Science Time: Our Brain's Prediction System

Our brain is essentially a sophisticated prediction machine that also serves as our body's resource manager.

Acting as both a pattern-recognition expert and a meticulous accountant, the brain constantly models future possibilities while budgeting the body's energy. This remarkable dual ability helped our ancestors survive by anticipating threats and managing resources efficiently, and it continues to influence how we interpret and respond to our world today.

How Prediction and Body Budgeting Work Together

Every experience you have creates neural connections that become part of your brain's prediction library. When something new happens, your brain quickly searches through this library, looking for similar past experiences to help it understand what might happen next. Simultaneously, it prepares your body's resources based on these predictions - like a financial manager allocating funds based on anticipated expenses.

For instance, if you've had several challenging interactions with a particular person, your brain not only creates a model predicting future interactions might be difficult but also automatically prepares your body by:

• Increasing heart rate to deliver more oxygen

• Releasing stress hormones to mobilize energy

• Preparing muscles for action

• Redirecting blood flow from non-essential systems

How Past Experiences Shape Our Present

Our earliest experiences are particularly powerful in shaping both these predictive models and our body's resource management patterns. During childhood, when our brains are highly plastic, experiences create strong neural pathways that become the foundation for future predictions and energy allocation.

If, for example, expressing needs led to negative responses, your brain might have created a model predicting that keeping quiet is safer. Simultaneously, it learned to allocate extra energy resources in social situations, preparing for potential threat.

This might manifest as:

• Chronic muscle tension

• Elevated stress hormones

• Digestive system suppression

• Heightened alertness

  
  

The Challenge with Outdated Models

The challenge arises when these predictive models and resource allocation patterns become outdated. Your brain might still be running predictions and preparing resources based on past situations even when your current reality is different.

For example:

• A child who learned to be hypervigilant in an unstable environment might maintain that alertness even in safe situations as an adult

• Someone who experienced rejection when sharing feelings might predict similar outcomes even with supportive new relationships

• Past professional setbacks might lead to predicting failure even when current circumstances are more favorable

When your brain consistently predicts high resource needs, this can lead to :

• Unnecessary energy expenditure in safe situations

• Chronic stress response activation

• Depletion of bodily resources

• Physical symptoms from constant over-preparation

Updating Our Systems

The good news is that we can update both our predictions and our body's resource management through new experiences and conscious awareness:

• Recognizing when predictions might be outdated by equilibrating our Emotional Wounds and monitoring our inner talk.

• Consciously noting when present experiences contradict old predictions and require less energy than anticipated

• Deliberately creating new experiences that challenge old models

• Building regular recovery periods into daily life

• Developing practices that help regulate the nervous system

• Celebrating when outcomes are better than predicted

Remember: Your brain's budgeting system and prediction models are trying to protect you, but these prediction and resource management systems aren't fixed - they can be updated with new information and experiences. Each time you stay regulated in a situation your brain predicted would be threatening, you're helping it create a more efficient energy budget.