Do you hear and listen at the same time?
You are probably thinking, "Of course I do, what are you asking?"
But think about it.......do you really?
As you are reading these words, are you hearing all that is going on around you?
Is there ever a situation where you are seeing someone talking but not understanding a word they say? (perhaps a more pointed question to ask is, are there 'certain people',ahem, inlaws and bosses, who are difficult to listen to, so many times you see them talking but you don't really HEAR them...
OR
do you ever feel acute awareness of the sounds in the room but can't see what is right in front of you?
Sound familiar??
Most of the time, the two systems, the visual and auditory systems are working in unison with each other, enough to get you through most of your life with relative ease.
Or if these senses are not working well together, you maybe going through life with lots of stress because you keep missing things you "should've caught".
Perhaps you get pegged as someone who just doesn't listen even if you really want to.
It feels like you just "can't help it".
Or maybe you must have COMPLETE SILENCE while you're trying to study or do something that takes visual focus.
Whatever variation of this you have, do you know that this can change?
This inability to process sight and sound at the same time is a result of these inputs overloading your brain's ability to process these information simultaneously.
This breakdown can be attributed to many things, but most of the time it is related to stress.
Stress lowers your ability to cope with sensory inputs from multiple sources.
Imagine driving on a clear and sunny day, you can see everything and take in noise from the outside as well as the radio or a passenger. Then think about driving on a dark rainy night. Can you still drive and have a conversation and feel safe?
When you have stress, sight and sound come at you and your brain reacts like an outlet at Christmas time which has a bunch of appliances as well as the Christmas lights plugged into it at the same time. You either blow a fuse or smoke starts coming out of your ears from all the hard work you're doing to process everything.
Of course you can unplug and remove some of the inputs, but if you are living life in the real world, staving off input for a lengthened period of time is an unrealistic strategy.
This can be a result of certain reflexes that have not integrated fully from a young age. Another possibility is that there was stress somewhere along the way in school or in life, where these stresses compounded and created a block which you eventually learned to compensate for and live with.
What is amazing is that simple movements such as movements from Brain Gym, performed with the goal of integratoin, can bring about rapid and sometimes dramatic change in your ability to process these inputs.
I have seen this change in my clients. If this is something that you would like to explore, Brain Gym may be what you want to explore.