Rewire Your Brain: Think Your Way to a Better Life
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mirror neurons
has shown that parts of your brain are acutely sensitive to the movements and intentions of others. Mirror neurons allow you to mirror another person, or to feel what he or she feels without even thinking about it. For example, when a friend yawns, have you ever found yourself yawning immediately afterward? Mirror neurons are essentially the brain - based explanation of empathy. In the story of how you helped at the Houston Astrodome after Hurricane Katrina, it was your mirror neurons that made you feel empathy for the evacuees. Mirror neurons give people the capacity to form relationships and to thrive from them. People with autism have few mirror neurons c01.indd 16 c01.indd 16 1/29/10 10:09:22 AM 1/29/10 10:09:22 AM F i r i n g t h e R i g h t C e l l s To g e t h e r 17 or dysfunctional ones. It has recently been proposed that the mirror neuron system is actively involved in your relationship with yourself as well as with others. For example, when you volunteered at the soup kitchen at the Astrodome, you felt good about yourself when people thanked you. Some researchers have proposed that experiencing empathy and compassion through the mirror neuron system is equivalent to having compassion for yourself. Thus, “ giving is receiving ” is a brain - based truth. Insensitivity and selfi shness are essentially bad for your brain and your mental health. In contrast, compassion and lov- ing relationships are good for your brain and your mental health. The mirror neuron system has also been identifi ed as the part of the brain that is involved in mindfulness meditation and prayer. The calming and focused practice of mindfulness meditation or prayer wires the brain circuitry that promotes better health. Many neuroscientists have recently explored the effects of medi- tation and prayer on the brain. Tibetan monks have been found to have rewired their brains from years of meditation practice. These monks were examined during certain types of meditation using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), positron emission tomography (PET), and other techniques. Thanks to these studies, we have a picture of what is occurring in the meditating brain. We know that the mindful brain can promote health and well - being. You, too, can benefi t by rewiring your brain through mindfulness. I will explain how this is done in chapter 9 . FEED Your Brain Now that you have a better idea of how the brain works, let ’ s focus on a method of rewiring your brain that involves the following four steps: • Focus • Effort • Effortlessness • Determination c01.indd 17 c01.indd 17 1/29/10 10:09:22 AM 1/29/10 10:09:22 AM 18 Rew i r e Yo u r B r a i n To help you remember these steps, use the acronym FEED, as in feeding your brain. Now let ’ s examine each step in detail. Focus You need to pay attention to the situation, the new behavior, or the memory that you want to repeat or remember. Attention activates your frontal lobes, which ensure that other parts of the brain are also engaged. You may think of this step as the alert function. You can ’ t rewire your brain without opening the gate or initiating the change. Focus gets the ball rolling. Attention and the frontal lobes play important roles in neuroplas- ticity. Think of the PFC as the brain ’ s brain: it helps to direct the resources to what is important. When you are on automatic pilot, such as when you are driving on a highway and talking to your friend in the passenger seat, your attention is directed to the conversation. The conversation is what you will remember, not the trees and the houses along the road. If, however, you talk about what you both notice on the highway, your attention has shifted and you will remem- ber the physical details of the journey. If you talk about these details of the journey later, you ’ ll strengthen those memories. If you don ’ t discuss those details later — that is, direct your attention to them — the chances are that those memories will fade. Thus, simply focusing attention doesn ’ t ensure that your brain has been rewired. You focus on a hundred thousand experiences every day, and your brain can ’ t possibly remember all the things you experienced. Focus allows you to pay attention to what ’ s happening here and now, and this starts the process of neuroplasticity. Effort Effort shifts your attention from perception to action. Making a focused effort activates your brain to establish new synaptic con- nections. When you begin to make an effort, your brain uses a lot of glucose to learn something new. By observing PET scans, neu- roscientists have amassed considerable information in the last two decades about what parts of the brain light up in the scan due to glucose metabolism when someone is thinking or feeling something. c01.indd 18 c01.indd 18 1/29/10 10:09:23 AM 1/29/10 10:09:23 AM F i r i n g t h e R i g h t C e l l s To g e t h e r 19 When you ’ re making an initial effort to do something, the area of your brain associated with that task shows up in the scan as being in use. Effortlessness After a new behavior, thought, or feeling has been established, it takes less energy to keep it going. It ’ s like learning a new tennis swing or how to say hello in a new language. In the beginning, it takes focus, effort, and more energy in your brain, but after you make the swing or say hello enough times, it becomes effortless. Thus, to rewire your brain you ’ ll have to stay with the new behavior long enough to make it become fairly automatic. In time, practice will make it effortless. Your brain won ’ t have to work as hard once you reach this level. The body and the brain follow natural laws, and the natural law that applies to the concept of effortlessness is called the Law of the Conservation of Energy. This means that the things that happen are usually things that happen easily. For example, all water fl ows downhill. The deeper the creek, the more water fl ows in it. The same is true for your brain: the more you use certain brain cells together, the more you will use them together in the future. As PET scans illustrate, when