Place your fingers on the back of your skull, approximately at the same height as the top of your ear. Here, deep in your hair, skin, and bones, near a fluid-filled cavity at the base of your brain, you’ll find tiny bundles of pigment cells the color of lapis lazuli. This is the locus coeruleus, which means “blue dot” in Latin. Although it is only a few millimeters in size, it has a power that dominates our thoughts in a way that is hard to imagine considering its small size.
Research has revealed that this structure helps regulate our mental processing. It’s sometimes called the brain’s “master switch,” but it’s better to think of it as a gearbox. “You can set the pace of your brain to match the specific mental task you’re doing,” says Miss Stroni, a neuroscience researcher turned author. When we’re in the right gear, we feel like we’re enjoying the task at hand. But more often than not, we get stuck in the wrong direction, which can lead to dreamy procrastination and intense frustration.
Until recently, we knew little about how to control these transitions, but that is changing. It turns out that the little blue dots in your brain may be trainable and have an immediate impact on your cognition and mental health. This means that with the right techniques, you can shift gears that affect your mental state, from your ability to focus and the level of stress you feel, to your ability to take creative leaps and think on your feet.
It took almost two and a half centuries for the locus coeruleus to receive due recognition. The structure is…
(Tag Translation) Psychology
