Is it possible to rewire your brain? Okay, today we're going to get into some brain
science so stick with me through the science that will create the context for
some powerful tips that you get right toward the end.
Questions sometimes comes
up, is it possible to rewire your brain? Okay, first of all, folks,
your brain is not an electronic instrument, there are actually no wires
in your brain but I know what they're talking about because we can think of
wiring as the way that our our brain operates with the neurons, those might be
kind of equivalent to a wiring system. Neurons talk to each other through a
chemical electrical stimulus and when those neurons repeatedly talk to each
other in the same way, it sets up something that we sometimes refer to in
the industry as a neural pathway. Think of it as the cruise control or the
autopilot for your brain. So whatever we repeatedly do gets programmed in or
wired into a neural pathway. Cruise control, autopilot. For example, there are
some things that you do without even thinking about it, walking into a room,
drinking a glass of water, tying your shoes, think of some of these things that
you do very naturally and automatically and you don't even think about it.
Walking, for example, that is one of the most complex activities that we can
engage in, it requires the coordination of a number of muscle groups all at the
same time so that you can keep your balance, shift your weight just right and
not fall on your face in the process, that's an enormously complex task and
you can do it just like that without even thinking. Your brain is still in
charge of that activity but different parts of your brain do different things
so this is your brain.. I'm a psychologist, not an artist, give me a break
but this is a schematic of what your brain might look like side view, we've
taken away all the outer stuff so we're just looking at the brain here. Different
parts of your brain do different things. Do you know which part of your brain
controls eyesight, vision? Most common guess is right up here, it's the closest
to your eyes, it's the most common incorrect guess. The part that controls
vision is actually back here in the occipital lobe or the visual cortex, it's
the back of your head and that's weird, why is that the part that controls eye sight?
I don't know, I didn't design your brain but that's the part that all visual
information is routed through first. There's another part right up here on
top that controls motor function meaning your muscles, how you move your arms and
legs, both big muscles and little fine ones, controlled right up there on top,
it's about the size of your thumb, you got one on the right side of your brain
and one on the left side of your brain and the left side of your brain
controls the right side of your body and vice versa. Why is it that way? I don't
know, didn't design your brain but that's how it is. This part right up here in
front, very important part, it's called the prefrontal or frontal lobe of your
brain, is in charge of thinking, cognition, rational thought, logic, problem-solving,
also some fun things like personality and higher cognitive functioning like
compassion and empathy and forgiveness. Hmm.. Those might be important later on.
Short version is, different parts of your brain do different things and there's a
lot of different parts. I remember when I was in my neurophysiology class at BYU
as I was in doctoral school and we had a final exam where we went into this lab,
there was a human brain sitting on a plate and it had pins in it with numbers
and we had to say what structure was identified by each number on the pin,
there were a hundred of them and that's only a portion of the
different structures in your brain, it's an amazing and complex organ, this just
gives you a sense that different parts of your brain do different things.
Now part of your brain's job is to keep things really efficient because if you
had to think about everything your brain is doing, you'd go nuts. It's in charge of
what you think, what you feel, what you do and all kinds of other things that you
never even think about like circulation and digestion and all of those things
that are just handled in the background. It's a good thing we don't have to think
about all of that and the way your brain creates efficiencies through these
neural pathways that I mentioned earlier so let's take a common task like typing,
for example, I call it typing my kids, call it keyboarding because now we have
computers and they all have a keyboard, right, and you know how to do this. When
you sit down at your computer, where is the G? Do you know? Isn't that weird
to ask? Now you probably just looked at your keyboard or if you don't have a
keyboard near you, you may have moved your hands to try to imagine a keyboard.
Why do we do that? Because when we're typing, we're very used to just putting
our hands in a position and then it's as if our fingers know where the keys are.
Well your fingers don't know anything, your brain does and it's your brain that
controls your fingers specifically the motor cortex which runs the muscles in
your fingers. Well how does this happen? Let's say that I wanted you to type the
phrase 'good morning' now if I were to show you that phrase, it has to get
into your brain somehow first. So let's picture a G right out here that you're
looking at, now at this point, the G is nothing more than a pattern of light as
it enters your eye, it hits an organ called the retina. The retina is at the
back of your eye and all it does is translate light into a nervous impulse
because your nerves don't carry light, it's a chemical electrical stimulus, one
neuron talking to another through the synapse and chemicals and electricity so
after it gets translated into a nervous impulse, it travels through your optic
nerve, kind of along the base of your brain and it comes in
back here somewhere near the visual cortex. Now there's another part of your
brain I didn't tell you about, it's a really fun part of your brain, it's
located down here near the brainstem somewhere and it's called the reticular
activating system. The reticular activating system has a lot of different
roles but one of those is kind of as a gatekeeper, a monitor and so it's keeping
track of all of the input and telling you what to pay attention to and what to
ignore like the feeling of your shoes, for example. Oh, you can feel them now.
