If we are not using our brains' capacity for challenge it feels to me as though it atrophies like an unused muscle.

In order to stretch ourselves we do need to experience the vulnerability of not knowing the outcome.

We don't have to have suffered brain damage to take advantage of the plastic nature of our brains.

I think there is probably something evolutionary in that we are drawn to the easiest option. But in our age of convenience, cars, ready meals and off the peg mean that we are in danger of being mentally under stretched.

Sometimes an artist's vision may get blurred when subjected to a committee because an artwork is usually an expression of something unconscious that is better left in the realm of one person's unconscious if it is to speak to another person's unconscious.

It used to be thought that you stopped making new neural connections in your youth and from then on your brain was fixed and it was downhill all the way. But in fact as we know from our own experience we can keep on learning and learning means changing our brain on a physical level.

Meditation is focused attention and the more we practise focusing our brains the more connections we build up.