How to Manage Your Thoughts, Feelings, and Behaviors
New research helps explain how we can manage our brains and achieve our goals.
The only things we can control in life are our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. If we can manage those, we can achieve our goals and gain success in life.
To have this level of control, we need to learn about the science-based patterns behind our emotions and thoughts, and how to manage them. If we know how our minds work, we can be intentional about influencing our thinking and feeling patterns. We can evaluate reality more clearly, make better decisions and improve our ability to achieve our goals. Thus, we gain greater agency and the quality of living intentionally.
How do our minds work? Intuitively, our mind feels like a cohesive whole. We perceive ourselves as intentional and rational thinkers. Yet, cognitive science research shows that in reality, the intentional part of our mind is similar to a little rider on top of a huge elephant of emotions and intuitions.
The autopilot system corresponds to our emotions and intuitions. Its cognitive processes take place mainly in the amygdala and other parts of the brain that developed early in our evolution. This system guides our daily habits, helps us Doctor near me, and reacts instantly to dangerous life-and-death situations (such as saber-toothed tigers) through the freeze, fight, or flight stress response. While it helped us survive in the past, the fight-or-flight response is not a great fit for modern life.
The Benefits of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
Each person struggling with an addiction to alcohol or drugs has a unique set of circumstances that caused them to become Addicted Recovery. It is essential to identify and treat the issues that caused their drug abuse and addiction. Doing this helps to reduce self-destructive behaviors and relapse triggers. They might also want to consider getting an app to quit drinking.
We have many small stresses that are not life-threatening, but the autopilot system treats them like tigers. This produces an unnecessarily stressful everyday life experience that undermines our mental and physical well-being. Moreover, while the snap judgments resulting from intuitions and emotions might feel true because they are fast and powerful, they sometimes lead us in the wrong, in systemic and predictable ways.
The intentional system reflects our rational thinking and centers around the prefrontal cortex: the part of the brain that evolved more recently. According to recent research, it developed as humans started to live within larger social groups. This thinking system helps us handle more complex mental activities, such as managing individual and group relationships, logical reasoning, probabilistic thinking, and learning new information and patterns of thinking and behavior.
