Photo by Google DeepMind on Unsplash
To this day, the brain remains a mystery. Nobody truly knows its capacity and limitations. However, one thing is sure to humanity: rewiring the brain may be possible due to its dynamism.
The brain is an ever-changing system in people’s bodies. It’s in charge of ensuring that people can adapt to a likewise ever-changing world.
The constant reminder that adults must be conscious and aware of their behaviors in front of children isn’t done out of illogical fears or pure paranoia. There’s a logic behind this belief, which concerns the brain’s malleability or dynamism. Like its surroundings, the brain is a highly dynamic machine with a constantly changing and adapting functioning.
Knowledge like this allows people to regain hope, especially individuals with mental illnesses who carry a negative perspective of life. Nothing is set in stone when it comes to the brain. How it functions and perceives things can change – the brain does change. It’s a breath of fresh air, knowing it doesn’t have a single, permanent configuration that immobilizes people into perceiving life through a strict lens perpetually. With a determined and constant habit, rewiring the brain is possible and can be achieved through neuroplasticity.
Rewiring the Brain Highlighted by Neuroplasticity
Scientists keen on studying the brain once established that it only remains susceptible to change and influence during childhood. Once people have crossed this period, rewiring the brain becomes closely impossible. It’s as if there’s a freezing period wherein the brain starts to react differently and slowly to training and instruction. However, such belief has been proven wrong, and new research data posits that the brain continues to be malleable throughout people’s lives.
This brain’s capacity to respond and welcome change is called neuroplasticity.
At its anatomical level, neuroplasticity is defined by the brain’s continuous growth of cells resulting in the reconnection of severed pathways. At people’s behavioral level, this process manifests through people’s ability to learn or unlearn skills even after time or disease or the changes in their personality and thought patterns throughout their lives.
People continue and can change because of the principles of neuroplasticity.
For instance, someone with depression might believe negative self-talk is their new normal. And it might seem like it given the pathway for this behavior will become more robust following the diagnosis. People may wake up and be greeted with negative statements daily, but this doesn’t make it permanent. Through neuroplasticity, neural pathways in charge of these statements can be severed or strengthened, thus changing people’s behavior as well.
It’s through constant adjustment of behavior that makes rewiring the brain possible. It’s not easy. It will take time, but the newer version of themselves people will welcome makes the process worth it.
How Do These Changes Happen?
It can be challenging to envision how the brain can make these changes and even harder to explain the process. Rewiring the brain happens at its structural, chemical, and functional levels, influencing people’s behaviors. The easiest way to describe these changes without all the technicalities can be boiled down to repetition.
Use It to Lose or Improve It
When people constantly practice a behavior, this sends signals to the brain, asking it to form a pathway specifically for this action. The more people practice, the more the brain exercises and strengthens this pathway. Rewiring the brain towards the other direction happens as efficiently as practicing the opposite behavior to make a new pathway for the brain to strengthen. This specialized or constant training helps the brain understand the changes to be made at its structural and functional level.
Salience
Like practice, emotions can also help strengthen or weaken this connection within the brain. This can be easy to remember. After all, when people enjoy or love what they’re doing, they will likely incorporate or remember these activities strengthening the pathway required in rewiring the brain. On the contrary, if they dislike the activity or thought, they are expected to avoid it, weakening the connection. This emotional compound of neuroplasticity is why there’s a necessity for people to associate behaviors with emotions to help increase one’s memory of the information.
Time and Condition Matters
Repetition and emotion play their parts in neuroplasticity, but they won’t have a significant contribution if the brain is suffering from an injury. Neuroplasticity can occur anytime, but a window to when it doesn’t will exist during a trauma. When this happens, the brain focuses on recovery instead of creating new pathways. The earlier people concentrate on healing, the faster this window closes before a new one opens to welcome the change process.