Our brains are a muscle, and as all muscles, unless we work them out, they atrophy. The difference between our biceps and are brain, is that our brain is always working out. You can go a lifetime without ever doing a bicep curl, of course, if you use your arm in any small motion, you’ll be “working out” your muscle. But, if for some accident or other reason, you have lost the function of your arm, your muscles will eventually atrophy, and your arm could be rendered useless. 

When you don’t use it, you lose it.

The brain is similar, only that it never stops (okay, it could, but we’re not going there today. Okay?). The brain is functioning at such incredible rates, regulating your involuntary body functions and at the same time voluntary activities. It’s monitoring it’s outside environment, regulating your response, and guiding your body to move the spoon to your mouth. Even while you’re sleeping, your brain is keeping the function of your body going.

When you don’t use it, you lose it.

It’s truly an amazing organ. 

And just like our bicep example, if you don’t use it, you can lose it. No, you won’t see your brain atrophy, but rather, what can happen in your brain, is rigidity. As a highly efficient organism, the brain is always reallocating its resources (neurons, synapses, etc) to process and store information. Its job is to create the environment for the body to function in its environment. When something isn’t needed for the body to function, the brain reallocates those resources to support other necessary functions.

Neuroplasticity provides the framework for you and I to learn, to grow, and to adapt. But sometimes we let the neuroplasticity function work against us.

For instance, those who are blind see a transformation in their brains that those who do see won’t. Because the function in the brain normally designed for seeing is not needed, the brain reallocates those resources and increases the resources for other senses, such as touch or hearing. It’s not a super power that those who are blind can hear better, it’s that they have many multiple times greater resources to process information in their brain to gather information through the auditory function.

This is neuroplasticity—the ability for the brain to adapt and change to its environment, to your environment. 

And in this there is hope.

Neuroplasticity provides the framework for you and I to learn, to grow, and to adapt. But sometimes we let the neuroplasticity function work against us.

That’s when we get rigid. 

Rigidity shows itself in lots of ways. Consider this, as those around us get older we might say something like, “That’s just the way he is.” Or, “she’s always been like that.” That’s a crude example of rigidity in the brain.

But we know that’s not fully true. They might be that way, but they didn’t start out that way. They learned that mindset, that function, that behavior, and as it was repeated and reinforced the brain created an efficiency to allow that behavior to be expressed easier and easier. 

It’s been explained like this. When someone is sledding down a hill for the first time, the sled can go just about anywhere. There’s no track to follow, the sled will go wherever it wants to go—hopefully not into a tree, but that’s possible at this stage. Then the second time you go down the hill, the opportunity for the sled to follow the previous track is there. It’s not a bob sledding hill yet, but you can begin to see that with every iterative run down the hill, the track becomes more and more permanent. So much so that it becomes almost impossible to get out of that track once you’re in it.

That’s how our brain works. We naturally create mental sledding runs in our brain—creating habits, routines, and reactions. Sometimes for better, and yes, sometimes for worse.

So how can we create an atmosphere where we’re able to get out of the “rut,” per se? 

By learning. Learning helps everyone get better.

Learning does two things: grows new brain cells and strengthens our existing brain cells.

We naturally create mental sledding runs in our brain—creating habits, routines, and reactions. Sometimes for better, and yes, sometimes for worse.

In many clinical studies performed by neuroscientists and psychologists, they’ve discovered that the brain can grow and adapt in two functions: growing new cells and strengthening existing cells.

How do we do that? Through novelty. By trying something new.

Take growing new cells. When we try something new, something we’ve never done before, our brain needs to activate the neurons that exist to create new synapses and connect the information it’s learning to other functions of the brain. It’s working out the muscle, and the increased information requires the brain to learn and store this information. Through the process of neurogenesis, new brain cells are created in various areas of the brain, like the hippocampus, which is our storage center for information, to contain it. Your brain is growing.

But what about strengthening existing brain cells? This one is doing something new with what you already know. It’s approaching it from a different light. It’s teaching the information you’ve learned, instead of just reading about it. In studies done in rats, they learned that rats engaged with new toys or exercises done in the same environment didn’t create new neurons, but strengthened existing connections and synapses, resulting in the same outcome. 

So maybe you need to try something new, get out of your current environment so that you can experience a new stimulus to engage your brain in growing and learning. But maybe you can’t, that’s okay, because when you engage in the same activity in a new way, that will also sharpen and strengthen your brain.

It all comes down to learning in your environment—new or old. 

How are you learning today?

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