What is Neuroplasticity Anyway? You Might Be Surprised!

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After a lot of searching around, I found the best definition of neuroplasticity in Psychology Today:

Neuroplasticity is the brain’s capacity to continue growing and evolving in response to life experiences. Plasticity is the capacity to be shaped, molded, or altered [like Jello]; neuroplasticity, then, is the ability for the brain to adapt or change over time, by creating new neurons and building new networks.

Natalia Ramsden, a psychologist and founder of SOFOS Associates in London, the UK’s only brain optimization clinic.

“There’s something hugely empowering about the idea that we, as individuals, can actually change the structure of our brains for the better,” says Ramsden. “There’s so much we can do to develop their function, which in turn can dramatically increase our productivity in the workplace.”

Some history first. The concept of neuroplasticity marks one of the most important turn-arounds in neuroscience. From when it was studied in ancient times, the belief was of a static brain to the modern belief of a spirited, multifaceted organ, and the saga of neuroplasticity is dependent on our brain’s intricacies.

Ancient views on the brain regarded it to be a kind of “cranial stuffing” of sorts. From the late Middle Kingdom going forward, the brain was removed in preparation for mummification, for it was the heart that was thought to be the bed of knowledge.

Today, neuroplasticity is a foundation for medical interventions aimed at gathering the brain’s availability for change, in rehabilitation from injury and in the remedies of mental health.

But the bigger question from the definition in Psychology Today is, how do you create new neurons and establish new networks? Here are 5 novel ways with so much more besides.

1. Try to pick up another language where you left off in high school or college, and stick with it! Using another language improves concentration, builds better memory, and leads to greater communication skills.

2. Nourish your brain by eating nuts, beans, and healthy fruits and vegetables with high fiber. Clarity and focus will be your rewards when you feed your brain the best ingredients!

3. Set a time to stop working. Working means toiling and thinking very strongly. And since many people right away or eventually lost their jobs after a brain injury, work doesn’t have to mean lugging the stuff that you bring home with you and then back to the office the very next day.

Work can also mean staying at home to everyone’s leisure and doing what you love, and you don’t have invent a sick day to do it.

So if you can’t rely on yourself to just stop working, you can stop it by just setting a timer and calling it a day. Or set the timer on your phone three times–one to take a brief nap and another to wake you up, and one to just quit working. You’ll become used to this regimen after a while and gain new neurons of quitting work at the same time.

4. Use the less dominant hand all the time, like signing a document or brushing your teeth. That way, it will give those new neurons the chance to come forward and become like the old ones–regular and simple, like breathing in and out.

5. Teach yourself mnemonic reminders, like:

HOSE = Hydrate, Over-articulate, Speak Slowly, and Speak on the Exhale when I was responding to someone on the phone or giving a speech. Mnemonic devices are so important when memory fails!

Miguel Nicolelis, a Brazilian scientist, physician, and Duke University School of Medicine Professor in Neuroscience, says, “With its billions of interconnected neurons, whose interactions change from millisecond to millisecond, the human brain is an archetypal complex system.”

Indeed, it is, Dr. Nicolelis.