This week I’d like to continue with fitness and the mind with more from The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge, MD. Last week I talked about the meaning of neuroplasticity, the concept that the brain can change. I talked about the fact that for many years scientists, and people in general, believed that your mind was set when you were very young, and there was nothing you could do about it except wait for eventual degeneration. I pointed out how Doidge, in the book, gives a lot of evidence showing that that idea is not true. The brain can change over time, in fact it can change tremendously in very fundamental ways.
Norman Doidge MD
I’d like to continue this week with what Doidge calls “brain maps.” I’ll let him explain. “There is an endless war of nerves going on inside each of our brains. If we stop exercising our mental skills, we do not just forget them: the brain map space for those skills is turned over to the skills we practice instead. If you ever ask yourself, “How often must I practice French, or guitar, or math to keep on top of it?” you are asking a question about competitive plasticity. You are asking how frequently you must practice one activity to make sure its brain map space is not lost to another.”
From that research the key to changing our life for the better becomes clear. All we have to do is start practicing new, more beneficial behaviors. At first they will be foreign and at least a little bit difficult. Over time we will make a new “brain map,” and because of the competitive nature of brain maps, that new one will take over and make its own new space, its own brain map clearing out the old one. The new “brain map” will become our new automatic way of behaving. One that we choose for our own benefit, not one that was randomly chosen for us. Believing that the new “brain map” will establish itself, and that new automatic habits will present themselves while the old ones fade away, that’s the hard part. Having that belief and sticking with it is the key to a new lifestyle that has our best interests at heart, not just for the short term, but for our entire healthy life. That idea is a key message of the Fitgevity Lifestyle.
Thanks for reading,
Rudy
