An Exercise to Balance Your Brain's Two Hemispheres

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In this clip Dr McGilchrist talks about the importance of attention, and why your brain's hemispheres differ in the way they attend to the world.
Watch more from this series on The Master and His Emissary here:
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[@julieritchie3373]

Misleading title as I thought it was going to have DrMcGilchrist explain how to do an exercise. Love his talks, such clarity.

[@carolyng.6405]

Here’s a brain balancing exercise a friend with a head injury taught me: March in place and touch your right knee with your left hand and your left knee with your right hand alternating as you march. While marching and cross touching the knees, count backwards from 100 silently to yourself and hum at the same time. Have fun!

[@jacobst.ongecasavant9327]

That sounds great actually. Reminds me a bit of my impression of Gurdjiefian exercises

[@KarenSchuessler]

The right and left crossing at the midline is one of the bases of Brain Gym, which is used frequently with children. It yields some striking results.

[@jtzoltan]

@@KarenSchuessler can you please provide an example? I'm curious

[@michaelcolasurdo2622]

@@jtzoltan look up cross crawl exercises

[@jtzoltan]

@@michaelcolasurdo2622 thank-you, I will. May my children be properly embodied

[@cellom.9227]

Why the study of the arts is so important for younger people.

[@nancyhope2205]

When I am driving, I have to focus on car and road, but at the same time I cast my attention widely on the environment, without words. Belly breathing is good too. It is refreshing at the least.

[@dinofrangiamore]

I'm reading your book for the second (third?) time. I don't think it's exaggeration to say it's the most important work of the early 21st century, providing the basic diagnosis and challenge of our times, as well as directions and hints for treatment. Getting our two minds, each with their own special attention and function, working together in a continual (however unconscious) state of perspective and information exchange, operating in this sort of organic dialectic...that's the essential aim, right? I work at fostering such communication/cooperation between my two minds in a few different ways. I create journals with a collage format, a balanced mix of words and images, both linear and formal and focused according to the left, along with more free-form and open/associative, whole-perspective according to the right. During meditation I sometimes picture the two hemispheres playing catch with a ball or disk, or I imagine them playing ping-pong or tennis. There's also a dialogue approach a clinician (Schiffer) has used. Also, personal experience tells me that cannabis, if used intentionally, may also help activate more right brain-type thinking/awareness, perhaps having a disinhibition effect on the corpus callosum (i.e. Huxley's "reducing valve" is opened). I've never seen formal research/literature to support/deny this but haven't looked too deeply into it. I've been interested in dual-brain psychology since I first learned about it in an undergrad psych class back in the 1980s. It really resonated with me. When your book came along, wow, what a tome, you're speaking straight to the troubles and needs of our times, your historical look back at hemispheric shifts, a sort of cultural dialectic working over the centuries...that's some pretty powerful and fundamental stuff! I often cite your book in my work, indeed, it's among my top five guidebooks for our times. To put is mildly sir, thank you!

[@paulgrieve7031]

Cor + phew: Eureka!

[@MimiYouyu]

Thanks for sharing your views, what are the other four books?

[@joe.h-7322]

I would also reccommend looking into William Blakes works aswell as Carl Jung if you have the time

[@OldGreyMulletTest]

Indeed, it is an incredible peice of work.

[@TheDAT9]

I am about to start the works. I will come out of winter an enlighten swan from an ugly duckling

[@crystaldragonwoman]

Sounds like combining the one pointed concentration with mindfulness 💫

[@user-zi5js7mt7b]

Or instead of an elaborate Eastern exercise you could balance the brain by simply tracking and trailing an animal in a wild environment where there are inherent dangers. One must necessarily engage intermittent attention between narrow and broad focus.

[@lisafred1362]

Try a Feldenkrais class to balance the brain. In NYC they have a class free or donation once a week.

[@jayjaychadoy9226]

What was an absolutely beneficial help for me was my psychologist practiced a therapy for me that really worked! It was an amazing help, after trying other methods, and it fixed me. I’m not sure what words to use to describe my inner experience, because of course it was about me, and my concerns. I was always amazed when I left the therapy appointment how different I felt, and then how I would be able to adjust throughout the time between appointments. It totally included left brain, right brain integration. I had waited many years to find the solution for me. I’d tried so many other helps and was quite discouraged. I am in British Columbia, and the therapist was Dr Richard Bradshaw, but not the famous one. Famous to me though. He did a TED talk. His students have learned this technique as well. It truly was remarkable for me.

