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Episode 85: Conscious Awareness: A Key to Managing Executive Functions

Below you can view or listen to Episode 85 of The Personal Brain Trainer Podcast.    

In this episode of the Executive Function Braintrainer Podcast, hosts Darius Namdaran and Dr. Erica Warren dive into the essential topic of conscious awareness and its impact on executive functions. They discuss various perspectives on conscious awareness, including neuroscience, philosophy, and psychology, highlighting the startling fact that 95-99% of our daily behaviors and thoughts are subconscious. The conversation covers the importance of increasing consciousness to take control of one's life, the tools to shift from reactivity to conscious regulation such as breathwork and visualization, and how therapies and coaching contribute to cognitive flexibility. The hosts also explore the balance between autopilot and intentional decision-making, providing listeners with insights and strategies to optimize their executive functions.

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    Erica: Welcome to the Executive Function Brain trainer podcast. I'm Dr. Erica Warren.

    Darius: And I'm Darius Namdaran. And we're your hosts.

    Erica: Sponsored by learningspecialistscourses.com courses and resources that support educators and coaches.

    Darius: Sponsored by ivvi. Imagine turning your meeting's audio into a live mind map instantly.

    Erica: So.

    Darius: So you remember what matters. Well, try ivvi for free now at Ivy app. That's ivvi app. Hey, Erica, nice to see you this week. How are we doing and what we going to talk about?

    Erica: We're doing great. And we're going to be talking about conscious awareness because it really is a key to managing executive functions.

    Darius: Okay.

    Erica: I think this is going to be a very interesting discussion because there are different perspectives at looking at conscious awareness. You know, if we look at neuroscience, it's really about the brain activity networks and processing, but philosophically it's really about the mind, self-awareness and then that subjective experience versus like a psychological perspective which is looking at patterns and metacognition and self-reflection, which is really tapping into the executive functions. But I think it's a really important topic because what's fascinating is the research says that we spend 95 to 99% of our time or our daily thoughts and behaviors and even decisions are subconscious. And only 1 to 5% are conscious, which is really interesting because it makes me think, my goodness, we're kind of like zombies going through life. And if we can increase that consciousness, we can really direct our lives more. Right. Because if we're subconscious, we're really not the conductor of our cognitive skills.

    Darius: You're on autopilot.

    Erica: You're on autopilot. Yes. And then what you're doing is you're repeating old patterns. You're not growing. And what we really want is growth. And so I think it's a really interesting topic to break down. What are your thoughts?

    Darius: That's quite a statistic. 95% on autopilot and 5% on manual intentional direction. But I wonder how much you know in that statistic are they talking about breathing and all that kind of stuff like body movements and so on, or is this kind of like decision making as in daily decision making, like how you put your clothes on, what order you do certain things, daily habits, etc.

    Erica: I'm so glad you asked that very question because you don't even know what I've done research on, and it was the perfect question. But yeah, I researched that. So the subconscious mind, it controls the automatic behaviors, habits and routines. It governs our emotional responses. Conditioned beliefs and muscle memory. Interesting, right? It manages physiological processes like breathing, digestion and heart rate, and it influences decision making through past experiences and biases.

    Darius: Yeah, yeah. So we've got a whole ton of training. I mean, I just spent a little time with a baby, a newborn baby, and it just sort of brings it home to you as a parent, how much you've got to teach a young person in life. You know, you got to teach them, really, you got to teach them how to sleep, you've got to teach them how to, you know, go to the toilet, you got to teach them how to clean themselves and put clothes on and, you know, just go through the whole list of things that we get taught. And in a way, we do want a lot of things to go on to autopilot. And like we've talked about; we want this balance between automaticity and consciousness. And a lot about executive function is finding this right balance between the two in that if you're completely overwhelmed with dealing with the minutiae of life and having to be conscious about the minutia of life, you've used up all that decision making. What do they call it? They call it decision fatigue. What's it called? Something like decision fatigue or. Yeah, there's this term, it's like decision fatigue. It's a phrase that's like that. So basically, you've got only so many decisions you can make in a day before you're done. And as you go through the day and you have done lots of decisions, it makes this cognitive load. It takes mental energy. There's only

    00:05:00

    Darius: so much energy a brain has. It generates; it uses 20 watts of energy. It's like a 20-watt light bulb is what our brain is using all the time. So we've got limited energy, we've got limited cognitive capacity to focus in on things. And if we spend that on lots of small little decisions that are not that important, then the big decisions, we just go, oh, just. Oh, we'll just go for that. And you're not spending on the valuable things. Do you know what I mean?

    Erica: I do. And you know, it makes me think of this course that I'm taking seven breaths to a new life. And it's all about conscious breathing. And when you're really being conscious about your breathing, there's not much else that you can do.

    Darius: Yes.

    Erica: So, I mean, that's the thing is that thank God we don't have to pay attention to our heart rate and our digestion and our breathing. However, we have built other skills to automaticity too. And is there a utility? Absolutely. There are all sorts of skills that we have to build to automaticity to be great readers and writers. But there's a little bit of a price to pay. Yes, there is some of the higher-level reasoning.

