Guide to Better Thinking

You might think that everyone would know how to think. After all, how much attention should be given to figuring out how to think? Isn't everyone born knowing how to think? Isn't thinking as automatic as breathing? Can anyone actually stop thinking?

Well, if any or all of these questions describe your opinion of thinking, you are in good company. Most of us give little thought to how we think, how we should think, or how we improve the process.

It should be obvious, however, that many of us are not thinking very well. A quick glance at our American economy, for example, shows that too many of us are running on automatic pilot. Too few of us are really thinking at all. We are sleep-walking through life.

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Sewing, painting, building, cleaning carpets, digging ditches, or whatever else we may find to do, all human tasks involve problems to be solved. To clear a field of rocks, to plant a crop of corn, to pour a concrete foundation, to install a frame and door, to make a shoe, to clean and dry a load of clothes (without ruining anything), to make a bar of soap, to fashion a shipping crate, to write a poem, to build a better hamburger — all require the use of our minds. The better we think, the better job we can do.

To think is to live, to experience life, to create things, to solve problems, to improve our own surroundings, and to learn new ways of seeing the world, other people, and our own present circumstances. There is a purely mechanical side to these processes, and that's what I want to focus on right now.

How does a person think? Thinking is a mental process, so we might assume that it's a purely psychological or even spiritual function. And there is a sense in which it is. But as human beings, we are physical creatures, and so everything we do, both externally and internally, is a physical function or process. Thinking is no different. No human thought exists independently of physical actions and reactions in the brain.

In many ways, the human brain is like a computer or network of computers. The body is, in this way of seeing things, a computer-controlled machine with many complex processes, almost all of which are directly controlled by the central computer system. The body-machine feeds millions of bits of information up through the nervous system to the computer-brain, the brain analyzes this information and sends instructions back. That is how we feel pain, move our legs to walk or run, catch our balance when we lean too far this way or that, and speak, and swallow, and so on.

That is only the beginning of the story. The brain is a part of the body, and not separate from it in any way. Every organ in the body has an important function to the overall well-being of the body, and every organ also derives its life and health from the rest of the body. The brain relies on the rest of the body for its health and ability to function.

What we eat and drink, how we sleep, how we live our lives, and so on, affects the brain's ability to function. And the brain's well-being makes a difference in how we think.

In order to think well, we must give some attention to our overall health. Too many people whose job or responsibility it is to think give too little attention to their general health. We need a certain amount of physical activity each day, a reasonable diet, and occasional changes in our immediate environment. If we work at a desk or computer station all day, we need to get up and do something else, from time to time, if we want to remain alert and productive.

Jim Sutton

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