Brain Lateralization

I bet you’ve noticed that some people are always very numerical, rational and logical, maybe even robotic. Computer programmers, engineers, accountants and other technical-type people are some of the people that come to mind.

On the other hand, you have the creative, arty kind of people, very much in touch with their creative and artistic side. People like artists, musicians, actors, sculptors.

Ever wondered why these people are so different from each other? It’s as if they’re "wired" differently!

Actually, that’s not too far off from the truth.

You probably know that your brain is divided into two hemispheres, the left and right hemisphere. Although both left and right sides of your brain look similar, they’re actually not.

This happens in nearly everybody, and is called "Brain Lateralization." In other words, the more both sides of your brain differ, the more brain lateralization or highly lateralized your brain is.

Most people tend to use one side of the brain more than the other, something called "brain dominance".

Some scientists think that it’s due to our genes (similar to left-handedness). Others believe that it’s due to our experiences growing up, education, parental influences, etc.

Although most people prefer to use one hemisphere over the other (usually the left-side of the brain), the average person ocassionally switches between both sides of the brain, depending on the situation and task being performed.

Brain Lateralization on the Left-Side

The left side of the brain specializes in hard facts, logic and reason, rational and analytical thought, structure, rules, categorizing and scheduling, mathematics. It learns by reasoning, explanations and memorizing things.

Research experiments show that the left hemisphere is great for detailed and complex tasks, fine and detailed physical movements (usually, but not limited to, hand movements) as well as when you analyze or when we see, hear and feel things closely in detail. The left hemisphere controls the right side of the body.

It’s what we think of as the Mind when we compare the Mind (logic & reasoning) vs. the Heart (emotions & feelings).

In fact, if you think about it, you’ll realize that our entire education system and way of life is based on left-brain thinking (Logic, reasoning & cold hard facts!).

Many "left-brain dominant" people tend to work as computer programmers, analysts, accountants, technicians, etc.

Right-Side Brain Lateralization

The right-side of the brain is more commonly associated with the "softer" side of life. It’s the emotional and "feeling" side of the brain. This includes intuition, sensitivity, feelings, humor, daydreaming, visualization, creativity, color, learning by experience, impulsiveness, etc. The right side learns by experiencing things.

The right side of the brain controls the left side of your body. Scientific researchers have noticed that the right hemisphere is better than the left when reading facial expressions, detecting nuances and tone of voice in speech and understanding the overall big picture when seeing, hearing and feeling things (unlike the left-side which focuses on details).

Many right-brain dominant people tend to be the more creative and emotional-type people such as artists, musicians, actors, writers, etc.

The next time you see a musician playing a guitar, notice which hand he uses to pluck the strings. More likely than not, he’ll use his his left hand...

The Effect of Brain Lateralization on
Your Brain Waves

I’m sure you know someone who’s so left-brain dominant that they seem so robotic or Dilbert-ish. Or it could be that they’re overly-right brain dominant that they seem to live in a world of their own.

The more one side of the brain is dominant, or the higher the degree of brain lateralization, the more "one-sided" we appear to be.

Quite obviously, I’m sure you can see why that an overly high degree of brain lateralization is not desirable. In fact, if you measure your brain waves, you’ll notice that the the brain waves generated by both sides of the brain are not the same.

Depending on the degree of brain lateralization, your brain waves will be slightly out-of-phase and not in sync with each other.

In addition, people with a high degree of brain lateralization also had very high frequency brain waves, above 32Hz, a high Beta brainwave state.

As I’ve discussed in my earlier article on Beta Brain Waves, that's not a desirable state to be in.

Researchers also discovered that when we reduce the amount of brain lateralization, we also slow down the frequency of our brain waves accordingly.

As both sides of our brain synchronize and start to communicate more, our brain waves start to synchronize and come together. The difference in phase-shift reduces and the frequency of our brain waves also slows down to Alpha, Theta and perhaps even Delta.

How to Reduce Brain Lateralization

There are several ways to reduce brain lateralization (or increase brain synchronization or brain wave synchronization, as it’s more commonly called).

Researchers have discovered that meditation helps to balances both hemispheres of the brain, creating a more synchronized state between the two hemispheres.

Other self-help techniques and resources that I've found useful in brain wave synchronization (also known as brainwave entrainment) include the Silva Ultramind System and Holosync audio technology.

These techniques are able to help you achieve the benefits of meditation almost immediately, short-cutting the many years traditional meditation takes to reach the same brainwave state.

The Silva Ultramind System teaches you to slow down your brainwaves naturally, whilst Holosync uses a technique called brainwave entrainment or synchronization. To learn more, check out the next article on Brainwave Synchronization...