New Tricks

I’m writing my blog from California, where I am visiting for a few weeks.  It is both the coolest and the hardest thing to do: cool because I love California, hard because I don’t live here anymore. 

Living in Texas has been a conscious decision and yet I still find myself comparing the two states, sort of like comparing a new boyfriend to an old one.  “My old flame was funnier that this guy.  He was smarter.” 

But comparing new boyfriends to the golden memory of a lost one will never create happiness.  You have to love the one you’re with. 

And that’s where I am with Texas.  It’s time to love the state I'm in. 

My best tool is a thing called “neuroplasticity.”  It’s basically brain fitness.  Your brain has the capacity to adapt to new circumstances.  The brain is rather miraculously flexible, in contrast to what people used to believe.

You can’t teach an old dog new tricks??  Turns out that is entirely wrong.  You can.

For a long time, it was believed that neurons were the one type of cell in the body that couldn’t regenerate.  Scientists believed that we were born with a certain number of brain cells and once they were lost, they were gone forever. 

Research has now shown that to be untrue.  

What does that mean for you and for me?  We can change.  We can essentially re-train our brains.  Science supports the idea that we can take something we don’t like and learn to like it, by forging new neural pathways.

One of the most obvious examples is physical exercise.  Some people loathe physical exercise.  They find it painful, sweaty, boring and something that “other people” do.  Then one New Year’s Day, they decide to turn over a new leaf and do what the doctor has been telling them to do for years: exercise. 

Sometimes, it “takes.”  Others give it a few shots, then say, “It’s just as boring and painful and unpleasant as I always thought it would be.”  And they quit.

But those who stick it out for a month or two, find that they actually don’t hate it anymore, that they’re restless if they miss a day, that they are enjoying the fresh air and the feeling of personal power they get from exercise.

What’s happened is that they have re-trained their brains.  They’ve essentially built new neural pathways by continuing to exercise beyond their point of comfort.  The brain has adapted to the “pain” of exercise and gotten accustomed to the benefits of it.  Before you know it, they have brains that like exercise!

Any habit that you want to cultivate is a matter of building new neural pathways.   Think of the days when you played at the beach.  Remember how you dug trenches in the sand and waited for the tide to come up and fill your waterways?  And how excited you got when the moat around your sand castle finally filled with water?

Your new habit is the sand castle.  You dig the waterways by practicing a new habit until the neural pathways are deep enough to carry the water.  At some point, the tide rises high enough that the water flow is effortless.

Let’s say I want to cultivate the habit of doing 10 abdominal crunches a day (modest goal!)  The first day, I really don't want to do them, I don’t like laying down on the floor, they hurt and seem to take forever.  That’s the first little scratching in the sand.

The next day, I still don’t want to do them, but I do.  The scratching in the sand goes a little deeper.

By the end of the week, doing what I don’t want to do every day, I have worn a pretty decent little trench in the sand. After a few weeks, my moat is filling up!

Scientists say that to build a strong neural pathway takes about three weeks of repetition.  So if I keep doing my crunches every day for 21 days, resisting my desire to give it up, I will have worn a new neural pathway, and my brain will not only accept the practice of crunches; it may even demand them.

A new habit is a process.  It’s not magical and it’s not something “other people” do.  Anyone can forge new neural pathways. 

What do you want to do in life that has seemed somehow “beyond” you?  Realize first that it’s not, that it’s in your power to re-shape the way your brain works, to train it to enjoy even those things you find difficult.  It takes time, but the science of neuroplasticity says it can be done. 

This old Texas dog is plenty happy to learn some new tricks, boy howdy!  Me and Texas, we're tight.

Or at least, we're going to be in about 21 days.