Neuroplasticity and Your Brain’s Information Superhighway
Think of your brain as a vast network of roads and highways. Your neurons are the roads and physical structures that carry information from one place to another and your "neural network" is like the map of all these various roads and highways that connect, allowing information to flow between the different parts of your brain. The connection points between individual roads and highways (neurons) are called synapses, or synaptic connections — and these connection points between neurons function much like traffic signals, intersections and stop signs — they can make travel along some roads slower, or even much faster.
Until the latter half of the 20th Century, the prevailing belief amongst doctors and scientists was that our brain’s “map" was mostly fixed and unchangeable after childhood. But an expanding body of neuroscience research has shown that many aspects of our brain - including neurons, synaptic connections, and even our neural networks — can continue to be modified throughout our lives. This remarkable ability of our Central Nervous System to undergo structural and functional changes in response to new experiences is called Neuroplasticity. Understanding neuroplasticity — and how we can personally use it —allows us the opportunity to explore, enhance, and direct our brain's capacity to change, across our lifespan.
Why Neuroplasticity Training?
Neuroplasticity occurs naturally in response to experiences such as learning new skills, adapting to changes in the environment, or recovering from injury or stress. These experiences can lead the brain to create new neural pathways (neurogenesis), strengthen existing networks, or modify connections between neurons. Often, neuroplasticity involves a combination of these processes, which can be enhanced through practice and repetition.
The fact is, the more you use or “travel” these new roads, through practice and repetition, the stronger and faster they become - turning roads into superhighways. Conversely, if a road (a neural pathway) isn't used as often, it will eventually get “downgraded” or closed off, in the same way that an old, unused road might become overgrown and eventually disappear. Thus, repetition is the key to turning intentions and goals into achievements and abilities. Hypnotherapy and self-hypnosis are also unique and powerful tools that promote a specific mental state (of high-focus with deep relaxation) that have been shown to accelerate neuroplasticity.
Additionally, neuroplasticity can be coached, trained, and self-directed. We all have the potential to harness this powerful process to overcome undesirable behaviors, foster meaningful change, enhance health, and achieve our highest potential.
Benefits of Neuroplasticity Training
Neuroplasticity exercises are easy to follow, highly effective, and enjoyable — delivering both immediate benefits and long-lasting transformation through consistent practice. They also enhance cognitive agility, strengthen resilience, and utilize our brain’s natural ability to change and adapt, to achieve desired goals.
Neuroplasticity is an Unparalleled Tool for Self-Mastery
Learn to guide and master your own growth and healing through personally designed neuroplasticity exercises. Neuroplasticity training develops skill (through repetition and practice) with techniques that will quickly allow you to direct your unique process of personal transformation — empowering you to reach new goals and create positive change — autonomously, through your own efforts.
Neuroplasticity Allows Us to Break Unwanted Patterns of Habit & Addiction
Habits, addictions, and unwanted emotional and behavioral patterns are neural connections or “loops” that become “rigid” and reinforced through a lifetime of repeated activity and strong mental attention. This often traps individuals in feeling helplessness to change these unwanted patterns, no matter what therapies or treatments they have tried in the past. Neuroplasticity training can help us break free of these rigid neural loops by simultaneously creating new neural pathways and redirecting “traffic” (mental attention) away from habitual or undesired pathways — much like avoiding the same old rut by learning to steering our bike down a new, healthier path.
Neuroplasticity Enhances the Mind-Body Connection
More and more, neuroscience is able to explain how the mind and body are dynamically and functionally interconnected. Our neural networks are not just limited to the brain and many organs (such as the heart and the intestines), have millions of nerve connections and these heart-brain and brain-gut communication networks are complex and bidirectional. This means that signals pass both ways between your central nervous system (brain) and body (peripheral nervous system and organs), and health or disease in one area can affect the other. The complex interplay between our brain and body highlights how closely mental and physical health are connected — impacting everything from our stress response and immune functioning, to digestion, serotonin levels, and mood. By harnessing neuroplasticity, we can strengthen the synergy between our body and nervous system, alleviate symptoms of mind-body dysregulation, enhance neural communication pathways, and support overall well-being.
Neuroplasticity Allows Us to Access and Retrain the Parasympathetic Nervous System
For many of us, especially those affected by trauma or PTSD, the brain is often locked into a pattern of threat detection and is conditioned to constantly scan the environment for signs of danger. This “survival scanning” perpetuates the activation of our “fight or flight” response and can keep us stuck in a cycle of chronic stress. The practice of neuroplasticity offers a pathway to break this cycle, helping us shift from a state of "fight or flight" to one of "rest and digest," activating the parasympathetic nervous system to promote relaxation, calm, coherence, and restored equilibrium.