Transcend Yourself #2: How to Access Neuroplasticity
Creating and Destroying Neural Pathways
Your brain is the only self-altering machine to ever exist. Through your own intentions and effort, you can transcend your current state to achieve any outcome you desire.
So how do you access your neuroplasticity?
Your lifetime has wired itself as a series of preconceptions, thought patterns, behavior tendencies, and attitudes. This means the formation of novel neural networks requires the elimination of old networks, freeing those neurons for new use.
First off, you should understand that your neural pathways, especially your strongest, will fight like hell to stay alive. The survival instinct exists across every cell of your being, for without it, you would not be here.
Neuroplasticity is micro-death.
Old habits literally die hard.
How can you destroy old connections?
Know pain is the signal of adaptation:
That pruning and creation of knowledge and skills costs energy, which the brain evolved to minimize. Pain is not only the signal it’s working, it’s the mechanism by which it’s working, telling the neurons to change.
It helps if you consciously imagine your neural pathways as ropes, tiny wires spooled together united in one collective strength because, well, that’s pretty much what they are. Every attempt at change takes a tiny box-cutter blade to these massive ropes, slicing away tiny strings.
The pain of culling the habit, the friction of sawing the blade against the rope, is the proof of neural adaptation. Let me repeat that: PAIN MEANS IT’S WORKING.
Elevate Your Heart Rate:
By entering into these states with heightened emotions and more cognitive effort, you are arming yourself with a bigger, sharper knife. Emotions and neurotransmitters are the force that signal to brain that these connections are meaningful. By consciously and emotionally signaling they are not useful, the brain expedites the process of pruning away those networks.
Stop Repeating the Habit:
Neural pathways, like muscles, are strengthened every time they’re reused. If they are ignored, the ropes will atrophy and wither away.
*You should recognize that every sliced wire is now free to form a better, more desired rope.*
So how can you build new connections?
Whether you’re looking to replace old unwanted pathways or establish new pathways, here are the steps to building them:
Elevate Your Heart Rate (once more): All emotional responses, positive and negative, correspond with an increased heart rate. But entering into learning or skill acquisition physically activated, you are releasing the very neurotransmitters responsible for memory formation (the amygdala, emotion, and hippocampus, memory, are adjacent one another for this very purpose). You can artificially simulate a survival scenario simply by engaging in exercise or listening to music.
Be Conscious of Neuron Formation: When you’re discouraged a habit remains difficult to replicate, understand that each repetition, by strengthening the bond, literally makes the next repetition easier. This is absolutely wonderful; if the first rep is the hardest and you can do the first, you can do every rep afterward. The only difference is your motivation exceeded the pain in the first rep, the motivation simply died out. Know that you’ve pushed through harder pains and you’re on the step to defeating your past self.
Constantly Iterate: Exploit the brain’s emotional response to novelty. Seek unique experiences on the pathway to your goals, new information, new strategies. The brain adapts to mundanity, so shake it off. Keep it on its toes. If the brain is bored, it will tune out.
Utilize Conscious Thoughts: Thoughts fire across the neurons themselves, the software of the brain. Re-firing these thoughts, repeating mantras reinforces the pathways. And by altering your language (words carry connotation and images and emotions), you can alter the expression of these neurons and the neurotransmitters associated with the pathways.
Imagine: Imagery and fantasy are particularly potent methods to building neural pathways. By imagining both negatives and positive outcomes, the images of your mind can reinforce the habits you wish to keep and cut away those you wish to dispose of. After all, these images, flowing through your neurons, only exist in your mind.
Repeat Behaviors: By far, the strongest way to reinforce habits is through action. The brain creates much stronger connections through physical action because it must integrate truth from the objective world far more than the subjective (imagine a monkey imagining fruits in a forest vs. actually finding them, how different the brain’s response would be to objective fact vs. inclination). Thoughts, feelings, and beliefs can lie. Actions can’t.
Be in Good Physical Health: Your sleep, diet, and exercise play extremely crucial roles in the formation of neural pathways. The brain is simply created from food you’ve ingested. The quality of the blood and oxygen flowing through it are determined by your physical health. Do not get it twisted; it is no coincidence that the most unhealthy people tend to subscribe to the most unhealthy ideologies. If their hardware is poisoned by their diet and lifestyle, so is their software.
Have a Growth Mindset: This new-age platitude holds some truth, for the subjective feeling of openness literally opens the mind up to new information. A student optimistic and eager to learn will take for more from a lecture than a cynical disinterested student.
Enjoy the Process: This self-evident point has been forgotten. You will repeat behaviors you enjoy. Try your best to have fun while you endeavor toward your goals and you will be far more likely to repeat them.
Given the wide scope of the article, I’ll be going over each point in far more detail with more specific, actionable steps for you to make progress toward your desired outcomes, whether they be physically, artistically, emotionally, or financially.
Thanks.