Lo and behold, after a good night’s rest we find ourselves better able to cope and deal with the pressing problems on the following day. I think we can also recall how why taking a bath or a shower we were able to remember things which had earlier slipped our mind or come up with a solution to a problem.
Well, for Archimedes of Syracuse, it famously led him to a Eureka moment. As told in Wikipedia: “According to Vitruvius, a votive crown for a temple had been made for King Hiero II, who had supplied the pure gold to be used, and Archimedes was asked to determine whether some silver had been substituted by the dishonest goldsmith.
Archimedes had to solve the problem without damaging the crown, so he could not melt it down into a regularly shaped body in order to calculate its density. While taking a bath, he noticed that the level of the water in the tub rose as he got in, and realized that this effect could be used to determine the volume of the crown.
For practical purposes water is incompressible, so the submerged crown would displace an amount of water equal to its own volume. By dividing the mass of the crown by the volume of water displaced, the density of the crown could be obtained. This density would be lower than that of gold if cheaper and less dense metals had been added.
Archimedes then took to the streets naked, so excited by his discovery that he had forgotten to dress, crying "Eureka!" (Greek: "εὕρηκα!," meaning "I have found it!"). The test was conducted successfully, proving that silver had indeed been mixed in.”
In more recent times, we could also find ourselves drained out as we multi-task and stay afloat by dealing with a flood of messages screaming for our attention from media platforms such as e-mails, sms, WhatsApp, Twitter, Instagram,YouTube and Facebook.
What are the scientific explanations for the aforesaid experiences? In his article “Hit the reset button in your brain”, Daniel J. Levitin explained that our brains have two dominant modes of attention: the task-positive and the task-negative networks of neurons (like electrical circuits within the brain).
The task-positive network is called the central executive and it is active when we are actively engaged in a task; focused and undistracted. This part of the brain has helped us, inter alia, to harness fire, build airplanes and discover penicillin.
But such discoveries and inventions would probably come from the task-negative network which is recognized as the daydreaming mode.
The switch between the daydreaming mode and the central executive mode is controlled by the part of the brain called the insula which is like a seesaw: when one mode is active, the other is not. If this switching happens frequently, we will feel tired and a bit dizzy.
Following from this, we can see how important it is to get some rest and recreation after tackling our tasks. For example, take a walk in the park, smell the roses, take naps, go for an unhurried holiday or listen to music.
Here are two suggestions from Daniel J. Levitin which you may fine to be useful for leading a more productive, creative and energized life:
1. Partition your day into project periods. Your social networking should be done during a designated time, not as constant interruptions to your day.
2. If we can train ourselves to take true vacations without work and set aside time for regular contemplations and naps, we will be in a stronger position to solve problems in our world.
Yes, we can have a better brain if we understand better how to make the most of it. By the way, we are only using less than 10% or so of our brain. Imagine if we could use more or just go watch Lucy (2014 film).
Daniel J. Levitin is the director of the Laboratory for Music, Cognition and Expertise at McGill University and the author of “The Organised Mind: Thinking Straight In The Age Of Information.
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