[@Prunesquallor]

One common meditative exercise is to focus on the breath as is goes in and out of the nose while at the same time being aware of the space around you. It's amazing how much better you can feel afterwards.

[@dandi4017]

Thanks for this conversation Ian

[@rossmccabe7671]

Having spent 6 plus years in 3 times a week Psychoanalysis 40 years ago I have come to understand that what I learned and began to experience through this process was being able to differentiate between thought-expression of left brain ideation and association-expression of right brain experience. Over the years I have grown more aware that experience via association-right brain expression of experience felt true- learning to trust the differentiation between defensive ideation and true ideation. to recognize what was "true" has added to an internal experience of legitimacy and authenticity of my self. The Master and Emissary has added to the authenticity of this experience of discovering myself.

[@ravichanana3148]

I use music to balance the right side with the left.

[@sweetvictory3100]

How

[@ravichanana3148]

@@sweetvictory3100 I used the left side for scientific reasoning which is objective. The right side of the brain appreciates art in the form of music and let's me get away from objectivity for sometime. This refreshes me and I regain focus of my scientific world.

[@scorpionsting600]

In dzogchen awareness one can exercise attention without intention or object resting in the nature of mind itself. Or so they say! Of course one has to develop the intention to rest the mind that way which takes training and time. In traditional Buddhist doctrine there are said to be 'two wings of enlightenment' which are shamatha/mindfulness and vipasshana/awareness. Mindfulness involves placing attention on a specific and learning to rest there and awareness is about become aware of the space-atmosphere-mind around mindfulness until the 'object' of attention becomes the nature of mind itself. So it seems that in this tradition too there is a two-brain approach assumed. I have been thinking about this as I slowly go through your videos and the Matter with Things (on the desk but not yet read except for the last chapter!) and it seems to me that the reason we have this two-brain approach involves an existential prerogative for creatures coming out of the realm of Idea or Mind, as it were, and into Embodied Form as living creatures who in turn create fields in which other seemingly solid phenomena like planets and rocks etc. also coalesce. In our dimension we have place/location which means there is a particular here and everywhere else around. This is the spatial equivalent of the One (everywhere) and Many (particularities). So once we have a realm with particulars you have Two zones, the place where the particular is and everywhere else. So in your approach analyzing brain function, you have left brain (particularity) and right brain (context-space) etc. No doubt the left brain can be trained to pay attention to particulars versus leaching off into habitual conceptual-discursive-abstract false 'monkey mind' pistes. Forming concept is a type of particularity. It is extremely helpful but can also be problematic. The notion of a tree is very helpful, for example, but it is not the tree itself of course; over time we think that our concept of tree is the tree and rarely even see actual trees any more moreover we usually think of them in combination with other similar abstractions in complex thought constructions. Once cataloged they get ignored somehow, they are no longer living processes but fixed corpses, if you will. So the abstraction is the killer aspect of this left brain way of creating particularities in the way we think (as in the example of the concept of 'tree.') There can be valid and helpful left brain attention though and that would be the old-school (Anapanasati sutra style) mindfulness (which exists in other traditions of course). Once the mind's attention is placed (left brain) then the right brain spacious awareness can flourish. Something like that. A teaching called 'the nine ways of resting the mind in shamatha' goes through nine levels of doing this. In any case, from your work I intend to study the brain research once but then work on ways to encourage two-brain meditation - or attention as you helpfully put it - and, no less importantly, intention by considering different styles of attention. You are right to put so much emphasis on attention. The brain work you have done is all left brain approach in some way, or abstract theory even if grounded in scientific observation. The attention subject is practical, experiential application. I think what you have offered the world via your considerable work is truly terrific and powerfully virtuous for both yourself and your fellow mankind making you in Buddhist parlance a very noble Bodhisattva. (Hopefully King Charles III will recognize this and give you a stunning Honor!) Some of the best work by a Western thinker in many a generation. Thank you very much.

[@U_evolve]

☯️ What a fascinating human being , thank you for your time and wisdom .

