Top-Down and Bottom-Up
We usually pride ourselves on our ability to analyze, plan, reason, and to solve complex problems. The human brain, particularly our brain’s pre-frontal (or “executive” brain) enables us to do that. But where do innovation, life’s “Eureka” moments, creative inventions, and spontaneous epiphanies come from? Surprisingly, they rise up from the work of the brain’s basement.
The executive brain, as the name suggests, sits on top and up front, like the executive suite of a large corporation. It’s major functions are to oversee, inhibit lower level players from thinking or acting “outside the box,” and to carry out plans and projects that have been carefully thought out. In short, to help support efficiency and productivity of thought and action when what we are asked to do has proven itself to work. This is called “top-down” processing. But what about when our old ways are no longer working?
When the old has to give way to something new, a different mode of operation gets activated. Most of our brain’s real estate sits lower down in the brain (the brain’s sub-cortical regions). It is from these lower regions that novel ideas, unexpected solutions, paradigm shifts, and transformational ideas originate. These mental discoveries are rooted in “bottom-up” processing. When we are faced with new problems and are seeking unconventional solutions, we can’t rely on what we’ve already learned or the habits on which we rely daily. To remain stuck in what is familiar, controllable, and predictable when we are faced with what requires out-of-the-box thinking is a recipe for failure, unhappiness, and obsolescence.
The Default Mode Network (DMN)
All of us have within our brains, a way to generate refreshing new ideas. We have within us the ability to gain a fresh perspective, to recharge our mind and our lives. But much of our day-to-day functioning has us stuck in old, worn, and even hackneyed ways of functioning. The “same old, same old” really does get old, tiring, and boring.
We have a biological appetite for novelty. Routine and structure are good. And yet, “shaking things up,” in our relationships, our jobs, our daily habits, can be rejuvenating. For better and for worse, modern technology has provided a path to novelty that is available at our finger tips. Studies show people spend 4 and more hours daily checking their phones, responding to several hundred audible pings or buzzes announcing the arrival of texts, emails, or to simply to check-in on what’s new in their numerous social network platforms. These brief but constant disruptions train inattentiveness and distractibility. They also breed impatience, irritability, and annoyance when our growing need for instant gratification isn’t satisfied. We become less and less tolerant of moments of distress and compound the problem by instantly seeking escape from the distress and finding it in momentary but ultimately unsatisfying detours to our YouTube, for example.
All of this activity turns us away from the precious resource that is our brain’s Default Mode Network. Whenever we aren’t focused on the problem before us, or slavishly checking on our phone’s ability to keep us constantly connected, the brain goes into a NON-FOCUSED state where the brain engages in a valuable mental roulette. The brain, disconnected from active, conscious, and focused attention, brings together ideas, concepts, feelings, memories, attitudes, and imagination in new and unexplored ways. This state of mind requires us to tune away from the external world for a time and allow our mind to wander and wonder about what could be, to daydream, to playfully toys with what might be possible, or what break-out possibility might be worth exploring.
The Benefits of Being Unfocused
This precious mode of mental functioning does more than generate new ideas and solutions. The DMN also does during our days what our dreams do at night. They review, explore, filter, and discard what isn’t useful, determine what is worth preserving, what is worth changing, and even provides the emotional oomph we sometimes need to make the change we are in need of making.
So, the next time you find yourself stuck in a rut, bored, at a loss as to where “your get up and go has got up and gone,” set down the phone, shut the book, step away from your desk, and close your eyes. Allow yourself 5-minutes to learn to de-focus. Let yourself wander, with no particular destination in mind. Encourage your mind to play with no rules and no goal to achieve or accomplish. With practice, you can begin to discover your own mind (some might call it your intuitive sense) as a surprising source of inspiration and guidance to help you get back on track with a life that is rewarding, satisfying, fulfilling, and even capable of providing joy…all by learning to periodically indulge your mind in remaining unfocused.