Neuroplasty & Creativity - our natural abilities!

Neuroplasticity & Creativity– our natural abilities!

Youthful Living with Dr Arien van der Merwe

Neuroplasticity is all about the incredible ability of our brains to adapt to situations.

We tend to think of our brains as static and unchangeable, but nothing could be further from the truth. Your brain is malleable like clay and the most exercise-able body part you have. You can learn to retrain and rewire your brain to serve you rather than hold you back – teaching an ‘old dog’ new tricks, so to speak, and realising all of your potential.

Our brain never ever stops learning, developing and changing because it constantly optimises itself, reorganising itself by transferring cognitive abilities from one lobe to the other, particularly as we age. Ultimately, you and your mind are the architect of your brain. When you change your beliefs, learn something new or become mindful of your habitual reactions to unpleasant emotions, you actually alter the neurochemistry and the structure of your brain.

Neuroplasticity defined Neuroplasticity is the brain's inherent ability to form new neural connections throughout life, allowing the nerve cells in the brain and body to compensate for injury and disease while adjusting

their activities in response to new situations or to changes in their environment, leading to changes in behaviour, thinking and emotions.

Neuroplasticity makes your brain extremely resilient and is the process by which all permanent learning takes place, such as learning to walk, drive, playing a musical instrument or mastering a different language. Neuroplasticity also enables people to recover from stroke, injury and birth abnormalities, overcome autism, ADHD, learning disabilities and other brain challenges, heal depression and addictions and reverse obsessive compulsive patterns.

Use it or lose it Similar to resistance training and physical exercise building muscles, nerve cells in the brain are growing and cross linking with other neurons for better communication, through mental exercise and continuous learning. For new manifestations, new beliefs and attitudes – not rehashing old, often negative memories and traumatic experiences from the past and projecting these into the future – we have to retrain and refire our brains, change out of our comfort zones of neural networks stuck in old grooves (those that can still remember LP’s) to create a new physical reality for ourselves and to evolve into all we’re meant to be.

Click on the newspaper below to read more. (see page 11).