Albert Einstein has been widely quoted as saying, “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift, and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”
Gut feelings, or intuitions, are there to guide you toward a more rational analysis and help you to adapt in dynamic and rapidly changing environments. There is little doubt that we need both—intuitive perceptions and rational analysis—to make the best decisions we can.
The way it works is that your brain gathers as much information as possible, checks this information with the “big data” from your prior experiences, and then makes a prediction. Discerning from a limited number of cues, like an outline of an obscure figure in the dark- that it could be a friend or a foe, and modifying your actions- either saying “hello” or running away- is based on your intuition.
Deeply intuitive people are often thought to have mysterious powers that they can draw upon from the universe, or some internal hard-wired part of their brain.
Healers have their “healing” intuition to identify the needs of the clients that capitalizes on a large knowledge and skill database but also through the Soul empathic connection with the clients. The strength of our intuition often urges us to do something more for the patient. Intuitive and precognitive components of making decisions in clinical practice saved a lot of lives.
How Intuition Works
Scientists believe intuition operates through the entire right side of our brain, the brain’s hippocampus and through our gut (digestive system has neurons as well- Gut feeling).
Women’s brains may be built better for the intuitive connection due to greater bilaterality because of the connective white matter that connects left and right brain hemispheres together being thicker than men’s. This more substantial brain connection gives women better and faster abilities to access each hemisphere, further integrating our emotion and gut feelings with the more logical left hemisphere into our decision making process.
Women are also psychologically more in touch with their emotions and are more likely to integrate hunches, emotional ‘hits’ about people and logic. Because men have a thinner corpus collosum they are more compartmentalized in their thinking and less about to move back and forth from intuition to logic (Left Brain function), which is also supported by social conditioning.
Women tend to listen to their hearts more too, and men need to be trained and given permission to do so. Remember phrases “Listen to your heart” to know what is true. That has support from research as well.
Research by HeartMath Institute for over 40 years has demonstrated that different patterns of heart activity in the context of different emotional states have distinct effects on cognitive and emotional function. During stress and negative emotions, when the heart rhythm pattern is erratic, the corresponding pattern of neural signals traveling from the heart to the brain inhibits higher cognitive functions. This limits our ability to think clearly, remember, learn, reason, and make effective decisions which helps explain why we may often act impulsively and unwisely when we’re under stress, and that is the reason for taking a deep breath before making an important decision.
The heart’s input to the brain during stressful or negative emotions also has a profound effect on the brain’s emotional processes that reinforces the emotional experience of stress. In contrast, the more ordered and stable pattern of the heart’s input to the brain during positive emotional states facilitates cognitive function and reinforces positive feelings and emotional stability. This means that learning to generate increased heart rhythm coherence, by sustaining positive emotions, not only benefits the entire body, but also profoundly affects how we perceive, think, feel, and perform.
Your Gut Feeling
The same applies to the Gut-intelligence and our “Gut feeling” or intuition that can inform our emotions and thought processes, as has been shown by our own and other’s research; there is a strong Gut-Mind-Brain Connection leading to bidirectional communication between the systems and restructuring microbiome and brain that can be seen on neuroimaging and in the process of response to antidepressant treatment or taking probiotics and prebiotics resulting in improved mood.
The concept that the gut and the brain are closely connected, and that this interaction plays an important part not only in gastrointestinal function but also in certain feeling states and in intuitive decision making, is deeply rooted in our language.
Recent neurobiological insights into this gut-brain crosstalk have revealed a complex, bidirectional communication system that not only ensures the proper maintenance of gastrointestinal homeostasis and digestion but is likely to have multiple effects on affect, motivation and higher cognitive functions, including intuitive decision making. Moreover, disturbances of this system have been implicated in a wide range of disorders, including functional and inflammatory gastrointestinal disorders, obesity and eating disorders.
The gut-brain connection plays an important part not only in gastrointestinal function but also in certain feeling states and in intuitive decision making, is deeply rooted in our language. Recent neurobiological insights into this gut-brain crosstalk have revealed a complex, bidirectional communication system that not only ensures the proper maintenance of gastrointestinal homeostasis and digestion but is likely to have multiple effects on affect, motivation and higher cognitive functions, including intuitive decision making. Moreover, disturbances of this system have been implicated in a wide range of disorders, including functional and inflammatory gastrointestinal disorders, obesity and eating disorders.
How to Access Your Intuition
Intuition can be used to navigate the confusing world of social media that disconnects us from our own thoughts, feelings, and beliefs. In this new reality, it is growing increasingly important that we know the difference between what comes from the outside and what stirs within. It is critical that we learn to listen to the thoughts, feelings, and intuitions that arise from deep within us.
How to access our intuition? We need to go inward and listen to the signals from our own minds and bodies that will make us better equipped to make sound decisions in this confusing and tumultuous world.
Theories of mind and cognition have traditionally been based on a logical and rational application of conscious cost-benefit analyses. Yet most of us have the sense that there is more to making good decisions than drawing up a list of pros and cons. A highly successful gambler, business strategist, or healer always seems to have a sixth sense about what to do — an intuition they may not even be able to articulate, which helps them to beat the odds.
A large input of information and interpersonal processing is unconscious and organizes emotions based on interoceptive and somatic information. Sometimes they manifest in the body as a stomach ache or muscle tension; other times there is simply an unidentified feeling about what you should or shouldn’t do.
Antonio Damasio, a prominent neuroscientist, proposed that we evolved to use these bodily cues such as muscle tone, heart rate, and hormonal activity in order to make rapid decisions about how to navigate the physical and social worlds. These “somatic markers” translate unconscious thoughts and sensations into felt instinct.
This evolutionary strategy allows us to make quick decisions that require minimal thought to enhance survival. In the modern world, these instincts can be interwoven with rational thought to improve decision-making.
Gut or heart feelings or intuitive impulses are the result of many channels of information processing, and provide a road map that integrates our emotions and physical sensations with a given environment. This is precisely why it is essential for all of us to foster our own centeredness, self-awareness, and intuition at this moment in history. Learning to read all of the input from the world means balancing reason with emotion held within the stillness at our core.
