Philosophy Now Forum

I don't know whether this experience of mine is wired or not: Whenever I want to read a difficult book (usually a book containing hard maths) , I will go to the bus stop to wait for a bus, and minutes later a bus arrives and I board the bus and walk straight to the back end of the bus and take the seat close to the bus window, then I open my book and I start to read it. The wired thing is sitting in a bus surrounded by all the traffic noise and people and I found only in a bus will my mind concentrated the most. ( I can concentrate my mind when sitting in a library but it does not reach the concentration level of my mind when I 'm in a bus.)

Back home in my own room where there isn't much noise, the strange thing is in that room I will found myself too distracted and absent-minded to read anything serious.

I guess the reason is that I usually play computer games in my own room, so entering my own room will trigger the 'playing mode' in my brain therefore I can not concentrate my mind while when I'm sitting in a bus I do not have anything else to do and I can not access my computer game in a bus therefore I can concentrate my mind.

Is my experience universal? Can you concentrate your mind in a bus?
How much does environment influence our brain?

Thanks!

I think the right way to put it would be: how much does the environment affects our body. That will take into account our senses, our peripheral and central nervous systems and surely, our brain. It's a more down to earth approach that will look into the interdependency of these factors, instead of just trying to find a linear cause-effect relation between a "brain mode" and a particular environment.