The Science of Intuition: How Your Gut Shapes Your Decisions
From Gut Feelings to Quantum Fields and Divine Guidance
Intuition has always been a mystical concept for me. I think it's the feeling when something feels "right" and it's also magic when something you want comes through when you follow inclinations in an unexpected way.
While I have experienced serendipitous synchronicities in my life, I never thought about them enough to tie them back to the inclinations that led me there (until now).
In this post, I'll share my experiences with intuitive guidance and what science says about it.
Some call it the voice of God, some call it inner guidance or "gut" feeling - whatever you call it is not relevant. It exists and can be a powerful source to tap into to create the life you want.
Grab a cup of coffee and let's dive in...
What does intuition mean?
Intuition is you inner voice or inner guidance that you call your "gut" feeling. It surpasses your logical, thinking mind and tells you through feeling whether an action is right or even what you should do.
It comes in different forms:
You might get a thought out of the blue that feels right
Sometimes it recurs until you do it
It could be inclinations to take certain actions (e.g. check your mailbox, reply to a LinkedIn message, or even to call someone) for no apparent reason
The best way to experience intuition (at least for me) is to have a clear mind and leave room for creative thoughts to come to you - ones not tied to your memory, conditioning, or past.
A busy mind, especially if you are a thinker (like me), can make it more difficult to parse intuition from your mind's chatter. Clearing your mind can come from practicing meditation to separate you from your mind's thoughts.
What spiritual teachers say about intuition is that this guidance will lead you to manifest your desires and live in joy, peace, and love.
Sounds too good to be true?
What does science say about intuition?
For all purposes, I'm referring to science as a logical, data-backed explanation to this concept.
Is there a scientific or logical explanation to intuition?
Let's explore a few places of how intuition has been explained through logic, psychology, or biology.
Fast and slow thinking
Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel Prize-winning psychologist and economist, talks about two systems of thinking in his book Thinking, Fast and Slow.
System 1 (fast thinking): This is when you are intuitive, quick, and using emotions to think or take action. For instance, when you look at a picture and react instantly or when you complete a sentence like "bread and ..."
System 2 (slow thinking): This is the system where you use intentional effort and logic to derive. Examples are solving a complex math problem or understanding a lecture on a complex topic.
While Kahneman says that system 1 is our intuition, he also claims that it shouldn't be trusted in unfamiliar situations.
He claims that system 1 uses pattern recognition and heuristics to make decisions but only in places where you have experience. Basically, think of this like a big data processor that has taken everything you have accumulated in your mind and experiences to give you quick answers.
10,000 hour theory
Perhaps this ties back to the 10,000 hour theory where when you practice something over and over, it becomes "intuitive" or second nature.
That's what I think of when I think of a big data processor.
In his book, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell discusses how extensive practice leads to a state of effortless performance, often referred to as "flow."
Athletes who train for years don't "think" when they compete. In fact, most claim to achieve a state of flow where there is zero thinking but peak performance.
And it's not just athletes. It's all of us...
Think about when you were in a state of "flow" or effortless peak performance with zero thinking? Has that happened for you?
That was your intuition leading you...
"Gut" based intuition
Let's move from mind to matter. Is there an actual connection between our intuition and what we call our physical "gut"?
Our Enteric Nervous System (aka our second brain) is a collection of 100 million neurons lining your - you guessed it - gut or digestive tract.
This collection of neurons produces over 30 different types of neurotransmitters that have the power to regulate our emotions and mood.
For instance, 95% of serotonin or the "happy chemical" in your body originates from your gut.
That's wild.
What's more interesting is that there is a large cable of neurons that runs between your gut and brain called the vagus nerve. 90% of the neurons in the vagus nerve carry information from the gut to the brain - one way.
This massively influences your emotions and feelings - and your intuition.
So the short answer is yes, your physical gut plays a massive role in how you feel. And how you feel is very connected to your intuition.
Science vs. Spirituality: It's what you believe
Kahneman claims that while intuition can be powerful in familiar situations, it is not to be blindly trusted (and that you should recruit system 2 when necessary.)
In fact the scientific community largely follows what Kahneman has to say about intuition – that it's our adaptive unconscious that's built from years of experience, memory, and pattern recognition.
That means science says that intuition is limited to YOU.
That's not what spiritual teachers have to say.
Spiritual teachers and metaphysical thinkers believe that intuition taps from collective consciousness or collective intelligence.
Spiritual teachers and best-selling authors Gabrielle Bernstein and Joseph Nyugen both say that intuitive guidance or inner guidance are from a power much bigger than us - call it universe, God, or loving energy.
They are not limited to our experiences as Kahneman says. They are creative possibilities in the universe.
More on infinite possibilities that exist in the universe in this detailed post - and here, quantum physics seems to say yes, there are infinite possibilities.
Going back to spirituality, creative possibilities come to us if we are open to receive and not caught up in overthinking, fear or other mental blocks.
So in essence, spirituality says your intuition is tapping into something MUCH LARGER THAN YOU.
I personally believe intuition is divine or metaphysical guidance from something bigger than ourselves. It is how miracles occur or how when you least expect something to happen, it happens.
Have you ever experienced synchronicities or serendipitous moments? What about strong inclinations?
I know of a friend and her personal journey where she pivoted from lawyer to a flourishing fiction based author with zero knowledge or ties to this new field. She told me that she just started writing and things started happening to her very organically.
Now, that's what I call intuition or divine guidance.
Personally, I have experienced this guidance in my life. I remember upon graduating university back in 2011, my professional goal was to land a consulting job at Bain & Company - a top-tier management consulting company.
While it didn't happen then, a couple of years after my masters when I was moving countries from the US to India, I had an inclination to apply to a random job post on a website that was not your typical recruiting website. In fact, the job post did not specify the employer's name and the website to me seemed a bit out there.
Normally, I would dismiss this but I had a feeling that I should just try my luck, if you will.
I took the leap of faith and applied. And it so happened that as I moved countries, I landed up at Bain & Company. That was also the first year that the company started hiring outside their typical university placements in India - giving me a spot.
How serendipitous!
Many visionary leaders like Steve Jobs have relied on intuition over logic or data when it came to decisions.
In his famous 2005 Stanford commencement speech, Jobs said:
You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.
The synchronicity of his calligraphy drop-in classes manifesting into the beautiful design of the Macintosh was an example he gave.
He goes on to say
Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.
If you're looking for inspiration, I highly recommend listening to Jobs' graduation speech.
This sounds to me more like a metaphysical, miraculous guidance.
What's your take on it?
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Amazing! I love the way you explain things giving examples and scientific as well as spiritual facts!