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.

Our emotional map is laid down mainly in relationship with our earliest caregiver in the first couple of years of life.

The trouble is if we take no new steps to try a new challenge, our comfort zone doesn't seem just to stay still, but retract.

Plasticity is an intrinsic property of the human brain and represents evolution's invention to enable the nervous system to escape the restrictions of its own genome and thus adapt to environmental pressures, physiologic changes, and experiences.

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

The extreme of flexibility is chaos and the extreme of being structured is rigid and staying sane, or indeed using your creativity, is about being aware of these extremes and steering yourself to areas where you work best which usually tend to be more in the middle than at either extreme edge.

It seems whether we have a tendency towards being flexible or structured affects how we create, how we parent, how we work.