Monday, September 1, 2008

The Conscious vs The Non-Conscious Brain

Are you trying to get out of the rut you are in financially? Perhaps you're trying yet another diet to lose that stubborn 20-30 lbs. that will not budge. Or maybe you are wondering why your personal relationship keeps falling into the same pattern. You've tried everything to change, but nothing seems to 'stick'. You might see results for a few weeks, even months, but it won't be long before you discover yourself back at the place you started. The problem is, you are relying on your will, and that simply will not bring lasting results.

You see, when you are using your willpower to make a change in your life, you are relying on the conscious part of your brain to maintain control. What scientists have discovered in the last decade or so is that the underlying part of the brain, or the nonconscious brain, accounts for over 96% of what we actually do. Your conscious brain exerts creative control, but your nonconscious brain is where the long-term results come from. Below is a comparison between the conscious and the nonconscious brain.

- The conscious brain makes up about 17 percent of total brain mass and controls just 2 to 4 percent of actual perceptions and behavior. The nonconscious brain makes up about 83 percent of total brain mass and controls 96 to 98 percent of perceptions and behavior.

- Conscious impulses travel at speeds of 120 to 140 MPH, while nonconscious impulses travel at more than 100,000 MPH!

- The conscious brain processes about 2,000 bits of information per second, while the nonconscious brain processes about 400,000,000,000 bit of information per second. Yes, you read that right: Four Hundred Billion.

- The conscious brain is volitional, meaning it is controlled by conscious will, it sets goals and judges the results. The nonconscious brain is servile, meaning it sets no goals of its own. It executes the goals it is provided with. It doesn't judge the merits of results, only whether they match the given goals.

- The conscious brain perceives past and future, and the nonconscious brain has no concept of time. Everything is happening now as far as it is concerned.

- The conscious brain has a very short term memory span, about 20 seconds for most people. The nonconscious brain remembers everything it experiences, forever.

A good analogy for the relationship between the conscious and nonconscious mind is a thermostat in your home. The thermostat represents your nonconscious mind, and you walking around your home represents the conscious mind. Assume your thermostat is set to 80 degrees. You come home from work and realize it's kind of warm in your house. So, you open the doors and windows to cool the place down. This works for a few minutes, until the thermostat registers a dip in the temperature, and the furnace kicks in to bring the temperature back up.

Realizing that didn't work, you open up your refrigerator to cool your house off. Again, you manage to bring the temperature down a bit in your kitchen, but the thermostat soon registers the change and the furnace kicks in again. No matter what you do, the thermostat, which controls the temperature for the entire house, has a lot more control over the situation than you do. Unless, of course, you walk over and re-set the thermostat itself to a more comfortable 70 degrees.

If you're thinking no one would be foolish enough to try to cool their house down this way when they could simply adjust the thermostat, this is exactly what people are doing everyday in their lives when they are trying to use their force of will to override what their nonconscious brain is set to. As you can see from the statistics above, this is a futile effort. The nonconscious brain trumps the conscious brain easily when it comes to achieving results.

For example, if your nonconscious brain is programmed to believe you are always in debt, then no matter what actions take place to change that in the short term, your nonconscious brain will work 24/7/365 to bring you back to that reality. Does your willpower work that consistently? Of course not. This is why many lottery winners end up bankrupt within a few years of winning their jackpot. they view themselves as poor, so that's what the nonconscious brain makes happen. So, if you win the lottery, take the annual payments. You may blow the first few annual payments, but you'll eventually view yourself as a wealthy person, and be much more likely to hold on to that wealth in the latter years.

If you want to change something significant in your life, whether it be money, health or relationships, you have to learn how to re-program your nonconscious mind, or your thermostat. You have to instill new beliefs, so that the nonconscious mind guides you to that new homeostasis. This process will be covered in an upcoming article.

Lane Romero-Reiss is an InterNetwork Marketing Consultant, helping network marketers build their prospect lists while getting into cash flow quickly. Lane utilizes step-by-step video tutorials and explanations that will provide value to even the most seasoned network marketers, but are simple enough that beginners will be able to follow along. He can show you how to fully monetize your lists by offering tremendous value through a guided training program.

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