The Malleable Mind - The Power of Neuroplasticity Part Two

Part One can be linked to here: http://bit.ly/1GvTPqt

....With each new thought you begin to create a new neural pathway.  This is analogous to walking through a field of tall grass.  When you look back you can distinctly see the path you have taken.  The grass is bent and broken where you have trodden.  If you continue to take the same route through the field it will eventually become a well-formed path.  This is no different with the brain.  Every time we repeat a thought or an emotion we reinforce a neural pathway. 

Over time we become more efficient, more adept and more skilled at playing the guitar, swinging a tennis racket or speaking a foreign language.  It becomes automatic and forms a fixed pattern of behaviour.  These habits of thought and action become a part of us.  We literally become what we most consistently think and do.  In essence, neuroplasticity underlies all learning.

Winston Churchill is often quoted for saying, “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it”.  From the perspective of the brain by simply recalling a specific event from our past we activate a neural circuit in the brain whereby it enters into a malleable state.  This means the activated circuits are in a state where they can be rewritten so they are no longer unhelpful, unadaptive and inflexible but instead helpful, adaptable and flexible.  We can literally learn from our past and use the principles of neuroplasticity to physically rewire the brain from being fixed in thought to being fluid in thought.  

The important idea is that the brain has not evolved to stay in a static and unmodifiable state.  Rather it is always a “work-in-progress”.  The brain is continuously learning, adapting, and changing consciously and unconsciously in response to what we attend to and what we experience.

On an unconscious level we respond to the world based on prior experience and learning.  To some extent we are mindlessly and automatically going through the motions of thinking, feeling and doing connected to a particular situation or person.  Think back to earlier today when you got out of bed and went through your morning routine.  You brushed your teeth, got dressed, toasted your bread, locked your front door and any number of other actions.  Most of it, if not all of your routine, was carried out in automatic state of mind. 

On a conscious level we are mindful of our actions and where we place our attention.  For example, when we learn to play a new instrument, memorise the lines in a play or comprehend the key principles behind a scientific idea.   In this conscious state, we are directly and actively shaping our brain to how we want to develop and grow.  We use the process of neuroplasticity to our advantage.

Part Three to follow....

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The Malleable Mind - The Power of Neuroplasticity Part One

As human beings we have an innate drive to improve and to develop ourselves.  There is a rhyme and reason behind why we do anything.  Those reasons may not always be clear to us.  Those reason may be logical or illogical, rational or irrational.  Regardless of the origins of why we do something, we do it because there is some form of reward.  There is some sort of return on our investment.

Much of what we do, what we think and what we feel is down to habit.  Evolutionary-wise our brains evolved to think as little as possible.  Thinking needs energy.  A lot of thinking requires a lot of energy.  It was quite an arduous effort for our ancient ancestors to find, track, hunt, kill, prepare and eat on a regular basis as we do today.   As a result of these environmental variables it was better for our brains to evolve down the road of forming habits in order to conserve energy.  

When learning something new a lot of initial, upfront energy is invested.  The payback is our brains have evolved to automate repeated behaviours.  This means when we move into a familiar situation very little to no thought is required.  How we react, how we feel, and how we think is pretty much on autopilot.  Habits allow us to turn learned tasks into automatic routines so we can focus our attention to more pressing matters such as potential dangers in our immediate environment.

Many of the habits we’ve accumulated over the years save us time and effort so we don’t have to constantly relearn skills.  It is also no surprise to any of us that some of the habits we’ve developed are road blocks to our growth.  As with many bad habits they may have started out as good habits because they served an emotional purpose.  Perhaps in grade school you avoided the role of giving group presentations or other situations where you had to address the class.  This made you feel safe and to feel the same as the rest of your friends.  You developed the habit of avoiding situations of being singled out and leaving yourself exposed to criticism.   The habit served a beneficial function back in school.

Since then time has moved on, we have moved on and the world has moved on.  The original reasons for why our brains first established the avoidant behaviours has faded into the blurred distance of our past where it has been long forgotten.  Bad habits are akin to maintaining a train station when the train service has long ago disappeared.  The station no longer serves any function.  Those once functional habits, now dysfunctional, have remained untouched by our inevitable movement forward and no longer play any useful purpose.  They have gone from being helpful behaviours to ones that hinder us and hold us back from developing.

The fact is our brains are constantly learning from experience both consciously and unconsciously, the majority of it being unconscious.  We’ve always known that the brain has the ability to learn regardless of age, but it is only very recently that science has woken up to the truly deep insight as to what this really means.   The challenge is to occasionally step off the automated conveyer-belt of learning and to be cognizant of how we can use this natural ability to our advantage.

It was not so long ago that scientists believed the brain formed all it’s nerve cell connections during childhood and by the time we reached adulthood everything was pretty much hard-wired.   The belief was if the brain was injured by disease or trauma the nerve cells could never form new connections and would never be able to regenerate, and so any functions controlled by that part of the brain were permanently lost.   

Advances in brain-science research on animals and humans in only the last couple of decades have completely dissolved this belief.  We now know that the brain can and does change throughout our lives.  The research unequivocally shows the brain continues to reorganize itself by forming new brains cells as well as new neural connections throughout the entirety of our lives. 