[@Nothingman88]

A technique I came up with is as follows (this can be done with the imagination or with eyes open looking at something): Stare at a dot in the center of your attention. Now expand (diverge) your vision, and use your peripheral to see the outline of a circle. Play with going between the dot and the large circle. Now stare at the dot and the circle with the same level of intensity. You are now looking at the smallest point and the largest circle simultaneously. You can take it one step further. That step is to see the dot, the circle, and the whole thing as one, simultaneously. The holy Trinity, if you will.

[@rexjantze296]

I found a technique very similar whereas I will try to view panoramic context and individual details simultaneously. I know its doing something because I feel tension release in and around my eyes, especially in the temples. Try to do it auditorily as well (jump between individual unique sounds in among the soundscape), then switch between the two---the auditory and the visual. I use this, among other tools, to quickly extinguish in the brain old feedback loops of conditional emotions and moods, as well as to disengage from the hypnotizing, corruptible emotions of groupthink.

[@Nothingman88]

@@rexjantze296 Yes.

[@eldenlean5221]

One of the levels of prayer as stated by St Theresa of Avila consists of focusing your attention in a specific point(a holy image or symbol) and another one consists of dispelling all of your consious attention and taking in the grace of God that is present everywhere. Of course this is from a Christian perspective, but even for non religious people the exercise of extremely focalized attention and extremely broad attention, as well as alternating can be truly life changing.

[@Nothingman88]

@@eldenlean5221 Yes, this is essentially the exercise that I stated.

[@pencilcase46]

Sounds like "The headless way"? I use this myself, and also put attention on the "Nada sound", or maybe sun gazing, that's pretty neat, direct communication with the Universe.

[@ishanloomba788]

Dr. McGilchrist, I am curious--where are the findings showing strengthening of areas in the right hemisphere in response to meditation? I am perusing Google Scholar, and I am not finding anything conclusive.

[@mmmmmmmrrrrrrrrrrrr]

I wonder if our increase in “attention on screens” shrivels our right hemi creating a appetite for meditation to balance.

[@denisvranjic3068]

By this logic Steve Jobs, elon musk and bill gates would be dumb af

[@marielloyd8594]

Can shrivel it perhaps... but will not create an appetite. I think this explains why Iain devoted decades to his books.

[@catherineiselin]

The Art of Dressage, thanks to the horses is the art of coordinating the opposites to reach a higher level than just sitting between them.

[@BelladoniusMonk]

What a gorgeous beard. Lovely man

[@MP-db9sw]

Castaneda talks about "the right way of walking" where you walk at a bit slower of a pace with either your fingers curled or some kinds of small objects (pebbles or if you want to go full new age, crystals) between some of your fingers (this is to draw some of your attention to your hands) while directing your gaze "loosely" at the upper portion of the horizon. With the eyes you take in the entire field of vision, including peripheral vision, all at once, equally, while shutting off the internal dialogue. Once this can be achieved, simultaneously "open your ears" to ALL of the perceivable sounds of your environment. Finally, become aware of the sensations of your body, like the wind against your skin and the feeling of your legs supporting your weight and your feet making contact with the ground, etc. I can tell you that the further you go with this exercise, the more intense the sensory experience becomes. Which is the point, you're literally overloading your senses while remaining calm and in a state of inner silence.

[@streetlegalone]

So what's the exercise??

[@ninstar8165]

Like drawing lines between landmarks on a map, with a total lack of regard for the terrain between them?

[@jennie94676]

See what happens when consciousness is turned to watch itself.

[@hind6874]

I feel like my mind is divided in two, the two parts can not communicate with each other

[@onepartyroule]

Is metta meditation an example?

[@artvsmachine3703]

Ah, we learn what kind of exercise it is, and how it works, but not specifically what the exercise is so that we can try it.

[@ThinkingThomasNotions]

The exercise is described as the 3:00 minute mark is approached. Namely, it is to endeavor to apprehend within the field of one’s immediate experience simultaneously a sense of intense focus, and Panoramic awareness, states of attention which are generally considered to be mutually exclusive…

[@BubbleGendut]

@@ThinkingThomasNotions intense focus on what? Breath?

