Voluntarily Embracing the Evolutionary Power of Neuroplasticity

If you’re a human who believes in evolution you understand each one of us is in the process of evolving right this very moment, voluntarily or involuntarily. In the olden days of 30 years ago before the advent of the fMRI the common wisdom was that at a certain youthful age our brains stopped developing. Well, we’ve now watched brain activity in real time and know the brain adapts rather miraculously, which is really no surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention to the world in which we live. Though it does develop more significantly in youth, we now know you can live to be 100 and your brain can be developing up to the moment you take your last breath. This is referred to as neuroplasticity.

One of our biggest challenges as humans happens when our brain gets locked into survival mode as the result of depression, anxiety, trauma or injury. Physiological activity in our bodies and central nervous systems are always responding and changing, and when this activity is out of balance we will experience mental (and sometimes physical) challenges or symptoms. These symptoms are “the canary in the coal mine” and alert us to the need to develop a more regulated way of dealing with our depression, anxiety, trauma or injury.

Talk therapy can be enormously helpful to gain insight and deeper understanding of how dysfunctional patterns that we unconsciously re-enact might be transformed or at least mitigated progressively. We may improve the quality of our lives by consciously forming more functional habits and behaving more mindfully.

Our neural network is plastic and so the grooves of behavioral habit in it are susceptible to revision, and so empowered choices are those made consciously and would include choices the results of which bring us the balance that leads to more (and more) experiences of “happiness.” Psychotherapy is the sublime realm in which this can occur.

Because the autonomic self-regulation of the brain is dependent on awareness and direct experience of it’s own operation, neurofeedback offers an effective self-regulation training process that doesn’t fit into the realm of “understanding” or “insight.” For the brain to learn to regulate itself, mental content is mostly irrelevant. The dysregulation that results from over or under aroused brainwaves just doesn’t get touched by insight or understanding. Neurofeedback gives the brain an opportunity to tune itself up regardless of what is going on in the mind.