Humans have a limited ability to process information; they cannot attend to every aspect of a situation. As we will see in greater detail later, the salience of a thought, idea, or intention determines which bits of information will most likely grab one’s attention and have the greatest influence on one’s perception of the world.

The salience network is the cognitive system the brain uses to determine what is important.

comfortable for you and is not distracting. C. Beginning with your toes, start to relax the muscles of your body all the way to the top of your head, feeling more and more at ease as you focus on relaxing your body. You will find that as you do so, there is a sense of calmness that envelops you, and you feel safe. You are no longer worrying about p

Researchers continue to study the neural correlates of flow, but there is a general hypothesis that periods of flow are characterized by lowered activity in the frontal lobes that produce the sense of conscious control.

Essentially, the DMN is responsible for brain activity when a person is focused inward, including during wakeful rest, daydreaming, mind-wandering, and reminiscing. It allows us to carry out self-referential processing, or the ability to reflect on ourselves.

the negativity bias can keep us so blind to the positive that we may start to take it for granted or not catch it when it enters our lives.

During hypnosis, this detachment of action from conscious awareness means the subject is highly susceptible to suggestion from the hypnotist or, in the case of self-hypnosis, from themselves.

In a sense, the flow state translates to the complete alignment of our conscious and subconscious minds in service of our intention. In flow, we have a special kind of access to the deeper resources of our subconscious and can draw upon them more directly. We can also seek this kind of VIP access to the subconscious via the techniques of hypnosis,

Serotonin is often called the “mood stabilizer” and is associated with feelings of happiness,