CHECK OUT MY RECENTLY PUBLISHED PAPERS:
Exploring The Possibility Of An Elimination Algorithm as the Basis for Human Intuition: A Study of a Successful Expert System for Eye Disease Diagnosis
Unlocking The Science Of Emotions Through Pattern Recognition: Establishing Emotions As A Proper Field Of Study
Overcoming impatience is possible, when you learn to become aware of your own thought processes. Awareness is the first step to self control. Normally, without your consciousness, subtle neural pattern recognition (PR) makes you feel impatient when you are stuck in traffic behind a slow driver. PR is a process, which enables you to understand the intentions behind the behaviors of other people or of other systems.
Impatience is the reaction of your system, when you sense that another person, or the world itself, is proceeding more slowly than you want to. You can overcome your impatience by discovering your trigger points for it and by deciding whether to calmly speed up the other person's leisurely pace, or to accept it and flow with it. You can control your responses, because the constitution of your brain is not mathematical, but instinctive. Volatile instincts can be stilled.
Overcoming Impatience
How Does The Mind Recognize Patterns?
Mathematics can hardly explain the link between
nerve impulses and an abstract concept like impatience. Cognitive
theories hypothesize that received impulses are mathematically
processed by neurons to produce outputs. But, it is hard to imagine
a maths equation which links neural impulses to exasperation.
Sensory inputs and motor outputs are patterns of nerve
impulses. This website suggests that such subtle processes are
powered by the PR capability of the so called mirror neuron network.
These circuits are contextually positioned in the sensory, motor and
emotional regions of your brain and translate the intentions, actions
and feelings of other people into your personal subconscious
experiences.
Unlike a mathematical model of the mind, a
more feasible PR framework is suggested in these pages. Coded PR
(Nobel Prize 2004) was shown to identify the subtlest of patterns.
The olfactory system was reported to distinguish between the aromas
of tea and coffee through combinatorial coding. Such PR coding
enables the storage and manipulation of astronomically large lodes of
experience to produce the outputs of the nervous system. Intuition
enables the mirror neuron network to recognize the grimace of a
friend to create your inner awareness of her pain. Impatience is a
similar PR process.
Overcoming Impatience
What Is The Mirror
Neuron Network?
Located in all the relevant regions of the
brain, mirror neurons enable you to sense the intentions, actions and
feelings of other people as your own personal experiences. Mirror
neurons in the monkey ventral premotor cortex were reported to
discharge during the execution of its own goal-directed hand
movements and also when the monkey observes similar hand actions by
other animals. The mirror neuron network observes others and senses
the precise muscle movements they make to achieve specific
goals.
Similarly, by sensing internal thought processes, the
network provides you with more personal data than you can ever
uncover by talking to a person. Scientists suggest that less than 10%
of social understanding comes from spoken words. The mirror neuron
network makes you subconsciously aware of how quickly you will get
service at a restaurant, or how long it will take you to get to the
end of the queue. Impatience
is when you sense that the mechanisms which control your environment
are seen to move at a slower pace than your own subconscious plan of
action.
Overcoming Impatience
How Does The Shadow Motor System Work?
The
driver of an automobile subconsciously controls the foot pressure on
the gas pedal, timing it to keep pace with road traffic. A
co-passenger mirrors this action within his own mind. Empathically,
his motor neurons shadow this activity. If the driver unnecessarily
slows down, the mirrored motor neuron activities of the passenger
fail to keep pace with the timing required to keep up with traffic.
The mirror neurons of the passenger will ineffectually seek to apply
more pressure on the gas pedal.
The brain has timing systems to
detect the subtle difference between the required speed and the
actual speed of the automobile. In experiments on laboratory
animals, Professor Wolfram Schultz discovered accurately controlled
internal timingmechanisms. These mechanisms could predict the
precise times, measured in seconds, when a reward could be expected.
The passenger senses that external events occur at a slower pace than
his willed controls. Internal pressure against perceived restraint
triggers the impatience emotion.