Yeah, that's because I brought it to the attention of your reticular activating
system but usually it tells you, hey, you're typing, you've done this a good
billion times, we don't have to bother the thinker about this and then it
shoots that signal from the visual cortex where it comes in straight up to
the motor cortex. It's like a little shortcut that it takes so you don't even
have to think about it. Now that's an oversimplification of how your brain is
actually functioning but it captures the idea that these neural pathways, as long
as you practice it repeatedly, you can set up a little shortcut. Well what if I
gave you a little challenge to type your name using my keyboard? Now what do you
notice about this keyboard? Hmm.. It's a little scrambled, isn't it? Would that be
hard? Yeah. Why? Because it's not where you're used to having the keys so if
you're using my keyboard and incidentally it takes about 48 seconds
on the average for one of my clients to type their first and last name using my
keyboard, normally it only takes a second if that, right? So why does it take so
long to type it on my keyboard? Some people tell me it's because the keys are
in the wrong position. No, they're just in a different position.
Notice that the keyboard you have is scrambled too, it's called the QWERTY
keyboard. You know why? Because it starts with a QWERTY, who says the alphabet
that way? Nobody but we've all learned it so we think that that's the right way
for it to be. Mine is just different so using my keyboard, what happens? The G
in here just like it always did, hits the retina, translated in the lines, comes
back here, everything's all the same until you hit the reticular activating
system when a little alarm goes off and the alarm is all about, whoa we can't use
the old neural pathways, something's different and sometimes there's a little
sense of panic that ensues at that moment. In psychology, we call this the oh
crap response and it happens anytime that you get set off of your normal
routine, your normal neural pathways. Well when the alarm goes off, the
traffic gets redirected basically, signal gets sent up to the front for processing
where your thinker has to figure it all out and tell you where to put your
fingers now, usually one of those two and then you can instruct one of those
fingers through your motor cortex to type the letters. Do you see how this
works? This is called the processing loop, it takes more time, it's less efficient
and your brain is basically lazy and loyal, it doesn't want to learn something
new when it's already got a neural pathway so it's going to stick whatever
you've been trained, taught and educated to do even if it's not the most ideal
way to do it. Okay, that's going to give us some clues as we work on changing habits
for example or rewiring our brain. There's no wires in there to go mess
around with so what are we going to do? We're going to create new neural pathways.
This is not easy. In fact, there's a fun video on
YouTube, you can look it up after you watch this one if you want to about the
backwards bicycle by smartereveryday. Amazing example of the same concept.
If you were to learn to type on my keyboard, first of all, take a look again. Could you
learn how to type on this? Yes. What would it take and how do you know that by the
way? Because you learned how to type on the other one and it's scrambled too so
what would it take?Yeah, you nailed it, it's going to take a whole lot of practice,
isn't it? But there's another obvious but unnoticed piece to this. Do you want to
learn how to type on my keyboard? No, it would be a horrendous waste of your time,
wouldn't it? So that implies the other thing that's needed. You got to have a
strong enough why. What if Dr. Paul were to offer you $5,000 to learn how to type
on my keyboard in the next two weeks? Would you take me up on that? Yeah, what
changed? Your motivation. Exactly, so you've got to have a strong enough why
and then even if I would offer you the five grand, you couldn't do it unless I
let you take the keyboard home and practice on it because it's going to
require both. Neural pathways are strong and they resist change. When you
encounter a new way of doing something or a new way of thinking, it's not going
to come naturally to you at first, that's fine, don't be discouraged by that.
Understand you've got to give your mind a strong enough why and then you got to
practice it enough that you actually establish a new neural pathway that
might take a while to do it but it is absolutely possible. So that's a lot of
brain science today at Live On Purpose TV, the scrambled keyboard, the backwards
bicycle, I bet you can think of some other examples of neuropathways, share them
below, let's get this conversation going.