the brain do not operate in fully separate silos.
Working in concert with one another, this research supports the conclusion that both “divergent” and “convergent” thinking can be sharpened over time, allowing us to essentially rewire our brains through concentrated effort in four cores areas:
- Capturing new ideas – This area involves viewing the world as a never-ending source of inspiration and leveraging technology to capture our thoughts in real-time as we pattern match and combine new information with prior learnings to develop innovate ideas.
- Engaging in challenging tasks – This suggestion follows the logic that no growth occurs within the confines of our comfort zones. It compels us to seek out areas of opportunity that push the boundaries of familiarity and asks us to get comfortable with being uncomfortable.
- Broadening knowledge – This is the constant thirst for new information and the dedication to becoming a lifelong learner. We may never be experts in all subjects but the more we are able to diversify our knowledge base the more prone we are to be able to use that enhanced education to solve problems of both brain hemispheres.
- Interacting with stimulating people and places – This area is rooted in the fact that the more we can diversify our experience of the world the more exposure we will have to creative viewpoints and various cultural perspectives. This allows us to broaden our horizons and enhances our ability to better evaluate contrasting views.
Leveraging the list of options above, we now have a framework in place to direct our efforts in the service of strengthening the left and right brain connection.
As a complex species facing a constant barrage of inputs that requires top-tier processing power, we as humans need to hone the ability to balance the two in services of managing everything that is on our plates at a given time.
How we choose to deploy this information will have a direct correlation to the upper limits to our success in life.
The more we are able to let our emotional circuitry align to our logical reasoning powers, we cannot help but become more well-rounded individuals, create an environment around us that plays to our strengths, and bridge identified gaps in thinking.
At its best, it will even help to provide an understanding when our thinking takes us down a path that may be less productive.
In the immortal words of Shakespeare: “There is nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
Think with the whole brain.