How Your Nervous System Works & Changes Link
Brain is really a map of experience.
- These are non negotiable.
- Take what we are sensing and focus on it, make sense out of it, to explore it , to remember it. Eg: Putting your focus on the feet and feel it.
- It means to focus on something, like putting a “Spotlight”
- Humans have 2 Spotlight: One of them is Covert attention: Eating a food and how it tastes like.
- One can dilate the attention (spotlight) or narrow down his attention to one particular thing.
- Attention is absolutely under your control (specially when resting, means it can be directed in any way possible) reflexive action: Eg: walking. Information is just being passed on to senses without much processing. This is called bottom up processing
- Deliberate action: a car suddenly stops in front. You move around. Top down processing. Takes effort and focus and energy. You can focus on anything you want. Doing something that’s very specific you may feel a mental friction.
- Product of nervous system again. Neurons Release chemicals called neuromodulators which have a profound effect on feelings. they regulate which neuron to be active or not. For eg: dopamine.
- Sometimes it feels that emotions just geyser up and they seem reflexive, means we have no control over it.
- They are like perceptions but they draw from the present but also what has happened in the past and what’s anticipated in the future
- thoughts can be reflexive. poping all the time like popup windows
- can be deliberate as well. you can direct your attention to a thought
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Nothing out of us shall remain as a fossil of our body other that actions. Actions such as writing, words, engineering new things
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Most of the nervous system is devoted in converting sensation, perceptions and thoughts activity to actions.
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“Movement is the final common pathway”
Movement is like thoughts , can be deliberate and can be reflexive.
How the nervous system works in the deliberate way and it can be changed the way it works? Its called Neuoplasticity.
When you try to do something deliberately beyond a threshold, the brain starts to feel something is challenges or something has changed. This is like supressing a brain circuit. Impulsivity is a lack of top down control. Most of the moter system is designed in a reflexive way.
Neuroplasticity: To change the behaviour of the nervous system. Neuroplasticity requires top down processing. Strain and agitation you feel when restricting yourself is the entry point for neuroplasticity.
To apply neuroplasticity ask yourself :
- What particular aspect(5 mentioned above) of my nervous system am i trying to change and are they available to change?
- How am i going to go about that? - How awake or sleepy we are(Explained below)
Neuroplasticity is referred to as plasticity from here onwards
Plasticity in adult human brain is gated by neuromodulators. The chemical like dopamine, sertonin etc, opens up the plasticity. These chemical can map sensation, perception, feelings, thoughts into the brain
Epinephrine: Alertness. Acetylcholine: Directs the focus.
These transmitters are particularly are active when an adult has gone through a trauma. These two transmitters can be used to help accelarate neuroplasticity in adults.
Neuroplasticity (rewiring of the neurons) does’t actually happen when you are trying to learn something but when we are in sleep or non sleep deep rest.
⭐ Doing a tough activity and taking 20min of deep rest afterwards to deliberately turn off the deliberate focus and engagement accelarated neuroplasticity.
Bell in the background while learning something new and while they are in deep sleep playing the same bell also triggers neuroplasticity
The alertness/ focus states and deep sleep/rest phases is guided by autonomic nervous system.