2018.01.17 12:37
With a mind full of good, you have more to offer others.
What's in your mind?
The Practice: Be mindful of good.
Why?
It's kind of amazing: right now, what you think and feel, enjoy and suffer, is changing your brain. The brain is the organ that learns, designed by evolution to be changed by our experiences; what scientists call experience-dependent neuroplasticity.
Neurons that fire together wire together. This means that each one of us has the power to use the mind to change the brain to change the mind for the better; to benefit oneself and other beings.
Using this internal power is more important than ever these days, when so many of us are pushed and prodded by external forces—the economy, media, politics, workplace policies, war on the other side of the world, the people on the other side of the dining room table—and by our reactions to them.
Life is often hard. To cope with hard things, to be effective and successful, or simply to experience ordinary well-being, we need resources inside, inner strengths like resilience, compassion, gratitude and other positive emotions, self-worth, and insight.
Some strengths are innate and built into your DNA but most are acquired, woven over time into the fabric of your brain. These lasting traits come from passing states—experiences of the inner strength—that are installed in the brain. You become more grateful through internalizing repeated experiences of gratitude; you become more compassionate through internalizing repeated experiences of compassion; etc.
So far, so obvious. But here's the catch: without this installation and without the transfer of the experience from short-term memory buffers to long-term storage, beneficial experiences such as feeling cared about are momentarily pleasant but have no lasting value. Yikes! There is no learning, no growth, no change for the better.
Meanwhile, your brain is rapidly and efficiently turning unpleasant, negative experiences—feeling frazzled, stressed, worried, frustrated, irritated, inadequate, hurt, etc.—into neuralstructure. To help our ancestors survive in harsh conditions, the brain evolved a negativity bias that makes it good at learning from bad experiences but relatively bad at learning from good ones, even though learning from good experiences is the main way to grow the inner strengths we all need.
In effect, today our brains have a well-intended, universal learning disability because they've been painstakingly built over millions of years for peak performance . . . in Stone Age conditions.
Most of us are pretty good at having beneficial experiences but pretty bad at installing them in the brain. Similarly, most therapists, mindfulness teachers, coaches, parents, and human resources trainers are pretty good at encouraging beneficial experiences in others, but pretty bad at helping them get installed in those brains. This was certainly true for me.
In effect, most beneficial experiences are wasted most of the time. The result is a learning curve that is a lot flatter than it needs to be.
Poignantly, because we are not internalizing most of our wholesome, beneficial experiences—authentic moments of feeling relaxed, capable, peaceful, glad, successful, contented, appreciated, loved, and loving—we feel emptier inside than we truly deserve to feel. And we become a lot easier to manipulate by fear, consumerism, and "us versus them" What can we do?
We can use the mind to change the brain for the better.
How?
Here's the essence: Have it, enjoy it.
In other words, have a beneficial experience in the first place, usually, because you simply notice one you are already having: you're already feeling a bit of ease, relief, pleasure, connection, warmth, determination, confidence, clarity, hope, etc. And it's fine to create beneficial experiences, such as deliberately thinking of things you feel thankful for, or calling up compassion for someone in pain, or recalling how it felt in your body to assert yourself with someone who was being pushy.
Then, once you've got that good experience going, really enjoy it: taking five, 10, or more seconds to protect and stay with it, and open to it in your body. The longer and more intensely those neurons fire together, the more they'll be wiring this inner strength into your brain.
This is positive neuroplasticity, the essence of self-reliance: taking in everyday experiences to develop more inner strengths such as grit, confidence, kindness, emotional balance, happiness, patience, and self-awareness.
I don't believe in positive thinking. You're not overlooking the pains, losses, or injustices in life. I believe in realistic thinking, seeing the whole mosaic of reality, the good, the bad, and the neutral. Precisely because life is often hard, and because we've got a brain that's relatively poor at growing the inner strengths needed to deal with these challenges, we need to focus on the good facts in life, let them become good experiences, and then help these experiences really sink in.Most of the time you take in the good will be in the flow of life, maybe half a dozen times a day, usually less than half a minute at a time. You can also use more structured moments, such as at meals, after exercising or meditation, or just before bed.
