How does the seemingly impossible become possible? One of the most interesting things about our being human is the fact that we're all programmed to excel at whatever we may do. What that means is that our biology can and should work for us and not against us. This idea has been around for quite a while. William James said,"the great thing in our education is to get our nervous system to be our ally not our enemy ". Our brain and biology should be our ally not our enemy. We all have greater potential than we think we have and the reason most of our capabilities still remain potential is because our minds have not captured them in the circle of possible things yet. When we hear something impossible has been done we start thinking about it and then our minds are programmed to accept it and that's when the magic happens.

The Bannister Effect

The Bannister effect is a concept in psychology and Neuroscience in which one has to believe that something is possible before being able to actually achieve that particular thing. The concept is named after Robert Bannister who was the first to run a sub 4 mile which was considered an impossible feat back then. It was even believed that attempting the feat would lead to death. So for many years there had remained only one record. As long as that Mindset prevailed, nobody could break that record... And just as people believed the feat was indeed impossible until the daring Robert chose to believe otherwise. Robert broke the record and just a month later someone else broke his record and set a new one. Three months later the new record was broken and a new record was set. It continued like that... Like a chain reaction. So what happened? The same physical requirements that was required to run the sub 4 hadn't changed just the mindset surrounding it. So once people could achieve it in their minds they could achieve it in real life too. So if you're looking to achieve great productivity and all you'll have to work more on your mind than anything else. Essentially what all this means is that our our physiology and psychology are separated by a thin line and we can pre-wire our brains in advance for whatever fest we intend to perform before actually performing it. That way during the actual performance, the matching pattern cause drowsiness release which may lead us into the flow state. What is the flow state?

Flow State

The flow state is an optimistic state of mind in which we feel and perform our best. The idea has been around for quite a while. Goethe uses the German word "rausche " which means overflowing joy. William James, a famous psychologist, also worked on the flow state. So how do we characterize the flow state? When psychologists want to know whether you're in flow they ask, "was there complete concentration on the task? ", " was there a merge between action and awareness ?" , "did time dilate?" we've all had that experience when we're so invested in an activity that we lose track of time and 5 hours seems like 5 minutes. Flow tends to occur when we see the impossible become possible. Productivity and motivation skyrocket in the flow state sometimes as much as 500 percent increase. This is mind blowing and definitely would not be believable without the backing of certain research. For instance the department of defense observed soldiers in the flow state, they discovered that creativity is 400 percent to 700 percent more than in normal people and learning is 250 percent to 500 percent more effectual than in the normal state of mind. So where from the flow state? Well.... evolution. Evolution was the main response to scarcity of resources. Scarcity leaves organisms with 2 options: either to fight over the little available resources or to flee to avoid being used as resource. Or maybe we could also become more creative, innovative and cooperative to create and maintain more resources, so we evolved the flow state which enables us to perform any one of these functions with top notch precision. Flow is universal in humans and most mammals. So the same system produces flow in all of us and we can utilize it to our full benefit. Now... Realistically speaking you can't always be in the flow state(unless of cos you're constantly high on drugs) but you can try to as much as possible be in that state when necessary to increase productivity in all your endeavors. So always remember information is power(literally). Thanks for reading guys. Please please please like and comment and don't forget to subscribe for more articles from me.