The Brain Changes What Matters
Garnet Dupuis
November 14, 2019
It’s All About Experience
Our brain is constantly shaped by experience. The explosion of development that occurs in early childhood finally levels off between the ages of 20 to 25; however, as previously believed, this does not mean that adulthood is the end of adaptive changes in the brain. In fact, the human brain never stops changing in an effort to adapt to the stream of changes that occur. This can be either good news or bad news depending how one responds to it.
“Experience” may be generally defined as the interactions between the individual and their environment. It is important to expand the concept of outside environment to include “inside” or internalized sensations and emotional states. All of these “experiences” are the main drivers in the adaptive changes in the brain that is now known as “neuroplasticity”.
The brain develops in a series of overlapping and interdependent neurological stages. One can say that the brain is built from the “bottom up” and that higher functions rely in good part upon lower functions. Basically, the sensory capacities develop first followed by motor functions and lastly by cognitive activities.
These integrated dynamics give rise to the three functional categories of applied neuroplastic methods:
- Mental
- Movement
- Sensory
Current popular neuroplastic methods often utilize the cognitive faculties as noted in games, puzzles and computer tasks. Movements are found, recognized or not, in numerous forms of exercise in which physical actions are well known to help model the brain.
Sensory methods are less developed even though the experience we call “music” is possibly the oldest form of neuroplastic methodology.
Following the early neurology of sensory and motor development, it is easy to appreciate the power of song, clapping and spontaneous dance as an intuitive form of brain shaping. The Neuro VIZR influences neuroplastic change using the powerful dual dynamic of sensory light and sound.
The Two 1-2-3’s of Neuroplasticity
There are two “three-step” principles that can optimize any neuroplastic method. They are:
- Attention, Belief/Faith, Emotion.
- Attention, Challenge, Deliberate Practice.
Attention, Belief/Faith, Emotion
Attention
It is noted that in both approaches, “Attention” is the first element in the process. In both approaches, the intent of “Attention” is the same. Let’s have a closer look at it.
A simple definition of “Attention” is “active engagement without distraction”. To take the definition a little further we could also add the duration and intensity. The trick here is to settle into “Attention” without “tension”. Most of us have some exploration waiting for us in regards to “Attention without Tension” – just being there in the experience without trying to be there!
This “Attention” issue has a direct correlation with the title of this paper – The Brain Changes What Matters. Outside of methodology and techniques, that is to say, in the flow of life, the experiences “that matter”, automatically attract our “attention” simply because of their innate importance. They “stand out” for some reason and consequently attract our “attention” without effort.
Think about “pleasure and pain” and what they have in common. They each, in their own way, naturally focus and attract our “attention”. Hence, returning to the concept of a “method”, any such method or technique that has an innate quality of “attraction” will be automatically more effective for neuroplastic change because of its “magnetic” quality.
Techniques that are not naturally so “attractive” often require a good amount of “instruction” and “convincing” in order for the subject to more easily assign the technique with importance and therefore to lend it their “attention”.
Belief/Faith
Closely associated with “Attention”, is the fundamental “Belief” (or perhaps the “Faith), that a person has in the neuroplastic stimulation which can act to fortify the effect. One could view this element in purely psychological terms as a more committed participation or as a fortification of “active engagement”.
The “other side of the coin” is the possibility of an underlying negative belief that silently contaminates the neuroplastic method. The person may or may not be aware of this “contaminant”.
In simple terms, a person may have an entrenched fatalism about their life and carry with them, deeper in their persona, a skeptical critic that provides an ongoing resistance to any promising, potential positive process. This “critic” could be unconsciously injecting silent comments such as:
“Nothing ever works the way I want”
“What’s the point, it all ends in death”
“Things never work out for me”
Such fatalistic attitudes can also erode a person’s ability to return to reinforcing practices and obstruct any effective compliance to the process. An honest assessment of one’s fundamental “Belief” or “Faith” in positive growth and their motivation for engaging in the process is worth review.
Emotion
The tone and tenor of a person’s emotional state at the time of the neuroplastic method application also has an effect worthy of consideration. The emotional state can act to strengthen positive belief and indirectly make a relaxed and sustained state of engagement or attention much easier to maintain.
Attention, Challenge, Deliberate Practice
Attention
In this trio, the nature and role of “Attention” is the same as above.
Challenge
If one considers a neuroplastic technique to be, in part, a kind of “brain exercise”, it is easier to understand the “Challenge” aspect of this trio.
Performing a physical/body exercise that requires no effort and has no “challenge” is not likely to have much any effect in change to the body. It may be pleasant but lacks any drive for the body to adapt and change in relation to the stimulation.
A degree of “challenge” just a bit beyond comfort can act as a signal of adaptive change. Obviously, too much of a “challenge” is not productive as it will inevitably result in failure.
So, in activities designed for positive neuroplastic change, a small degree of “challenge” will result in a better outcome.
Deliberate Practice
Any neuroplastic method is strongly improved when a person extends the brain shaping beyond the “session” and acts to integrate the messaging into related aspects of life.
Choosing activities that align with the theme or goal of the neuroplastic method and returning to them on a reasonably regular schedule will maximize the process.
The term “deliberate” is meant to describe a practice that has small “mini-goals” set into the actions so that an evident quality of motivation keeps coaxing the practice forward.