Besides being more open in general to beneficial experiences, you can look for those specific experiences that will grow the particular inner strength(s) that will help you the most these days. For example, if you're feeling anxious, look for authentic opportunities to feel supported, protected, resourced, tough-minded, relaxed, or calm. If life feels disappointing or blah, look for the genuine facts that naturally support experiences of gladness, gratitude, pleasure, accomplishment, or effectiveness. If you feel lonely or inadequate, look for the real occasions when you are included, seen, appreciated, liked, or loved, and open to feeling appropriately cared about and valued. Also look for chances to feel caring yourself, since love is love whether it is flowing in or flowing out.
Our beneficial experiences are usually mild (a 1 or 2 on the 0 to 10 scale of intensity) but they are real. Anytime you let these experiences land inside you won't change your life. But much as a cup of water is filled drop by drop, you'll be changing your brain synapse by synapse for the better, as well as your life for the better.
And with a mind full of good, you'll have more to offer others. Growing the good in them, too, in widening ripples seen and unseen, perhaps reaching eventually around the whole world.
2018.01.17 12:48
2018.01.18 01:23
I felt that this article provides a good advice to us in regard to
how to take care of our brains for not only for our own good but also
for others. It seems to make a medical sense as well based upon
neuroscience, i.e. neuroplasticity.
The author certainly has impressive credentials and appears to have spent
much of his life in this field by what I can find out by googling.
He seems to know what he is talking about.
*Of note
Neuroplasticity, also known as brain plasticity or neural plasticity, is an umbrella term that describes lasting change to the brain throughout an individual's life course. The term gained prominence in the latter half of the 20th century, when new research[1][2] showed that many aspects of the brain can be altered (or are "plastic") even into adulthood.[3] This notion is in contrast with the previous scientific consensus that the brain develops during a critical period in early childhood and then remains relatively unchanged (or "static").[4]
Neuroplasticity can be observed at multiple scales, from microscopic changes in individual neurons to larger-scale changes such as cortical remapping in response to injury.[5] Behavior, environmental stimuli, thought, and emotions may also cause neuroplastic change through activity-dependent plasticity, which has significant implications for healthy development, learning, memory, and recovery from brain damage.[5][6][7]
At the single cell level, synaptic plasticity refers to changes in the connections between neurons, whereas non-synaptic plasticity refers to changes in their intrinsic excitability.(from Internet)
2018.01.18 11:34
http://www.ondemandkorea.com/morning-forum-e8039.html
아침마당; 이미지 경영학과 교수 강의
송교수의 이미지(인상)관리에 대한 강의도 neuroplasticity 이론에
입각한 심리학 강의 인것 같아서 포스팅 합니다. 한국인 특히 한국
남자들의 인상이 어떤지도 알아 보시고요.
2018.01.18 16:16
Interesting program.
Thank you.
2018.01.18 13:32
Neuroplasticity has been proposed as the probable explanation of chronic pain.
Normally people feel the pain when a noxious stimuli is applied, in other words,
when they are injured. Contrary to this, the patient with chronic pain continues to
suffer from the pain even long after the wound is healed, i.e. the noxious stimuli
is long gone. If I remember correctly, it was the theory of cerebroplasticity.
Rick Hanson Ph.D.
Rick Hanson, Ph.D.(link is external), is a psychologist, Senior Fellow of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley(link is external), and New York Times best-selling author. His books are available in 26 languages and include Hardwiring Happiness(link is external), Buddha’s Brain(link is external), Just One Thing(link is external), and Mother Nurture(link is external). He edits the Wise Brain Bulletin(link is external)and has numerous audio programs(link is external). A summa cum laude graduate of UCLA and founder of the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom(link is external), he’s been an invited speaker at NASA, Oxford, Stanford, Harvard, and other major universities, and taught in meditationcenters worldwide. His work has been featured on the BBC, CBS, and NPR, and he offers the free Just One Thing newsletter with over 120,000 subscribers, plus the online Foundations of Well-Being program in positive neuroplasticity that anyone with financial need can do for free.