Presuppositions of Neuro Agility
The foundational principles to understand the construct of Neuro Agility is:
Brain and mind are one functional system
- Brain = the mass of nerve tissue in the skull. It integrates sensory information and directs motor responses. It is your center for learning and thinking.
- Mind = your mental processes, thoughts, and consciousness. It is the sum total of our thoughts, emotions, behavior, and intelligence.
- The brain is an organ, but the mind isn’t. The brain is the physical place where the mind resides. There is a constant interplay between brain and mind. What happens in the brain will impact the mind and vice versa. The brain and mind are one functional system and can’t be seen as two separate entities.
- The construct of Neuro Agility, therefore, is the integrated functioning of the physical brain regions with the mental faculties of the mind.
Potential is an indication of who you can be
- Your potential is the sum total of the brain-mind element that influences how you think, learn, communicate, and process information. It is referred to as your Neuro Design. Your Neuro Design is the blueprint for how you are uniquely talented and the predispositions you have.
- People think, learn and solve problems differently, based on their unique neurological design (potential).
Neuro Agility is a competence you develop
- All people can be Neuro Agile, but you are not born being Neuro Agile. It is a competence you have to develop. Just like an athlete has to practice to become fit and flexible to perform at an optimum level, you need to optimize your brain fitness and mental flexibility to have a fast, flexible, and focused mind that can learn, think and solve problems quickly and easily.
Neuro Agility correlates to increased performance
- Research and case studies confirm that increasing the ease, speed, and flexibility with which you think, learn, and process information increases productivity, optimizes mental performance like memory and concentration, improves learning and thinking results, and reduces the risk of human error.
Dominance = brain areas and senses that lead
- Research provides evidence of a strong correlation between dominance and why people learn, think, and process information uniquely.
- Just like the muscles you use become stronger, so do the brain hemisphere and senses that lead when we process information and learn, become dominant. As people learn and develop, we strengthen neural networks that connect different brain regions and the senses that prefer to lead, making certain parts lead stronger and others follow. As a result, we develop physiological preferences for using some brain hemispheres, brain regions, and senses to lead and process information more actively, while others follow more passively. These neural networks make it easier to think, learn, and solve problems in ways consistent with our preferences, hence the reason all people think, learn, and act differently.
- Neurological dominance is a natural part of our design. All people have uniquely reinforced neural pathways, which will influence our predisposition towards which hemispheres and senses will lead (dominate) when learning, thinking, and processing information.
- The definition of dominance is the brain regions and senses that lead to processing information actively, while the other brain regions and senses follow more passively, even if all brain regions and senses are processing information simultaneously.
- Within the construct of Neuro Agility and NAP™ assessments, dominance does not mean that certain brain regions or senses overpower others, causing only one to work and the other not to work. It also does not mean that one brain hemisphere, eye, ear, or hand is stronger than the other. We use all areas of the brain and our senses. Even when we do, one will lead and one will follow.