Brain Plasticity and You

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Every mind can change—quite literally. We make various excuses for why we don’t, thinking we’re too old, or too “set in our ways,” or that we’re trapped by our genetics, upbringing, experience, or environment. But the biological fact is this: we can change.

Our brains have the ability to physically restructure in response to our environment, thoughts, behaviors, and emotions. It was long thought that our brains entered a fixed state upon entering adulthood, but this has since been proven false. The concept of neuroplasticity—neuro-, as in “relating to nerves or the nervous system,” and plasticity, in the sense of being “easily shaped or molded”—has replaced this fixed model of the brain.

The shaping of the brain can be a conscious endeavor, and armed with the right knowledge, we can accelerate this process, changing ourselves, and our abilities, in tangible ways. Read on to find out 5 ways you can trick your brain into helping you end bad habits.

Practice Mindfulness

Before you begin the process of change, prepare yourself by practicing mindfulness. Mindfulness is a mental state achieved by focusing your awareness on the present moment. Begin with mindful observation, focusing on an object, such as a tree, cloud, or spider's web, and simply watch it. Do nothing but notice this object—let it consume you—and do this for as long as your concentration allows. This will increase your attention span, which will be useful in later steps.

Once you can successfully concentrate for at least 60 seconds, move on to mindful awareness. Choose something that you do every day, preferably several times a day, and focus on it—something you don’t normally think about while doing it. Take opening your front door, for example. Each time you do it, stop and consider what you’re doing. Ponder the texture of the knob, the look of the door’s surface. Think about why you’re opening that door, and what would happen if you didn’t. Wonder at the fact that your fingers can turn the knob. Use your newly increased attention span to focus on these ideas for as long as you can. Congratulations. You’ve begun the process of change.

Identify Bad Habits

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Once you’ve made a habit of practicing mindfulness, begin to identify bad habits. A habit is any behavior that is repeated without much thought, and is simply a routine reaction to certain stimuli. For example, Susie may begin to write that twelve page paper, but as soon as she finishes a paragraph, she immediately begins to read online articles about abandoned train stations in order to put off the displeasure of work. Without going into neurological detail, Susie’s brain associates the pleasure of reading about interesting subjects with putting off her work. Soon, after repetition, this behavior is ingrained, and has become a bad habit.

A bad habit is any routine action that keeps you from living what you consider a good life, and could be anything from smoking, to procrastination, to angry outbursts, and could stem from many factors, including your environment, life events, upbringing, or genetic predisposition. The good news is that you’re not a slave to any of this. In fact, say this out loud—“I am not a slave to ‘fill in the blank’.” You are more than your brain, more than a set of pathways and electrical impulses, and you decide how to best live your life.

After practicing your mindfulness exercises, begin focusing on your bad habits. Do to them what we did in the example of the door. For example, Susie has identified her bad habit of procrastinating. She can now stop herself as soon as she realizes that she is procrastinating. When she opens her internet browser to get away from writing, and begins to explore the internet, she can stop, consider what she’s doing, and why. At this point, she can take action, and move on to the next step, and so can you. Write these habits down to make them tangible. We’re going to find out how to erase them in the next step.

Replace Bad Habits With Good Ones

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Here, we begin the most difficult step—actively changing your habits to create lasting changes in your brain. You now know you have the ability to change, you’ve increased your awareness, and you’ve identified your bad habits. It’s time to act.

Once you’ve made a routine of becoming mindfully aware of when you engage in a harmful habit, and can stop that habit, replace the negative action with a positive one. To continue Susie’s story, once she stops herself from going online, she can close her browser and go back to her paper. She can concentrate on the paper, on the benefits of it, on the hidden joys of what she is writing about.

Think of your neurons—the specialized cells in your brain which transmit signals throughout your brain—as dirt roads. With use, they become more deeply grooved and harder packed—easier to travel. But through disuse, they become overgrown, and people no long use it. When Susie continually redirects herself while writing her paper, she deepens the grooves in a certain set of these neural roads, making it easier and easier to make the choice to simply work rather than procrastinate. Further, when she practices mindfulness and associates positive feelings with her work, the neural pathways involved in those positive feelings, and those involved in writing will wire together, making it easier to take pleasure in her work.

A recent study shows that habits can be formed in as little as 66 days, but can also be lost in just as short a time, so don’t stop here. Be consistent in replacing negative actions with positive ones.

Focus on maintaining good habits rather than avoiding the bad ones

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We are what we dwell on, and when we dwell on things that create anxiety, we become anxious. Be intentional on where you place your focus—rather than focusing on the fact that you wish to stop smoking, focus on the feeling of the runner’s high you just got from the jog you replaced your smoking break with. Let your bad habits slip from your mind, and, eventually, from your life—give them no neural roads upon which to travel.

Consistency will speed the changes in your brain. Try to engage your newly formed mental pathways for at least 15 minutes each time desires for the former bad habits occur. Over time, this takes the focus from the negative action and places it onto the positive, and it will become easier to simply not consider the habits you wish to be rid of.

Remember, also, that not only can habitual actions be replaced, but habitual thoughts as well. Every technique being considered here will work with, for example, a negative self image, just as well as it might work with comfort eating. Each time you begin to think of yourself as physically undesirable, stop and purposefully replace that thought with a body-positive one.

With continued focus and mental effort, you can literally rewire your brain. Remember that you can also do this in a negative way, so bend your will to shutting out the negative and seeking out the positive every single day.

Ease the Transition

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There are a number of proven techniques which ease the restructuring of the brain and the reformation of habits. One of the most effective is novelty. Our brains are wired to seek the new as an evolutionary response—historically, we would have needed to investigate new stimuli in order to evaluate danger or benefit. When we are in the presence of the new—things such as a new place, a new person, or unfamiliar music—our cognitive abilities, and our ability to learn, increase. Research has proven that if we experience a new situation, even within a familiar context, we store the event in our memories much more easily. New environments are especially effective, as not only is memory stronger, but old cues which may have initiated a bad habit are no longer present. Those neural roads we mentioned earlier are more deeply entrenched from the beginning, and the old, undesirable roads, fainter. If you’re having trouble getting a change to stick, try it somewhere new!

Visualization is another powerful, brain-changing tool that anyone can use. The practice of imagining, in as great detail as you can, your end goal—the good habit—can aid in the process of change, no matter what you’re doing. Try it while you’re riding the bus, or lying in bed, or taking a shower—any idle time will do. The brain responds to imagined scenarios in a similar way that it responds to the real, so visualize what you want, and do it often.

We mentioned mindfulness as the first step of the change process, but don’t let it end there! The more you develop your attention, the less you’ll fall prey to thoughtless, automatic behavior. Maintain the habits that helped you begin the process of change, and you’ll retain and improve your ability to think critically about what you are doing at all times.

Finally, deeply ingrained and particularly destructive habits may require intervention from a professional. Counselors, doctors, and, in some cases, prescription drugs, may be the key to finally overcoming your vices. Sometimes behavioral changes can more easily be made while on, say, an antidepressant, and can then be maintained after withdrawing from the drug. Don’t be afraid to seek help when a destructive habit is interfering with your life.

Use these techniques to give yourself an advantage in your quest for self-improvement, and you’ll be forming new habits in as little as two months.