Learning and unlearning through neuroplasticity
“Any man could, if he were so inclined, be the sculptor of his own brain.” Santiago Ramon y Cajal
You cannot change how you think or feel without changing your thought patterns. Now for some of you, it may sound moronic to even consider the fact that we can completely rewire our brain to perform different actions, build new habits or to even completely change our whole selves. We all go a little down in the dumps from time to time, feel quite anxious or even get to the point where we start questioning our existence in this universe.
Most of the times we believe these emotions to be so hard wired within our brain that we rarely try to take them off and get rid of all the connections that are causing it. Now the interesting fact is that the brain game of emotions is all under our control, well mostly it’s our subconscious part controlling it.
Most of our day is spent on autopilot. Meaning 95% of our actions are the results of everything we have already learned. So we don’t have to make a conscious effort to do things. Now if you think you’re bad at something then realize that you’ve learned to become bad at it. From waking up every morning to almost banging our head on the wall out of frustration, we’ve learned it all. The good news is that there is a process of unlearning that we all can do to change our behavior over something.
The art of neuroplasticity
Our brain consists of billions of neurons with having the ability to connect with each other, making large chains of connection to fire signals to different parts of our body. The junction or the space between the two neurons is called synapse. Synapse makes it possible for neurons to pass electrical or chemical signals to each other. Whenever you learn something new, Synapses change their shapes and sizes permitting the neurons to send different kinds of signals through the chain. Your synapses are likely to be changing their shapes as your reading through this article.
In the last twenty years, there has been an overwhelming amount of evidence that the synapses are not hard-wired but are changing all the time. And the ability to change the brain throughout by rewiring the neurons is what we call neuroplasticity. This is what makes learning possible.
Neurons that fire together, wire together
When neurons fire together, they usually fire together with a quicker rate in the future. Now to explain it all more simply, consider neurons as humans and consider yourself as one of the neurons. If you were to do something you have never done before and that work requires you to make a connection with someone you have never had a connection with. It will most likely require efforts from you in the first try(considering the other person was already busy with connecting to different people for different work). But as you keep making the connection with the same person for the same work, it will get easier for you to connect with that person and get the work done. And the time will come when you no longer would have to make any noticeable efforts to make that connection.
This is also the case with our neural network. When you are learning something new, neurons in our brain are connecting to other neurons and making a connection they have never made before. So for the first few times, it requires effort to make that particular connection. So don’t get disappointed if you are trying to adapt to a different habit and it’s getting uncomfortable for you in the beginning.
“The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken”
Your brain recognizes when you are doing something new. The more you do something in a particular way, the more the neurons that fire together to make this happen will strengthen their connections. So if you’re sleeping an hour more than you are supposed to or remembering something from your past, you’re more likely to do it in the future.
Neurons that fire apart, wire apart
Something that we don’t usually realize is that when we are under the process of learning something new, we are also in the process of unlearning something we hold our expertise in. And most of the time, the process of unlearning turns out to be much more difficult than the process of learning. When we have done something so many times in our lives, then we no longer have to make a conscious effort to do that thing. That is because the neural network that made that action possible happened so many times that they have learned the whole process and it can now take place subconsciously.
But if a particular kind of neural network has not taken place for a long time, then it is most likely for the neurons to forget that connection or no longer stay good at making it. This is why when you play your favorite sport after a couple of years or months, you are no longer good at it. This is because the neurons have forgotten the connection they once were efficient to make.
Neuroplasticity illustrates another phrase “Use it or lose it”. -John B. Arden
FEED your Brain
FEED(Focus, Efforts, Effortlessness, Determination)is an acronym for the process that makes the neuroplasticity possible.
Focus: You have to pay attention to your new behavior. You have to attentively observe every bit of changes that you observe inside of you. It will activate bigger parts of your brain to work on that particular behavior. But focusing alone won't be enough as you focus on billions of bits of information every day.
Effort: Effort shifts your attention towards your action. It will help you to activate new synaptic connections. And you have to keep making efforts to do it until it becomes effortless.
Effortlessness: This is the point when we no longer have to make an effort to do something that was once new to us. It happens when we have done something so many times that the whole process is possible to occur subconsciously.
Determination: Determination solidifies the synaptic connections that are built while growing a new habit in you. This is probably an important thing to rewire your brain.
We often lose ourselves in the realm of negativity, we forget our potential. Most of us give up on ourselves every day. So many times when we try to change, it feels like we can’t make it happen. Whenever you start to go through any kind of pain, your brain is taught to fire a signal from the neural network to back you off from what you were doing. Your brain has been taught to save you from any kind of struggle.
Get control over your neural network. Become the sovereign of your brain. Rewiring your brain isn't difficult, but is surely something that you can’t do overnight. Think about it, you have spent hours and hours on building the habits you now want to get rid of. Your brain remembers too much about the networks that fired that behavior you’re sick of having. The process of learning something new occurs simultaneously with the process of unlearning. The more you drift apart from the behavior you no longer want to possess, the more the neurons will forget about the connection that made that behavior.
Start from believing that you can make a change. We act on what we believe to be true. Put all your focus and efforts onto that change until it becomes effortless, until the point when not doing it would take an effort.
