Setting Change in Motion: Change Your Thoughts First

MARIJANA JARC, P.ENG., PMP

Introduction

• Negativity Bias creating negative thoughts

• Neuroplasticity – changing brain pathways, rewiring the brain

• Multiple ways to rewire the brain

• Change is possible

How to use brain’s neuroplasticity to rewire our brains and change our thoughts

Negativity Bias

• The brain is like Velcro for negative experiences but Teflon for positive ones.

Dr Rick Hanson

Our brain is simply built with a greater sensitivity to unpleasant news.

Negativity Bias (cont’d)

Our ancestors survived by approaching pleasant stimuli, like a carrot, and avoiding unpleasant stimuli, like an incoming stick.

VS.

Negativity Bias (cont’d)

• Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are.

Malcolm Forbes

• Performance Reviews

• Negative messages in childhood

Neural pathways are created in the brain based on our habits and behaviors.

Brain Pathways

• Similar to hiking trails

• Path of Least Resistance

• Help conserve mental energy

• Recycling old news

The most worn path is the strongest and easiest to travel.

Brain’s Neuroplasticity

• Neuroplasticity:The ability of the brain to change in structure or function in response to an experience.

-The American Heritage® Medical Dictionary

• Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) – we can see the morphing ability of the brain

The things we do often we become stronger at; what we don’t use fades away.

How to rewire our brain?

• Repetition and Practice

• Positive Emotions

• Visualization

• Meditation

• Other Methods

There are multiple ways we can support neural plasticity and start rewiring our brain.

Repetition and Practice

• Neurons that Fire Together, Wire Together

Donald Hebb, Canadian neuropsychologist (1949)

• The more the brain does a certain task, the stronger that neural network becomes, making the process more efficient each successive time.

• The messages that travel the same pathway in the brain over and over begin to transmit faster and faster.

Our brain cells communicate with each other via a process called “neuronal firing.”

Repetition and Practice (cont’d)

• Top athletes practices - committing moves to muscle memory, strengthening the neural pathways

• 10,000 repetitions

• University College London research - the average time for a new habit is 66 days

• Even limited repetition can bring benefits – personal example

Pathways in the brain are formed and reinforced through repetition.

Repetition and Practice - Exercise

• What kind of thoughts run through your mind in the following situations:

o After making a mistake

o When not sure how to proceed

o When facing a challenge

Exercise – Reflection on repeating thoughts pattern

Positive Emotions

• Taking in the Good

• Dr Rick Hanson – Resilient, How to Grow an Unshakable Core of Calm, Strength, and Happiness

1. Look for good facts, and turn them into good experiences.

2. Really enjoy the experience.

3. Intend and sense that the good experience is sinking into you.

Taking in the good is a brain-science savvy and psychologically skillful way to improve how you feel, get things done, and treat others – Dr Rick Hanson

Positive Emotions (cont’d)

• Positive experiences

• ‘3 Good Things’ exercise – Shawn Achoro Writing down 3 positive experiences or occurrences from the previous

day

o Gratitude

• Ted Talk – The Happy Secret to Better Work

Our brains receive more information every second than we could possibly attend to – we choose what we notice.

Positive Emotions - Exercise

• Write/think of 3 things you are grateful for today:o Living in a free country

o Attending this conference

o Another day

Exercise – 3 gratitudes

Visualization

• Used by many top athletes and high achievers to improve and enhance their performance

o Vividly imagine and visualize a future situation

o Your mind will record it as a real memory

o The situation will become something known, something you’ve “already experienced”

The brain doesn’t differentiate between a real memory and an imagined (visualized) one.

Visualization (cont’d)

• Harvard study by Alvaro Pascual-Leone

“…the study provided evidence that the changes were specifically limited to the cortical representation of the hand used in the exercise, and that the changes take place regardless whether the training had been performed physically, or mentally only.”

Bangert, Marc, and Eckart O Altenmüller. 2003. Mapping perception to action in piano practice: A longitudinal DC-EEG study. BMC Neuroscience 4: 26.

Both groups exhibited growth in the areas of the brain responsible for audio-motor functions involved with playing the piano, regardless of whether they were rehearsing physically or mentally.

Visualization - Exercise

• Visualization exerciseo Close your eyes and set an intention

o Imagine the situation or future event you would like to work on, making the scene as real as you can

o Incorporate strong positive emotions to make it feel real

o Repeat often – daily

Exercise – how to make visualization optimal

Meditation

• Harvard neuroscientist Sara Lazar’s research - meditation practice produces structural changes in the brain

Scientists are still learning about the effects meditation has on the brain.

Meditation (cont’d)

• First study (in 2005)o Twenty long-term meditators participants

o Meditating watching the breath

o Long-term meditation practice correlates with cortical thickening in brain areas associated with attention, sensory processing, and introspection

50-year-old meditators in the study had the same amount of gray matter in their frontal cortexes as those half their age.

Meditation (cont’d)

• Second study (in 2010)o No previous meditation experience

o Increased grey-matter density in the hippocampus (important for learning and memory)

o Decreased grey-matter density in the amygdala (related to anxiety and stress)

• TedxCambridge – How Meditation Can Reshape Our Brains

None of these changes seen in the control group.

Meditation - Exercise

• Short meditation exerciseo Close your eyes

o Focus on your breathing

o When mind starts to wander bring it back to breathing

Exercise – breathing meditation

Conclusion

• Overcome negativity bias by using neuroplasticity

• Methods (can be used together):o Repetition and Practice,o Positive Emotions, o Visualization, o Meditation

• New habits and thoughts will start to run on autopilot

Neuroplasticity research is ongoing.

Questions

Questions?