Overcoming Impatience
How Does The Mind Respond To Obstructions?
While obstructions trigger
anger, impatience is predisposed to perceive tardy situations as
threatening territorial goals. For impatient people, the conquest of
territory is linked to the accomplishment of the most number of goals
as quickly as possible. The individual's goals demarcate the
territory, which he aims to occupy.
When a slow moving
process threatens to obstruct this plan, the territorial protection
regions within the early reptilian part of the brain respond. At
this level, the hypothalamus in the limbic system responds to
territorial threats. A patient with severe brain damage, with the
hypothalamus intact, was reported to growl or exhibit distress, when
approached. In this case, forced restraint becomes a threat, which
becomes a trigger point for the amygdalae.
In experiments on
caged rats, the animals received painful foot shocks, accompanied by
specific sounds. Later, the sounds alone were observed to induce
stresses in the animals. The sound signals were noted to generate
stronger responses in the input synapses of the amygdalae. The neural
junctions receiving the signals increased intracellular calcium,
leading to protein synthesis. The sound to pain relationship was
retained in memory as long-term potentiation (LTP), a persisting
potential, causing the amygdalae to react more readily to such
signals.
Overcoming Impatience
What Is The Result Of Hostility?
It
is not energetic competitiveness, but increased hostility, which is
now believed to precipitate heart disease. The signals
from the limbic system travel to the adrenal gland, which produces
cortisol, causing an increase in glucose production to provide
additional fuel for the muscles and brain to deal with the potential
stress. A chain of biological events engulf the mind.
They
are triggered by an instinctive brain, which adopts hostility to
overcome obstructions by preparing the body for physical battle to
claim territory. Impatience triggers a powerful emotional response.
When hostility takes over, the signals increase blood pressure,
increase red blood cells, release sugar into the blood and increase
the tendency for blood clotting. There
are several common symptoms for impatience, including constant
jaw-clenching and teeth-grinding, swearing at the slightest
frustration, and proneness to high blood pressure.
Overcoming
Impatience
What Are The Symptoms Of Impatience?
Habitual
impatience may originate from a childhood fear of not being permitted
to “join the game.” By the time a person reaches adulthood, the
neural pathways underlying impatience become well established in the
brain. At an early age, LTP circuits in the limbic system develop to
reinforce an irrational fear that life itself will prevent the
fulfillment of the individual's full potential. This fear shifts the
focus of the mind to extract the maximum value out of each moment,
while feeling oneself unwillingly tied down in the present.
The
entire body becomes geared to finish each activity as quickly as
possible to get on to the next. The individual's clock is speeding
at one pace, while the world moves at a slower pace. Impatience can
trigger a creative audacity. The emotion drives successful and
fiercely competitive Type A managers, prepared to take risks and leap
in where others fear to tread. Always, for them, “What I am doing
right now is extremely important and urgent.” Impatience can also
trigger an intolerance of any obstruction, leading to destructive
behavior.
Overcoming Impatience
What Is The Stress Of Unfinished Tasks?
The impatient person may strongly believe in
“a clean work table” concept – a conviction that jobs should be
done straight away, (not left on the table) to avoid the vicious
problem of procrastination. With this fixation, LTP circuits will be
triggered for each perceptual signal, which indicates that the
job remains to be done. The sight of an unfinished
task triggers impatience and emotional tension. Added to this is the
vexing awareness that reminders may be interpreted as nagging, or
bullying.
Even if it is pointed out by others, most people
remain genuinely unaware of their habitual impatience. They
see life itself as a constant, unyielding obstacle. They cannot
tolerate slowness, delay or failure, either in others, or even in
themselves. A car that fails to start is as much a threat as a
mugger on a dark street.
Impatience may lead to angry
outbursts, seeing unhelpful people as a hindrance, and thrust them
out of the way. They are constantly prepared to go on the offensive,
ready to push ahead and punch through obstructions. Impatient
people struggle to finish the present activity, which they
perceive as something which holds them back from attempting more
important things in life before death strikes.