    Darius: Absolutely.

    Erica: And so what I wanted to talk to you about also is what makes up the conscious mind. What is that? 1 to 5%. And it has to do with active thinking, problem solving and decision making. It has to do with processing new information and applying logical reasoning. It allows for intentional behavior and self-reflection. And of course it requires executive functioning to regulate impulses and override subconscious patterns. But anytime we want to grow, we have to override subconscious patterns and establish new neural pathways. Right. We talk about that all the time. That's something I'm working really hard on, establishing new neural pathways so that I'm not coming up against the same problem over and over again in my life. And that's what we tend to do. Right. And I found a great quote by Albert Einstein. You cannot solve a problem with the same level of consciousness that created it. Right. So we have to establish new neural pathways. We have to get uncomfortable because it's comfortable to go into subconscious patterns. It's like our normal, it's our comfort zone. And anytime we want change or growth, consciousness, you're right, it takes up more energy.

    Darius: It's interesting. You were talking about problem solving and I'm thinking about what are the benefits of consciousness. And I think when you're conscious of something, it's often a source of joy. Like when you're conscious about your breathing or you become conscious about a sunset or something beautiful, you take a moment and you just become awake to it, you know, alert to it. Your brain's not just scanning through it, looking for threats or problems or whatever. So there's kind of two sides to this. I think from what I heard you say, there picked out problem solving and also pleasure and joy. But problem solving, one of the biggest ones. A lot of people solve problems and they're just like, oh, well, how do other people do this? Just give me a tool, give me a process, someone else has done it. But then there's other people who are very problem solving orientated. They're problem solvers, they love a good problem. I know as a kid, you know, ball of tangled up string was a joy and a challenge to me. I would just untangle it. And rather than other people, oh gosh, Camille, is that terrible? You know, so I think there's some people who, if they've got lower automaticity in their life that things, they find it harder to become automatic. They have a real problem with this area, you know, because they're not automatically just putting on their clothes a certain way. They're not just automatically brushing their teeth and doing their morning routines. They're not just automatically sitting down and going through their calendar and their to do list and whatever else in the morning. They've not sort of defaulted all of these processes that really help them stay on track. They have to really consciously think about all of these elements, and it creates decision fatigue. And I think those people with ADHD dyslexia often have these things where, you know, Steve Jobs is very famous for always wearing that polo shirt. And there's all these executives, they just wear exactly the same thing every single day. They just have 15 pairs of jeans and 15 tops and they're all the same. And they just wear that one that day and they don't need to think about it, and they move on. They just kind of put that lower-level logistical side of their life onto autopilot so they can open up this conscious level of thought

    00:10:00

    Darius: for the bigger questions in life, the bigger problems and the bigger challenges and the bigger passions.

    Erica: Well, you know, it's interesting because so many dyslexic individuals don't enjoy reading, and I think they don't enjoy reading because it still is an automatic yes. Like me. I don't just pick up a book and a movie takes off in my head. And I didn't even know that was possible until people told me that. It's like, oh, yeah, reading is just so joyful. I'm like, really? It's such a chore. I enjoy the knowledge, but I don't enjoy the process. Whereas audiobooks are just so much better for me. And this is the interesting thing, and this is what we're getting at here.

    Darius: Yeah, what we're getting at here with the consciousness thing, why is it so important? For example?

    Erica: I'll tell you; I'll tell you. The subconscious mind processes 200,000 times faster than the conscious mind.

    Darius: Wow.

    Erica: So if we're having to be conscious, it slows our processing. So what I discovered is the subconscious processes 11 million bits of information per second, while the conscious mind can handle only 40 to 50 bits per second.

    Darius: 11 million versus 50 bits.

    Erica: It's a big difference. So you can see how frustrating it is for individuals that haven't learned to automaticity, working with individuals that have. So if you've learned to automaticity, your processing speed just increases at an enormous amount. Isn't that just fascinating?

    Darius: Have you heard the book Blink by Malcolm Gladwell?

    Erica: I have, yes.

    Darius: Did you read it?

    Erica: I've read parts of it.

    Darius: So in. In Blink, it's called blink because people make decisions in a blink of an eye, right? And that's a subconscious decision. So they're like, I've decided about you. They see someone, I've decided.

    Erica: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

    Darius: Their unconscious has processed the way that person looks, the way that person makes them feel, the way that person's moving. Lots of subtle cues that you're not consciously aware of. And then you just get this kind of blink decision, and you go, I've made this decision. And we, we. We talk about it as a gut feeling. And this is our subconscious mind sort of working in partnership with us, saying, look, I've gone through all of this. This guy's a problem. Or I've gone through all of this. This person's exciting, this person's interesting. There's something about them. Pay attention. And you're like, oh, I'm going to pay attention to this. Do you know what I mean? So there's an aspect of our subconscious mind that really serves us in this way.

