3 Ways Our Brains Rewrite History & How We Can Use It for Self Improvement
Your past has a way of making itself present. Whether you see yourself as a victim of your history or the architect, events from your past can have a powerful influence on who you are today. A look back at what influenced your upbringing is a good place to start when trying to understand why you do what you do. Find out how those experiences have shaped who you are and ask yourself if they still have any power over the decisions that you make today with your Brain.
In fact, let’s try an experiment: Think of three experiences from your childhood that continue to affect the decisions that you make in life:
Most of us are fully aware that past experiences have a powerful influence on our present actions, but it can be difficult to identify the cause-and-effect relationships between them in order to truly understand how they influence our choices. Luckily for us, there’s a name for people who take a close look at their own thought patterns: neuroscientists! Drs. Blake Richards & Jessica Grisham from the University of Toronto found 6 major ways your brain rebuilds your memories so you don’t have to experience the same event over and over again each time you recall it.
We will explore each one in detail below along with practical applications for self-improvement:
1. Our memories are constructed by our brains based on the information we already know
When you think about an event, your brain doesn’t recall every single detail to the letter. Instead, it accesses existing memories and fills in the blanks based on what’s expected. You might remember that you were happy. During an experience when in reality you were only slightly happy or neutral at best. For example, if your relationship was troubled when you first started dating. Then began to improve over time, each memory of the two of you together has a more positive tint. Than it would have had if not for that trajectory towards happiness. It’s easy to see how this mechanism could lead people astray unless they take some time to meditate on their own thought process and consciously consider whether their recollections may have been edited over time.
2. The more vivid an experience was, the stronger it’s encoded in our memory
When you can’t remember where you left your phone, the headache of trying. To retrace your steps is a clear sign that this particular event isn’t strongly encoded in your brain. On the other hand, a highly emotional or surprising experience is deeply ingrained within us. Because we pay attention when we’re not comfortable or familiar with a situation. While this makes for useful survival instincts. It also has the negative effect of making us believe. That some things are better than they actually were and downplaying events that weren’t as powerful. In truth, everything from falling off a bike to getting lost on vacation to our life experience. No matter how exciting or complicated is just part of who we are.
3. We edit memories immediately after they happen
The reason for this type of memory reconstruction is so that our brain can quickly turn chaos into order. By making sense out of the events around us as they happen. When you remember an event, your brain fills in what it thinks should have happened. Based on everything you know about stimuli at that particular moment. So if something surprising happens like a car accident or sudden rainstorm. Then that experience will likely be encoded quite vividly and even exaggerated over time. This phenomenon also occurs when we watch movies; our brain learn to recreate certain conditions based on repeatedly seeing things play out the same way every time. Even though they don’t exist in real life.
Conclusion:
Considering your own experiences is a great way to establish a realistic view of the world instead of assuming. That every situation will play out as you’ve been conditioned it should. It’s also important to consider what thoughts and memories may have been altered over time. Especially if you’re trying to resolve a conflict or improve your life. In order to do this, make sure you take some time by yourself each day for introspection. Think about events from the recent and distant past. See how they appear in your mind vs. how they were actually experienced. This way, you can avoid making decisions based on false memories. Because ultimately everything is just a story we tell ourselves!
While you can continue to believe your entire life that your memories are accurate. There’s a good chance that they have been embellished over time. The most important thing is to accept that things will never be perfect. Focus instead on making the present moment as enjoyable as possible.