Our brains are wired to think about the future, explains the psychologist, which is why it is so difficult for us to fully focus on the current life. This property of ours has its advantages… but it also has its disadvantages.
Psychologies: Why do you think it is so difficult for us today to live in the present?
Roland Juven: We humans, like all primates, by the way, are so arranged: it is in our nature to look into the future in order to try to avoid danger. In the same way, we tend to desire to get more pleasure, the desire for reward – and this gives us travel into the past, memories of some good moments. With the passage of time and with the acceleration of technological progress, we, like magicians, have mastered the ability to compress time and space, both in the past and in the future, and have become so fond of it that we have lost interest in thinking about the present. And this phenomenon has only intensified with the advent of new technologies: lightning-fast emails and other “tweets”. This entails the withdrawal of the present, that is, reality, in favor of the symbolic and virtual.
But the same means of communication help us think, create, create, develop…
R. J .: Yes, but the more our mind accelerates time, the more it breaks away from the time in which our body exists, and the more it is exhausted and goes away from the essence. And it consists in the fact that our brain has inherited all the instincts: reproduction, survival, attachment … This brain is an animal inside us, we cannot speed up its work, unlike the most complex and developed part of the brain – the neocortex, which allows us to move from a specific to the symbolic. For example: “I’m thirsty,” says my animal brain. Thanks to my neocortex, I can temporarily dampen my thirst by imagining a glass of cool water that I’m about to drink. But if that glass doesn’t appear, my neocortex will be depleted producing these representations, and my physical body will experience the double effects of a lack of water and an increased activity of my brain. This is exactly the case with new technologies: now we only exchange ideas, pictures, words, ideas … And it is difficult to slow down, because this speed allows us to go beyond the present, helps to relieve anxiety (for a while) and gives a feeling of omnipotence. However, psychological speed leads to exhaustion: after all, physical needs, including the brain, are no longer taken into account.
The motto “to live here and now” just implies such attention and the ability to perceive what is happening, at the level of sensations, emotions. What benefits does this give us?
R. J .: When we are aware of how we feel at the moment, it allows us to synchronize the body and mind, as well as the two hemispheres of our brain. “Being present” allows us to recognize and then name our emotions, which relieves the internal tension that arose from the lack of dialogue between the bodily trace of the emotion (“my muscles are tense, my breathing quickened”) and what it is (“ I’m angry”). If I can’t tell myself that I’m angry, then I can’t defuse that anger because I’m a stranger to what’s going on in my body. Meanwhile, reducing stress improves well-being, it gives us a sense of power over ourselves: there is nothing worse than not knowing what caused our anxiety. We need to accept the event, adapt it to ourselves in such a way as to be able to influence it, then we cease to be its victim. Without being rooted in the present moment, in reality, we cannot do this. As for the synchronization of the two hemispheres of the brain, it is enough to coordinate the rhythm of the body and mind: if the mind is not ahead of the body, the work of the neocortex slows down and the whole brain rests. After such synchronization, we feel relaxed and at the same time become more attentive.
Read more:
- Can we foresee the future?
How can we slow down our brains?
R. J .: Do some very simple things. Walk trying to feel how our feet touch the floor, focus on the green color of the grass if we are walking in nature, and if we are listening to music, try to follow the rhythm, and not the melody that contributes to floating in the clouds … To start the synchronization process, we we can also focus on getting incentives associated with the reward system in the most ordinary, everyday activities. Let’s go back to the example of the glass of water when we’re thirsty. It is enough to linger on this moment a little to feel the beneficial effect of drinking water, and just say to yourself: “How good this makes me!”
But the present can bring disappointment and pain to many …
R. J .: Obviously, you can enjoy the current moment only if it is pleasant. If it is unpleasant or painful, there is no point in it. We are not so arranged as to freeze motionless in an unpleasant situation; on the contrary, we tend to avoid such difficulties and, if possible, include the pleasure-reward system. In most cases, if we find ourselves in an unpleasant situation, we can improve our mental and physical well-being by taking small stops, pauses, and focusing on our feelings. This will help us to adequately look at the situation and make more informed decisions.
We all tend to look into the future in order to foresee everything. And how is this different from anxious “running ahead”?
R. J .: To achieve a goal, it is necessary to anticipate possible problems and consider possible solutions in advance, this is quite natural. Such looking into the future is a condition of human evolution: we think about the future, wishing to improve the conditions of life and achieve benefits – pleasure, security, power … Disturbing speculations have nothing to do with this, since a person inclined to them foresees only the bad, he always ready for the onset of the “worst” and does not want it not to take him by surprise. He focuses exclusively on negative scenarios and is constantly hyper-vigilant, instead of realistically assessing the risks.
Positive psychology, behavioral and cognitive therapy work not with the past, but with the present to improve the patient’s life. What are the advantages of this approach and what are the limitations?
R. J .: It seems to me that it is difficult and even impossible not to take into account the past of the patient. Events and relationships with other people shape us, our ideas through which we perceive the world. These ideas may turn out to be negative, sometimes erroneous, but we cannot take them from tomorrow and replace them with more favorable or correct ones. On the contrary, I think it is important to reconcile people with their past, to give them clues that will help them connect cause and effect. But we are not talking about regarding the past as the only source of all problems and disorders. This may sound trite, but I think that the psychotherapist must consider the personality of his patient in all its temporal dimensions.
About it
“Antistress” David Servan-Schreiber
How to overcome anxiety and fears, improve your well-being today? Seven effective methods will help to establish contact between the heart and mind, manage emotions and live life to the fullest (RIPOL classic, 2012).
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Natalia Voronitsyna, 38 years old, photographer, artist, coordinator of the together.ru community
“The main thing for me now is to do something”
“I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis nine years ago. At the beginning of my illness, I was very self-confident: I thought that I would figure everything out, I could handle everything. Today, I do not know what part of the path I have traveled and whether recovery will come. But that doesn’t change anything: I want to live! Not so long ago, I had to spend a month and a half in bed, and when I was back on the street, I felt such a huge thirst for life, I was so grateful that I just exist! When a person is healthy, he often does not understand this buzz, it is natural for him. But life is a miracle, an incredible gift. All these little things: breathing, tactile sensations, what we see around. I realized this in the extreme conditions in which I found myself. Even if I would like to quit the game, demand that they give me another body … But this body is mine. I live in this reality, in such a present, and I live it every day from beginning to end. I have a lot of energy, and I try to act all the time, without even knowing whether it will lead to results, whether there is any sense in it. I always wanted to help others, but while I was walking, I could not figure out how. And when she got sick, little by little she found her way. I participated in raising money for the treatment of children, coordinated the work of volunteers in forest fires, then the together.ru community appeared – I need to do something. Even if despair rolls over and there is not enough inspiration and strength.
Recorded by Elena Shevchenko
Natalia needs a set of exercise therapy exercises for her back. For more ways to help, see her blog gua-nyin.livejournal.com