    Erica: Yeah, yeah. It's also interesting because when we're talking about the subconscious, and if we're always in the subconscious, and the subconscious triggers stress, that actually shrinks the prefrontal cortex. However, if we're conscious and we're mindful, it increases the gray matter density of the prefrontal cortex. So the more conscious we are, the more we establish new neural pathways. It makes sense, right? If you're establishing new neural pathways, you will be growing your prefrontal cortex. Whereas if you are always stuck in those subconscious patterns and they activate stress, it will shrink the prefrontal cortex. Okay, Right, Right.

    Darius: Interesting. I like my metaphors, don't I? So I'm going to introduce a metaphor here. I sometimes think about the conscious mind and the subconscious as a horse and rider. Okay? So the conscious mind is like the rider, and then the horse is like the subconscious mind, and there's a partnership there. Sometimes the horse has a will of its own, and it goes a certain way. And the rider can fall asleep, and the subconscious goes its own way, but the rider is meant to be awake, alert, and guided. The rider doesn't do all of that hard work of. Of the subconscious and your subroutines and your logistics and things that have gone on to automaticity. There's this partnership between the two.

    Erica: Yeah, yeah. It's. It's Interesting. And it, it takes me back to a prior episode that we had where we were talking about the nervous system. Because the, we've got the parasympathetic and the sympathetic nervous system. And the sympathetic nervous system is more of the subconscious responses fight, flight or freeze. It also is very heightened during stress states where. So that's really where most of the subconscious patterns happen.

    00:15:00

    Erica: Where consciousness happens more in the parasympathetic nervous system where you're calm, you're regulating your state, you are mindful, you're deep breathing, maybe meditating. So yeah, it's very interesting how it's. They're really these kind of two sides. Conscious, subconscious, sympathetic, parasympathetic.

    Darius: That's right. We do have those two sides. And even the two sides of waking and sleeping, you know, this duality that's within us. And I think that there's this animal part of us, you know, what they call it, the monkey mind or you know, is like the horse and then there's the human sitting on top that, that sort of higher-level decision making and ties in with really what we're trying to talk about here is the executive function and the captain of your life. You know, the executive of your life, the driver of your life, the rider of your life, the captain, the conductor. All of these are the same themes. The person who's setting the course for your life and your activity, that need, that part of you needs to be conscious and awake.

    Erica: You know, it reminds me of where we're going with automobiles. Right. So we are definitely moving in a direction where we're going to be moving more and more into automatic. Although even when we're driving we can kind of go into automatic pilot. It's going to, it's going to become even more passive when it drives for us.

    Darius: Yes.

    Erica: Because when it drives force, then we can truly do other things. Which is very interesting. So you know, you could even use just the literal metaphor of a self-driving car. You're consciously driving the car. But interestingly enough, we can subconsciously drive cars. The best analogy is when you first learn how to drive a car. Right. Then you have to be fully conscious. But even when we drive a car now were semi-conscious.

    Darius: That's right, it's semi-automatic.

    Erica: Our consciousness gets activated when something unusual happens.

    Darius: That's right, yeah.

    Erica: Yeah, Right. So there's really that continuum of conscious and subconscious. But even when we're driving, I would argue that a good portion of it is subconscious.

    Darius: Absolutely. And you can feel it when you're driving. You know that those moments where you're having a conversation and then you're saying, oh, hold on a minute, hold on a minute. I just need to think through this, you know? And you've got an awkward intersection, and you're like, you can't talk and drive at the same time.

    Erica: Right, Right. Or someone's like, take a left and you take a right. They're like your other left or your other right or. Yes, you know, so. Yeah. And that. That's a very dyslexic thing to do.

    Darius: So the reason why we've raised this in this podcast is to really focus in on how important it is that the right part of you stays conscious.

    Erica: Right. And that consciousness and executive functioning can rewire your nervous system. If you have disabilities, this is your way to rewire and establish new neural pathways that work for you. And that's what executive functioning coaching is, helping you to rewire a new pathway that serves your system and your intention.

    Darius: It's fascinating you say that, because this week I've had a few experiences with clients and students that really relate to this. It's funny how you can have a person who's struggling to take notes, for example, okay. And they're taking lots of written notes. And often I say to people, look, you're such a visual person. Why are there no pictures in your notes? They're like, oh, I don't know. I'm like, you could take some photographs and add it into your note just as a visual reminder. You could take a scan of that, post it that you did, or you could share a link, a screenshot of something you saw, and draw a circle around it and add it into your notes and make them visual. And they're kind of like, oh, gosh, yes. And then they do it, and it switches on a certain part of their mind again. Do you know what I mean? And that's kind of what you're making me think of, is that so often, especially if you struggle in decoding lots of words all the time, and you prefer to live in the world of images and problem solving and visuals and so on, and the world works in words. You're constantly trying to keep up with your weakness, which is words, and as a result, you're using so much cognitive load. You've mentioned this before, that it actually takes away from your natural ability to do the visual stuff, but you're like, oh, I'm too

