Intuition is reliable, trust your instinct

We have always thought that reason was more accurate than intuition. However, there are some scientific studies such as the one verified by a group of scientists led by Professor Marius Usher at Tel Aviv University, by which this statement would be called into question. In a high percentage of cases, Decisions based on formal intuition would be as valid or more valid than those based on reason. That is, your instinct is right.

Maybe it has happened to you at some point, that your reason has given you something as valid, which deep down you did not trust at all, but for which you do not find compelling reasons to justify that “not trusting”. That is to say, Rationally there are no reasons not to do it, but your intuition tells you that it is better to be cautious.

Learning gives good advice

The mind has countless experiences recorded. Since we were 4 years old, we have memories. And, from then on and throughout our lives we have met many people and experienced many situations, both good and bad.

All of these experiences have remained recorded in our memory somewhere, although we cannot relive them vividly or have a hard time locating them. Likewise, Sometimes we don’t know why, but we have the feeling that a person is not trustworthy. We also sense that some event will go wrong if we make a certain decision.

Maybe because we once met someone with those traits and they didn’t turn out to be a good person or we made a similar decision that went wrong. They are the so-called memory traces, highly valuable for the human species due to their great adaptive load.

The mind is the most valuable thing that exists for human beings. It entails in itself a learning process based on experiences, which help intuition gain strength. There are countless decisions to make and Not only will reason give you a good point of view, listening to intuition is reliable.

How does your intuitive instinct work?

Instinct makes decisions in a matter of seconds. Every day we do it with simple things like “do I take the subway or the bus?” We no longer even use reason to make that decision, because we have done it so many times and we know with which combination we will arrive first, that instinct already guides us sometimes, without having to reason.

But let’s imagine that a person is born in the jungle and grows up outside of civilization. If we then brought her to the city, the option would not be so clear as to what would be better, whether to take the subway or the bus, because he has never done it and that learning is not recorded in her mind. Intuition is not something magical that you are born with. In fact, it is developed by people who learn from everything they experience and see around them.

According to the lecturer Margarita Amestoy de Sánchez, the use of experience, together with that of intuition and even inventiveness They connect three areas: the intellectual, the experiential and the contextual.. These three fields integrate logical-critical thinking, creativity and emotional intelligence in a balanced way.

Two instincts we are born with

Two of the innate instincts with which we are born, survival and sexual reproduction, have allowed us to continue existing as a species for hundreds of centuries. They allow us to escape from what threatens our lives, without the need to reason. But instincts are the result of prior learning that our ancestors carried out.

Thus, to escape from a fire today, we had to learn what the danger of flames was. In order not to put our hand on hot oil, we have had to learn as children that it “makes a mess” and that we have to stay away from hot pans. That is to say, much of what is harvested today is the fruit of what was planted centuries ago.

Once we learn what puts us in danger, the body reacts in a matter of seconds, fleeing every time something is a threat to us. Intuition is reliable, but we have it because we have learned from experiences, books, movies and more experiences from the environment.

Therefore, when making decisions you should not underestimate your instinct, since it has quite accurate information.

Clarification: This does not mean that every time you have an intuition, for example, that you think you are going to get a number in the lottery or that you believe that one restaurant is better than another, you are going to be right. Not at all. We are talking about basic survival instincts, which have allowed the adaptation of human beings, not divination skills or getting things right in matters of chance.

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