How mind maps engage both sides of the brain

This post is a  short preview of Unstuck Focused Organized Using Mind Mapping.  In this post, we describe both left brain and right brain thinking and how mind maps can help you integrate them for better results.  You might want to subscribe to the Thoughtwrestling mailing list to get the best possible deal  on my products. Just sayin’.

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How Whole Brain Thinking Can Lead to Superior Results

Tony Buzan, a psychologist by training, contends that mind maps provide an excellent way to engage your entire brain in the thinking and learning processes.

You may have heard people talk about being “left brain” or “right brain”.  Without going into detail about the science behind these terms, let’s just say that your brain is divided down the middle into two sides.  It’s like your brain is made up of two separate computers or machines that talk to each other, but do very different things.

Left brain refers to the left side of your brain.  It controls the right side of your body.  The left brain is also associated with logical, rational, orderly thinking.  Your left brain deals with things like:

·         Logic, details and facts

·         Mathematics and science

·         Words and language, including names

·         Order, sequences and pattern perception

·         Being practical, safe and generally unimaginative

The right brain is the right side of your brain and it controls the left side of your body.  The right brain deals with things that are generally fuzzier and more imaginative than the left brain, including:

·         Feelings

·         Symbols, images and spatial perception

·         Transcends details to see “the big picture”

·         Meaning (e.g. the shape, colors and writing on a STOP sign tells us to take certain action – stop the car!)

·         Imagination, creativity, and possibilities, e.g.  “what if?”

Whole brain thinking, then, is the discipline of using both sides of your brain together to think better.  Your brain does this every day just keeping you alive.  Most of the time it happens without any conscious thought, which is good or else you’d probably take all day picking out your clothes and putting them on, assuming that you even remember what clothes are when the two sides of your brain don’t work together.

To put this in context, here’s a quote from the Lateral Action blog (with a link to the Copyblogger blog as well) that talks about the roles of left brain and right brain:

Many people associate the right brain with creativity and lateral thinking, and there’s certainly something to that. Our left brains create structures that can act as barriers to alternative solutions and perspectives.

But your left brain plays a crucial role in creativity as well. Seeing logical associations between seemingly unrelated things is a hallmark of creativity. And the critical-thinking skills necessary to tell a good idea from a bad one are pretty important too.

Mind maps, with their combination of images, colors, shapes and text, can appeal to both sides of the brain.  You can use the mind map to explore unusual, imaginative concepts (right brain) while using mind mapping techniques to put them into order and tie them together with logic (left brain).

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