I will praise you; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made…
Have you ever hit one of the Big Numbers: 30, 40, 50 or 60? If you are like many of us, you dread the very thought of being “over the hill,” and assign unique value to one number over all the others. I remember turning 20, and realizing that I would never again be a teenager, and therefore, I would never again be “cool.”
While this is laughable to me today, I realize that this was a big deal in my childhood. Back then, you retired at 65, and if you were lucky, you would hit your 70’s. You went to school, graduated from college or served in the military, got married, had children, retired, and then promptly kicked the can. It became a self-fulfilling prophecy to slow down as you grew older and reduce your expectations.
Somehow, the world changed, thanks to dietary improvements, powerful medicine and greater concern with health, including strength training. Now you are good through your 80’s, and reaching into the 90’s is to be expected. Even making it past 100 is no longer newsworthy.
Could this be true of our minds, as well?
What Is Neuroplasticity?
Neuroplasticity refers to your brain’s ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections. These synapses are formed from infancy through childhood into our teens. We have over 10 billion neurons, or nerve cells, and the potential combination of them is actually more than the number of particles in the Universe.
As we learn, biochemical connections are formed, and as we repeat new information, those connections become more solid, almost as if they were etched into the brain. It was originally supposed that, once they were formed, they remained indefinitely, and could not be reorganized. It was supposed that each section of the brain, and each neuron, were dedicated to a specific purpose, and could not be altered.
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We now know that this is not true. The brain tends to remember its connections, but it can remap itself throughout an entire lifetime, beyond adolescence into early adulthood, the middle years and finally maturity. In extreme cases, parts of the brain can change their function to support new demands, such as assuming the role of providing acute hearing to the person who has suddenly lost his eyesight.
How the Discovery of Neuroplasticity Changed Everything
It had long been known that the brain was a powerful instrument of association, and that it could develop definite habits that supported deeper learning. For example, after you learn how to ride a bicycle, you give little thought to what you do to maintain your balance.
What was not appreciated was just how malleable the brain actually is, which appears to the naked eye much like packaged oatmeal.
By creating new associations, you can dissolve old ones. You can erase bad habits and imprint healthy ones. You can neutralize negative memories and painful experiences, such that they have no more command value.
Tony Robbins, with his early appropriation of NLP, popularized the possibilities all the way back in the 1980’s. He became famous for curing people of snake phobias in 15 minutes or less, and deconditioning people’s attachment to addictive food, such as packaged candy. Tony did this through the power of words to generate new associations. He even pioneered “pattern interrupts,” where you do the utterly unexpected, such as shouting or clapping your hands, to break a negative train of thought.
A Whole New Model of the Brain
In the last decade or so, neuroscience has gone through a revolution. Multiple factors are at play. We had finally decoded the human genome, computational power had gone up astronomically and the combined knowledge of humanity via the Internet ended up doubling every year or so.
We went from an old static model of the brain, where all the limits were set by heredity, and you could really only learn anything worthwhile in your youth to a very dynamic conception of the brain. For example, biomolecular engineering and new paradigm scientific thinking, such as systems theory, helped us realize that every cell is conscious, including every neuron in the spinal cord, as well as the brain.
A new discipline of making maximum use of your brain emerged with Accelerated Learning, amplified by a profusion of digital interactive media on smart phones, tablets, laptops and digital TV’s, Computers, using either DVD or the Web, became powerful allies to learning a new language in record time, simulating total immersion. Mastering French, Hebrew or Mandarin became a practical goal for people in midlife.
Lifelong Learning Our Birthright
Until the last few years, most of us had a good excuse for confining learning to school and college. Once you graduated from college, you would get all the rest of your education from “the real world.” We didn’t have the time or the money to keep going back to school. We wanted to simply get on with our job and our career, and that was that.
With the information economy emerging out of the computer revolution, inspired first by the P.C., and then the Internet and finally the mobile revolution, continuous learning was not only an option, but the preferred way to get ahead. Perhaps that is why Starbuck’s has upstaged MacDonald’s as the preferred destination for individuals and families.
We now know that our brain cells can keep changing and remapping themselves every year of our lives. We even know of people who have lost an entire lobe of the brain. Eventually, everything was remapped and they went on to assume a normal life. Today’s classroom now looks quaint and industrial. With the World Wide Web, Google, YouTube, Facebook and Wikipedia… information and ideas are instantly accessible. The boob tube TV has lost its attraction; besides which, you can play it off your laptop, if you insist.
Countering the Threat of Alzheimer’s Disease
The big one for most of us is Alzheimer’s Disease, as was experienced by our late President Ronald Reagan, who ended up forgetting he was ever in that High Office. Associated with the rise of Diabetes, this is one of the maladies we fear most. Dr. Rudy Tanzi of Harvard Medical School, in association with Dr. Deepak Chopra, recently published a ground-breaking guide to optimizing your brain through integrative medicine, Super Brain.
If you keep your brain active, you have less of a chance to succumbing to the worst symptoms of Alzheimer’s. You can actually learn to make new associations and exercise your brain, much like you would your body. You also can use deep meditation to get your brain in synch and avoid fogging up.
The authors are optimistic that when we get in touch with our inner dimension, our latent spirituality, we can then utilize our brains to the maximum. When we realize that we have a brain, but that we are NOT our brains, we can appreciate the brain for the wonderful gift it is.
Mobilizing Our Best Friend
As we probe our inner depths, we begin to notice the observer witness the flow of thoughts. We distance ourselves enough from our thoughts to recognize another Self, the Source of Life and our very Being.
We begin to realize that all of our experience lies in another dimension, what Dr. Chopra refers to as “qualia.” When you gaze at a glorious sunset, where is that sunset? If you look closely, you will realize that it lies, not “out there,” but “in here.” Yet when you actually probe each neuron, you will see that the sunset is far more than a chemical reaction. It lies in another dimension.
Our brain is the ultimate tuning mechanism for the Infinite. It doesn’t create thought. It translates thought, much like a radio or TV station, that transmits the sound and images over the air. They are very fast vibrations that have to be stepped down for the human ear to hear and eye to see. The pop band is not in your computer, nor in your brain. They are simply media triggering a qualitative experience.
Related Article: Can The Human Brain Create Consciousness?
Our brain can be thought of us our best friend, a wonderful servant, but a wretched master. We can treat it as the precious gift that it is. We make the greatest possible use of it while we have it. What if someone gave you a brand new Tesla Model S? You would want to immediately take it out for a spin, drive it every day and take it in for maintenance punctiliously. Why not do the same for your brain?
Mastering Neuroplasticity the Easy Way
You can learn the basics of neuroplasticity, and actually experience it for yourself, through a delightful course developed by Gregory Caremans, neurocognitive psychologist, who developed the Brain Academy in 2014 to take the latest developments in neural and cognitive science out into the world.
This online course is replete with videos and over 30 exercises to get comfortable using neuroplasticity. Gregory has an irrepressible spirit of fun and playfulness that is infectious. Over 40,000 people have taken his courses and given him very high marks.
Why not give your brain the treat it so richly deserves? Exercise your imagination. Get your creative juices flowing. Learn how to learn once again.
Neuroplasticity: How To Get Smart Fast appeared first on http://consciousowl.com.
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