    00:20:00

    Darius: tired to do all the visual stuff because I've used up all my energy. And so the answer is to use your strength straight away and go into that consciously, intentionally. And what happens is, you know, that automatically nature of things. A lot of it's to do with school too. You go through school, and they teach you a set of skills and they say, right, you're going to do a presentation. And this is how you do a presentation. You write out your notes in a bullet point list and you've got a PowerPoint in front of you. And then people are like, oh, I can't do presentations. And you're like, no, you can do presentations. You just can't do presentations the way someone else taught you. Maybe you can do it with a mind map, maybe you can do it with, you know, a whole different approach to doing the presentation. And it's actually more of a skill set. But because they've been put onto automatic pilot with this skill set, they're operating on this automatic skill set that's a legacy of their schooling and as a result sapping their decision making and their consciousness, as it were.

    Erica: And we have a few episodes on the 12 Ways of Processing.

    Darius: Yes.

    Erica: So this is the thing. Teachers teach the way they process.

    Darius: Yes.

    Erica: If you process that way, you'll connect with the teacher, and you will learn the content. You will drink it down and digest it and integrate it. But if you, if you process in a wildly different way, you're going to be lost in that class. And of course, you know, there are those certain teachers that connect with almost everybody. It's because they do use all the different ways of the twelve different ways of processing. They understand that you process differently, they accommodate it, or they teach in a, just a super sensory way where they're just, you know, sometimes they're talking about it, sometimes they're showing images, sometimes they're giving you activities to do so that you can interact with others or experiment with the things with your hands and. Yeah, but, but you're right. There's just so many. And those are the kids and the adults that I, I see are the ones that are taught to process in ways that don't work for them. And that's why I use my spy and yippee assessments, because it helps them to understand how they learn best, or they are able to communicate with me. So then I can accommodate. When that happens, you connect with them immediately because you know how to empower them. But what's more is they learn how to empower themselves and they can reprocess things in a way that works. For example, like you are Mr. Mind Map. Mind mapping is like the best way for you to process and you have this technique where if people are visual simultaneous learners that really need to see the big picture, you have this process that will absolutely transform their lives. But there are different processes out there for all of the different ways of learning. But the most important thing that we can do is if we are aware of the different ways of processing. And this is something like, I'm working with you a little bit on your project. So I'm always trying to say, like, ooh, are there ways to make your app Ivy? Can it accommodate more ways of processing? What can we do to make it even more global, so it serves a larger population of learners?

    Darius: Well, let me tell you something, but before I do, if you're listening and you're interested in processing styles, just swipe up on your podcast just now and go to the show Notes and we'll have the links to the podcast where we talked about These two, these 12 types of processing that Erica's referring to. You know, Erica, talking about being conscious and starting to switch on the right parts of you being conscious is. I've been thinking a lot about Ivy and Ivy taking notes for you in the lecture. So Ivy, for those of you who don't know, Ivy, takes a recording, audio recording of a lecture, does a transcription, and then turns the transcription into a real time mind map in the lecture. So you've got everything that you need all connected. But the goal of it, Erica, really, we've been talking about, is it's about remembering what matters so that students can pass their exams. And a lot of people, dyslexia, adhd, are problem solvers, are really good at solving the problem, but they're not necessarily good at passing their exam. They're really good at being a physiotherapist, but not necessarily good at passing the physiotherapy or midwifery exam or whatever.

    Erica: Right. They, they may not be able to remember that little detail, but it is integrated into their knowledge base, being able to access it in a moment under stress. Yes, it doesn't necessarily work

    00:25:00

    Erica: for them, but, but they get it almost on a cellular level, which makes them amazing practitioners.

    Darius: They are. And, and if they're like a paramedic, they may not ask for give me 5 mils of the blah, blah, blah. They'll like, they'll say the one on the top shelf with the double yellow lines that we do for the heart attack sort of thing in the emergency. And, and between the two of them, I know exactly. They look at it and they can see that's exactly the right one. Because it's got all the visual cues, it's got the right number, and they just check the measure. Yeah, that's good. Go. So often people say, oh, you know the thing of me that does the thing of me. And you're like, yeah, yeah, I know the thing of me that does the thing of me. And you're like, well, can I. Can you give me that, please? All right, thanks very much. And you've got this. This language. Now, what was interesting this week was one of the things we want to put into Ivy is this memory mentor. Okay, as an AI, so when you've got, like, a key thing you want to remember, it kind of helps you remember it using mnemonics and so forth and memory strategies. But the point I was going to make was I was just practicing this out, and it's a long time since I've had to memorize stuff for, like, university and college and so on, because you don't need to memorize a lot of stuff in the workplace and so on, you know, but college students do. And so I was doing these flash maps, and I would draw a mind map of six, seven, or eight different items, and then I quickly flash map it, draw a quick map, and I test myself against it, you know, and mark what I got right and wrong. And then whatever wasn't quite right on the map, I would just improve it with a better image or symbol, and it would lock it into my mind. So I'm going, and I'm drawing little flash maps while I'm in the shower to test myself. Can I still remember that? You know, and then I'm doing somewhere, and I can feel a difference in my mind in terms of having that kind of. You're talking about building the neural network consciousness, right?