[@ThinkingThomasNotions]

@@BubbleGendut As I understand the exercise, the object of focus is almost immaterial to the exercise. Certainly, the breath is a traditional counterpoint to a more ambient awareness, but other objects are suitable. A closely related exercise which I might offer in the interest of elucidation is the following: consider resting your awareness upon a single leaf of a tree, whilst at the same time maintaining an sense of the entire tree…

[@marielloyd8594]

Go visit a Zen teacher today.

[@21stcenturyalchemy58]

There are many approaches. A great one is to fix your gaze on a single point while consciously expanding peripheral vision to take in a wider field of view.

[@heatherwhitehead3743]

As an artist rendering from life does the trick. To create the illusion of realism on paper actually means 'unknowing something. Abstracting it out and not naming. Notice how children draw with symbols.

[@davidbullock9586]

I really enjoy your approach to consciousness. The 'balancing' exercise you speak of sounds much like Zen meditation ( I'm a 40 year practicioner) but I have doubts about consciousness/attention needing an object. My practice of zazen is sometimes called objectless meditation. While not constant, there can be moments of 'transcendence' of the dual mode of mind, including attention and it's object. Then, of course, the left hemisphere charges in and it's back to business as usual. Thank you.

[@leatui7]

Great point. You'll find many left hemisphere focused commenters on Zen and other meditation practices saying that objectless meditation is impossible. The solution is exactly along the lines of what the inventor of the steam engine said when told the steam engine is impossible: "Your problem is solved by its moving!" Similarly, when you awaken to objectless meditation, all your objections will have vanished:>))))

[@marielloyd8594]

My Zen teacher called meditation "The hardest work you will ever do." Sesshins are a brutal yet indispensable training in this.

[@leatui7]

@@marielloyd8594 That's a very interesting perspective, because some Zen teachers speak of sesshin as both the hardest and the easiest thing to do. This also correlates with the Rinzai school, which emphasizes effort, and the Soto, which emphasizes effortlessness. There is some connection between the mode of the left hemisphere, which is all about effort, and the right, which flows more, is effortlessly in tune.

[@danielr4774]

I wish I never had to go back to business as usual. I love right hemisphere dominance and I stay in it as much as I can!

[@cabudagavin3896]

There is a concept in meditation and other such teachings where it is a kind of plague that our conscious mind always needs a focus, I wonder if that is what Ian meant. I hear alot about the fact that we will always be creatures of wanting, and that the way to not be that is to realize that is what we are. I.e. realize the reason why you can't be content is because you are programmed to be searching, So if you focus on the fact that youre a needer of focus instead of anything else, that becomes the way that you don't need anything...

[@marianalevy3436]

Attention equals Quality

[@Robotooo]

Didn't hear what the exercise is...

[@pyotrtchaikovsky9097]

So much in this world, why can't we encourage people to appreciate and live with their incompleteness

[@marielloyd8594]

...except that you are whole and complete... and need meditative training to come to know this directly.

[@lansingday1453]

Thank you for addressing this issue of ways to integrate right and left brain through practices. Could you tell us more about this exercise in a future video? Is there an element of movement, for example? Stillness and visualization? Eyes open, with focused attention on peripheral visual fields?

[@CuTigerBigSho]

Yes, I'd like to know more about this exercise. After reading TMAHE, I was left wanting to learn some practices to counterbalance the hemispheres. Recommended by Iain, so I know they're legit and not hooey.

[@jamescresswell6013]

Read The Mind Illuminated. I think that is the type of meditation he is referencing. Basically, you make an effort to attend simultaneously to a point at the bottom of the nostril where one feels the breath on the one hand and also the whole 360° panorama of sounds, smells, feelings in the body, etc... you don't need to read that book to meditate in this way of course but it helps in understanding how to practice properly and the development of the practice through stages of increasing awareness and concentration

[@jamescresswell6013]

Otherwise he is just referring to mindfulness and one can find many different meditation instructions that would do the job

[@lansingday1453]

@@musopaul5407 Thank you. I checked out the work of both you note and felt drawn to Dr. Diamond. Watched "drumming". In my walking and breathing (synced) practice, I bi-laterize, ground, and balance by putting my attention on left foot/right brain lead on inhale with two steps, and then exhale on two, or any length steps on exhale; always coming back to the left foot for inhale on new cycle. I like 2//2 and 2// 2-2. Both, for me, feel like a conversation. This second form (6) feels like FLOW of three-pulse (lub DUB rest) heartbeat, as stacked 2s. Very non-western pattern. In any case, in this method altogether, one is "walking from the right side of the brain". Military marching and marching band I think is left lead too. And waltz, perhaps, man leading with left.

