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As an introvert, I have an active inner world, and spend a lot of time in my head. However, I’ve learned over time that trying to concentrate really hard on a topic is often not the most effective means to get the insight and clarity you need to solve a problem or make an important decision. Sometimes, the most effective way to think is to take things out of your brain or give the idea a bit of space and time to percolate.

Sleeping on it

When you have an important and complicated decision to make, you may have heard the advice to “sleep on it”. This is not just about getting rest for your mind so that it can be fresh in the morning. When you allow a problem to simmer, it relaxes your mind, taking away some of the pressure that can cloud your ability to think clearly. It also enables unconscious organizing and processing, and even accessing additional information stored away in different parts of your brain. It’s not just when you’re sleeping that this can happen - I’ve mentioned in an earlier blog post that I get some of my best ideas when I’m out of my head, giving my brain a break by doing something physical, like practicing yoga or lifting weights.

Just this week I’ve been in a few meetings where we were tasked with making difficult decisions as a group. There were a few areas where we just got stuck and went around in circles, unable to reach consensus or even a strong point of view. At that point, the best thing we could do was step away, because it was clear that we could continue to talk and think indefinitely without reaching a decision. 

Downloading

Has this ever happened to you? You’re in bed in the middle of the night, when suddenly a thought pops into your mind and you can’t stop thinking about it, so much that it prevents you from being able to sleep. For me, it’s often a lightbulb moment. Maybe it’s even the product of sleeping on an idea. But then my mind is full and active, and I have difficulty turning it off. Several years ago, I started keeping a pen and paper in my nightstand so I could jot down whatever brilliant idea I had so I could effectively download it from my brain, relieving myself of the effort of holding on to it. This works surprisingly well for me, and it’s fun to look at whatever I scribbled in the dark the next morning and decide if there is anything useful in there. There usually is, though it’s not always as mind-blowing as it seemed at 2 am.

David Allen, productivity expert and author of Getting Things Done*, said, “Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them.” Regularly downloading ideas is a helpful practice to free up your mental resources so you can dedicate them to problem solving and generating more ideas.

Downloading can also be helpful when you feel stuck about a specific situation. It’s easy to overthink to the point that your thoughts get muddled - I picture them as a big scribble inside my brain, just waiting to get downloaded so I can make sense of them. You can do this either by writing things down, or better yet talking about the problem out loud to someone you trust. Suddenly, things become much more clear. I’ve experienced this time and time again when I’ve talked about an issue to someone else, and it makes me feel silly  - “Doh! Why couldn't I come up with this on my own?” 

But I have learned that it’s not just me, because I have witnessed this phenomenon with coaching clients on multiple occasions. After verbalizing their thoughts out loud, and sometimes with a simple open question or two to allow them to see the situation from a different perspective, the answer becomes obvious. As much as I’d love to take credit, it’s not because of my brilliant coaching. Sometimes you just need the space to process outside of your head to see things more clearly.

Thinking Outside of Your Head

Related to downloading is the concept of thinking outside of your mind. In her book, The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain*, Annie Murphy Paul explores the idea that the mind is not limited to the boundaries of the brain, but is extended to the external world. Paul uses research in neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy to assert that the mind is a system distributed across the brain, body, and environment. There are many more interesting concepts than I can cover here, but a few have stuck with me since I read the book

The Body

The book introduces the concept of embodied cognition, which suggests that our physical bodies can play a role in shaping our cognitive processes. For example, there is a connection between thinking about moving. Physical activity can help to keep your mind alert and focused, and you can use it to manage our mental activity by not sitting still but instead following your natural urge to move, including fidgeting. Exercise also has positive effects on the brain and can enhance your mental function, including memory. Consider ways that you might incorporate movements, such as taking a walk to enhance your creativity, or using gestures to help convey thoughts and ideas.

The ability to listen to your body and be aware of internal signals is called interoception. Your body is able to judge a situation more quickly and parse more complex information than your conscious mind. In a study of financial traders, the ones with strong interoceptive abilities who could identify and act on their subtle physiological signals were the most successful.

Environment

Spending time in nature can enhance your ability to focus on a task and think better. Your brain can process nature more easily than it can artificial environments, and the vastness of nature can enhance your creativity, helping you to think bigger and more broadly. Perhaps you have been in buildings or urban spaces that incorporate biophilic design based on studies that have shown that working and learning in spaces inspired by nature can have some of the same positive effects as being in nature.

External tools

I’ve heard people lament that technology is making us dumber, but Paul points out that when you offload some of your cognitive processes to external objects and technologies, such as smartphones for storing and accessing information or GPS systems for navigation, you are able to think, learn and remember in new and more efficient ways. Think of it as delegating or outsourcing so that you can enhance your cognitive abilities.

As amazing and complex the human brain is, this was just a glimpse into the many ways you can increase its abilities by getting out of your head. To explore further, check out this 14 minute podcast about the science behind “sleeping on it”, read The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain* for yourself, or learn about biophilic design.

*affiliate link