Part 4 of a series – Taking in the Good
Neuroplasticity has been getting steadily increasing coverage in the media over the past couple of years related to a range of different aspects of the brain and its function.
Neuroplasticity refers to changes in the brain that are due to changes in behaviour, environment and neural processes, as well as changes resulting from bodily injury. Neuroplasticity has replaced the formerly-held position that the brain is a physiologically static organ, and explores how – and in which ways – the brain changes throughout life.
Neuroplasticity occurs on a variety of levels, ranging from cellular changes due to learning, to large-scale changes involved in cortical remapping in response to injury. The role of neuroplasticity is now widely recognized in healthy development, learning, memory, and recovery from brain damage.
Possibly due to the need for keen survival instincts in the earliest days of human beings, our brains are like Velcro for negative experiences and like Teflon for positive ones. Due to what is now known about Neuroplasticity, things don’t need to be like that.
Rick Hanson, a neuropsychologist and author, has been studying Neuroplasticity and has come up with a technique to train the brain to take in positive experiences with the potential for profound and welcome changes in our moods, outlook on life, happiness and overall satisfaction.
Here is his article – TakingintheGood – which takes you step-by-step through the technique that if practised and mastered until it becomes a habit, has the potential to be pleasantly life-changing.