{"id":12902,"date":"2021-04-20T09:02:00","date_gmt":"2021-04-20T13:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alifeofproductivity.com\/?p=12902"},"modified":"2021-12-02T22:42:15","modified_gmt":"2021-12-02T22:42:15","slug":"the-science-of-how-to-get-intuition-to-speak-to-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chrisbailey.com\/the-science-of-how-to-get-intuition-to-speak-to-you\/","title":{"rendered":"The science of how to get intuition to speak to you"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Takeaway:<\/b> Information competes for our conscious attention: the web of thoughts with the greatest activation is usually the one where we direct our attention. The calmer our mind, the fewer thoughts we generate in response to what happens in the world\u2014and the greater the odds that intuition will speak to us. Estimated Reading Time:<\/b> 4 minutes, 12s.<\/div><\/div>\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
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Image designed by Sinisa<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

One of my favorite studies has a heck of a title: Intuition in the context of object perception: Intuitive gestalt judgments rest on the unconscious activation of semantic representations.<\/a><\/em> Definitely a mouthful. While this word soup of a title may lead you to skim the research, in my opinion that would be a mistake. The study cuts to the core of something absolutely fascinating: what intuition is.<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

At the risk of oversimplifying, intuition is when information is activated in our brain without our awareness<\/em>.<\/strong> When we feel compelled to act or think differently without being able to explain why and without conscious retrieval, that\u2019s intuition at play. Conscious thinking, on the other hand, is when information is activated with<\/em> awareness.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

This subconscious retrieval of information is what can lead us to utter reassuring words to our spouse from out of the blue, hug a friend for reasons we can\u2019t yet explain, or dart to the other side of the sidewalk before a car careens around the corner.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Our mind constantly connects what we perceive around us to our past experiences, memories, and knowledge. Some of these connections break through into our consciousness\u2014when we come up with an idea, think about a world issue, or soak up the world around us. We tend to overfocus on these conscious thoughts\u2014after all, this is the stuff we can notice.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

But what doesn\u2019t<\/em> break through is just as important\u2014if not more so.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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The \u201cvoice\u201d of intuition has been given a handful of names.1<\/a><\/sup> Oprah Winfrey, in her book The Path Made Clear<\/a><\/em>, talks about how intuition \u201cwhispers\u201d to us throughout the day. Others refer to intuition as a \u201cstill, small voice\u201d in our head, others a \u201cgut instinct.\u201d Whatever the label, intuition is always there\u2014a background hum of subconscious thoughts related to our conscious world, passing by under the thin surface of our awareness.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Generally speaking, the quieter our mind, the more likely we are to hear this intuitive undercurrent. <\/strong>Put simply, a conscious thought is a web of connections in our brain that has become activated enough to break through our conscious barrier. As I wrote about in Hyperfocus<\/a><\/em>, the capacity of our conscious awareness is far smaller than we think. We can only hold so many thoughts in our mind at once. And so thoughts compete for our mental space. The web of thoughts that is the most activated is the one that wins the prize of our attention.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

But a far greater number of neural networks and ideas don\u2019t <\/em>win. In this sense, our mind is like an iceberg; we\u2019re aware of only the few thoughts floating above the waters of consciousness. Most thoughts reside deeper. Being able to hear intuition speak is a simple numbers game. The fewer thoughts there are to drown out the voice of intuition, the greater the odds that intuition will break through to alter how we think and act.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The calmer our mind, the fewer thoughts we generate in response to what happens in our world.<\/strong> A calm mind also means reacting less to our own<\/em> thoughts\u2014recalling a cringeworthy memory that leads to a cascading series of negative thoughts, for example, or receiving an angry email that contributes to turbulent thinking for the rest of the afternoon.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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As I\u2019ve written about before, calm is a critical contributor to productivity during an anxious time.<\/a><\/strong> The calmer your mind, the space you\u2019ll free up for valuable, deeper thoughts.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

While this post has been a bit more technical, the tactics to calm our mind are anything but. Here are a few simple yet surprisingly powerful ones you can put into practice immediately:<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n