Lightbulbs

A few years ago, as the popularity of neuroscience increased, I read a number of articles suggesting that we can “hack our brains” to create ideas and solve problems.

Based on the science of sleep, it is suggested that our brains organise inputs and information from the day while we sleep, and for that reason we often awaken with new ideas and insights. The “hack” encourages us to seed our brains, prior to sleep, with information, problems or challenges and let our brains work on it while we catch our nightly zzz’s.

Whether being this deliberate will elicit the ideas and solutions we seek, I don’t believe we truly know.

What I do know from experience, is that there is power in the subconscious part of our brain - our brain holds some things in the background while we go about our days. We may run from meeting to meeting, work on projects, write reports, talk with our teams and for the most part, forget that there are puzzles and problems that we’ve got ticking away behind the scenes.

There’s nothing more satisfying than in the moment when the hubbub of the day has subsided, BOOM, seemingly out of nowhere, the idea strikes.

We see it as a lightbulb moment, when in reality it has taken days, or weeks, of subconscious thinking. We may not be able to “hack our brains” for this solution, but we can take comfort that if we are seeking an idea or answer, our brain will do its best to find it.

I’m curious, have you ever noticed how your lightbulb moments arise?

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