Why 43% of Professionals Avoid Meetings — And It's Not About the Meetings

Priya walks into the conference room for her quarterly review. Her manager smiles. The feedback is positive. But her chest is tight. Her palms are damp. Her mind keeps scanning for what could go wrong.

Nothing bad happens. It never does. And yet — every time — the same feeling. The same tension. The same bracing.

She isn't broken. She isn't weak. Her brain is doing exactly what brains do. It's just doing it based on outdated information.

The Prediction Machine Between Your Ears

For decades, we thought perception worked like a camera. Light comes in, brain processes it, you see reality. Simple.

Neuroscience tells a different story.

Your brain doesn't perceive reality — it predicts it. What you experience as 'seeing' or 'feeling' is actually your brain's best guess about what's happening, based on everything it learned before.

This is Predictive Processing — a theory developed by neuroscientist Karl Friston and philosopher Andy Clark. And it's reshaping how we understand the mind.

How It Actually Works

Your brain runs a constant simulation. Every millisecond, it asks: based on everything I've learned, what should happen next?

Why This Matters For You

Back to Priya. Her brain learned — somewhere, sometime — that meetings with authority figures carry danger. Maybe a harsh teacher. A critical parent. A terrible boss three jobs ago.

The original experience is long gone. But the prediction remains.

So when she walks into that conference room, her brain doesn't see her current manager. It sees its prediction of what managers mean. The anxiety isn't about now. It's about then — echoing forward.

Try This: Catch the Prediction

Next time you feel resistance, anxiety, or tension in a situation that's objectively fine — pause. Ask yourself one question:

What is my brain predicting will happen here — and where did it learn that?

You don't need to analyze it. Just notice. The act of catching the prediction — seeing it as a prediction rather than reality — starts to loosen its grip.

Because when you see that your anxiety is a forecast, not a fact, something shifts. You create a gap between stimulus and response. The prediction becomes visible. And visible predictions are predictions you can question.

The Research

Predictive Processing theory, pioneered by Karl Friston at University College London and expanded by philosopher Andy Clark, suggests the brain's core function is minimizing prediction error — the gap between what it expects and what it encounters. This framework is now central to understanding perception, action, learning, and mental health.

Going Deeper

Catching predictions is a start. But some run deep — they've operated so long they feel like truth, not guesses.

At AATAM Studio, we work with exactly this. Our sessions help surface the predictions running in the background — and create conditions for your brain to update them. Not through willpower. Through experience.

Curious? Explore the app.

The Takeaway

Your feelings aren't always about what's happening now. They're often about what your brain predicts will happen — based on what happened before. Seeing the prediction is the first step to changing it.