Issue 83: Build The Brain You Want
THE LEAP
BY QUANTUM ORANGE
GROW, EXPAND & EVOLVE
ISSUE 83 | BUILD THE BRAIN YOU WANT
Each week The (Quantum) Leap summarises a key aspect of success into what you need to Think, Feel and Do to create a personal shift.
You are not the victim of your biology; you are the architect of it.
~ Shad Helmsetter
THINK
Have you ever watched a documentary on someone who experienced an amazing, unexpected recovery after a traumatic brain injury, stroke, or other brain damage?
Although it seems inexplicable, scientists have been hard at work studying those cases for the last several decades and have found the explanation behind the magic: neuroplasticity.
Neuroplasticity refers to the brain’s ability to adapt.
Though human brains are often compared to computers, they’re actually capable of much more. The brain’s experiences quite literally reshape it - 86 billion neurons are constantly changing the structure, even down to the level of DNA. A computer can’t change its circuitry, but a brain can.
When we learn something new, we create new connections between our neurons, rewiring our brains to adapt to the new circumstances. Not only does this happen on a daily basis, it’s also something we can encourage and stimulate.
The extent to which we harness the brain’s ‘magical’ abilities is dependent on how we approach life in general. There is an important connection between having a growth mindset and neuroplasticity - they mirror each other. A person with a growth mindset believes that he or she can get smarter, better, or more skilled at something through sustained effort - and this is exactly what neuroplasticity allows us to do.
Reflection questions:
- What is one positive thing that happened today?
- How do you think practising ‘looking for the good’ can help you develop new neural connections?
- When have you used your neuroplasticity to your advantage?
- How could you do that again?
FEEL
Neuroplasticity can even help us to free ourselves from old emotional triggers. We can use neuroplasticity to produce an emotional reset resulting in a healthier ‘emotional style’. For example, you can identify the brain activity underlying an emotional trait you wish to change, such as a tendency to dwell in anger, and then target this brain activity with mental exercises designed to change it.
The brain’s emotional circuits are connected to its thinking circuits, which means activity in certain thinking regions sends signals to the regions of the brain that generate emotions. So while you can’t just order yourself to have a particular feeling, you can use your thoughts to encourage a different emotional state.
Neuroscientist Richie Davidson discovered that people who are resilient—able to regain their emotional balance after a setback rather than wallowing in anxiety, anger, depression, or another negative emotion—have strong connections between the left prefrontal cortex and the amygdala. In contrast, people with little emotional resilience have fewer or weaker signals between the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala.
One way build emotional resilience, Davidson says, is mindfulness meditation, in which you observe your thoughts and feelings with the objectivity of a disinterested, nonjudgmental witness.
“Meditation gives you the wherewithal to pause, observe how easily the mind can exaggerate the severity of a setback, and resist getting drawn back into the abyss.”
In meditation, your brain is effectively being rewired: as your feelings and thoughts change to allow a more positive outlook your brain is also transforming, making this way of thinking more of a default. The more your brain changes from meditation, the more you react to everyday life with a sense of calm, compassionate awareness. You’ll also feel at peace, not just when you’re meditating but throughout the day.
Reflection questions:
- What is an old emotional trigger you would like to be free of?
- What is the brain activity underlying your emotional response to this trigger?
- What emotional style do you feel would be healthier for you?
DO
The primary driver of change in your brain is your behaviour, the things you do or don’t do.
Dr Lara Boyd tells us, “There is no neuroplasticity drug you can take…nothing is more effective than practice at helping you learn - the bottom line is you have to do the work.”
Here’s a few activities you can use to enhance your natural neuroplasticity:
- Mindfulness meditation - as discussed above.
- High quality sleep - encourages learning retention through the growth of the dendritic spines that act as connections between neurons.
- Dancing - reduces the risk of Alzheimer’s disease and increases neural connectivity.
- Non dominant hand exercises - form new neural pathways and strengthen the connectivity between neurons.
- Traveling - exposes your brain to new stimuli and new environments, opening up new pathways and activity in the brain.
- Reading fiction - increases and enhances connectivity in the brain.
- Expanding your vocabulary - activates the visual and auditory processes as well as memory processing.
- Creating artwork - enhances the connectivity of the brain at rest (the ‘default mode network’), which can boost introspection, memory, empathy, attention and focus.
- Memory training - can enhance connectivity in the prefrontal parietal network and prevent some age-related memory loss.
- Learning a musical instrument - increases connectivity between brain regions and helps form new neural networks.
For the next month, commit yourself to learning something new or engaging in other activities on the list above to give your brain a boost.
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