Blow Your Mind

Blow Your Mind by National Geographic

This mind blowing documentary by National Geographic shows these 8 startling observations about our human brain:

#1 - Our response to a visually-perceived fear/threat is automatic/reflex and universal.

• Our eyes widen to let in more visual information.
• Our mouths are open to take in more oxygen.
• Our hands move out in front of us for protection.
• We either stand firm and ready to face the threat, or we prepare to run away.

#2 - Optic flow can affect our response and balance even when we're not moving.

• Optic flow is the stream of visual information we experience as we move through the world.
• When our brain experiences optic flow, it will assume that the world is static and we are moving, and will automatically correct our posture to maintain balance.

#3 - When our brains experience a Placebo effect, the expectation that something is going to have an effect is enough to physically produce the effect itself.

• Every time we experience something new, our brain builds a set of neural connection associating to the experience. When one part of the neural network is activated, the rest of the neural network also starts operating, thus creating an effect even when there's no actual stimuli.

#4 - Our peripheral vision can be poor at picking up information, thus leaving out important things.

• The only thing we really see in high definition is a small spot in the center of our vision, about as big as our thumb nail an arm's length.
• The rest is much lower resolution and our brains do us a favour of pasting it all together as one clear image.

#5 - Our brains can be tricked into choice blindness.

• Our brain craves for harmony, they like to see the world as a logical, rational, and stable place even when it may not be.
• Our brains try to avoid contradictions by trying to make sense of a situation even when it's no longer there.

#6 - Our brains' body map determines how each part of our body has a different level of sensory accuracy towards an external stimuli.

• Our brains allocate different amount of "resources" to different parts of our body.
• We do most of our sensing through our hands, therefore having higher levels of sensory accuracy on our hands compared to our legs.
• When we do use a certain part of our body a lot, the brain generates extra neurons to deal with the increased inputs.

#7 - Cross modality of our brains makes our sensory organs work together as a team.

• Sometimes when we cut our hand, we don't feel the pain until we see bruise on our hand.
• Sometimes it's easier to understand what a person is saying when we get to see the person's mouth moving.
• Sometimes looking at a certain colour will trigger a certain kind of feeling/taste, and vice versa.

#8 - Our brains' ability to adapt allows us to be able to perform regular tasks under irregular circumstances.

• Sometimes the adaptation happens so fast that we become unable to perform regular tasks when the circumstances return to normal.

What can we conclude from these 8 startling observations?

Our brains work based on a set of programming which stems from our past experiences/habits. If we want to change the outcome of our life, we need to change how our brains work. In order to change how our brains work, we need to change the set of programming in our brains, which means we need to live through a whole new set of experiences/habits. And since we have got so used to our current habits, the changes will have to be done deliberately.