I want to comment on the concept and activity of "being deliberate". I mean the same thing as doing something with intention, premeditation, consciously trying for one reason or another. A while back, I read Merzenich's "Soft-wired: How the New Science of Plasticity Can Change Your Life". I think it did change my life a little. It made clear that what we do repeatedly makes us different. Not all that shocking information but it is news to brain scientists that our brains take a different shape, parts of it grow, parts of it decrease in size, depending on what we do, including what we think.
It is no surprise that the amygdala does this and the hippocampus does that. (One author advised to answer "hippocampus" to any question on a brain exam you didn't know the answer to.) It is no surprise that parts of the brain have to do with alarms, noticing danger and getting the body ready to fight, flee or freeze. So, it follows that if we get alarmed, surprised, frightened repeatedly, the part of our brain that handles alarm prep will enlarge to take care of all the incoming business.
One thing I remember from Merzenich is the difference between habitual action and deliberate, conscious action. Other scientists felt that he had overestimated the difference between my turning a switch without paying attention and my turning it deliberately. However, he showed that it does make an important difference to the brain. That is why he and others emphasize that in stopping an old habit or building a new one, it is important to stop the old actions deliberately, consciously and to do the new deliberately. Granted that can be difficult, but stopping the old and starting the new, important for educating yourself and training yourself into a new way works better, more efficiently and more effectively, if you stop intentionally and start with attention.
