Biology

The Power of the Subconscious Mind: How It Shapes Our Lives.

Sat Li

09 Mar 2026 — 4 min read

Have you ever been on a regular walk with no recollection of the journey? Or started eating snacks while watching a film, and suddenly it’s all gone. Do you actively think about these things? Do you think about the very basics of life, like eating, walking, and breathing? All of these things are predominantly powered by your subconscious mind. Your subconscious is responsible for 95% of the brain's activity, making nearly everything you do controlled, organised or influenced by it. Consciousness is located in the prefrontal cortex, while subconsciousness is not located in a specific area and is rather distributed throughout the brain and nervous system. Maybe you're starting to realise it plays a more prominent role in your life than you would have thought.

In this article, I’ll be breaking down this concept to the basics, how to use it to our advantage and how it affects our behaviour.

What is the Subconscious?

‘Of or concerning the part of the mind of which one is not fully aware, but which influences one's actions and feelings.’ - Encyclopedia.com

Ever tried practising a new music piece? At the start, it is difficult, but once we become more skilled, these movements require less consciousness. These automated movements are powered by your subconscious. It is the part of the mind that operates just below the level of consciousness. It is like a vast database that stores all our experiences and learning. When you ride a bike, you do not need to consciously think about balance or coordination because the mind has already learned these routines and performs them automatically.

Priming

Priming, in psychology, refers to the unconscious influence that exposure to specific stimuli, like words or images, and how that affects an individual's thoughts and behaviours. An example of this is the classic, ‘Say ghost 3 times, what do you put in a toaster?’ Our immediate instinct is to say ‘toast’ rather than bread, as our mind is subconsciously making links between the 2. Words and images can change our behaviour.

Professor John Bargh did a priming experiment in 1996. He had volunteers unscramble words to make a sentence. 30 volunteers unscrambled words relating to old age, like bingo and Florida, while the others just scrambled random words. They found that the people with words relating to old age walked more slowly than the control group to the exit.

Another example is when participants were asked to evaluate an individual. They held either an iced drink or a warm drink. The people holding the cold drink rated the person colder, and more negatively, while the people holding the warm beverage rated the person warmer and more positively.

Your subconscious notices tiny, indifferent details like temperature or words, and they affect your actions and behaviours. Surprisingly, you might see that this is a technique used in marketing:

Coca-Cola's ads show smiling faces and bright colours, this evokes friendship and happiness.
Nike’s slogan, ‘just do it’, creates a sense of athleticism and achievement.
The colour green is used to orient the consumer to health, sustainability and a sense of freshness.

Muscle Memory

The brain encodes repeated movements into automatic neural pathways. The more often you do the action, the more effectively the brain transmits. An athlete practising a tennis serve or a pianist rehearsing scales eventually performs these actions without consciously thinking about each step. Muscle memory shows how the subconscious allows complex actions to unfold smoothly. What once required effort becomes fluid and instinctive. This capacity is crucial for performance, but it also explains why negative patterns — such as poor posture or biting fingernails — can stick with us.

Max Park (2-time Rubix cube world champion and 4x4, 5x5, 6x6 and 7x7 World Record holder) famously said, ‘Don’t think, just solve.’ Professional speedcubers memorise around 78 to 100+ algorithms, depending on what method they use. The current WR for fastest average of 5 solves is 4.05 seconds. For speedcubers to perform at this speed, thinking consciously about each move would be painstakingly slow. However, they have gone through hours of practice, and they rely on their muscle memory, making them able to solve at such speeds subconsciously.

Thin Slicing

In the book Blink by Malcom Gladwell, it talks about the idea of ‘thin slicing.’ It is the technique of making fast, accurate, subconscious decisions and judgments based on little data. This idea explains relying on intuition rather than conscious, lengthy analysis. An example from the book is that experts could identify a fake sculpture just from a glance, because it felt “wrong”; the subconsciousness of the experts used their thousands of hours of study on sculptures and inferred from a split second that something was off.

How Can We Use This to Our Advantage?

Because the subconscious stores beliefs and emotional associations, it is crucial in shaping identity. Repeated experiences create internal descriptions: “I’m bad at math,” “I’m a confident speaker,” or “I’m always lazy or procrastinate.” Over time, these beliefs start to guide behaviour automatically. A student who subconsciously thinks they are incapable may avoid challenging tasks. In this way, the subconscious not only reflects past experiences but also actively shapes future outcomes.

If your subconscious is feeding you negative, limiting beliefs, try countering them with positive statements, such as "I am confident and capable" Write them down or repeat them consistently to rewire your mind.

Your subconscious absorbs information from your surroundings, so your environment should support your goals. Surround yourself with positive people and information. Remove triggers for bad habits (e.g., if trying to limit screen use, remove screens and mobile devices from your surroundings).

Conclusion

Ultimately, the subconscious mind builds up our daily life, undetected. Through habits, muscle memory, priming, and thin slicing, it guides actions and judgments with incredible speed and efficiency. While we may believe in our free will and that we are fully in control of every decision we make, much of our behaviour is shaped by patterns and information from the past. By understanding and harnessing its power, we can optimise our learning experiences and outcomes.