How we can harness the power of our whole brain thinking to make changes that last in our lives

This is the second in a two blog series where I get to share some of what I know about Neuroscience and tying it into my personal experience, so that you can see that change is possible.

If you haven’t read the first blog you can read it here: How our brains make it hard for us to make changes that last in our lives

Now this is a vast topic, with many books written about it. So what I attempt to do here is share some highlights. Highlights that feed into the practices I use on myself and that are weaved into the work I do with Coaching clients, and that slip into my Yoga Classes, workshops and retreats too! 

Brain Wellness

We don’t expect to be able to run a marathon or even 5K without looking after our bodies, doing training, eating well and other self care practices. 

But we expect our brains to work optimally without any focused care. 

I’ve listed here key brain wellness practices;

• Rest - that 7-8 hours sleep flushes out toxins from the brain.  

• Fuel - the brain uses 25-30% of what we eat.

• Hydrate - the brain is 78% water.

• Exercise - oxygenates the brain and builds BDNF (a protein used in brain cell survival, repair, cognitive functions and mood regulation). 

• Clean Environment - to decrease distractions for the brain.

• Meditation - to practice focus and a break from distractions.

And that’s just a snap shot, there are also many supplements and other tools that can be used to enhance the wellness and power of our brains. 

But if I had to give one to start with; it’s hydration. 

Whole Brain Thinking

We will have learned to favour one or two areas of our whole brain thinking. You may rely on logic and motivators, or you may rely on emotions and intuition, or a mix of interoception (physical sensations) and creative open mind thinking. Or any mix of those. 

An agile brain can switch between these 6 elements as needed and when we can do that we can harness the full power of our brains. 

We can, with work, open up the elements we don’t normally use. 

I love a body scan, as a way to really connect to the physical sensations, our interoception. Over the years I’ve significantly improved my interoception, and can use this to spot in advance if I need to adjust my wellness practices, or simply to actually notice if I need a break from a task. 

Neuroplasticity

This is the ability of our brains to lay down new pathways. If you think “it’s just the way I am” you may be amazed at what you can change. This is where I find labels can be unhelpful. We can cling to them, identify with them.  There may be parts of ourselves that we favour, natural gifts/talents, but there is so much we CAN change. 

Science shows how we can move from Learning Mode where we developing new synapses and increase the number of connections in our neurons to Perfecting Mode as Myelination occurs. So when we create a new pathway in our brains we are in Learning Mode, then as we embed that new pathway and it becomes the dominant pathway we’re in Perfecting Mode.

Selective Attention

This is when the brain filters out what it deems unnecessary based on what it already knows. If we consciously focus on what we do want, we can change the selective bias so we notice opportunities, we set our brains up to look for these. 

Value Tagging

This is when our brain assigns a value to information, either logically based on what’s important to us, or emotionally based on social safety/belonging or to preserve our identities. 

Consciously focusing the brain on what's important to us now and building the mindset that this new change is part of our current belonging and identity, increases our chance of change sticking. 

See it to believe it

Showing our brains its possible, changes what happens in the body. As we show it what’s possible, we create emotional intensity resulting in the release of the feel good chemicals rather than cortisol.

We also widen our frame of reference that the brain can draw on. 

And lastly we reinforce the new mindset, the brain gets more evidence of the new mindset and sees that it's safe, we widen the new pathway. 

In Summary

These concepts, all backed by Neuroscience, enable us to harness the power of our brains to make changes that last in our lives. And you’ll notice that we’re using the same mechanisms of the brain that kept us stuck in our old unhelpful ways, to now make change stick. 

It is through personal experience from my own journey and my coaching practice that if we work with the brain we can make significant changes in our lives. When I discovered Neuroscience a few years back, it explained what I’d experienced and also opened my mind to new ways to make changes to better my life. I now weave this into everything I do.

If this has made you curious to find out more about what I do, then you can find out more about my Coaching Programmes and Yoga offerings on my website. And if you want to find out first about new offerings and releases then sign up to my Newsletter (a twice a month sharing of wisdom and an inspiration boost).