Emily McDonald

It's a complicated network.

It doesn't do one thing, nor does any area in the brain do one thing.

The brain is so complicated.

But the default mode network, it's kind of known as holding this self-concept, this identity or ego, like the story of who you are.

And what I've seen, I mean, in my own life and my people that I coach and, you know, in studies is that, I mean, especially in studies with psychedelics, right, where they take people that struggle with addictions or alcoholism.

like mental illnesses or disorders and they have them go through these psychedelic experiences which involve a huge turning down in the default mode network, now all of a sudden they come out the other side, this new version of themselves, right?

So we've seen this kind of, all right, altering our activity in the default mode network all of a sudden changes you and it's happening long term.

And we don't, I mean...

We don't necessarily know exactly, you know, what's going on, but we do see a huge downshift in default mode network activity.

And we also see that downshift in meditation and hypnosis, different things like that, like deep relaxation states.

But default mode network activity is also involved in mind wander.

and imagination, right?

And I think it's super cool actually when you start to think about just all of the different ways the default mode network kind of does play into our lives because it's also sort of that default mode of behavior, that unconscious sort of like when we're not consciously, like we have a task positive network.

That turns on when we are positively doing a task, when we are focusing on something like, I got to drink this tea.

I'm going to do that task or I'm going to write this book or whatever it is.

And then we have, you know, and that kind of is the seesaw with the default mode network, which is really the network that's active when we're not working on anything specific and we're just allowing ourselves to imagine a future or our mind is wandering.

And it's really interesting when you start to think about

how your default mode network holds this concept of who you are.

And it also is active when you are imagining.

And so now we start to put all these pieces together and you start to realize, okay, so this may be future that I'm imagining for myself, this default behavior that I'm doing when I'm not actively focused on consciously changing, right?