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.