    Erica: Yeah.

    Darius: I'm sort of prompting myself to just say. Instead of just saying, oh, yeah, I know all of that. I've got that in my notes, and I can just leave it there, and I can refer to it when I need it, which, yeah, that's fine, but there's some things that I need to be much more conscious of and sort of remember and be able to remember and choose at will. And I think there's something. I don't know what it is. There's something deeply satisfying about remembering things. There's also something deeply satisfying about being conscious of things. You know that joy element of being conscious of something or even choosing something and coming out of autopilot and taking hold of the wheel and driving. I've got a Tesla, and I put it on Autopilot a lot. And I just cruise along the road, and it just does the lane holding and does the speed for me and flies along. And then I'm like, no, I think I'll drive a little bit myself. And I take over the wheel and I drive around and so on. I quite enjoy that. Do you know what I mean?

    Erica: Yes. That's really interesting. I've never driven one, but that's great. One thing for us to think about is what are the tools that we can use to shift from reactivity. Right. To more conscious regulation so that we're moving from the sympathetic to the parasympathetic a little bit more. And there are some things. There are some tools that can do that. Breath work. Breath work is amazing at training the brain to be conscious. It's great for individuals with ADHD because they're constantly bringing their attention back to their breath.

    Darius: Okay, okay, okay. So, you know, you bang on about this a lot, and I hear other people bang on about this breathwork stuff, and I don't do it. Okay. And. And a few weeks ago, or I don't know when the podcast came out in terms of what we're recording here, but you talked to me about Notebook LM, and I was like, yeah, yeah, I've been meaning to look at that. And I tried it the other week, and I was like, my mind's been blown. And I'm kind of like, okay. Erica explained to me why I should pay attention to breath work amongst all the different things that are suggestions. It's not something that I do very much of.

    Erica: I did mention earlier that I've been taking this class, seven Breaths to new Life. Great, Great class. Love it. And what I'm realizing is it does a lot. It slows the system down. It's a way of training your mind, your monkey mind. It's training the horse, the wild horse, your subconscious. But more than anything, it's just that practice of how to be conscious and how to be conscious about something very simple. It slows down the thought processes. You know, a lot of people get distracted by an inner voice and inner visuals. Just throughout the whole day, you're constantly distracted. And when you're working on breath work,

    00:30:00

    Erica: it's about really allowing those things to come and kind of pass like clouds in the sky. You'll often hear that metaphor when you're doing meditations or breath work. But when you can really just quiet the mind, calm the mind, it really gets you into the parasympathetic nervous system. But there are all sorts of different breaths that you can learn, some that can calm you, some that can energize you. And learning the different breaths and then you can learn all sorts of other things that you can do with your body. Pressure points that you can use, or being able to hold different muscles, being able to move the energy through your system. Activate the pineal gland.

    Darius: What's the pineal gland again?

    Erica: It's really the third eye. It's an energy center.

    Darius: All right. Okay, now you're going quite woo woo on me.

    Erica: There's nothing woo wee about it. It's actually biological. It's the center of our brain and it's essentially our third eye. I can't go into great detail about everything that the pineal gland does, but it's extraordinary.

    Darius: Well, I have been kind of skeptical about this in many ways, but I'm a lot less skeptical now. And do you know what? This sounds ridiculous, okay. But someone explained to me on TikTok how if you blow bubbles in a certain way, it can help you pee a bit better when you're a bit older. I was like, that's ridiculous. So I'm kind of like, I'm older and sometimes at night it can be harder to go to the toilet and things are a bit tensed up or whatever is happening there. And I just did this breathing where I would just breathe a certain way, and I'm like, oh, my goodness, it works. And my sister talks to me about breath work and physiotherapy and things like that. And she keeps telling me, yeah, just go and make that muscle relax. And I'm like, how do you just make a muscle relax with your mind, you know, consciousness. Yes.

    Erica: More conscious you are than you learn how to control those muscles. And, you know, Kegels, you know, which are really just exercising the muscles in our abdomen and lower part of our body, you know, but interestingly enough, in the course that I'm taking, it's a combination of being able to activate those muscles and breathe at the same time.

    Darius: Yes.

    Erica: And. And that's what helps to move the energy through your body, and it helps with healing. And it's really interesting. There are times where, you know, I definitely feel that I'm nauseous because I'm moving energy around my system. That. That's been very stagnant. But it's fascinating and I. I'm really, really enjoying it. And I'm not one that really likes to sit still, so it's really helpful for calming the system. But, you know, that's just one. There are other techniques, too, like visualization.

    Darius: Sorry to hijack you on the. On the breathing side.

    Erica: No, no, no, no, it's fine.

    Darius: Visualization.

