The law of neuroplasticity

Mental rehearsal creates changes in your brain and thus alters your behavior and response to experiences. Changes occur by making the new information your own.

Here also applies the law where you focus your attention, then neurons fire and neural connections grow for what has your attention.

So we can activate our own wiring of the brain (synaptic connections) to change the structure of the brain. We can eliminate and/or strengthen connections. That is, neuroplasticity is the potential of our brain to eliminate, enhance or change neurons or synaptic wiring.

What does the law of neuroplasticity say

This law says that everyone, no matter how old you are, can change, strengthen and reprogram his/her physical structure of his/her brain. No matter how old you are you always have a choice to consciously train your brain, respond differently to experiences and/or modify your behavior so that your brain changes.

Suppose you want to achieve inner peace and confidence. By integrating these traits into yourself (by practicing and repeating explanatory sentences to yourself that have these traits) this will become a part of you. Because with the exercises, your attention moves to calmness and confidence. The neural connections for peace and confidence are then strengthened and grow.

Creating new pathways in the brain also means that you are activating your energy to create something new in your life. You consciously set out on a new course. This brings me to the law of creation. We are always creating, no matter what you think or feel: this law is always in operation. We can only create something from the inside out.

So you must first create or modify/change something inside yourself before you can see it outside yourself. So powerful is our mental energy and our brain. Thanks to our thinking and the plasticity of our brain, the law of creation is very powerful in combination with the law of neuroplasticity.

What else is neuroplasticity about

Neuroplasticity is about the functional remodeling of human brain tissue. Structurally changing your brain, for example, is something that happens when you learn a new skill, usually weeks after learning that new skill. But sometimes you have to react quickly to a change, and meanwhile, scientists using a DTI (diffusion tensor imaging), an MRI scan is used for this, have already seen changes in brain tissue in 2 hours after subjects undergo training[1].

So you would think that if you don’t feel well and you learn something new, you would absorb it quickly and everything would be right away.

Unfortunately, that turns out not to be the case. For example, when you suffer from stress due to a situation over which you have no control, it reduces your neuroplasticity. Whereas when you suffer from stress due to a situation that you can resolve and you resolve it, this improves your neuroplasticity[2].

This may explain why you can feel “stuck” when you suffer from chronic stress, because somewhere that is true. Your brain is stuck and not changing, so you can’t find a solution. You just keep having the same thoughts and can’t seem to change them on your own. Doubt, control and fear hold you back and you remain stuck in old habits patterns, when you would like to be happy.

This is also why it is so important that your neuroplasticity remains good so that you do manage stress successfully and become happier as a result.

Keeping neuroplasticity flexible

So what can you do now to keep that neuroplasticity flexible, so that you have indeed changed your brain within 2 hours of taking a course and don’t have to wait weeks before your brain realizes that something has really changed after all.

Movement improves neuroplasticity, due to its impact on memory, spatial learning and influence on mechanisms at the cellular and molecular level[3]. So exercise is not only good for your body and blood pressure. It is also good for your brain and neuroplasticity. This may also be why you suddenly get good ideas while running.

The idea that neuroplasticity diminishes after age ²⁰ is not true. The only thing that changes is that you encounter things you are familiar with more often, and therefore you don’t have to change your brain to understand the world.

Our brain is not rigid or stiff at all, it can be changed at any time regardless of your age. Instead, by actively seeking new experiences and information, you force your brain to keep changing anyway[4]. So by regularly doing something you’ve never done before (or purposefully training or reprogramming your brain daily), you can ensure that your neuroplasticity remains flexible.

The groundbreaking science of neuroplasticity

Change requires accountability and commitment. It is essential that you continue to practice and rehearse with regularity. Scientists show that the brain has over 1.1 trillion cells as its contents. 100 billions of neurons work continuously with each other to organize and keep all the various parts of your life in order. Like health, exercise, eating, sleeping, waking up from to feeling happy or feeling down. It automatically performs all kinds of tasks to support you.

And that’s the amazing thing: by consciously training your brain, you are explicitly optimizing and changing those various parts of your life.

A well-known law of neuroscientists is, “neurons that fire together, wire together. This means that when continuous neurons are triggered and activated (by mental exercises, physical exercises, imagining or integrating new information) they start firing together: strengthening the connections between neurons. This creates new synaptic connections.

Measurable changes have been demonstrated in London cab drivers. These cab drivers have practiced continuously day in and day out navigating the big city and all kinds of difficult streets. For years, they greatly enhanced the hippocampus (the brain area in question). Read the research ‘the Knowledge’ here

Getting help for a flexible brain

Do you feel that getting more exercise and having new experiences is not going to help you with the problem you are currently facing? Then you can also get help for having a flexible brain and therefore a happy brain (and body).

Coaching, for example, can help improve your neuroplasticity[5]. For example, a coach can help you with exercises that help you change your brain and by shifting your focus to what is constructive for you[6].

This is something I help you with, for example, and for this I use PMC’s MultiLaws. These laws address neuroplasticity and finding success with happiness in your life.

[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S089662731200178X

[2] https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3425/10/2/127

[3] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00018-015-2102-0

[4] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3956134/

[5] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/2631454118806138

[6] https://scholar.google.nl/scholar?hl=nl&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=A+brain-based+approach+to+coaching&btnG=

Research The Knowledge: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/london-taxi-memory/