The word that will change your health and life
Neuroplasticity. It’s the brain’s ability to change depending on how it’s being used.
It was once thought our brains were hardwired and impossible to change after adolescence. That’s no longer the case thanks to major discoveries in neuroscience over the last 40 years. The term ‘neuroplasticity’ has steadily made its way into the mainstream, and thankfully you don’t need to be a neuroscientist to benefit from this knowledge.
What is neuroplasticity?
The way I like to describe it: imagine you are walking through a field of grass, if you keep walking the same way each day, the path becomes a well-worn track (or highway!). You walk the same way so many times, after a while you don’t realise you are taking that path, you just end up at the destination. It’s like when you drive a car and you arrive at your destination without realising how you got there. The brain has a remarkable ability to put huge amounts of information into unconscious automatic patterns. You don’t consciously have to think about every thought, action, or behaviour; that would be overload. This enables you to learn complex tasks (like driving a car) and embed this information in your subconscious mind.
The dark side of neuroplasticity
The problem arises if what we’ve made unconscious and automatic is something that’s not very helpful for us. Imagine what would happen to your body if you’d been activating the stress response unconsciously and automatically? This ‘fight or flight’ response is great for our survival but it’s not good for us if constantly switched on. This is where neuroplasticity can trip us up. We can get stuck responding based on our old unconscious patterns.
Why it’s been so hard to recover
When our body is engaged in the ‘fight or flight’ response, it activates our sympathetic nervous system. This changes your heart rate, breathing rate, and the release of hormones, which creates physiological changes in the body. If we are constantly in this state, we are not activating the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS). Also known as ‘rest and digest’, the PNS controls the body’s ability to relax, rest, and repair. It influences our sleep, digestion, immune function and is vital for health and healing. Imagine getting stuck in the ‘fight or flight’ response and not realising it had become unconscious and automatic. It’s no wonder an unconscious chronic stress response is associated with chronic illnesses. It also starts to shed a light on why you’ve felt stuck and not been able to recover.
What can you do about it?
Awareness is the very first step. Bringing awareness to these unconscious patterns operating enables us to recognise when we need to do something different. Remember what we said about neuroplasticity – the brain will continue to change depending on how it’s being used. All we need to do is something different and our brains will change; neuroplasticity is always on.
How you can change your brain
This is essentially what we teach in the Lighting Process – how to spot when you are engaging the ‘un-useful’ neurology and HOW to retrain your brain and body to respond differently. Imagine if you approached that field of grass and you realised you could choose ANY way to go? Given that choice, most people will choose a path that is useful and life enhancing. And then imagine if you took that new pathway enough times that it became your new unconscious automatic response! This is what we call retraining your brain. It’s the process of rewiring your brain and nervous system to positively influence your physiology, your health, and your life.
If you’d like to know more about how the Lighting Process can help you take control of your own health and healing, get in touch with me for a free discovery call.