This game-changing property is called neuroplasticity.  The term derives from the root words neuron and plastic.  A neuron refers to the cells that make up our brain.  The word plastic means to hold, modify or sculpt.  Neuroplasticity is the property of the brain that allows it to change it’s structure and function through mental and physical experience.  Neurons are able to adjust their activity in response to changes in the environment, to new situations and to compensate for injury.

If you think back 10, 15, or 20 years ago your thoughts and behaviours are different from what they are today.  They way you think now as an adult is different to how you thought as a teenager.  This is neuroplasticity in action.  Our brains reorganize and adapt based on what we experience and learn.  

Dealing with Rejection

Sometimes after a rejection, we want the ground to swallow us up. At the very least, it’s tempting to make a swift exit from the scene.

But wait! There is value in resisting the urge to run. Now is your chance to find out the reason behind the rejection.

It’s a good idea to stick around and ask why you were turned down. This makes a rejection easier to deal with, and helps you formulate a more successful strategy next time.

This is similar to “retreat or rout” tactics in military warfare. A retreat is a withdrawal to regroup, and is usually temporary. A rout, on the other hand, is a disordered and confused running away, a breakdown of discipline and morale.

Therefore, an orderly retreat is far more desirable. Retreating means asking questions about a rejection to help you regroup and adapt your approach, according to the answers you receive.

In addition to asking questions and tweaking your approach, frequently changing the audience, environment and circumstances for your pitch to will increase your chances of getting a “yes.”

This effective approach involves posing your request to different people, rather than trying to repeatedly hammer home one idea to the same person.

Are our brains limited by our evolution?

Just like every other part of the human body, the way our brain works is largely determined by evolution.

Firstly, evolution has determined the limits of our cognitive functioning.

The range of thoughts we can think is actually limited to things that were useful for our ancestors. For example, if you try to visualize a five-dimensional cube, you’ll find it impossible. This is because the ability to see five-dimensional objects did not provide any evolutionary advantage.

The range of tasks we are adept at is also pretty limited. For instance, we are actually fairly bad at performing large mathematical computations because our ancestors never really needed them as hunter-gatherers. On the other hand, they did need the ability to navigate social problems like detecting and punishing cheaters, so humans today are fairly adept at this.

Secondly, evolution also guides our preferences in matters of taste and attraction.

Most people find things like apples, eggs and potatoes tasty. Why? Because they contain sugars, proteins and vitamins, all of which were useful for our ancestors’ survival.

We also have a strong aversion to even the idea of eating fecal matter. Why? Because it contains harmful microbes that would make us sick, so presumably any ancestors who were drawn to it died out long ago.

If we look at what kind of creatures we’re sexually attracted to, this also tends to make evolutionary sense: we’re not attracted to frogs, but rather other humans. This is because cross-breeding with other species is not possible, so being attracted to them would be pointless from an evolutionary standpoint.

Our Battling Brains

Do you think of yourself as having a single, unified personality? Most people do.

But in fact, if we examine our brains more closely, we see that this is an oversimplification: the brain comprises several subsystems that each have a different function, and that often compete for control over our behavior.

For example, we clearly have separate rational and emotional brain systems. As you might guess, the rational system is in charge of coolly and calmly analyzing situations, whereas the emotional system generates feelings like anger, fear, desire, and so forth.

Often the two are at odds, but both are necessary for a normal life. For example, if you lacked the emotional system, you would spend all your time overanalyzing the world around you, without being able to make even the simplest decision. Emotions may be swift and irrational, but they help you to quickly make the unimportant decisions needed in daily life.

The understanding that there are several subsystems in your brain competing for control of your behavior helps explain some peculiar phenomena.

For example, have you ever considered how bizarre it is for a person to curse at herself? This odd behavior can only be explained by the division in the brain: one faction of the brain is berating the other.

Or consider how odd it is for a smoker who wishes to quit to nevertheless keep smoking. Clearly it’s possible for one part of the brain to want to quit, while another strongly desires to continue.

Change your life by changing your beliefs.

Imagine two people that just turned 60. One of them might think his life is coming to an end, now that his best years are over. The other, however, might be truly excited for everything that’s still in store for her.

What could account for such a striking difference in outlook?

The way that we see the world and ourselves is shaped by our beliefs.

But what exactly is a belief?

A belief is an idea that’s supported by evidence. You might, for example, have the idea that you’re an excellent chess player. But that idea will become a belief only if it’s supported by certain evidence (e.g., you win the majority of the time).

For most of us, any events in our life can act as a reference and inform our beliefs. Unfortunately, this also means that whenever something awful happens – e.g., you lose a loved one – many people use it as support for their belief that life is terrible.

But we don’t have to think that way: if we manage to interpret the reference more positively, we can direct our lives in a more optimistic way. So, if you’re grieving, you could use that experience as a resource to make you stronger as a person. Perhaps you’ll even emerge from the grieving period with a strong desire to help others in mourning.

As this suggests, to bring about a change in your life, you must first change your beliefs.

The problem, however, is that many of us tend to already have strong beliefs that hold us back from changing anything.

