A thing you might not know about me is that my brain is not great at some things.

It's good at processing information and connecting ideas. But it's not so good at remembering things.

And so, ever since I was in grade nine and I almost biffed a big project because I completely forgot about it, I've used a paper planner. I started with the standard issue planner that the schools gave out, but I soon upgraded to something more sophisticated. I might have been the only kid in my high school with a full Day-Timer™️ system.

I didn't realize it at the time, but I was using technology to extend my mind.

Thinking Outside the Brain

There's more to your mind than just the grey stuff inside your skull. In fact, your mind is a complicated system that includes and relies on all kinds of external resources. These resources help with every aspect of cognition: remembering, focusing, analyzing, and more.

I recently watched a seminar about this presented by coach Ann Betz based on the book The Extended Mind by science writer Annie Murphy Paul. I learned that there are a few different ways that your brain can interact with the rest of the world which actually extend and support your thinking. Your brain — or your thinking, more accurately — actually extends beyond your skull.

Extend Your Brain with Other Brains

Humans are social animals. That doesn't just mean we like being around other humans — in fact, a lot of the time, a lot of us don't. It's much deeper than that. We need other humans to be safe. We need other humans to be human.

And we need other humans to think.

People solve problems better together — that's why group brainstorming is a thing, and why we have coffee with a friend when we need to hash out a problem.

We have less cognitive bias together, because different brains work in different ways.

And we remind each other of things, so that collective remembering is better than individual remembering.

We also use each other for emotional co-regulation. Emotions are contagious, which is why panic spreads through crowds and why it's so nice to be around chill people.

You're already doing this. When you join a mastermind group, ask a friend for advice, or talk to a therapist or coach, you're extending your brain.

Extend Your Brain with the Rest of Your Body

Embodiment, or somatic awareness, or more simply, noticing what is going on in your body, is an important part of self-awareness. So much so that Betz says she believes it should be included in the International Coaching Federation's core coaching competencies. (I expect it will be, the next time the competencies are revised.)

Your body holds a lot of information. It holds memories of joy and trauma. It holds information about the environment and your situation that your brain hasn't brought to your conscious attention.

That information is often made available to us as intuition or as the "fast" thinking of Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow. Have you ever made a decision based on your gut and then realized, months or even years later, why it was the right decision?

You're already using your body to extend your brain, when you follow a gut feeling or notice when someone "gives you the creeps".

(This is tricky, though, because unconscious biases can also feed into intuition. For example, you might get a “bad feeling” about someone simply because they are a member of a group that your culture has taught you is dangerous. It’s worth challenging your intuition every so often.)

I'm still learning about embodiment and how it can be applied in self-awareness and decision-making. I have a whole list of books and videos to look at, and I might take a course. Of course, as I learn I’ll share!

But for now, here's one trick I've been using since I was a kid to help me make a decision when balancing the pros and cons doesn't help.

What you do is you flip a coin. Not to make the decision, but to force a reaction, to let your body weigh in. Flip the coin and notice your immediate response to the result. Are you disappointed? Relieved? There's your answer.

Extend Your Brain with the Space Around You

Our physical surroundings affect what we think and how we think about it. Researcher Sapna Cheryan studies how spaces can help you feel like you belong, with visual cues like posters and plants. Other researchers have found that belonging helps you feel more capable, efficient, and productive. Home-court advantage is real.

Space and objects are useful for creating and embodying metaphors, too. When I'm coaching I often use my hands to represent two sides of a question or decision: literally "on the one hand" and "on the other". From there it is often easy to tell which side is "heavier", or metaphorically throw one side out altogether.

Nature is another environment which helps with thinking. Being outside can be calming, improve your memory, and increase creativity.

Your working environment can help you think when it is personal, calming, and reminds you of what's important to you and what kind of person you want to be.

You're already using space to help you think, when you use concrete metaphors to represent abstract ideas, when you go for a walk in the woods or a park to clear your head, or when you put a picture of someone you love on your desk.

Extend Your Brain with Tools

This one is the classic, the most obvious brain extension of them all. Tools help us remember, analyse, focus, and collaborate.

Paper, pens, sticky notes, abacuses, books, whiteboards, calculators, apps, beads, knots in string — we've been using tools to extend our brain since we became human, and probably before.

You're already doing this, when you write down what you have to do today, or leave yourself a reminder of something important on a sticky note. You're doing this when you use the ticking of a kitchen timer or a fidget toy to help you focus.

The Power of Intentional Extension

We already all extend our minds (and some philosophers argue, our consciousness) in these ways and others. But knowing that we do it allows us to be deliberate about it.

We all naturally tend to favour one or two of these methods. I know people who try to solve everything with books and computers (okay, it’s me), and others who can barely bring themselves to crack open a book but will easily text a friend when they have a problem.

If you're stuck with a problem or question, maybe you'll have more success if you try extending your brain in a way that you haven't tried yet.

When I was young and my body seemed to only bring me grief, I wished I could just be a brain in a jar. But that could never work, because the value of my brain — of all of our brains — emerges from the way it interacts with my body and beyond, to other people, tools, and the world around me.

We are all so much more than our brains.

Four Ways to Extend Your Brain