Conscious thinking is a continuous process of monitoring current experiences, i.e. everything that happens in the present time, without being distracted by thoughts about the past or future.
The conscious process of thinking helps a person to find connections between all the events that have happened and are ongoing, to understand the meaning of life, to make an informed choice in a given situation, to make fewer mistakes, to be attentive, etc.
The development of awareness always relates to the specific situation in which a person finds himself, to the activity in which he is involved. There is no one specific way to develop awareness, because this process has its own levels.
The development of basic level awareness is facilitated by any practical actions, by performing which you can learn to control your emotions, be in the “here and now” state, be able to relax, and be aware of your desires and needs.
A higher level of development of awareness is manifested when a person knows his needs, knows how to satisfy them and at the same time takes into account the interests of others, controls not only his emotions, but also his thoughts and feelings, tries to expand the boundaries of his perception, tune in to a positive perception of the world around him.
A conscious lifestyle helps a person:
Realize your fears and causes of troubles, overcome obstacles and change beliefs that have a destructive impact on life.
Become wiser, increase your self-esteem and get rid of bad habits.
Gain confidence in yourself and your abilities, increase willpower and faith in success.
Learn to live in harmony with yourself and the world around you.
Of course, developing awareness in everyday life is an extremely useful and effective skill, the beneficial effect of which is reflected not only in changes in the quality external life, but also on the development and enrichment of the inner world. But what does it take to make your life conscious? How to understand your life?
Developing Awareness
Determine where you should start working on yourself. Take your time and don't grab everything at once. The development of awareness can be compared to the process of developing physical qualities: gradual development where the main direction is general physical training, and there is the development of special physical skills. The main focus here will be the development of conscious thinking.
Mindfulness Practice
The first step to living a conscious life is breathing. Breathing is the basis of life and first you need to learn to be aware of your breathing, controlling every inhalation and exhalation. Strive to constantly control your breathing: anywhere, at any time, in communication with any people, while performing any action. Always pay attention to how you breathe.
Conscious sensations. Make it a habit to be aware of all your sensations throughout the day. Consciously pay attention to the state of your body, what makes your body feel comfortable and what makes it uncomfortable, how this is interconnected with the events occurring during the day.
Conscious emotions. Mindfulness implies control of emotion, and control is primarily observation. Every time you have this or that emotion, just observe. Don’t evaluate it as either good or bad, look at it as if from the outside. Accept her as she is.
Conscious thoughts. Our consciousness constantly conducts an internal dialogue. Therefore, thoughts are the most difficult to observe, but they are the most effective part of mindfulness practice.
If for a few seconds you can simply control what you are thinking about at that moment, you will not notice how deeply you are already immersed in new thoughts. But the more often you remember your thoughts, the more they will be amenable to your observation and control.
The basis for developing mindfulness lies in four conscious actions:
Practice awareness of your breathing, emotions, sensations and thoughts for a month. Consciously observing how you breathe and what you feel is a rather complex process. Most likely, at first you will be distracted all the time and forget about it.
But over time, it will become easier and easier for you to control these processes. Then you won’t even notice how observation of all your manifestations and condition will become part of your life, which means you will be conscious all the time.
Practice developing awareness of specific skills
Awareness of movement– try to feel any of your movements, watch the sensations in your body, take your time in actions. If you are used to doing something quickly or mechanically, now do the opposite, trying to become aware of even any muscle contraction.
Mindfulness of speech– carefully monitor everything that others say and what you say yourself, think about your words and be attentive.
Awareness of values helps you define your ideals, values and beliefs.
To develop awareness of reality try always and everywhere to strive for a full perception and understanding of what is happening around and inside you right “here and now.”
Awareness of activity– strive for flawless execution of everything you undertake. Then it will be easier for you to work on developing awareness of your actions.
Before you commit any action, think about the result, consider it with different points perspective and positions of perception, take into account not only your desires and needs, but also the interests of others.
Conscious thinking
Eventually you will come to what can be called conscious thinking. Constant observation of yourself, self-development, changing all your stereotypes, habits, reactions, emotions, thoughts, feelings, desires, actions, speech will give you the joy of a conscious life.
The brain needs daily training almost more than the body. For this purpose, special simulators have been invented, and one of the most effective, as proven by research, is Vikium. We talked with neuropsychologist Nikita Khokhlov about how useful working with thinking is.
— What are the ideas of intellectual training and simulators based on?
- They are very common now. Some analogy: if you can walk to pump up your muscles, then why can’t you pump up your brain? But there are also a lot of charlatans. It is dangerous if there is clinical disorders: a person stops being treated with traditional methods, sits down in front of a computer, starts doing exercises, thinking that this will help him. But in reality everything is much worse: he does not receive the treatment that he was given before.
The effectiveness of simulators may vary. Any intellectual activity improves blood supply to the brain and prolongs conscious aging. People who have engaged in it throughout their lives maintain a good level of cognitive abilities longer in old age. People in working professions often demonstrate a decrease in such abilities. If you work with good simulators regularly, you can solve this problem. What is important is that the effectiveness of the simulator must be confirmed, otherwise we are dealing with a placebo.