Overcoming
Impatience
How Many Irons Should You Have In The Fire?
More trouble arrives
when the lack of exciting opportunities and the slow pace of one's
career add desperation to impatience. Modern marketing techniques
prevail on people to pursue more goals than they can comfortably
achieve. Training opportunities are offered for thousands of careers
and hobbies. Each one adds another attractive goal in life. Since
they fear being left out of the race, impatient people feel a need to
attempt many goals. The underlying logic is that when you have many
irons in the fire, at least one of them will produce success.
But,
depth, rather than width is the key to success. Eliminating less
promising fields is the strategy of most successful people in the
world. They discover their inner strengths early and focus on a few
goals. Gladwell disclosed the "10,000-Hour Rule" that
success in any field is, to a large extent, a matter of dedicated and
persistent practice.
Focused effort invariably lies behind
significant successes in life. It is better to discard fields which
lack promise early so that your efforts can be concentrated in the
more likely fields, where you have a chance of excelling. Too many
goals can be self defeating.
Overcoming Impatience
Why Is Patience Needed?
Early in childhood, impatient people set an
ambitious plan for achievements in life. Anything less appears to
them to be an acceptance of failure. They carry a Bucket List of
things to be done before they die. But, success comes by fully
grasping the few real opportunities, which each person gets in life.
Mental goading cannot increase the fortuitous appearance of such
opportunities.
In his famous novel, James Clavell outlines
the strategy of a warlord in Japan, Lord Toranaga,. His goal was to
destroy his last powerful rival and become the Shogun. His plan was
to wait patiently until “one day, his rival will make one mistake
and then, he too will be gone!” That strategy demands an
unparalleled level of patient, clear sighted vision, not impatient
fretting.
Overcoming Impatience
Can Patience Enhance Your Energy?
Patience calms you. The mood is
directly related to your prediction of the time or effort needed to
reach a goal. Professor Schultz discovered that nature dispatches
dopamine to the forebrain for the precise estimated time you feel you
need to achieve a particular goal. Dopamine brings clarity of
thought and reduces the negative emotional activity of the amygdala.
If you expect things to be completed in less time than it
will actually take, the dopamine flow stops before your goal is
reached. Your energy drops and the amygdala becomes free to amplify
the turmoil surrounding your impatience. Stress follows. Only
patience grants the energy to attempt demanding goals. Patience also
adds the benefits of peace of mind and long life.
Overcoming
Impatience
What Is Self Awareness?
First, overcoming impatience
needs an inner conviction that calm patience is a preferable option.
Impatience is a problem and not a solution. Second, you need to
refocus your life, concentrating on a few achievable goals, while
systematically discarding those where you do not enjoy distinct
advantages. Third, in reading this page, you have indicated a desire
to overcome your impatience. With that desire, you have already
travelled far on this road.
Fourth, you need to become
aware, when impatience strikes. This requires self awareness. Self
awareness is key to the meditation practiced for centuries by the
Buddhists. They advised “staring back” at your thoughts. Matthieu
Ricard, a respected Buddhist monk said: "One may wonder what
people do in retreats, sitting for eight hours a day. They
familiarize themselves with a new way of dealing with the arising of
thoughts."
"When you start getting used to
recognizing thoughts as they arise, it is like rapidly spotting
someone you know in a crowd. When a powerful thought or anger arises,
you recognize it. That helps you to avoid being overwhelmed by this
thought." Self awareness is a powerful method of controlling
your mind. But it requires a willingness to attribute difficulties
to internal causes.
Awareness of the trigger points will bring
acceptance. You will understand the many sincere people, who have a
tendency to procrastinate. It is may not be possible to change their
nature. You will understand those people and the worlds they manage,
which operate more slowly than you would like. You will accept the
need for repeated reminders. An
acceptance of their weakness, along with calm
reminders will avoid an impatient and confrontational approach.