Brain is one of the organs in our body, if not the most important, that we depend upon to live our everyday life. However we seldom take time to reflect on how it operates on a daily basis. So let’s break down its daily routine.
When we wake up in the morning, our attention goes outward. We see the light shining through the curtain and we hear the birds chirping outside the window. We get up, go into the bathroom to wash our face. We feel the cool water as we splash it on our face. When we make our morning coffee, we smell the wonderful flagrance through our nostrils. We taste the delicious food with our taste buds as we eat our breakfast. So what role does our brain play in this? When we are awake, we actually perceive the outside world through our 5 sense organs, and our brain continuously processes the information fed in by them, making all the necessary judgements, calculations and decisions.
When we are busy at work, our brain becomes even more active as we focus on tons of tasks at hand and interact with different people we come across during the day. When we find ourselves in some stressful situations, we inevitably develop tension within us and we become agitated and anxious.
At the end of the day, we are exhausted. We come back home and sit on the couch with our legs crossed trying to relax ourselves. Then the mind starts wandering off. Our brain starts to work involuntarily as random thoughts pop up in our mind - things that happened in the past or imaginations about the future. When there’s no sequence of thoughts, we are often haunted by worries and distress.
In the evening, we call it a day and retire to bed and not for long we fall asleep. After a long day of work the brain finally gets its rest. However, we cannot remain in deep sleep for long, we start dreaming about the things that happened during the day. All the anxiety, fear, anger and worry manifest themselves as different plots and scenes in the dream. This lasts throughout the night until dawn time.
We are all familiar with the aforementioned mental states:
- Work mode, where the brain is focused but restless, our mind is full of tension and anxiety.
- Rest mode, where the brain is relaxed but wanders, our mind is full of worries and distress.
- Sleep mode, where the brain alternates in between deep sleep and REM sleep, our mind becomes dull and numb.
In fact, our brain doesn’t get a full break in any of the states, it is constantly restless. One may start to wonder: Is there any other type of mental state that we can finally experience peace and harmony within us?
The relationship between mental states and brain activities
In 1924, a German psychiatrist named Hans Berger invented a method called electroencephalography (EEG) to record different brain waves and rhythms. When masses of neurons in our brains communicate with each other, synchronised electrical pulses produce brainwaves. These different waves and rhythms can be mapped to different mental behaviors and states.
Hans found out that when we close our eyes, the slower brainwave which is called alpha wave rhythm becomes prominent. As we open our eyes the faster brainwave called beta wave substitutes it. Later on, neuroscientists have discovered more types of brainwaves such as delta, theta, and gamma which correspond to deep sleep, REM and heightened sense of awareness respectively.
Bundled with the App, our Mr. ESP brain sensing headset is able to detect a wide range of electrical activities in the brain and translate them into meaningful key performance indicators and easy-to-read graphs to illustrate how our state of mind changes over time.
Calmness level
The first key performance indicator is Calmness. When the inner dialog quiets down and you feel calm and peaceful, the graph becomes flat; the graph becomes steep when the mind is agitated or is full of thoughts, which indicates poor inner calmness.
As illustrated above, the subject experiences an agitated and restless mind in the beginning of the session and it slowly becomes more calm and peaceful toward the end of the session.
Awareness level
The second key performance indicator is Awareness. When the mind becomes scattered, not attentive and the recognition capability decreases, the graph becomes flat. It may rise due to sensory stimuli, intense attention, or increase in inner awareness.
Here the subject begins with a distracted mind and unable to concentrate. Then the subject becomes very alert and attentive in the second part of the session.
With the calmness and awareness performance indicators in mind, let’s go back and re-examine the three states of mind.
Work mode brain activity pattern
When we are at work we are often busy and attentive, thus our awareness increases. But when we are in a stressful where there’s a lot of tension, there’s no peace of mind.
Rest mode brain activity pattern
When we are resting we do feel calm, but often we lose our awareness thus the mind is often scattered with lots of thoughts.
Sleep mode brain activity pattern
When we are asleep, we inevitably lose our awareness. Sometimes we are peaceful and sometimes agitated, our mind completely out of our control.
The 4th state of mind - the state of mindfulness
The word mindfulness comes from an ancient tradition of meditation. It was first introduced by the Buddha more than 2500 years ago. It is translated from the Ancient Pali word Sati which carries many meanings, such as the quality of state of being conscious or aware of something, the mental state achieved by focusing one’s awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one’s feelings, thoughts and bodily sensations.
To be mindful, one has to remain calm and quiet, while being alert and attentive from moment to moment. This is very different from the work mode, we are very focused on the activity at the same time we don’t become tense and agitated; and it is different from the state of rest mode, we are very relaxed and we don’t let ourselves fall into idleness and laziness; it is also different from sleep mode, our consciousness stays awake. Without being mindful, our brain often jumps in between the two ends - from excessively active to overly idle. As a result, we suffer from over excitement, pressure and agitation to boredom, sadness and depression.
Below is the exemplary brain activity pattern of mindfulness. The subject is able to maintain a good balance of calmness and awareness.
Being mindful, we feel a sense of peace, joy and happiness during. Only when we are mindful, which means being calm and aware, we are with the present moment. It helps us maintain our creativity and efficiency in the long run. These are the peak moments of our lives and it is the right way of living.
