Have you ever wondered why sometimes your best ideas come to you while taking a shower or walking in the park, rather than when you’re intensely focusing on the problem at hand? This phenomenon is at the heart of understanding the brain’s focused and diffuse modes of learning. Today, we delve into the intriguing world of how our minds process information and solve problems, shedding light on strategies that can make us more effective learners.
Researchers have found that we have two fundamentally different mode of thinking, that is focused and diffuse mode, I believe we’re already familiar with focused mode, that is when you concentrate intently on something you’re trying to learn or to understand. But we’re not so familiar with diffuse thinking, turns out that this more relaxed thinking style is related to a set of neural resting states.
Here’s image that visualize the difference
 |
| Focused and diffused mode. |
When we concentrated our mind, it goes to our brain like a jet, You think a thought, boom, it takes off, moves smoothly along. And then, as it’s bouncing around on the bumpers, you’re able to figure out the problem you’re trying to solve, or, the concept you’re trying to understand that’s related to something you’re rather familiar with.
But what happpen if we’re not familiar with the concept we’re trying to think about? We don’t even know how that pattern feels or where it is. So how are you going to develop that new thought in the first place? Not only do you not know where the pattern is or what the pattern looks like, but see all the rubber bumpers that are blocking your access whatever direction you do decide to move in?
To get to this new thought pattern, you need a different way of thinking. And that’s represented by the diffuse mode. See that there’s more space between thoughts (represented by rubber point). In this diffuse mode of thinking, you can look at things broadly from a very different, big-picture perspective. You can make new neural connections traveling along new pathways.
So, when we’re on learning something new, it’s important to switch between focus and diffused mode, you might already heard importance of sleeping and walking around when you learn something new, we need to do it or otherwise it’s hard to make new connection on our brain when we learn something new.
.jpg)
.jpg)