RESHAPING BRAIN N LIFE-2

Evidence is gathering by the day that the brain isn't really an object but a continuous and active process. Thoughts and experiences create new pathways in the brain.

Brain health comes down to a simple-seeming formula: maximize the positive input and minimize the negative input. The result will be positive rather than negative output. To some extent the difference between positive and negative input isn't hard to define:

It's positive to maintain balanced diet, negative to eat an imbalanced one.
It's positive to take regular exercise; it's negative to be sedentary.
It's positive to have good relationships, negative to have stressful ones.

Anyone who has kept pace with the public campaign in prevention can make the list longer; the risk factors for a healthy lifestyle are well known. But this is where the difference between positive and negative get trickier. Information isn't the same as compliance. That Americans are getting more obese and sedentary while consuming massive quantities of sugar and fatty junk food isn't due to lack of information. Non-compliance is about inspiring your brain to function in a better way. This is a role assigned to the mind; the brain can't inspire itself.

But only you can sustain meaning and purpose. For all of its brilliant discoveries, neuroscience can't give your brain meaning, and if you feel that you lack purpose, there is no drug or surgery that will bring it back. At present, the main breakthroughs in neuroscience are medical. Curing organic disorders like Alzheimer's and depression are urgent goals since they undermine anyone's chance to find meaning and purpose.

But our emphasis is to raise the everyday functioning of the brain to a higher level. The baseline brain, as we call it, passively handles everyone's life given the input that is provided. Super brain, on the other hand, goes beyond the baseline brain to actively optimize what the brain can do -- it brings to life hidden potential that exists in everyone's brain. 

                     RESHAPING BRAIN N LIFE

 There are few things one must know about brain-
Your brain is constantly renewing itself.
Your brain can heal its wounds form the past.
Experience changes the brain every day.
The input you give your brain causes it to form new neural pathways.
The more positive the input, the better your brain will function.

  The old view of the brain as fixed for life, constantly losing neurons and declining in function, has been all but abolished. The new brain is a process, not a thing, and the process heads in the direction you point it in. A Buddhist monk meditating on compassion develops the brain circuitry that brings compassion into reality. Depending on the input it receives, you can create a compassionate brain, an artistic brain, a wise brain, or any other kind.

However, as we see it, the agent that makes these possibilities become real is the mind. The brain doesn't create its own destiny. Genetics delivers the brain in a functioning state so that the nervous system can regulate itself and the whole body. It doesn't take your intervention to balance hormone levels, regulate heartbeat, or do a thousand other autonomic functions. But the newest part of the brain, the neocortex, is where the field of possibilities actually lies. Here is where decisions are made, where we discriminate, worship, assess, control, and evolve.

If you think of everyday experience as input for your brain, and your actions and thoughts as output, a feedback loop is formed. The old cliché about computer software - garbage in, garbage out - applies to all feedback loops. Toxic experiences shape the brain quite differently from healthy ones. This seems like common sense, but neuroscience has joined forces with genetics to reveal that right down to the level of DNA, the feedback loop that embraces mind and body is profoundly changed by the input processed by the brain.

Our aim was to cut to the chase. If input is everything, then happiness and well-being are created by giving the brain positive input. Without realizing it, you are here to inspire your brain to be the best it can be. This is much more than positive thinking, which is often too superficial and masks underlying negativity. The input that inspires the brain includes a wide array of things. Everyone wants to experience positive feelings (love, hope, optimism, appreciation, approval) without knowing how to get them. For all the theories that proliferate about happiness, from the brain's perspective, the formula is to maximize the positive messages being received by the cortex and minimize the negative ones.

What this implies isn't a brave new world of thought control or pretending that life is rosy. Life will always present challenges, setbacks, and crises. The point is to create a matrix that will allow you to best adapt to both sides, the light and the dark, of experience. In our book, we were particularly focused on a setup that would take people into old age with a brain that remains dynamic and resilient.

Here is our recommendation, having considered the most up-to-date neuroscience.

Matrix for a Positive Lifestyle
Have good friends.
Don’t isolate yourself.
Sustain a lifelong companionship with a spouse or partner.
Engage socially in worthwhile projects.
Be close with people who have a good lifestyle – habits are contagious.
Follow a purpose in life.
Leave time for play and relaxation.
Keep up satisfying sexual activity.
Address issues around anger.
Practice stress management.
Deal with the reactive mind’s harmful effects: When you have a negative reaction, stop, stand back, take a few deep breaths, and observe how you’re feeling.

Your brain will thrive in such a matrix, even as life brings its ups and downs. But by the same token, the brain can't arrive at any of these things on its own. You are the leader of your brain. We’ll expand on this theme in the next post, since the whole issue of feedback loops turns out to be vital for all kinds of brain functions, including memory and the prevention of feared disorders like Alzheimer's.