"I have a noisy mind-always on, always narrating. Striving, stressing, plotting. A buzzing mosquito only I can hear. As an introvert who tends to perfectionism, I spend a lot of time in my head-and it's not always kind in there. If that sounds familiar, you may recognize the pattern: lots of to-do's but few ta-da's. Small chores keep winning; meaningful work keeps waiting."
"Bolte and colleagues found that participants solved word puzzles intuitively when they were primed to be in a positive mood. Ceci and Bronfenbrenner showed that children who failed in solving challenging visual puzzles as schoolwork relaxed and solved them intuitively when told it was just a fun game. Dijksterhuis and Nordgren's unconscious thought theory paper demonstrated that participants made better intuitive choices when they were distracted and not allowed to consciously analyze their options."
A short calm-before-action routine called priming calms the mind and emotions to access intuition. Positive mood induction and brief distraction increase intuitive problem-solving and decision accuracy. Studies found participants solved puzzles more intuitively after positive mood priming, children relaxed and solved visual puzzles when reframed as play, and distracted participants made better intuitive choices than those who overanalyzed. For people prone to internal noise, introversion, or perfectionism, priming reduces self-critique, lowers paralysis by analysis, and creates momentum to start meaningful work. Simple priming practices offer a practical path to quieter mental states and clearer, faster choices.
Read at Psychology Today
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