From medium.com https://medium.com/@p.castaneda_/how-to-be-productive-through-neuroscience-a496949be0c9
How to Be Productive (through Neuroscience) – Pablo Castañeda – Medium Pablo Castañeda 6-7 minutes Image from here
I wanted to consider our daily productivity through a neuropsychological and neurobiological approach by considering factors such as Butterfly effect and others that are already known that will be explained.
Suppose that you pile up snow on top of a mountain surface. You start storing kinetic energy that has a potential to turn itself into one of the most powerful forces in nature, basically, an avalanche. What happens is, one little snow particle causes other little snow particles to move which causes other snow particles to move, creating this cascade effect which creates this huge and powerful force that can destroy trees all the way down the mountainside. Treat Yourself like an avalanche
To understand how we can apply this to ourselves we need to understand that the human body has a lot of different cycles that are interacting with each other at different time scales. There are cycles that occur in milliseconds like gamma wave oscillations within our brain. Image from here
Other cycles happen within minutes or hours, such as levels of melatonin throughout the day, or over the course of years like when you are going through puberty. Each one of these cycles is interacting with each other at different time periods. Image from here Butterfly effect
Due to those dynamic processes, one little perturbation at each one of the cycles can affect the others. That is not always going to happen. It is not always going to be a butterfly effect like that, but I think we should take into account the idea of always trying to make the right decisions. This is because when one decision actually causes something to happen, you get that cascade effect that we are looking for leading to the success. I do not want you to get too bogged down with a neuroscience talk here, but I wanted to give the reader one example. Suppose your alarm goes off in the morning and you have two choices: you can either get up and take a shower and go to work or you can hit that snooze button just for like five more minutes of sleep and see what happens.
If you get up and have a shower all of a sudden you have started this positive cascade of emotions. In your head, you are already thinking: well, I have time to eat breakfast and meditate this morning before work, this is going to be great. I am feeling good. In doing so, your brain starts to release dopamine within your caudate nucleus (Positive psychology releases dopamine [1]). 2-Minute Neuroscience: Dopamine
As a consequence, you get different patterns that emerge in your brain, for example different parts get activated. Positive cycles generate other positive cycles
Factors such as gamma wave oscillations impact different areas of your brain. You start to feel more awake simply because more areas are stimulated, due to those oscillation patterns happening within the circuits of your brain.
“Elevated levels of dopamine activate circuits that optimize other neurotransmitters”
Image from here
In doing so, levels of several neurochemicals (serotonin, norepinephrine and others) start to get activated and your mood improves. As you are getting in the shower this is already happening.
“Elevated mood changed the physiology of your body” [2]
Image from here
Simultaneously, you have enough time to compose yourself, so your brain basically tells the adrenal glands on top of your kidneys that you do not need cortisol today, at least not as much as you would if you were stressed. Levels of Cortisol
Lower levels of cortisol in your blood have a great impact at the chromosomic properties, concretely the length of the telomeres (the end of the chromosomes). Those low levels also literally improve the life cycle of those chromosomes at each one of your cells, improving the likelihood that you live longer [3] BDNF
In the brain, specifically lower levels of cortisol allow different cells to start expressing a protein called brain-derived-neurotrophic-factor (BDNF) which is known to enhance somatic connections within your hippocampus with other areas of your brain, allowing those to activate and function properly. Maybe just because someone decided not to hit that snooze button, the BDNF increases the activity of the hippocampus and perhaps you remember something that happened to you earlier, coming up with a great idea that propels you from the next days, months or even years into your life. Image from here
Now again, that could not happen, but we want to make the right decisions in order to maximize the likelihood of events like that to happen. In contrast, if you hit that snooze button maybe you get into lower levels of sleep and that makes you feel dazed. Then, you get up five minutes later and feel rushed, raising cortisol levels and not expressing those different neurochemicals including the BNDF. Basically, you are just coping with the day rather than thriving. Make the right decisions and perhaps you will get your own butterfly effect in your life, building into a force of nature like the avalanche.
BDNF is a protein that induce neurogenesis [4](generation of new brain cells). It is essential for long-term memory and learning [5]. Also supports the survival of already existing neurons. [6]
Increase BDNF
Expose yourself to the daylight [7]: circadiam rhythm manages BDNF. It means, for example, that the best time for trying or studying something new coincides with the part of the day in which your brain is sharper according to your biological clock. [8]
Intermittent fasting (IF) [9] [10]: IF regimens also induce the coordinated activation of signaling pathways that optimize physiological function, enhance performance, and slow aging and disease processes.
Music [11].
Acupuncture therapy [12]: reduces stress and promotes lymph flow.
Intense exercise [13].
Food with glutamate, coffee, omega-3, curcumin, magnesium…
Image from here