Can You Hear the Noise?

Can you hear the ever-present noise? Your brain is creating somewhere between 35 and 48 thoughts per minute. This chatty self-talk is happening right now as you are reading this. This is what the brain does. Neuroimaging studies suggest the normal resting state of the brain is a silent current of thoughts, images and memories that are not induced by sensory input or intentional reasoning but emerge spontaneously ‘from within’. A Harvard University study concluded that around half of our waking hours are spent thinking about something other than what is actually happening. You must recognize this so you can navigate all this noise. You can’t navigate something that you’re not aware of.

Our process of thinking is so internal that it’s often easy to not be mindful of it and recognize that we have a role in it. We wouldn’t be surprised if we needed a drink of water after eating something spicy, and we wouldn’t be startled by the sound of our own voices since we know that we created these situations. Now for the hardest one: How about feeling anxious, especially about a future situation? Can you tell the reason why you’re feeling anxious is because of the anxiety-riddled thoughts you’re thinking? Can you recognize those thoughts? That takes more insight and effort.

What separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom is our brains are more developed, particularly the cerebral cortex area, and we have the conscious ability to be aware of what we’re thinking. It’s called metacognition, defined as the ability to think about what we think about. This empowers us to objectively analyze our thoughts to ensure they are serving our best interests.

It causes us so much trouble to let our thought processes go on exclusively in the background, without noticing it or recognizing them for what they are— simply thoughts. This would be the opposite of mindfulness. Becoming aware and waking up to your thinking is just like realizing you’ve been wearing a virtual reality headset or waking up from a bad dream. We’ve all had the experience of being relieved after waking up and saying, “Thank goodness that was just a dream.” This is the same thing, except you’re awake and it’s like a daydream. Both circumstances are about your brain creating things and how you’re relating to these creations.

You ought to give yourself a pat on the back for being interested in reading an article like this, since it means that you’re open minded and are willing to do some introspection and take action to help yourself!