Not everyone loves to plan, but for some, it is what allows them to function in today's busy world. Why is that? Our brains love structure; they thrive on it. People who plan everything actively improve their cognitive skills. Our brains use previous memories to make better decisions, so if you efficiently plan something like a busy day, your brain can look back on that good decision and continue to make decisions that benefit you in the long run. New York University believes that investigating the brain mechanisms used in planning will help treatments for addiction, eating disorders, depression, and anxiety. What happens in our brains to allow us to plan our day?
When we start to plan, we have to make decisions. Our prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus work together to make a picture of what would happen if we made a certain decision, sort of like the scene in Inside Out 2 when Anxiety is making Riley dream of awful outcomes if she made one decision. Because our brain allows us to "test" possible outcomes of decisions we make, we can pick the best decision and create a plan with it.
Once our brain simulates what could happen if we make a specific decision, we can move to the next step: making our plans. All people are different when it comes to what is the most efficient way of doing things, so this is why when you are planning with a group, everyone has a different opinion on how things should go. On the other hand, when people plan by themselves, our brains simulate the best plan of action.
This cycle of making plans allows for our brain to stay in shape. Although for some, planning can be easy and hard for others, planning is a mental puzzle that keeps improving our cognitive skills as we age. This research on our brains, specifically how they work during daily tasks, allows for scientists to come up with better treatments for disorders that affect people's decision making.
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