Brain hemispheres part 2
Welcome back!
In 'Brain hemispheres part 1' I talked about the specific functions the left- and the right brain hemispheres have. Left being analysis and quantity related processing, right being synthesis and quality related functions. My conclusion was that questions about the meaning of life get unfulfilling answers when processed by the left brain. I promised to write about ways to activate the right brain hemisphere for that purpose, especially for westerners, as westerners usually have a more active left side of the brain. Additionally I will give information about connecting the left side of the brain to the right, to facilitate intergration of the two brain halves, which is in the end what we want.
Lets start with how to stimulate the right side of the brain:
The right brain hemisphere is about having an overview of things. So to get our right brain to take over from our overactive left brain we need to get out of the analytic way of thinking and away from detailed vision. We have to take a step back to be able to get an overview. So for me first of all I need to relax, to get out of my left brain. Then Intuitively I tend to want to read a story or do something creative, maybe dance or sing and pop!... the clearity comes right back, things start to make sense again.
Here's a list of things that I found to be working and it's backed up by...google :-)
Being creative
Playing a musical instrument
Singing
Reading or writing a story
Dancing
Eating (especially with your hands)
Love making
Walking in nature
Meditation
Doing things with your left side of your body will also stimulate the right side of the brain as they correspond.
Those activities, are all things the right side of the brain is good at and stimulated by when we start doing them.
Eventually we would want both brain sides to work together because we need both sets of skills in life. The part in our body that connects the two brain hemispheres and makes communication between them possible is the 'corpus callosum' It's kind of like a bridge made of nerve tissue/white matter that transports information from one brain half to the other. By doing any activities in which both skill sets of the left- and right brain are required the bridge is crossed and by using it often it gets stronger.
So what are these kind of skill combining activities?
Anything that involves movement or creativity speaks to the right brain anything with a certain structure or numbers involved talks to the left brain. So combined activities would be:
Jumping rope and saying the alphabet
Dancing and folowing a certain coreography while you're doing it
Cooking a meal with measurements involved while dancing and singing with music.
Cleaning and organising with music
Tricky things like writing the word yellow with a blue pen and reading it.
Playing an instrument while reading musical notes.
Doing things with both hands.
And last, the labyrinth that our ancestors used looooong ago, somehow takes us through a path in the brain while following the pattern, as if it's restructuring it, reaffirming its wholeness with it's blueprint pattern and not only on brain level. While following the pattern with our finger and eyes we can make this happen. And as doing things with both hands helps the corpus callosum grow strong, following two age old labyrinths with both hands at the same time works miracles ( I think ;-)) I have tried it and it feels like there is actually something happening inside my brain while I 'm at it. My eyes have to go from left to right a lot, crossing the middle line, to keep both hands following the pattern correctly, that alone could already do the trick, but I don't think that's all. I believe in the labyrinth. You want to try? If you computer screen isn't big enough to try it on there, print out above picture, stick it on some cardboard or the kitchen table and just start following the labyrinth paths with both hands at the same time until you get to the middle space. When you have celebrated getting there you can follow the path back to the beginning. I'd like to hear your experiences with this. If you feel like it, you can tell me all about it in the comments.
To get back to the conclusion in 'Brain hemispheres part 1':
Even though it is important for a balanced way of thinking that the cerebral hemispheres work together, questions about the meaning of life should be processed by the right side of your brain and you can leave calculations about which fruit is cheaper on the market up to the left side.
The left side can provide the practical information for the process of assessing life’s value, but it is done with the right side of the brain.
Where does quantity become important? When it has meaning attached to it such as how many people can you make happy/ or how many disasters can you prevent? But only because of the attached meaning to it, never because of the number by itself.
;-)