[@lansingday1453]

@@musopaul5407 Thank for your perspective; your experiences. I'm curious about the idea "heterolateral relationship". I'll dive into that further. Diamond and see what/where--elsewhere. I'll try that imagined cord connect between big toe and opposite arm-swing middle finger. I'm a movement guy, so that one vibes with me. I began evolving my practice about four years ago; I was happyn to discover the Bk "Breathwalk: Breathing Your Way to a Revitalized Body". Rather qucikly, I found that those packets of 4 and 8 count did not flow for me. I found myself drifting back to my African drum training and some innate feel of core 2 (relational). Perhaps you know this book? I hear you on the dragness of counting. I do not count 1 2 3 etc. In my experience, two steps on inhale is rather natural and automatic. Inhale is purely a feeling and touch of foot to earth. All the "mantra" vibes of numbers or words are in exhale. In one method, I do same "mantra" vibe for each foot. Equal treatment. For example, when doing 2//2 I repeat "one" silently in my head, in exhale--the pair. On that note: I like vibing the number one, with prime numbers... 2-2 3-3 (10/1); making six steps. Or with that standard two-steps inhale--do...exhale 1-1 0-0 (binary code); six steps. Or primes paired, until my exhale breath nearly runs out, and I'm O2 starved. 2-2 3-3 5-5 7-7 11-11 is my max. I like that this adds up to 56, which reduces to 11. When doing one two or three syllable words, in head with exhale--its same silent sound on each foot fall pair. For example--Rama is rama-rama...not ra-ma. Sita-sita, not si-ta. The rhythmical, song element (conversational) happens with nose breathing. With Inhale sniffs, I hear a higher pitch tonality in relation to nose exhale's lower pitch. It's two "talking to" two. In music speak--"Call and response". Thanks for your question about which comes first; walk or breath. I think I must conclude -- they are a non-duality of sorts. In dance relationship. If you search on "Walk & Breath Two-step" you'll get more background detail.

[@SamuelJFord]

Thank you Iain for these videos and especially for your book, I am currently part way through but it has already radically changed my view of both myself and the world. I am a junior research assistant in an evolutionary biology lab, we work on the evolution of parasitism and symbiosis within genomes, using the predictions of the selfish-gene theory of natural selection. Although fascinating it can also be a view of the world that is depressing, too reductive. I sometimes feel as if I am just a machine, like the bacteria that I work on. A question here is *why* is a reductive view such as this depressing? Your book is helping me to understand the answer to that question quite a bit better. A note on this video: Is it true that consciousness needs to be 'of something'? I have heard experienced meditation practitioners talk about experiences of cessation in which consciousness is without any content, though I have never experienced anything like this myself.

[@1965simonfellows]

..nothings still something Sam if i may chime in.Yes cessation but its, using words to describe it is very daft hence paradoxes oft used..Feels vast and simult so tiny.See ? Daft.There are many ways to live that make this way of being far more likely but never guaranteed of course..What ive spent 30+ years doing actually.But the salient point is that one does this by embracing many of the ways we evolved to live pre agriculture. We modern lunatics live literally it seems often in a state of perpetual /more often than not whole organism dysregulation. My email is supachramp at gmail dot com and if you'd like suggestions.Good luck and good health.

[@MH-ln6pv]

Whatever the meditator experiences, there is still an awareness. So the mind isn’t completely ‘emptied’ because otherwise there would be no observer to see it so. Hope that helps.

[@advocate1563]

I believe you can calm the mind but not cease it (stilling vs silencing might be another way of saying it). There is no question that stilling has great benefits (work of Mark Williams at Oxford amongst others), but if it helps I've never known experienced mediators to claim cessation. In my early days of learning TM 30 years ago I remember I used to keep falling asleep which is another thing altogether 😊. I hope you can find an exciting perspective on your research.

[@leatui7]

@@advocate1563 If you mean by "cessation" the absence of verbal thoughts, while remaining fully aware, yes, it can happen for long, sustained periods of time.

