Your Brain “cleanses Out” Useless, Redundant, Unnecessary Information

Learn to learn. Clean out unnecessary information to make room for the useful and the meaningful. Your brain, as strange as it may seem, performs this delicate recycling task while you sleep or meditate. Cleanses itself. Pulls up the “weed” so that it can create stronger connections, new thoughts and much more useful, valuable lessons.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote in “A Study in Red” about how surprised John Watson was when he discovered another talent from his extraordinary roommate. Sherlock Holmes did not know that the earth revolved around the sun. But the famous detective had an excellent reason why he chose to forget that fact and other facts.

The human brain – explains Holmes – is like a small empty palace where you can place all the furniture you want. Stupid people pick up beautiful, shiny objects they find here and there. They do not sort out which ones are really necessary.

Little by little we have no room left for useful knowledge. However, a skilled craftsman is very careful about what he places in the palace of the brain. He only allows the tools he needs to do his job.

Almost without knowing it, Conan Doyle taught us a basic principle of the economics of inner “gardening.” This is where the brain decides which synaptic compounds to feed and which to destroy. And it does so based on our lifestyle, interests, experiences and learning.

Neurologists often say that we have a metaphorical “delete button” for things we do not need, which saves us space and gets rid of unnecessary information. Then we can build new, stronger connections we can use to consolidate more meaningful knowledge. It is a process that we can actually control. Let’s look at how.

In the brain, learning also means “destroying”

Many of us still hold on to the classic idea that the more synaptic connections our brains have, the better. We believe it is how we learn new things and acquire new abilities, skills, knowledge. Sherlock Holmes’ theory, however, actually has some scientific basis. The brain is not a palace for incoherent things we accumulate randomly and obsessively.

The brain is a sophisticated organ that likes to economize and specialize, depending on its owner. Let’s look at an example. You have decided to learn to play the piano. You are very excited and go on a course where you practice it one hour a week. In this case, the effect on your brain will be minimal. But if you get serious and exercise daily, wonderful things will happen.

One of them is so-called “synaptic pruning”, in other words, to create new synapses and new circles with the musical learning, the brain will first eliminate old neural connections that are not useful to it. Unnecessary information. It needs space and new routes, new bridges and new cables must be built for something new to flow.

To understand this concept, imagine that your brain is a garden. Instead of flowers, synaptic connections grow there. They create routes between neurons where neurotransmitters such as dopamine and serotonin travel.

Well, in order for these new structures to flourish, we must first remove the weeds. We have to rake and clear away the old leaves to make room. The microglial cells perform this task, and these are almost like magic devices to which we owe our ability to learn new things. It’s pretty amazing!

Sleep and meditation, two strategies your brain uses to get rid of unnecessary information

We already know that our ability to learn exceeds, in many cases, our own biology. Well, for new knowledge to be integrated into memory, we need to sleep. Neurologists often say that a brain that is sleepless is like a wild forest so dense that you can not move. It is a bit chaotic, dark, suffocating and overgrown with vegetation.

To clear roads and free space, we need deep, restful sleep. This is when the glymphatic system starts. This system has the job of eliminating waste products and all the dead cells generated by synaptic pruning.

We are talking about sleep, but we should note that a short 15-minute nap in the middle of the day or even 20 minutes of deep meditation is also helpful when it comes to making room for new neuronal connections.

Another important thing that happens, as neuropsychologists tell us, is that sometimes no longer focusing on something will let us “deactivate” that synapse and impair it. It’s like pressing the delete button.

It is a fascinating phenomenon that is worth more research…