In This Episode
- How the Default Mode Network affects you
- Why personality is not set in stone
- Read about the God Helmet experiments
How to Reprogram Your Brain
There are many ways that we've found to help change the way we think. We talk about some of the methods that we've used and geek out on some of the techniques that you may not have heard about before.
So if you're stuck in a rut, you might want to research these methods for yourself. This is not medical advice.
Read the Transcript:
Hugh: Hi, Walter. I’d be interested to get your opinion on this: Default Mode Network. It has some implications in terms of our ego or ingrained personality. Some people say that if you interrupt that default mode network, you can change your personality or you can do certain things with your psychology. What do you think about that?
Walter: Well, I’ve never heard that term before. So you’re saying we operate from like, the basis from where we operate is some kind of a homeostasis or something?
Hugh: Yeah. I mean, in my personal opinion the science behind it is a little circumstantial but the idea I think is sound. It is like certain parts of the brain or certain networks are activated when we are not doing something really cognitively strenuous or just kind of relaxing. Apparently those parts of the brain light up. So they say that, that’s the parts of the brain that are our true selves or whatever. So have you seen anything like that?
Walter: No, but what I am aware of in terms of personality because it sounds like you are touching on that. They do say, we used to think in Psychology like they say, “Your personality is formed by the age of five” you know and then you’re stuck. That is not true.
There’s a guy in Cornell University, he might be dead by now. But, there’s this Psychologist, a really famous one from Cornell University in New York. And he would talk about how you are different in different environments.
So like you have your wife, right? You’re in a certain way with her. Then, you’ve got a bigger family like your mom and your dad; her mom, her dad and maybe your kids or your cousins, you know. It kind of widens out to your work space; to your social friends, to people that you’ve kind of known as acquaintances. Maybe when you go and watch an UFC fight or something or go to a casino you know you are different in different environments.
So he talks about these circles that get bigger and bigger. I think that makes a lot of sense. Because I’ve noticed personally and totally, so I would say in my life I’ve noticed I’ve made a conscious effort to be a little bit different.
The easiest way I’ve known to do that is to move some place because nobody knows you. Do you know what I mean? I believe that personality is very malleable. I think the research supports that. When you talk about those a little bit more in neuroscience and they probably do, if they are researching that, like they will be using functional MRI’s. They can see where your brains are lighting up. I don’t know much about that.
Let’s say, you go to work and you go a certain way everyday. You walk down the street in a certain way; you catch the bus at a certain time. You get off the bus, you walk a certain way to work or maybe you drive your car. You drive your car to work. You drive the same route everyday unless there’s a detour or something. You park it in the same general area.
I always try to mix it up. Where I live it is really easy to not go anywhere. Everything is right here. It is really a small community. It is like living on an island. It is a little, tiny peninsula surrounded by water and you are kind of stuck. Unless you really make an effort to get off the island.
Luckily, there’s several ways to go. You can go by car over a bridge or you can go by boat. It is so easy for me to walk to the store the same way; you know, walk to my kid’s school the same way. I think it is good to break it up and do different things. So that your brain is somewhat uncomfortable. That might be kind of what they are talking about.
Hugh: Yeah, I think so. Have you seen Dr. Michael Persinger’s work on the God Helmet?
Walter: I’ve heard about him. I’ve seen something like a video or something. Tell me more.
Hugh: He had a similar concept. He called the binding factor and he measured it like an eight hertz signal. I think from back to front of the brain, they’re kind of cycled. He found that if you use magnets to interrupt that movement you can kind of get certain effects.
Some people became a little bit more aware of things. Some people improve their psychic ability. Some people saw god like in one percent of them. So I think there is something interrupting the signal or some signal that is in there. And that can be true doing your activities differently or putting magnets in your brain or whatever it is but I think there is something to it for sure.
Hugh: Hey there! I hope you find this episode useful. I just want to let you know that Walter and I give away something valuable every month that helps traders improve their skills. You can enter to win by simply leaving an iTunes review and leaving a comment on our YouTube videos.
At the end of each month, we'll look at the comments and reviews from the month and we'll pick a winner at random. Each comment and each review counts for one entry during the month that it's pitted.
So, if you're interested in that, be sure to enter after this podcast is over. Alright, back to the episode.
Walter: That is fascinating by the way. Thanks for sharing that. I heard about the god helmet. I just saw a quick video, something about it or someone talking about it.
Hugh: You can actually get it.
Walter: You can buy it?
Hugh: Yeah.
Walter: Alright, cool. I am a sucker for those sorts of things. I think the general takeaway would be to break it out. Like changing your habits. It is so easy for people to just fall into the same habits and thinking habits too. It is not just like physical things like walking to work, walking to the store or riding a bike to the store. Also, thinking habits too.
When you become a parent, you see these patterns in your kid’s thinking and you try to show them that there is another way. You do not always have to look at it this way.I think we forget that we can do that for ourselves too. It is so useful to have a trading accountability partner because they can often point out things from a different point of view.
Hugh: Totally.
Walter: Or a mentor. Somebody that says, “You don’t always have to look at it this way.” Just like you do not always have to act a certain way. You don’t always have to have this sort of personality. You can have a different personality.
When I was a kid, I was extremely shy. The only reason why I was able to somewhat break out of that was because I started doing magic shows at a young age. So I had to learn to suck it up and get in front of a crowd. When I was six years old, it was only a crowd of five girls you know or five kids. Still, I had to learn that.
We could do that with anything. We can do that with thinking habits. We can do that with physical habits. I mean, it makes a lot of sense. It is tricky though. What the god helmet gets into, it sounds like, is that these things are almost like hard wired. It takes something drastic to kind of, like break the connection and force it to go another way.
That is very interesting to me. I suppose I would say that there might be other ways you know like the nuns, that had the brains of, what do you call it?
Hugh: Alzheimer's.
Walter: So they had Alzheimer's brain when they scanned them. But because they did so much reading, meditating and just gardening simple stuff, almost like they are in a zen monastery. These nuns even though their brains look like normal Alzheimer patients, they are normally functioning.
I think there are ways your brain can you know the whole plasticity of the brain thing where the connections can go around. Because Alzheimer is basically like plaque in your brain. Black spots where it is like the connections have to go around. The neurons have to go around for you to function normally.
Apparently, if you are very mentally active that can happen. I think that is the case also with meditation. People who are lifelong meditators I think it is the same sort of deal. Where you start making these connections — perhaps I am not well-read on the research but perhaps — that is the sort of thing that would maybe give you a similar effect you know to what you are talking about.
Hugh: I totally agree. I think there are a lot of different ways to get there. You can do meditation. You could do whatever, the god helmet. You can do these psychedelics, you can do all kinds of those stuff. I think it is just a matter of what works best for you.
Walter: Exactly. So many things.
Hugh: Okay, cool. Thanks, Walter.
Walter: Thanks!
Hugh: All the information in this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and is not trading or investment advice.
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