Brain Power: How the Two Sides of Your Brain Affect Your Productivity 

The brain, like our feet, legs, arms, ears, eyes, nose, and nervous system, is split into two parts - the right side and the left side. 

The right side of the brain is all about creativity and intuition whilst helping to regulate our emotions. It's also associated with feminine energy. 

The left side of the brain is all about analytical and cognitive thinking. It loves crunching numbers and solving problems and it's associated with the masculine. 

What our ancestors discovered 

Through their discovery of breathing exercises (pranayama), ancient yogis discovered that we have a "body rhythm" that alternates from side to side every 90 minutes or so. During these 90-minute cycles, each side of the brain is more dominant than the other. 

As each side of the brain alternates through these 90-minute cycles throughout the day, it means that sometimes our creativity will flow more easily at certain times and not at others and solving complicated solutions can be easily welcomed or feel completely overwhelming. 

You might have even experienced such moments at home or work or in your relationships without knowing why. Well, it could be linked to which side of your brain is more active during your natural body rhythm. 

How to know which side is more active? 

Believe it or not, a fascinating way to do this is through the nose. Because each nostril connects (or activates) each side of the brain and also alternates in the same rhythm - 90 minutes - feeling how the breath is moving through each nostril can indicate which side of the brain is more active. 

For example, if you notice that your left nostril is more open while breathing through your nose, the right side of your brain will be more dominant. This is associated with creativity, intuition, and relaxation. 

If your right nostril is more open, the left side of your brain will be more dominant. This is associated with analytical thinking and cognitive behaviour.

So, by becoming aware of your natural cycle, you can get to know your body more intimately and work with it more intentionally. This can provide you with vital information as to why some things are flowing and others aren't, not to mention finding more compassion, trust, humour, and flexibility to accommodate our ever-changing nature.

Breathing exercise - alternate nostril breathing

This breath is fantastic for creating balance, calmness, and clarity.

1. Sit in a comfortable position with your back straight.
2. Place your left hand on your left knee.
3. Lift your right hand up toward your nose.
4. Exhale completely and then use your right thumb to close your right nostril.
5. Inhale through your left nostril and then close your left nostril with one or more fingers.
6. Open your right nostril and exhale through your right side.
7. Inhale through your right nostril and then close this nostril.
8. Open your left nostril and exhale through your left side.
9. This completes one full cycle.
10. As your breath deepens allow a couple of seconds to pause at the top of each inhale and at the bottom of each exhale.
11. Continue for up to 5 minutes.

This is a powerful exercise for activating both sides of the brain equally. 

How I use this in my day-to-day life

Once I discovered that my brain functions in different ways I created a structure that could support it. For example, knowing that the left side of my brain loves analytical thinking, cognitive behaviour, and problem-solving whilst my right brain is all about creativity, I saw that trying to do both at the same time was like pressing the accelerator and slamming the brake of a car simultaneously.

So, now, being a full-time writer, when it's time to write I write. 

I let my creative right brain go wild and I don't worry about spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, formatting, images, quotes, GIFs, titles, subtitles, tags, SEO, introductions, conclusions, stats, or any of the other tasks that my right brain struggles with. I simply write. 

Only when I'm done creatively writing do I turn my attention towards all the other tasks that are needed. It's as simple as that. This allows my creativity the permission to be free and my analytical brain time to rest, and vice versa. 

This simple structure has got me to the point where I can publish 1–3 blogs a day. Without it, I was struggling to finish one. 

"It's not the hours you put in your work that counts, it's the work you put in the hours" - Sam Ewing

Being a full-time writer is so much more than writing as you can see. But I only figured that out when I became one. If it was split into a percentage I believe my time is about 30% writing and 70% for all the rest.

That 30% is precious time. It is what I live for. However, without the other 70%, it simply wouldn't be possible.

There's no mystery to productivity, it's just about finding a system or structure that works for you. Play around a little until you land on one that makes it feel easy for you on the good days and manageable on the bad ones.

"Bulking" tasks together could be one of those ways. It works for me. It makes my brain happy and that's half the battle. 

My writing and productivity jumped massively when I allowed both sides of the brain to drive when it was their time to drive. I used to spend valuable energy trying to switch from right to left and from left to right while compromising both.

This simple trick stopped that daily struggle and I'm forever grateful for knowing it. 

It doesn't stop at writing - it transcends across all sectors

The good news is that this translates across all fields, genres, and sectors. And it's bigger than anyone's religion, culture, tradition, bank balance, body type, blood type, race, gender, sexual preference, country, diet, political stance, sports team, emotions, fears, desires, and longings. This body rhythm will continue on regardless of any of that stuff. 

The only difference is if we are aware of it or not. 

So, it doesn't matter if you're in finance, tech, counselling, education, sports, healthcare, fashion, food, music, dance, astrology, art, farming, or retail, we all need to access the qualities of each side of the brain throughout the day.

I'll admit that it's in varying degrees, of course, and for good measure. Those varying degrees are probably why we chose to be in the field we are in (a musician might not like to be an accountant, for example, as they use different parts of the brain). 

But as we're all human and we all have human interaction, we all need social skills. We all need to dream, create, communicate, think, plan, organise, prepare, and relax. So, we're alternating from left to right more than we think, anyway. The big difference in knowing which side is more active when it is is that we can be flexible with our tasks and find compassion (and humour!) when it's not.

---

Which side of your nose is more open right now? Which side of your brain is more dominant? 

To discover a brilliant breathing technique that combines ancient breathing patterns and cutting-edge science, check out a free online masterclass here.

{Psst… Don't tell anyone but it's my favourite.}