    Erica: Visualization is another technique to bring you from reactivity into consciousness. When we create a vision board, when we're visualizing, when we're doing a meditation where we're visualizing maybe a calm space or a beautiful space that we'd like to go to, that all then brings us into conscious awareness. It brings us into the parasympathetic rest and digest and. And then we can, instead of staying in our old patterns. We can move to new places, move to new growth, keep our eye on the prize. But, yeah, when we start to integrate all of these tools together, it makes it that much easier to be conscious and to grow and to spend more time in consciousness.

    Darius: So basically, what we're talking about is what tools have we got at our disposal to help us steer our lives, our person? So it's a steering function.

    Erica: And think about it, because we now know, as we've talked today, that it takes more energy and more time when we are conscious. And the breath work slows us down.

    Darius: Yeah. So in a way, what we're. What you're saying and what we're kind of saying here is that it's a bit like a rudder or a steering wheel on a car. Okay. It takes a little bit of effort. And if you related the turning speed of the wheel on the car to the turning speed of the wheels that are driving you forward, you know, they're obviously at different levels of speed, but

    00:35:00

    Darius: it's that small turn on the steering wheel makes all the difference as to whether you stay on the road or come off the road and whether you're falling asleep at the wheel or awake at the wheel. And it's that I like the idea of this breath work as a way of steering your life and.

    Erica: Well, and visualization, it gives you practice at being conscious, and it gives you practice on how can I be conscious?

    Darius: Yes.

    Erica: So you're teaching yourself how to turn on and turn off your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system.

    Darius: And fundamentally, this really comes down to making choices. And so you could be making choices unconsciously, or you're making choices consciously. So that whole steering thing, you know, you could be on the horse, and the horse starts choosing its own direction. It's followed this path over and over again. We are walking home, and you, as the rider can just kind of switch off, fade out, doze away, and the horse just plods along. But then you wake up and you Decide, no, we're going down this path. And the horse is like, oh, I always go down this way. And you're like, no, we're going down this way because of something interesting and directing it.

    Erica: And the horse will battle you, your subconscious will battle, and it will trick you into taking the old path. I mean, the body really likes to stick to the same pathways.

    Darius: Absolutely.

    Erica: And it's. And it's uncomfortable. But I think that's where therapy comes in. Therapy is all about making you conscious. Right. And making new choices. Whether it's eft, which is the emotional freedom technique, which is, I love this. I use this with some of my clients. It's a combination of conscious talking and tapping on acupressure points, ifs internal family systems. You're being conscious about your different parts. Right. And you're being conscious about recognizing them, supporting them, releasing them, CBT, DBT, all of those. It's all about being conscious. Right. I suppose that any type of therapy is really about being conscious, whether it's even coaching.

    Darius: Yeah. I mean, you said therapy. I mean, my mind went to, why did you just narrow it down to therapy? And, you know, coaching is an aspect of becoming conscious. It's a bit more practical.

    Erica: Well, you know, it depends on what you need. And. Well, the bottom line is there are thousands of therapeutic and coaching methodologies, but what they are all doing, that they have in common is they're teaching you to be conscious, they're teaching you to take on the steering wheel, they're teaching you to establish new neural pathways.

    Darius: And all of that is fundamentally executive functioning. You know, choosing to be the executive of your life, using the tools at your disposal to be the executive of your life. And the primary tool is choosing. You're the one who chooses what you're going to do, and you choose to use the tools at your disposal to steer your life. And there is resistance, like you're saying to it, you know, there's a resistance to it within your body.

    Erica: You know, it really makes me think that any practitioner that's doing coaching or therapy should really know a lot about executive functions, because it really is the foundation to a successful practice. And if you know the tools and you understand them, then you know how to integrate them, you know how to work with your clientele in a more conscious way and teaching them. Because, I mean, there is a lot of individuals say you don't teach in coaching, but don't we want to at least do a small amount of teaching where they're consciously aware of the tools that they have? To be conscious so that they can make the changes that they need to make.

    Darius: You know, we haven't said working memory, inhibitory control, and cognitive flexibility once in this whole episode, which must be a.

    Erica: Record that was coming up next.

    Darius: Yeah. Because it just made me think, you know, you were talking about therapy, and in many ways therapy really relates to cognitive flexibility, and it relates to all of them. It does. Yeah, it does. But I think one of the biggest things is I think a lot about working memory and inhibitory control. Okay. Because I kind of feel like I'm pretty naturally cognitively flexible in many things. But then there's this area of cognitive flexibility where I think the whole therapy side of things and so on is. I mean, if you think about cognitive flexibility itself, okay. The opposite of cognitive flexibility

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    Darius: is cognitive inflexibility or rigidity. Rigidity. And that is very much like, oh, this is the way I do things. This is my routine. This is your autopilot, isn't it? Yeah. So really, with the cognitive flexibility, what you're trying to do at that point is saying, look, I. I know that this is a subroutine in my life, and I know that it served me well for many years, but maybe I need to change this to the new landscape of my life and circumstances, and that's cognitive flexibility. And you go, okay, it looks like I might need to change this. I will change this, change direction. Or you might just say, no, actually, we're good on that. We're going to keep going and it's going to keep serving you. It's not like you have to be cognitively flexible all the time on everything. It's this, this ability to be adapt when needed. And I think a lot of these therapies, a lot of this coaching really works well in that zone.

