A friend sent me a quote the other day about neuroplasticity, the brain's ability to rewire itself.
The quote says, " Neuroscience shows that when you focus on the good in life, your brain literally rewires to look for even more good. This is the magic of neuroplasticity. What you notice repeatedly, your brain gets better at finding it" I'm sorry, but I don't know where this quote came from or who it's attributed to.
I found this quote to be encouraging, but I also wondered if it's true.
The answer is yes, but a bit more nuanced than the quote suggests.
Neuroplasticity is the brain's remarkable ability to change and adapt throughout our lives. Scientists have found that our habits, what we pay attention to, our thoughts, experiences and behaviours shape our brains constantly. The pathways that we use regularly tend to become stronger, making those patterns easier to repeat in the future.
Reading this made me think about my news fast earlier this year; I basically stopped clicking on all the news that came across my feeds on Facebook and YouTube. I think the only story I followed was the Kumamoto earthquake because it affected where I live; where I live, it was an M5.
To be honest, I wasn't expecting any changes, yet after a short while I noticed that I felt calmer and slept better. My mind felt a lot less cluttered; I wasn't worrying about something that was happening thousands of kilometres away, that I couldn't influence or change.
The world's problems hadn't disappeared; there were still wars, political turmoil, economic uncertainty and natural disasters. The difference was that I wasn't exposing myself to the constant barrage of negativity which is the news.
Fast forward to today, and I'm back to checking the news; almost every time I open a device, I'm checking to see what is happening in the world.
I'm looking at what is happening in the UK and Europe, finding myself angry at people that I've never met and wondering how the world has come to this state, where evil seems rampant.
Watching stories about the possibility of World War III and how to survive a nuclear bomb- yes, I went down that rabbit hole- isn't helping me at all.
For those of you who have read this blog recently, you will know that my family situation is very stressful at the moment. Watching all this negative stuff, all the conspiracy theories on podcasts, has just added to that stress.
The result: bad, interrupted sleep, bad dreams that have me waking up crying. A feeling of dread and always thinking of the worst-case scenarios.
Let me be clear: watching the news is not responsible for my thoughts spiralling into negativity. The stress from my family situation, both here and in the UK, is more than enough stress. But adding the negativity from the news isn't helping me at all.
The contrast between when I was doing news fast and now is very interesting, and it's made me think.
If neuroplasticity means that our brains adapt to whatever it repeatedly experiences, what happens when we spend our days immersed in stories of conflict, crisis and uncertainty?
Do our brains become more practised at scanning for danger?
Human beings have what psychologists call a "negativity bias". We naturally pay attention to what can harm us. From an evolutionary perspective, this makes sense; our ancestors would have to be aware of what could harm them.
The problem today is that we aren't looking for a predator on the savanna; we are looking at a device in our pocket that tells us, 24 hours a day, the world is dangerous.
Within minutes of a disaster, a political coup or war, we are informed of it.
Being informed or aware of the world's situation has value; being so immersed in it isn't good, at least not for me.
Neuroplasticity offers hope; if we are good at looking for the bad, then surely the opposite is true.
I'm not saying to ignore the reality of this world; that's impossible, but put as much focus on the good things we experience.
I'm going to try and pay more attention to the good in my life: a giggle with the kids, a walk in the neighbourhood, seeing the beauty in nature here; even on the rainy days, the colours of the garden sparkle. As I'm writing this, I'm listening to the birds outside my window, who have a lot to say.
I'm going to do a news fast again. Not to ignore the problems of the world, just to not focus on them.
We are almost at the end of this year; I want to end it with a flourish of more positive thoughts!
Just to give you all a giggle, here is an old video I found of David. He had been sitting down too long and had pins and needles. He was trying to walk it off, but Steve was wrapping himself around David's legs.
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