[@gekcho]

Yes, it's possible to experience consciousness without an "object".

[@grunntalll]

is it a left hemisphere idea to try and put everything into categorise like left and right brain activities or is that purely object nature observation?

[@I_Ace]

What is the exercise in practice, I'm a bit confused

[@bernardmurray4674]

I sense that he may be talking about focusing on a single point whilst allowing you peripheral vision to expand. That would in effect be dilating your eyes while focusing narrowly.

[@tectorgorch8698]

@2:35

[@artvsmachine3703]

@@tectorgorch8698 That's like saying this exercise to flatten you stomach involved contracting and extending the muscles. OK, but yeah, what is the exercise?

[@jacobst.ongecasavant9327]

The exercise is simply to engage focused attention (eg of one thing like the sensations of breathing) and peripheral awareness (eg awareness of everything else-the sensations of sitting, the sights and sounds of the room, thoughts, memories, etc) simultaneously. That's the exercise.

[@asdf8asdf8asdf8asdf]

Ah! the host did Aikido….👍

[@mrnobodyz]

I read somewhere that if you look to the extreme left with both eyes and then to the right and repeat say ten times that it aligns both hemispheres. I don’t know if it was true or an urban legend. When I tried the exercise myself I can’t say I noticed any changes in my attention.

[@xiangdancao8968]

Im also confused about what the exercise is - would like to know how to balance the two hemispheres after reading the book.

[@wilsonkorisawa7026]

He already stated it: Through meditation.

[@kipling1957]

@@wilsonkorisawa7026 That’s not sufficient. There are different forms of meditation practice.

[@jacobst.ongecasavant9327]

He describes it very clearly-engage focused attention (eg focus on the sensations of breathing in your abdomen) and peripheral, open awareness (eg awareness of your body sitting, the sounds around you in the room, the feeling of air moving on your exposed skin, etc) simultaneously. That's it. That's the exercise

[@marielloyd8594]

Go find a Zen teacher.

[@ChrishBlake]

Ram Dass: don’t forget the breath teaches the only technique you need

[@mjp152]

Wait, is the good doctor talking about Hemi-sync?

[@markgrant100]

The walls of his home are painted green - that’s the colour of the right hemisphere !!!

[@DesignedtoServe]

Focus on encompassing All

[@damondavies8708]

Taketina aligns the two hemispheres.. for a while at least

[@peterbarker8249]

..you had to be there...

[@lomymu123]

And...??!!

[@1965simonfellows]

Attention/"such a way".Meditation originated from hunting.Narrow and wide attention simult. The difference betwixt it and a med. practise is that the med practise (ive had one for 3 plus decades) doesnt have many of the facets of the context of hunting..The abundant nature, smells and sounds.All things that suffused constantly and utterly effecting our biopsychology, and thus our attention, of us living as we did as hunter-gatherers for 99% of our time as modern humans.These are far from inconsequential things.How and what one eats too vis evolution (dont poo-poo corms par example..they allowed us to thrive) as groups of modern uprights have profound influences on us and again the quality of attention we ARE.Not eating too.The tiniest of things can have, not do, utterly profound consequences."For the want of a nail/butterfly etc ".Try the Science of Fasting on youtube too.Good luck and good health.

[@marielloyd8594]

I think meditation has been practiced and spread for millennia by China, Tibet et al. But I sense in indigenous elders I've met that same balance we don't have.

[@reprogram_myself]

Processes and threads ... sure machine has an notion of "attention"

[@gligor1746]

Wait, so what’s the exercise?

[@intotheoverlap]

2:30 This is exactly what Forrest Knutson describes when he teaches the practice of Hakalau. Focusing on a point in front of you, slightly above your line of vision, and then expanding the attention of your peripheral vision to see as wide as possible while remaining focused on the one point.

[@criticalbil1]

Spoiler alert: no such exercise is described in this video. Title was clickbait. You can do better than this.

[@theomnisthour6400]

That defeats the whole purpose you have two hemispheres, and ignores the vocal third brain in the heart. A poor understanding of the human soul vehicle leads to a lot of stupid advice for those susceptible to having their individual freedoms programmed out of control

[@xwsftassell]

Jump rope.