    Erica: Well, what it does, what executive functioning coaching does is it gives you the vocabulary. How can you fix a car if you don't have the tools? You know, how can you fix anything if you aren't aware of what you already have? And we already have these tools, we just have to be conscious about them. But I wanted to say that all three of them, working memory, inhibitory control, and cognitive flexibility, it's. It's all about the kind of the subconscious consciousness.

    Darius: Yes.

    Erica: So with cognitive flexibility, it allows us to shift between subconscious patterns and conscious regulation.

    Darius: Yes.

    Erica: With inhibitory control, it allows us to pause and reflect before we react.

    Darius: Yes.

    Erica: Is consciousness again. And then training, the working memory is shifting focus away from stress triggers, which again, is consciousness. It's Pulling us from the sympathetic into the parasympathetic. Because it is that consciousness. Right. And then of course, we have the metacognition. Right. Which is that the. That key to making those intentional choices.

    Darius: Pulling all those three together and harnessing towards that one point of good decision making.

    Erica: Yeah. So consciousness is incredibly. You can't really do executive functioning without consciousness. And then you can dive in and say, oh, what are the components? Working memory, inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility. Oh, what are the tools? You can look at each one. Working memory, visualization, inner voice spatialization. Those are the tools of consciousness within working memory. What are the tools within inhibitory control? Metacognition, emotional regulation. Right. And what are the tools within cognitive flexibility? It's just being okay with flipping it. I love doing that to individuals. When someone's being really cognitively inflexible, it's such a gentle way of just asking them to not be cognitively inflexible. Just to say, I'm curious, how could you flip this situation? What? Maybe somebody was really. Their teacher was really mean to them. Is there some way that we could flip this? Is there some value in this experience? Is there some other way of looking at it which could change the story that would help you get through this? You know, but yeah, I. I'm so into this idea of consciousness and how important consciousness is. And that really consciousness is you being the conductor of your cognitive skills. It's you being your functioning executive.

    Darius: Fascinating. Yes. Other words for consciousness, you know, because consciousness for some people. What are other ways to describe being conscious?

    Erica: Another thing that they often say is conscious awareness.

    Darius: Awareness. I like that.

    Erica: Maybe, maybe that's more comfortable is awareness. But. But putting them together makes it even more powerful.

    Darius: Conscious awareness.

    Erica: Conscious awareness. And that's what a lot of people say when you're doing mindfulness meditation.

    Darius: Yes.

    Erica: It's all about conscious awareness. And you're constantly fighting between conscious awareness and subconscious patterns. When you're doing conscious breath work, you are thinking about something that's subconscious and you're taking control of it. You're taking control of your breath. And when you're anxious and you're having short breaths, because that's what happens physiologically when you're anxious. Lots of short, quick breaths. But then you can consciously slow down your breath, take deep breaths, and then all of a sudden you're changing your physiology by consciously choosing a different breath. If

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    Erica: you're really exhausted, and you can't stay focused in a lecture, you could consciously change your breath to energize your system. So it's all about that kind of to go, to go back to the breath, because I know that that's an area that you're a little, you don't really buy into, but I think you ought to take that class. Seven breaths to a new life. It's great.

    Darius: So going back to a few useful analogies that I'm thinking of here is going back to the driving analogy. Conscious awareness. You need to be aware of the road. You need to pay attention to the road. It's obvious, isn't it? That's what we're basically saying, pay attention to the road and drive. But do you know what? There's a lot of people not driving their car. A lot of people are in the passenger seat of their life. They're like, oh, I don't want to drive. You drive. I'll switch off, you know, I'll sit in the passenger seat. I won't be consciously aware of the road. I'll look at the scenery going by, I'll read my book, I'll play on my phone or whatever. And they're not the driver of the car. And this we're so used to, Erica, you and I being the drivers of our life because we're self-employed, we're very proactive individuals, you know, running our own businesses, we're executives, we're naturally executives of our business, executives of our life, etc. But there are people that we can start shutting down and going a bit sleepy and going on autopilot and say, look, I'll leave that to you to do the driving. Take over the driving wheel on that one. And there's different aspects of our lives where we can delegate the driving to someone else and throw them the keys and just say, you drive. You know, And I wonder how many aspects of our life we're just handing the keys over to the horse, as it were, and say, oh, you drive. Take me wherever, I don't mind.

    Erica: Well, and we have to be careful with AI these days. It's very easy, you know, even our GPSs, right?

    Darius: Yeah, yeah.