— How soon should we expect positive changes?
“I can say that adults should not expect instant changes. Memory will not improve from three sessions; it takes six months, sometimes a year of training to achieve changes. It's still not a pill. The issue of sustainability of the effect is also important: any function that we do not develop falls - just like with the muscles of the body. In my opinion, it takes 3-5 years.
— Do these programs allow you to treat dementia and other disorders?
— Dementia is a disease. Here we risk getting into awkward situation, like the company that claimed their exercise equipment could help treat Parkinson's disease or Alzheimer's disease. It cannot be said that exercise equipment can treat dementia. Prevention is given, yes, of course. Everything else requires research. In the long term this is tens of years.
— How can you apply the skills acquired in this way in life?
— It is not entirely clear what we consider a skill or ability. In psychology, skills are tied to specific activities. Ability is a more general thing that creates operational prerequisites for the effectiveness of this activity. What simulators develop is abilities. For example, attention, which can be applied in any activity. We can advise a person who has decided to change their career profile, suggest what they are missing, and develop these abilities. These are the components that simulators influence.
— In your opinion, do antidepressants affect our brain? Many residents of megacities accept them.
— Any drugs that work with the psyche always interfere with the biochemistry of the brain. Side effects also arise. If a person cares about his health, it is necessary to be accompanied by a specialist when taking such drugs. Any drug changes something: one cures, another cripples. Some antidepressants will reduce memory, others will not. And, of course, you need to take into account the characteristics of each person. Here it is extremely important to be accompanied by a qualified specialist; there must be a guiding hand. On his own, a person is simply not able to assess the situation comprehensively and analyze it.
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Individual characteristics and qualities of thinking.
Individual characteristics of thinking in different people are manifested primarily in the fact that they have different relationships between different and complementary types and forms of mental activity (visual-effective, visual-figurative, verbal-logical and abstract-logical).
Individual characteristics of thinking also include other qualities cognitive activity: mental productivity, independence, breadth, depth, flexibility, quickness of thought, creativity, criticality, initiative, quick wit, etc. (see Fig. 8).
Rice. 8. Components of mental productivity
For example, for creative work it is necessary to have the ability to think independently and critically, to penetrate into the essence of objects and phenomena, and to be inquisitive, which largely ensures the productivity of mental activity. All of these qualities are individual, change with age, and can be corrected.
Quick thinking- speed of thought processes. Speed of thought is especially needed in cases where a person is required to make certain decisions in a very short time (for example, during an accident).
Independence of thinking- ability to see and place new question, and then solve it on your own. Independence of thinking, as the ability to use public experience and the independence of one’s own thought, is manifested, first of all, in the ability to see and pose a new question, a new problem and then solve them on one’s own. The creative nature of thinking is clearly expressed precisely in such independence.
Flexibility of thinking- the ability to change aspects of consideration of objects, phenomena, their properties and relationships, the ability to change the intended path to solve a problem if it does not satisfy the changed conditions, active restructuring of the initial data, understanding and use of their relativity. Flexibility of thinking how the ability to find ways to solve a problem lies in the ability to change the initially planned path (plan) for solving problems if it does not satisfy the conditions of the problem that are gradually identified in the course of solving it and which could not be taken into account from the very beginning.
Inertia of thinking- quality of thinking, manifested in a tendency to a pattern, to habitual trains of thought, in the difficulty of switching from one system of actions to another.
Rate of development of thought processes- the minimum number of exercises necessary to generalize the solution principle.
Economical thinking- the number of logical moves (reasoning) through which a new pattern is learned.
Breadth of mind- ability to cover a wide range of issues in various fields of knowledge and practice.
Depth of thinking- the ability to delve into the essence, reveal the causes of phenomena, and foresee the consequences; manifests itself in the degree of significance of the features that a person can abstract when mastering new material, and in the level of their generality.
Sequence of thinking- the ability to maintain a strict logical order in considering a particular issue.
Critical thinking- the quality of thinking, which allows for a strict assessment of the results of mental activity, finding strengths and weaknesses in them, and proving the truth of the propositions put forward.
Stability of thinking– quality of thinking, manifested in orientation towards a set of previously identified significant features, towards already known patterns.
Mindfulness of thinking– the quality of thinking, manifested in the ability to express in words both the result of work (essential features, concepts, patterns, etc.), and the methods and techniques by which this result was found.
These individual characteristics must be specifically taken into account in order to correctly assess mental abilities and knowledge.
All of the listed and many other qualities of thinking are closely related to its main quality, or attribute. The most important feature of any thinking - regardless of its individual individual characteristics - is the ability to highlight the essential, to independently come to ever new generalizations. When a person thinks, he is not limited to stating this or that fact or event, even bright, interesting, new and unexpected. Thinking necessarily goes further, delving into the essence of a given phenomenon and discovering the general law of development of all more or less homogeneous phenomena, no matter how outwardly they differ from each other.