a person becomes more profi cient in a particular skill, the brain region associated with that skill labors less. This illustrates the fundamental principle of effi ciency: what comes easily will be repeated because it ’ s easy. Once you have developed a pattern — the tennis swing or say- ing hello in French with the right amount of infl ection — it will become easier to do the next time you try. What if you stop doing it, however? If you haven ’ t played tennis in ten years, you won ’ t swing as well immediately. If you go to France ten years after taking a class in French, you won ’ t be as fl uent as you were in the class (unless, of course, you have practiced in the meantime). You have to do the activity often to retain the ability. You ’ ll certainly play tennis bet- ter than if you never played before, or your French will come back more quickly, but if you practice doing these things, your brain will remain wired to perform them effortlessly. c01.indd 19 c01.indd 19 1/29/10 10:09:23 AM 1/29/10 10:09:23 AM 20 Rew i r e Yo u r B r a i n Determination The fi nal step in feeding your brain is staying in practice. Do the activity again and again. Being determined in this way need not be tiring and painful. If you practice the other three steps in feeding your brain, by the time you get to this one, it should come easily. That ’ s because effortlessness precedes it. Thus, determination sim- ply means that you stay in practice. By being determined, you ’ ll complete the feeding process to rewire your brain. Now that you know the four basic steps or principles, we ’ ll look at how you can apply them in your daily life. In chapter 2 , we ’ ll discuss dealing with anxious feelings, needless worries, or just plain fear, and in chapter 3 we ’ ll address how you can avoid feeling down in the dumps. The story below illustrates how important it is to make a com- mitment to take an active role in rewiring your brain. This is not like simply learning a new trick; it requires the process we have described as feeding your brain. Marlee Feeds Her Brain Marlee came to see me, complaining that she was fed up with being moody and “ always feeling out of sorts. ” She said that she tended to be irritable and easily stressed, and when she started to feel that way, it was hard to shake it. “ I want to be positive and enjoy my life like everyone else, ” she said, shaking her head woefully. “ I heard that you know how to rewire people ’ s brains. Please rewire mine. ” “ Are you willing to do the work that it will take to change your brain? ” I asked. “ Why can ’ t you do whatever it is that you do? ” she insisted. “ I ’ m tired of trying all these gimmicks that are supposed to work but never do. ” “ When you try something new, how long do you stay with it? ” I probed. c01.indd 20 c01.indd 20 1/29/10 10:09:23 AM 1/29/10 10:09:23 AM F i r i n g t h e R i g h t C e l l s To g e t h e r 21 “ Long enough to know that it doesn ’ t work, ” she stated matter - of - factly. I gently prodded her for a clear answer of how long. “ A day or two is enough to know, ” she said, as if that confi rmed her strong effort. I explained that for neuroplasticity to work, especially for mood - related issues, she would have to stay with the new behavior until it became effortless to do it. “ You must practice doing it until it becomes a new habit, ” I told her. “ The key is that you need to get started. Usually, that means doing what you don ’ t feel like doing and continue doing it until it becomes easy. ” “ You mean forcing myself to do something against my nature? ” she asked incredulously. “ Isn ’ t that unnatural? ” “ Actually, it ’ s very natural, ” I answered. “ That ’ s how you learn new skills. When you study for a test you go over material repeatedly until it ’ s not hard to remember it. ” “ I just crammed the night before and it worked just fi ne, ” Marlee informed me. “ I passed the courses. That ’ s all I cared about. ” “ Do you remember the subject matter now? ” I asked. She shook her head no. I invited her to pick a habit that she wanted to break. “ My family would say it ’ s my irritability, ” she admitted. “ Do you feel bad about it? ” I wanted to know. “ When it happens, it seems as if they deserve what I say to them, ” she noted. “ Only later does it become obvious that I was shooting my mouth off and they didn ’ t deserve it. ” “ It ’ s important to establish that it ’ s you who really wants to change and not just that your family wants you to, ” I emphasized. Motivation is a very critical component of neuroplasticity. You can ’ t change unless you really want to change. A passive effort just won ’ t work. The activation of the PFC, the brain ’ s brain, marshals all the resources. “ Yes. I ’ m sick of myself like this, ” she said solemnly. “ I ’ m ready to do something. ” “ Let ’ s start at the point at which you feel the impulse to say some- thing, ” I instructed. “ That ’ s when we want to interrupt your impulse. c01.indd 21 c01.indd 21 1/29/10 10:09:24 AM 1/29/10 10:09:24 AM 22 Rew i r e Yo u r B r a i n You say something before you allow yourself the time to think fi rst and then do something else. ” The fi rst step for Marlee was to stop what she was doing and focus her attention on the moment before she reacted impulsively. A time - out step like this is used in anger management classes, yet here the task is to go further and focus on being an observer who is detached from the immediacy of the emotional reaction. This allows the PFC to gain better inhibitory control over the amygdala - driven emotional reactions. Marlee ’ s PFC had to develop better adaptive strategies in order to draw attention to what she was angry about rather than the way she expressed her anger. Next, Marlee needed to make an effort to do something differ- ent from her usual impulsive verbal comment. She had to act in a way that was different from her usual irritable manner in which she spoke fi rst and thought later. She needed to learn to think fi rst and speak later. Marlee needed to repeat this effort enough times so that she even- tually found it Yüklə 1,07 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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