    Erica: And we've talked about this before. We can become so reliant on a GPS that we forget how to get somewhere. You know, it's interesting lately because I know how to get to shop at Whole Foods and it's, it's like a 40-minute drive for me. And I was like, why do I even have my GPS on? I don't need it. And it's so funny because recently what's been happening when I turn my GPS on, even if I know how to get somewhere. I'm constantly missing on the highway. I'll miss the junction. The exit. Right. I miss the exit because I've gotten so used to it doing it for me that I'm even more subconscious…

    Darius: Yes, yes.

    Erica: than I used to be when I was driving. So we have to be careful because all of these things that can assist us in some ways can also make us less conscious when it's. Actually, there's certain. Certain things that we do where we should be conscious. We should be more conscious when we drive. Yeah, it's important, I guess. Well, I guess you can focus on different things.

    Darius: Well, it depends, doesn't it? I mean, it really depends. You know, there's no hard and fast rule on this. It's just this principle of being conscious and choosing when to go on autopilot and when to drive yourself. And you cannot drive everything yourself.

    Erica: You can't.

    Darius: It's just too much. And that is why we're physiologically designed to come back to that original point where 95% unconscious, 5% conscious, or even 1% conscious. What we're talking about is this difference between the 1 to 5% and just saying there are certain parts of our lives that we need to say no, actually, I'm going to take the keys and I'm going to drive on this one. And other parts of our life we're going, no, I need to learn a way to delegate this and let someone. Something else to drive for me. And we've talked about that too, you know, so we need both, but in the right places, in the right measures. Do you know what I mean?

    Erica: Well, we have to be conscious enough to balance. Create an. A balance where we are in control and that we're not overusing autopilot because obviously we all want to grow. We all have a path. We all have our eye on a prize, whatever it may be and if we want to get there. I love the word homeostasis. Yeah, that's just. That's like. I like symbiosis and I like homeostasis, you know, so there's something about getting a more homeo. I don't know if that's a word. Homeostatic.  It feels like it should be.

    Darius: Must be. Homeostatic. Yeah.

    Erica: Homeostatic. Is it a word? It might be a word, but just being conscious about creating homeostasis within ourselves.

    Darius: Homeostasis for the

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    Darius: listeners is.

    Erica: Is a sense of balance.

    Darius: Yes.

    Erica: And the balance between conscious subconscious. But even deciding that you consciously decide what you want to be Subconscious, yes, absolutely.

    Darius: Do you know remember when I talked about the Right Brain Time Manager a long time ago, got this book I love called the Right Brain Time Manager and it's called the Right Brain Time Manager because most time management systems are very linear. Left brain, linear, systematic, I'll count all the time. Whereas the Right Brain Time Manager, one of the things that suggested there, which a lot of inventors do, is you consciously think about a problem and then you say to yourself, your unconscious mind, I'm coming back to this in five days’ time at 12 o'clock or seven days’ time or two weeks’ time or whatever. But basically you give yourself enough time to let go of it, stop thinking about it and for it to sink down into the subconscious mind. Subconscious mind, work on it, sleep on it, dream on it, think on it, ponder on it and let your working memory pick up certain things through your reticular activating system. Cues and ideas that come through your environment and all those get aggregated and then Friday comes along, 12 o'clock and you go, right, I'm picking this back up and you start, you're deciding actively, I'm going to be conscious about this. And then you realize, oh my goodness, we've really made some big progress on this. But I've not been doing anything on it. And the two parts of you had been working on it, but your subconscious cannot work on it while it's lifted up out of the subconscious. And you're constantly thinking about it or worrying about it. You know, worrying is that sort of, you know, that a dog worries a bone. It's like constantly holding it, holding it, holding it, holding it. If you can let go of it and let it sink for a while and not think, oh, it's gone away forever, and I might have lost it. But you leave a note in your calendar, pick up this thought, come back to this problem, solve this problem, spent half an hour reflecting on this again and you do pick it back up. Incredible things happen and that's that partnership between conscious being conscious on certain things and deliberately sometimes being subconscious about things. Just saying, I'm going to let that go and then I'm going to see what comes out of that.

    Erica: Well, this has been such a cool topic and a very, a very conscious and mindful topic. And I think the takeaway is we can consciously decide where we want to go in life, what we want to do in life. We don't have to stay in subconscious patterns. And the more conscious we are, the more we can manifest what we want, what we need, who we choose to be. And again, going back to Albert Einstein's quote, you cannot solve a problem with the same level of consciousness that created it.

    Darius: And I'd sum it all up with don't fall asleep at the wheel.

    Erica: On that note, this is a lot of fun. Until next time.

    Darius: Next time. Erica Sponsored by Ivy Imagine turning your meeting's audio into a live mind map instantly, so you remember what matters. It's ideal for students and managers with dyslexia or adhd. Try Ivy for free now at Ivy App. That's IVVI App.

    Erica: Sponsored by the Executive Functioning Coaching Assessment. A quick online assessment that uncovers challenges and develops personalized strategies for success.

    Darius: Thank you for joining us at the Executive Function Brain Trainer podcast.

    Erica: Check out our show notes for links and resources and follow us on social media.

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