What Is A Mind-Tweak, Anyway?

I’ve been waiting for you to ask that! You haven’t, of course. I’m sure you’re just being shy, so I’m going to answer you, anyway.

Optimize Your Mind

A mind-tweak is a small adjustment to your mental-works. It’s an intentional change that fine-tunes and optimizes your mind. It’s like a hack, but less violent (and a wee bit less geeky).

Tweaks come in a variety of flavors, from the purely mental (new ways to think about things) to the purely physical (better brain-care). They can be spiritual (meditation), psychological (cognitive shifting), technological (brainwave entrainment) or.. well… Let’s just say there’s more variety in mental tweakage than Heinz ever considered.

The Science of Tweaks

Mind-tweaks are an exciting topic to cover these days, with the neuroscience boom. Researchers have discovered that the brain is far more adaptive than once believed; areas of it continue to grow, change, and develop throughout life, not just in childhood as previously believed.

Just as exciting is the developing knowledge about the mind/brain connections. For decades, it was assumed that while the brain helps shape thoughts and consciousness, it wasn’t a two way street. Those assumptions have been turned on their head in the past few years, as studies show that the way we think, and what we do, and even the very act of thinking itself, can change not only the chemistry of the brain, but its actual physical structure.

New Toys

These discoveries are giving rise to a whole new segment of software, games, and other products designed to help you think yourself a better brain, and the market is ready for them.

As the Boomer population in the US ages, the demand for ways to keep the brain sharp in later years is higher than ever.

Simultaneously, younger and middle generations are facing new demands in a changing workforce; they’re looking for new and creative ways to structure both work and personal lives,creating a boom in productivity and organizational products.

It all adds up to a lot of really cool research, toys, and methods to talk about and experiment with.

I’m having fun being the guinea pig for some of these methods, and even more fun developing my own along the way. It’s my hope that as the blog grows, other guinea pigs will join me, sharing their ideas and experiments as well as any new mind-tweak related products you come across, but if you don’t, that’s ok too. You’ll just have to read that much more of me rambling about it instead : )

MindTweak: I’m doing a new thing here. Simple, back to basics, building block posts, posts that address simple questions, posts to remind me (and you) not to get lost in the fancy stuff and neglect the basics.