Have you ever thought that the life of each of us depends on our thoughts? Ours, which attack consciousness purposefully and relentlessly, have enormous potential. It turns out that only conscious thinking will allow us to maintain mental and physical health...
Think as if you can be heard...
Get your thoughts in order
Conscious thinking
According to experts, in order to balance a person’s neurophysical state, one should develop the ability to think consciously and purposefully.
Conscious thinking helps a person to put things in order, and also to ensure that they are not destructive.
Unfortunately, most people don’t even think about the fact that their thoughts can be controlled.
Usually, these are people who give preference to the factor of violence, using which they can get rid of all their problems forever.
It turns out that the aggression aimed at others, which they secretly harbor, returns to them, to their own body.
To stop the recurring facts of accidents (cuts, bruises, scalds, broken bones and other injuries), psychologists, first of all, recommend that a person get rid of the aggression that overwhelms his soul and create peace and tranquility in his soul.
4. Alcoholism has a reason - the purposelessness of existence. A person who suffers from this vice should restore the sense of the lost values of life, and re-learn to distinguish the unique colors and joys of the moments of life.
Let all thoughts come and go. Thoughts are clouds, you are the sky, the space for all thoughts, not their enemy. Don't try to remove the thoughts or even calm them down. Embrace their glorious grunts, and know that you are not a thought. (Jeff Foster)
Health, Love and Happiness to everyone!
In the described episodes, the captured thoughts did not fall into the dominant speech consciousness, but into another part of the brain, probably into the same one where communication in a silent instinctive language was analyzed. But if this part of the brain could not analyze abstract thoughts, obviously the captured thoughts got into it in an unusual way, BY RANDOM.
But how did they get there? To understand this, you need to analyze the process of the appearance of thoughts in consciousness, i.e. process of conscious thinking.
Consciousness cannot directly analyze the thinking process, as well as the work of the brain in controlling the body; it has no access to other parts of the brain. But what happens in itself, including during thinking, consciousness can analyze.
The process of thinking appears to my consciousness as follows.
When thinking, consciousness asks its brain a question and waits - the person thinks. What happens at this time - his consciousness does not know. After some time, an answer appears in consciousness in the form of a thought (if the result of the brain’s work does not reach consciousness, then there is no thought). Consciousness is either satisfied with this answer or not, and then it asks the next question. Or the answer comes that there is not enough data to solve the problem, and the person suddenly understands, “realizes” that he does not have enough knowledge (or capabilities) to answer this question. And the solution to the problem is postponed for an indefinite period of time.
Thus, the role of consciousness in the thought process is guiding, evaluative, and expert.
The structure of the brain is such that certain cells are responsible for the smallest, “insignificant” operation. But all cells of the cerebral cortex can participate in thinking, communicating with each other in various ways. There must be a single center that would direct this activity. This center is consciousness.
Probably, the instinctive research program, which is activated in animals when encountering an unknown stimulus, has been transformed over millions of years in humans into an instinctive desire for knowledge. And as with any instinctive drive, it must be associated with an executive program of instinct, consisting of unconditioned reflexes. I'm talking about the mindfulness program. This complex instinct, theoretically, should be located in the same place where all other complex instinctive programs are located, in the nuclei of the limbic system. This will be the place of localization of human consciousness.
The cells of consciousness involved in thinking, being part of the brain (general computer), are structured and work differently than the cells that do all the “dirty” work in thinking. Consciousness gives the task, the “working computer” (let’s roughly call it that) calculates the answer.
This process can take varying amounts of time. But ready-made thoughts that come to consciousness, no matter how much information they contain, arise so quickly that a feeling of instantaneity is created. Consciousness evaluates them, but according to a different principle (since doing the same work twice is pointless).
For example, according to the “like or dislike” type. I like what is pleasant, what is pleasant is what is necessary for the functioning of the body or stimulates it in the best way, suitable. What fits is suitable, and this can be determined by applying it to a finished sample or by butting it. But evaluation by superimposing on a ready-made sample, which was once determined by trial and error, is just recognition, the work of instincts (where the “like-dislike” principle is also used, for example, searching for food, avoiding danger). So, in my opinion, the “end-to-end connection” option is more suitable for explaining the work of consciousness - to obtain a complete logical picture.
One cannot help but be tempted to compare the work of thought in a working computer with the uneven movement of charges along a conductor. According to the laws of physics, this movement must inevitably be accompanied by electromagnetic radiation, which can be used to communicate between computers. Since a thought in consciousness arises instantly (i.e., very quickly, much faster than the movement of charges), then in this case, the thought of consciousness can be compared not with a current in a conductor, but with a potential difference at the ends of the conductor that arises (and disappears) ) “instantly”, more precisely, at a speed of about 300,000 km/sec.
For example, when consciousness asks a question to a working computer, a potential difference arises and causes the charges to move, and when the answer is ready, the number of charges is equalized and the potential difference disappears. If the answer is incorrect, the potential difference does not disappear, consciousness feels that something in this answer is wrong, does not correspond. This whole process requires a lot of energy, the consciousness feels tired, the solution to the problem is postponed, the task to the brain is canceled, the potential difference disappears.
