Unclassified
Skip to content
Flag of the United States of America
Musings

Blue Mind

Volume · Wallace J. Nichols · 10 passages

  1. There are neural networks that are shaped by your interactions with your environment. Because of neuroplasticity, we have the opportunity to reshape our brains throughout our lifetimes by changing the input and the environment we choose.

    Blue Mind
  2. If positive experiences are intense enough, novel enough, occur often enough, and if we direct our focus attention to them long enough, they will strengthen the brain’s “happiness” neural pathways and therefore make it easier for us to feel positive emotions

    Blue Mind
  3. Too much negative stimulation produces excess amounts of the stress hormone cortisol, which causes the amygdala to become overly sensitive to negative. Consciously focusing on positive experiences and putting your full, sustained attention on them, dopamine release to the amygdala can be postponed, which will increase your sensitivity to the happiness that comes your way.

    Blue Mind
  4. Overstressed, overstimulated, urbanized mind can find greater relief in the more subtle perceptions of a park, a forest, a beach, or a riverbank than it can from almost any human-produced environment.

    Blue Mind
  5. People distracted by incoming email and phone calls saw a Ten-point reduction in their IQ

    Blue Mind
  6. Sea of over-stimulation that exhausts physically, mentally, and emotionally. Human brain copes with clutter by going into overdrive.

    Blue Mind
  7. Physical clutter distracts the brain, creates greater stress, overloads the senses, and makes it more difficult to process information.

    Blue Mind
  8. Intensity and the novelty of an experience increases the formation of new synapses in the hippocampus and the creation of new neural structures.

    Blue Mind
  9. Hard and rough leads to psychological inflexibility and a decline in creativity. Straight and firm diminishes creativity and intellectual performance.

    Blue Mind
  10. The list of intellectual and artistic breakthroughs sparked by a wander or a swim is long indeed.

    Blue Mind

Up to 10 passages are published from each source.

Unclassified