Your attention is training your brain.

Your attention is training your brain.

Whatever you notice over and over, your brain gets better at picking out. In one study, rats all heard the exact same sounds. The ones trained to listen for certain pitches ended up with more brain area tuned to those pitches. The ones trained to listen for a certain loudness got more cells tuned to that loudness instead. Same sounds, different brains, because of what they paid attention to.

This isn’t about ignoring what’s hard. It’s about not letting it be the only thing you practice noticing.

The glowing bundle is real wiring your brain uses to pay attention, mapped from the brain scans of 1,065 people.

Follow @neuronvisuals for more on how your brain works.