Neuroplasticity & Mental Wellness: Our Path Forward

Illustration by Hendrasu (Shutterstock)

I am a member of the Mental Wellness Initiative of the Global Wellness Institute. We recently published our White Paper — Mental Wellness: Pathways, Evidence and Horizons. I contributed a section on neuroplasticity, which will be shared in the following and upcoming posts.

Mental wellness refers to our psychological and emotional health. The term also encompasses the general sense of well-being in the physical, social, occupational, spiritual, financial, and environmental aspects of our lives. It is an active lifelong process that involves making conscious and intentional choices toward living a healthy, purposeful, and fulfilling life. It enables us to realize our potential, cope with daily stresses, work productively, and contribute meaningfully to our community and society.

Wellness practices have existed for centuries and millennia in promoting health and harmony. However, we were unable to provide a “hard science” explanation for their underlying benefits until the past few decades, thanks in large part to the advent of revolutionizing research technologies in brain imaging and molecular genetics. During the 1990’s, coined the Decade of the Brain, our understanding of the most complex structure in the universe underwent a radical paradigm shift. At the time, the scientific community was quite convinced the brain was fixed and incapable of change when we reach our adult age. Moreover, we thought everyone was born with a fixed number of brain cells that would decline inevitably with age, without a chance to regenerate. This bleak belief implied that we were not able to change much nor significantly improve ourselves once we reach adulthood. As the saying goes,”You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”

We now have substantial scientific evidence that explains how wellness habits promote our brain to change and rewire itself through a lifelong process termed Neuroplasticity.

Fortunately, we were all proven wrong. We discovered stem cells actually exist in the adult brain. Furthermore, these newborn brain cells have the capacity to develop into mature functional neurons to aid in memory and learning in a remarkable process called Neurogenesis. In other words, we can add gigabytes and upgrade our brain’s operating system in our old age!