Your brain is in command of everything that is interesting about you: your memories, dreams, passions, thoughts, experiences, imagination, personality, and learning. Without your brain you cannot learn, reason, remember, predict, plan, or adapt your thinking process to make decisions, have beliefs, behaviors or expectations. When it comes to these things, your brain works to keep your comfort zone fixed. In other words, your brain's first inclination is to avoid change, even if it is for your benefit.
Your brain has a soft spot for the comfort zone!
Your brain has a soft spot for the comfort zone, but it is designed for complexity and
edging for a challenge. No matter what
age you are your brain thrives on anything new, different, or difficult.
What a conundrum! You want a healthy brain working at peak
performance and your brain is busy fighting the thing it needs most – new
challenges.
Even if your comfort zone is a happy place, if you fall
into the complacency trap, your brain becomes bored and sluggish from not being
challenged; it eventually works less effectively, quickly, or sharply.
It is good to force your brain out of its comfort zone!
However, it is outside the comfort zone that learning and growth happen. It is where you acquire skills, live your dreams, solve problems, gain control and boost your energy and brain power.
Your brain is a hard working organ. It keeps all
physiological functions in your body in sync to maintain your life.
Different parts of your brain have specific
functions that control such things as breathing, balance, heart rate, thirst, thought,
vision, movement, language, memory, facial recognition, emotions.
Your brain operates on the principle that it must seek
balance and maintain a condition of equilibrium or stability within its
internal environment when dealing with external changes. To that end it processes more than 100
million connections through your senses.
It works diligently to regulate your body’s internal systems by
anticipating needs and preparing to satisfy them before they arise, which helps
you respond to challenging or stressful situations. For example, in order to regulate your body
temperature at around 98.6 F (37 C) your body produces sweat to cool off and
shivers to produce heat when it is cold.
Something similar occurs with behavior. Your brain works to keep your external
environment or comfort zone fixed too, where it is free of stress.
What can you do? Your brain favours challenges that are personally relevant so that is a good place to start.
There are many practical activities that stimulate brain activity. Healthy choices, learning, socializing, reading, playing board games, staying curious, dancing are all good. Activities and exercises do not have to be dramatic to be effective at exercising your brain.
However, keep in mind that once you have done any an activity or exercise enough times that you are operating on autopilot, it no longer challenges your brain. Therefore, you must take your brain into new territory again.
It does not have to a totally foreign place. While exploring an entirely new challenge is ideal, you can force your brain out of its comfort zone by introducing a slight variation to a familiar activity or advancing an exercise to a higher level.
Your brain is very rule-based or procedure based. Before trying something different familiarize yourself with the process or do a quick review what you will do. It is how you notify your brain that you will be exploring unfamiliar territory and this helps it to feel more comfortable or secure.
Remember what it was like the first time you learned to ride a bike. It seemed difficult. People encounter similar feelings the first time they play the guitar or use all fingers on the keyboard. You may feel awkward indulging in a daydreaming exercise or practicing to be ambidextrous. Both may be out of your comfort zone. So many activities may seem unusual or uncomfortable in the beginning. Yet, after some repetition or practice they become much easier and more enjoyable. Soon people are doing tricks on a bike, playing difficult guitar pieces or typing at ninety words a minute.
When you are out of your comfort zone trying something new or challenging, your brain’s generates a stress response. That is a good thing. In fact, a great thing! It means you have entered an enhanced level of concentration and focus which can create an ideal brain "performance zone".
In the performance zone you experience a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. You can become so absorbed in what you are doing that you lose your sense of space and time. You are in the flow. You have expanded your brain’s comfort zone to its performance zone.
However, if you undertake a difficult challenge that causes significant anxiety, there is no optimal performance zone. You should be mindful of whether stress levels are helping or hindering your execution of the challenge. When your brain produces a stress response that hinders focus, your thinking performance deteriorates and you are more apt to resort to more familiar but less challenging thinking strategies, even if they are not helpful anymore. When that happens, it is time to stop and recharge before undertaking the challenge more slowly or possibly in baby steps.
