An “aha moment” is often described as a sudden insight or epiphany that radically changes a person’s perspective. It can be a decision-making moment, spiritual realization or creative breakthrough. Something clicks in the brain and — pop! — things just seem to fall into place.
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Dr. Kyra Bobinet is a University of California, San Francisco and Harvard Public Health graduate who teaches neuroscience and health engagement design at the Stanford School of Medicine. Bobinet also runs a design firm called engagedIN that focuses on engaging people in well-being and behavior change. “My whole passion is why we don’t do what we know we should do, and designing for the disparity between those two aspects of our brain,” says Bobinet.
According to Bobinet, an aha moment like Okupe’s is actually the result of many individual thoughts, conscious or unconscious, that accumulate over time. “Every time I have the thought, ‘oh, I should do this’ or ‘I want to be that’ it throws a penny in the jar of my implicit memory,” she says. The struggle between what people want to do versus what they actually do can result in “cognitive dissonance,” which they may not be consciously aware of. After building up as patterns in someone’s implicit memory, a realization can occur.
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Someone experiencing an aha moment can feel jolted, like they’ve been hit by a flash of lightning. But that’s not the case, at least from a neurological perspective. According to Dr. James Giordano, a professor of neurology at Georgetown University Medical, big decisions — even those precipitated by aha moments — can be years in the making. “A lot of the information that we’re beginning to acquire about [emotional and rational decision-making] is coming from this relatively new field called neuroeconomics,” he says. “We’re looking at the neurological and cognitive processes that are involved in decision making and how individuals will use various resources and services to make life decisions that affect their behaviors and their outcomes.”
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For others looking to find their own aha moment, Bobinet suggests practicing mindfulness, like the yoga and meditation mentioned by Gavle, could free them from the brain’s more inhibitive functions. According to Bobinet, the prefrontal cortex is a part of the brain’s frontal lobe that keeps us in check. “It keeps us from saying the wrong things,” she says. “It’s the area where we’re most self-conscious.”
Bobinet also says that aha moments are often paired with an increase in activity on the brain’s right temporal lobe, which lights up during creative activity. “This area, called the anterior cingulate, opens your vista of what you consider to be a possible solution,” says Bobinet. “As it is stimulated, you start to consider things that are unusual solutions or may be normally dominated by your realities, your biases or your prejudices.”
- More Here
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Dr. Kyra Bobinet is a University of California, San Francisco and Harvard Public Health graduate who teaches neuroscience and health engagement design at the Stanford School of Medicine. Bobinet also runs a design firm called engagedIN that focuses on engaging people in well-being and behavior change. “My whole passion is why we don’t do what we know we should do, and designing for the disparity between those two aspects of our brain,” says Bobinet.
According to Bobinet, an aha moment like Okupe’s is actually the result of many individual thoughts, conscious or unconscious, that accumulate over time. “Every time I have the thought, ‘oh, I should do this’ or ‘I want to be that’ it throws a penny in the jar of my implicit memory,” she says. The struggle between what people want to do versus what they actually do can result in “cognitive dissonance,” which they may not be consciously aware of. After building up as patterns in someone’s implicit memory, a realization can occur.
[---]
Someone experiencing an aha moment can feel jolted, like they’ve been hit by a flash of lightning. But that’s not the case, at least from a neurological perspective. According to Dr. James Giordano, a professor of neurology at Georgetown University Medical, big decisions — even those precipitated by aha moments — can be years in the making. “A lot of the information that we’re beginning to acquire about [emotional and rational decision-making] is coming from this relatively new field called neuroeconomics,” he says. “We’re looking at the neurological and cognitive processes that are involved in decision making and how individuals will use various resources and services to make life decisions that affect their behaviors and their outcomes.”
[---]
For others looking to find their own aha moment, Bobinet suggests practicing mindfulness, like the yoga and meditation mentioned by Gavle, could free them from the brain’s more inhibitive functions. According to Bobinet, the prefrontal cortex is a part of the brain’s frontal lobe that keeps us in check. “It keeps us from saying the wrong things,” she says. “It’s the area where we’re most self-conscious.”
Bobinet also says that aha moments are often paired with an increase in activity on the brain’s right temporal lobe, which lights up during creative activity. “This area, called the anterior cingulate, opens your vista of what you consider to be a possible solution,” says Bobinet. “As it is stimulated, you start to consider things that are unusual solutions or may be normally dominated by your realities, your biases or your prejudices.”
- More Here
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