NEUROPLASTICITY IS A SUPERPOWER

Guess what, you have superpowers. The power to re-wire your brain however you like.

Grow, Prune, and Shape Your Brain

Not too long ago, neuroscientists thought that the brain we got when we were young, was the brain we were stuck with for the rest of our lives. You get what you get and you don't get upset. That's a negative Ghost Rider.

The field of neuroscience in the last two decades, especially this last one has achieved major strides in understanding not only how our brains work, but how we regenerate and re-wire them.

Neurons That Fire Together, Wire Together

Think of your brain like a dynamic power-grid, with super-highways. Freeways or roads of neural networks light up every time you think, feel, or do something.

The highways well travelled and established are our habits. They are the ingrained ways we have of thinking, perceiving, feeling, and doing.

Every time we think, perceive, feel, or do in the same way, we form a stronger path and strengthen that highway, making it easier to travel this path again on autopilot. Our brains are not biased to good or bad, effective or ineffective, the neurons that fire together, just wire together.

Here's the super duper part: every time we choose to think a new thought, open to a new perspective, choose a different emotion/ reaction, or learn a new task, we build a new highway and strengthen it with continued use. The more we strengthen it, the more our brains choose this new path automatically. After time, the old path or habit begins to diminish, and even trim back via synaptic pruning.

Use 'The Force' to Re-Wire Your Brain

We can facilitate our own neuroplasticity through conscious choice and repetition.

This is why it's so important to develop self awareness and live a more conscious life. Most of our habitual reactions and ways of thinking have been programmed into our subconscious via our parents, environments, society, television and movies, and the culture we surround ourselves in. I can make a pretty confident bet that not everything that has influenced you either positively or negatively was consciously considered before it ended up shaping your outlook on your entire world.

We can choose something different though, and that is where we gain our power back. We can choose to become aware of the things in our lives that no longer serve us; the reactions, the perspectives, and the habits that haven't produced very good results. Then we can, one by one, re-wire our thought patterns to better serve what we truly want in life. We discuss how you can start to re-wire your brain in 4 in simple steps in THIS ARTICLE HERE. Check it out when you have a chance.