Full Brains

Think, think, think. Winnie the Pooh

This week is Brain Awareness Week an annual event to get people around the world thinking and talking about brain science. I’m always thinking about our brains and this week I’ve thought a bit more.

The paradox of our brains is that they are simultaneously powerful and fragile. We continue to learn new things every day about their complexity and capacity. The possibilities seem endless. Yet we need to give them plenty of care.

In his book, The Organized Mind, neuroscientist Daniel Levitin talks about how our working memory can get overloaded with information. Our working memory holds about 3-5 “chunks” of information at any one time.

With my full brain taking up one chunk of space this week and many things fighting for the remaining space, I decided to use one of Levitin’s suggestions and make that one list to relieve my brain from holding things everywhere.

And so became the Great Big List of Everything.

It sure feels good having it out of my head. It’s the end of the working week, I wonder what other ways we might give our brain some relief.

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