I spent most of yesterday (that’s most of the bit I didn’t spend in bed) reading up on how to make changes to improve my cognitive powers. I have known with absolute certainty that it is possible to permanently change, through practice, attitude*, so why not other parts of your brain’s workings. A good thing too, because science in the last 10 years apparently has also come to this conclusion.
This week Time Magazine (US version) has a special on the brain. Very interesting it is too. I found this article quite informative about rewiring the brain.
The doctrine of the unchanging human brain has had profound ramifications. For one thing, it lowered expectations about the value of rehabilitation for adults who had suffered brain damage from a stroke or about the possibility of fixing the pathological wiring that underlies psychiatric diseases. And it implied that other brain-based fixities, such as the happiness set point that, according to a growing body of research, a person returns to after the deepest tragedy or the greatest joy, are nearly unalterable.
But research in the past few years has overthrown the dogma. In its place has come the realization that the adult brain retains impressive powers of “neuroplasticity”–the ability to change its structure and function in response to experience. These aren’t minor tweaks either. Something as basic as the function of the visual or auditory cortex can change as a result of a person’s experience of becoming deaf or blind at a young age. Even when the brain suffers a trauma late in life, it can rezone itself like a city in a frenzy of urban renewal. If a stroke knocks out, say, the neighborhood of motor cortex that moves the right arm, a new technique called constraint-induced movement therapy can coax next-door regions to take over the function of the damaged area. The brain can be rewired.
Yes i know that the articles themselves are popular science and that my neurologist would scoff at the simplistic nature of the discussions, but it did inspire me to work harder at getting back to where I was.
The video found here would also make my father very happy as he is an exercise enthusiast. If the implication of what is suggested in this video is true, then I better get myself more mobile and increase my brain volume. The more you have, the more you can rewire to.
And if I ever get all pity potting about the damage in my MRIs then remind me to watch this video again and see what shocking brain injury Sarah Scantlin has rewired.
So plan of attack on my brain. Get back to the gym and get into as much aquarobic type activity as I can. Keep reading learning and doing as much mental activity as I can (a bit tricky with the permanent headache I have,but not impossible) and maintain my fish intake, because I eat fish at least 5 times a week.
* I get very impatient with people saying “I can’t change, that’s just me”. Bullsh*t I say. I have done it! I would rather they be honest and say “I choose not to change”