Habitual beliefs, like all habits, can be broken. As with any other habit, to change an existing belief, you need to associate pain with the old one and pleasure with the new.

An easy way to accomplish that is to find a role model who has already been successful in changing her beliefs, and adapt her way of doing it to your own purposes.

7 ways to practice emotional first aid

Psychologist Guy Winch lays out seven useful ways to reboot your emotional health … starting right now.

From ideas.ted.com

You put a bandage on a cut or take antibiotics to treat an infection, right? No questions asked. In fact, questions would be asked if you didn’t apply first aid when necessary. So why isn’t the same true of our mental health? We are expected to just “get over” psychological wounds — when as anyone who’s ever ruminated over rejection or agonized over a failure knows only too well, emotional injuries can be just as crippling as physical ones. We need to learn how to practice emotional first aid. Here are 7 ways to do so:

1. Pay attention to emotional pain — recognize it when it happens and work to treat it before it feels all-encompassing.
   The body evolved the sensation of physical pain to alert us that something is wrong and we need to address it. The same is true for emotional pain. If a rejection, failure or bad mood is not getting better, it means you’ve sustained a psychological wound and you need to treat it. For example, loneliness can be devastatingly damaging to your psychological and physical health, so when you or your friend or loved one is feeling socially or emotionally isolated, you need to take action.
2. Redirect your gut reaction when you fail.
   The nature of psychological wounds makes it easy for one to lead to another. Failure can often drive you to focus on what you can’t do instead of focusing on what you can. That can then make you less likely to perform at your best, which will make you even more focused on your shortcomings, and on the cycle goes. To stop this sort of emotional spiral, learn to ignore the post-failure “gut” reaction of feeling helpless and demoralized, and make a list of factors that you can control were you to try again. For instance, think about preparation and planning, and how you might improve each of them. This kind of exercise will reduce feelings of helplessness and improve your chances of future success.
3. Monitor and protect your self-esteem. When you feel like putting yourself down, take a moment to be compassionate to yourself.
   Self-esteem is like an emotional immune system that buffers you from emotional pain and strengthens your emotional resilience. As such, it is very important to monitor it and avoid putting yourself down, particularly when you are already hurting. One way to “heal” damaged self-esteem is to practice self-compassion. When you’re feeling critical of yourself, do the following exercise: imagine a dear friend is feeling bad about him or herself for similar reasons and write an email expressing compassion and support. Then read the email. Those are the messages you should be giving yourself.
4. When negative thoughts are taking over, disrupt them with positive distraction.
   When you replay distressing events in your mind without seeking new insight or trying to solve a problem, you’re just brooding, and that, especially when it becomes habitual, can lead to deeper psychological pain. The best way to disrupt unhealthy rumination is to distract yourself by engaging in a task that requires concentration (for example, do a Sudoku, complete a crossword, try to recall the names of the kids in your fifth grade class). Studies show that even two minutes of distraction will reduce the urge to focus on the negative unhealthily.
5. Find meaning in loss.
   Loss is a part of life, but it can scar us and keep us from moving forward if we don’t treat the emotional wounds it creates. If sufficient time has passed and you’re still struggling to move forward after a loss, you need to introduce a new way of thinking about it. Specifically, the most important thing you can do to ease your pain and recover is to find meaning in the loss and derive purpose from it. It might be hard, but think of what you might have gained from the loss (for instance, “I lost my spouse but I’ve become much closer to my kids”). Consider how you might gain or help others gain a new appreciation for life, or imagine the changes you could make that will help you live a life more aligned with your values and purpose.
6. Don’t let excessive guilt linger.
   Guilt can be useful. In small doses, it alerts you to take action to mend a problem in your relationship with another person. But excessive guilt is toxic, in that it wastes your emotional and intellectual energies, distracts you from other tasks, and prevents you from enjoying life. One of the best ways to resolve lingering guilt is to offer an effective apology. Yes, you might have tried apologizing previously, but apologies are more complex than we tend to realize. The crucial ingredient that every effective apology requires — and most standard apologies lack — is an “empathy statement.” In other words, your apology should focus less on explaining why you did what you did and more on how your actions (or inactions) impacted the other person. It is much easier to forgive someone when you feel they truly understand. By apologizing (even if for a second time), the other person is much more likely to convey authentic forgiveness and help your guilt dissolve.
7. Learn what treatments for emotional wounds work for you.
   Pay attention to yourself and learn how you, personally, deal with common emotional wounds. For instance, do you shrug them off, get really upset but recover quickly, get upset and recover slowly, squelch your feelings, or …? Use this analysis to help yourself understand which emotional first aid treatments work best for you in various situations (just as you would identify which of the many pain relievers on the shelves works best for you). The same goes for building emotional resilience. Try out various techniques and figure out which are easiest for you to implement and which tend to be most effective for you. But mostly, get into the habit of taking note of your psychological health on a regular basis — and especially after a stressful, difficult, or emotionally painful situation.

Yes, practicing emotional hygiene takes a little time and effort, but it will seriously elevate your entire quality of life. I promise.

See Guy Winch’s TED Talk, Why we all need to practice emotional first aid.