Why Neuroscience is the Final Frontier of Self-Help.
We’ve all heard that an old dog can’t learn new tricks. Lady Gaga even sang that she was “born this way”. Whatever the delivery of the message, it’s clear that for most people there is a belief, sub-conscious or otherwise, that once we are of a certain age our trajectory in life is already set in stone. How many times have you heard someone say to you, “I just am not able to motivate myself to exercise”, or “I can’t stick to diets”?
If we peel back the first layer on this concept and accept the fact that we are under the control of our brains, and not vice-versa, then these statements then become a variation of “My brain is just built this way and has no capacity to change”.
I’m here to tell you that that is objectively false. It was the view for a very long time that the brain remained largely unchanged for the majority of your lives, and myths persisted regarding our neurological development: We have all heard that once brain cells die they don’t get replaced, but we now know that is not what actually happens: there is neurogenesis — or the growth of new neurons, in some regions of your brain throughout life.
Given that this is the case, what if we had some say in that growth? What if we could physically change our brain by giving it a particular stimulus repeatedly? Well, then statements like “I just don’t have willpower” or similar don’t really hold a lot of weight.
Our brain gives rise to our entire conscious experience. Everything you experience is a result of the neurological machinations inside your skull. Having the power to change your brain is having the power to change how you perceive the world.
The ability of the brain to change itself in response to stimuli is termed neuroplasticity. We now know that our brains remain plastic — or adaptable to change, throughout our lives. There are various forms of neuroplasticity, from as small as individual neurons forging new connections, all the way to entire regions of the cortex being remapped to serve a different function and responding to entirely different stimuli.
It is a very real case of use it or lose it. Our bodies do not like wasted real estate, and keeping up cellular machinery takes energy. If you are not using it, the body will not keep up the changes, or repurpose that machinery for something else. This is perfectly exemplified by the concept of phantom limbs — when people who have had a limb amputated, can report the sensation of being touched on their amputated appendage — which is obviously impossible since there is no limb to touch. This is because the neurons that were responsible for the sensation of touch in that limb have been repurposed to serve a different function, but still can get stimulated by nearby neurons and result in feeling of being touched by something that doesn’t exist.
Given the utilitarian nature of the brain, we can approach self-improvement from a neurological basis: whatever stimulus we expose the brain to, the brain will adapt to. If we give in to temptation at the first moment every time, the brain will get better at doing exactly that. If we resist temptation once, the neural pathway associated with that task will get ever-so-slightly more efficient at that task. If we do it again, the process continues. Eventually, if we do that act enough, the task becomes easier and easier.
Do you see where this is going? We have the power to change our minds through our actions — This is not witchcraft: it’s neuroscience.
Science is on our side as I tell each and every one of you that our thoughts and thereby our actions literally define who we are at the most fundamental of levels.
We now know that every single action we take is a step towards a better self — provided those actions are in the direction we ultimately want to go. It’s up to us to make as many of those small actions in harmony with the life we’ve decided we want to live.
Make as many of those minute actions in your day in harmony with where you want to be and over time, your mind will eventually catch up with you.