What is subconscious

Subconscious can be described as a second mind, a hidden mind existing within a person. It is a kind of storage for all the information that is not in your conscious mind. It is that part of one’s mind that remembers information which we are not actively doing so. This part of the mind controls emotions, values, beliefs, intuitions, etc.

What is Decision-making

Decision-making is the cognitive process of making choices by gathering information, looking out for alternatives, etc. We all make decisions every day, every minute of our life, Isn’t it? Throughout the day we make decisions, at work, at home, in public. There is a constant decision making throughout the day. We make the decision even when we are not aware of it. When it comes to decision making many of them are under the impression that our consciousnesses make our decision, but almost all the times our subconscious is the one that helps us make decisions.

How much of subconscious control our decision-making

90% of our mind is subconscious and 10% is conscious. Most of our decisions are made by the subconscious mind. Many of the decisions made while cooking or listening to music or while driving a car or walking down the street, for most of the decisions made in these situations, we go from a very short period of time when we are conscious. Many of it, not the majority but these everyday life decisions are made at a varying level of subconsciousness. The more we come to know about our minds, we know that they work better subconsciously. Research finds out that subconscious mind helps in decision-making, creativity, insights, etc. It’s also shown that subconscious is more effective in decision making in some cases when a person is not in the state or have any issues with self. From years we have dealt in our internal mind and external world which constantly put in situations where we have to be ready (fight and flight situations), and for situations like this our subconscious is always the one helping us.

How you decide subconsciously

The subconscious decision we make is what we call the “gut” feeling. A gut feeling is when we deep inside know that something is not good for us or the gut feeling is also when we have plenty number of options. For example, if a person is a drug addict and he somewhere knows that it is not good for his health, so here, him knowing that drugs are not good for the health is the subconscious mind knowing the fact that drugs are a bad habit.

Our mind has an ample number of data, it can be positive or negative, love, hatred, etc. Experts say that the human mind thinks around 60,000-80,000 thoughts a day, which is a very big number. It has everything we ever thought, seen, perceived, touched with our hands or body, smelled, etc. And all these are down there stored therein our subconscious mind even for years.

All these options in subconscious mind sort out how advantageous or disadvantageous each emotion felt on some or other time. So that helps the mind make subconscious decisions.

Conscious decisions vs Subconscious decisions

Conscious decisions are made with the data we see or with data at hand. Making conscious decisions does not require so much courage but at times it takes. Going against the advice or trends just because you feel it is right, where are chances of things not coming into your favour, this where it takes courage. These are the decisions you make deliberately and are conservative. Conscious decisions lead to more practical life. Knowing your needs, and you make decisions aligned to it, they need either in the moment or the future.

Subconscious decisions are a good opportunity to achieve goals as it produces a positive emotion. They are triggered by the goal fulfilment. Subconscious decisions are so many times a problem solver because we follow the “gut” feeling or the intuitions we get, and we majority of times makes the decisions where we have the gut feeling, it proves to be right many times. People tend to make more subconscious decisions.

Insights  

Research from Goldsmith University and the University of Houston shows that mind actually makes a decision or solves a problem “up to eight seconds” before the person is aware of it. And research highlighted that the researchers called it the “transformational thoughts”- which determines that the decision occurs before the person is aware of it consciously.

The basis of this research stems from the 1980s research of Benjamin Libet at the University of California, who proved that simple decisions were made “about three-tenth of the seconds before the brain owner is aware of them,” and that the “roots of such decisions can be seen up to ten seconds before they become conscious”.

Published research in 2012, Daum asserted that “people make thousands of decision daily many of which are subconscious”.

Choice compass makes out how it becomes “universally accepted that our subconscious mind impacts many of our cognitive process” and that the “subconscious is the better judge than the conscious mind when two or more options are presented”.

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