A Stroke of Insight: Take A Break
Friday, July 31, 2009 at 08:54AM We each have had something that makes us smack our foreheads and say, "Of course! Why didn't I think of that sooner?" It's something that's usually the answer to a problem you've been chewing on for some time and you finally take a break from thinking about it (giving your left brain a rest). Then, when you're playing, taking a shower, about to drift off to sleep - POW - the answer arrives!
Your left and right brain
An extreme look, and fantastic story, into what happens when a young brain scientist, Jill Bolte Taylor, has a massive stroke, shows us how that can happen (you can watch her tell the amazing story on TED). When our left brain is given a break, the part that is all about problem solving, data, facts, sorting it out, and we let our right brain take over, we uncover our imagination, creativity and peace.
Suddenly, the right side of our brain, the part responsible for emotion, imagination, and intuition, takes over and we get to stay planted in the present, because for the right side of the brain, it's all about what we know in the moment. Bolte Taylor writes that we might think of ourselves "as thinking creatures that feel, but biologically we are feeling creatures that think."
With that insight, it makes sense when we take a break to be in the moment, playing, painting, meditating, even taking a shower, something that puts us in our bodies, in the here and now, we have the opporuntity to give our left brain a break. Released of having to sort through all the pathways of the brain for an answer or make our way through our own brain chatter, we're staying in the moment, and that's when the answer pops up.
Can it really be that easy to solve challenges? Maybe. I certainly like to think so, because I get my most inspired and creative strokes of insight, when I'm about to drift off to sleep or when I'm taking a shower, or playing with visual tools, literally when I'm not thinking at all (or at least trying to figure it out).
What stroke of insight did you have recently and how did it come about? Can you use that same technique to solve other problems?
Want a fun and productive way to launch youself into a productive next six months? Join me at my next workshop where we'll use an exclusive tool to tap into your right and left brain!
Intuition, creativity, problem-solving
Reader Comments (2)
I had a major right brain stroke back in December 2006. Fortunately for me the residual damage has been minimal. I read Jill Taylor's book, Stroke of Insight, and all it did was make me angry. My stroke was NOT a fantastic LSD trip, I did not become "one with the world". I think she does a tremendous disservice to stroke survivors, by making having a stroke seem like a wonderful experience. Recovering is hard enough without caregivers, friends and families being given the wrong impression of what a stroke survivor has gone through.
Hi Kip - When I read the book, I didn't read that it was a fantastic LSD trip. I did take away from the book that she went through years of therapy to get back to even half-way to where she was before and that the gifts she received: insight into her brain, creativity, empathy, a completely new dimension of thinking and/or looking at what is 'real', gave her a richer and fuller life. She wrote from her perspective, her experience. And it sounds like she was really fortunate. It sounds like there's still room on the book shelves for another perspective, perhaps a grittier tale of triumph - perhaps yours?