Focus and RAS: Is what will make the difference

Contributed by Pooja Chhabra, who is doing her Final Year MBBS and is a NLP Practioner as well as the youngest Directive Communication Trainer in India.

Ever wondered why some people are never able to lose weight or drive a car??

Ever wondered why some people are just not good at Math, no matter how hard they try?

According to the research done, this is because of the Reticular Activating System( RAS) in our brain.

RAS is composed of several Neuronal circuits connecting the Brain Stem to the Cortex. RAS is also responsible for the transition of relaxed focus and high attention.  For e.g. when you buy a new car or a new mobile phone you tend to seek or look for it in your surroundings even more than when you had not bought it or contemplated buying it. 

You tend to notice it even more. This happens because your mind is more focused on these things. It is like a radar noticing or focusing on what you can immediately relate to.  If you have it, the radar will see it everywhere.  That is the reason why some people are never able to lose weight because their focus is only on their fat and not on a healthy lifestyle.

According to Arthur Carmazzi, ‘RAS can also be used as a very powerful tool for giving hypnotic suggestions to people and help them to focus on what they really should be doing.

A Hypnotic suggestion can be given saying that they are going to find solutions to their problems sooner than later.

This way, whenever there is a related problem, the radar automatically starts looking for solutions’.

RAS can also make a lot of difference in the environment.  When we meet people we very easily tend to form an opinion about them and this opinion governs our behavior as to how we treat them and how we perceive them.

The judgement could be about anything based on our reality and values; because of this, RAS focuses on what we have actually perceived and that’s the reason we tend to notice those characteristics even more.

For e.g. if you think that someone is stupid, then RAS will focus on all the stupid things that a person does and your belief towards that persons specific characteristic becomes even more stronger. The same thing works on our own selves; when we keep giving our selves the auto session that  ‘we are stupid’.

The RAS reinforces it and proves it all right.  Hence this tool, if used in a right way can do wonders for us and will help us focus on the right things which will help us achieve our goals!