It's interesting when I go to, say, a doctor's office and get more than the service I was hoping for.
That happened when I visited the ophthalmologist because of “floaters” in my left eye - distracting little obstructions that I learned can arrive as we age. The doctor assured me that there was no internal damage, and then said that the brain will simply become used to the “floaters” and adjust to discount the information. In other words, the brain will change so that I won't notice them.
Remarkable. And then it struck me how this is one small example of how our mind can rewire, how it can adjust, develop and compensate. It's what those who study the mind's function call neuroplasticity.
This gives me a chance to make a sales pitch about change.
Research continues to provide us with an expanding knowledge of how to work with this mysterious beast of the mind. David Eagleman is a neuroscientist, author and science communicator from Stanford University who wrote the book "Livewired: The Inside Story of the Ever-Changing Brain."
It's rich with examples of the mind's ability to devise new pathways and learn to incorporate them. He tells one story of a small child born without functioning eyes yet, says the baby's grandmother, the child knows her, “sees” the family and objects through touch. Eagleman writes:
"Mother Nature can build new senses simply by building new peripherals. In other words, once Mother Nature (has) figured out the operating principles of the brain, she can tinker around with different sorts of input channels to pick up on different energy sources from the world."
Eagleman continues with other examples of this mental flexibility, such as new devices that take tactile cues and convert them into visual cognitions, helping along the plasticity of the mind. This can allow someone who is blind to engage in seeing. The mind has the capacity to redirect or rewire. In short, our minds can change.
But we can have a hand in creating that change as much as a device.
Dan Harris hosts the Ten Percent Happier podcast. He focused an episode on how distraction, left unchecked, can lead to anxiety and stress. The guest was Adam Gazzaley, a Professor of Neurology, Physiology and Psychiatry, who co-authored a book - "The Distracted Mind."
Gazzaley asserted that a societal focus to multitask, a growing attention-based economy, and a yearning for short-term pleasure can erode our mental well-being by fragmenting our attention and giving up our mental agency.
One way to address this, he says, is meditation as an exercise to reclaim that agency and better direct where we focus our precious attention.
So my sales pitch? That this flexibility of mind can be worked with and change is within our grasp. We can build new mental pathways that edit and rewrite the stories we tell ourselves.
As an aside - I like the notion of the mind as a storyteller. Steven Hayes, a clinical psychologist and professor, writes in his book "The Liberated Mind":
(the mind) is "constantly weaving a story about who we are, about how we compare to others, what others are thinking of us, and what we must do to ensure that we are OK."
We can be more participatory in that mind-story, in ways that can include meditative practices, building up a willingness to be mindful and talking through our relationship with emotions, thoughts and memories.
It's a good reminder when we're told that we're captive to a diagnosis or a character deficit.
Our self-stories are ever-changing, whether we participate in them or not. Why not be more involved in our personal evolution.
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