'How I rewired my brain in six weeks' - BBC News
Summary
TLDRThis script explores the concept of neuroplasticity, the brain's ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections throughout life. The narrator embarks on a journey to understand and enhance this phenomenon, undergoing a six-week brain-altering course that includes daily meditation. The script details the narrator's experience with mindfulness to manage stress and its impact on brain structure, as evidenced by pre- and post-meditation brain scans. It also touches on the potential of neuroplasticity to delay degenerative diseases and heal psychological trauma, promising further insights into boosting this brain capacity in daily life.
Takeaways
- 🧠 The human brain has an incredible capacity for neuroplasticity, which is the ability to adapt and change its structure and function throughout life.
- 🌟 Neuroplasticity is not just limited to childhood but continues to be a significant force in shaping our identity and abilities into adulthood.
- 🧘 Mindfulness meditation is one way to harness neuroplasticity, as it can reduce stress and allow for more plastic changes to occur in the brain.
- 🧬 Neurons that fire together wire together, strengthening the connections between them, which is a fundamental aspect of learning and memory.
- 🧬 The brain's structure can change, with areas becoming denser or less dense, and this is influenced by our experiences and practices.
- 🧪 Scientific studies, including those using fMRI scans, have shown that mindfulness can lead to physical changes in the brain, such as a reduction in the volume of the amygdala, which is associated with stress and emotional processing.
- 🧠 The posterior singular cortex, involved in controlling mind wandering and rumination, can increase in size with mindfulness practice, indicating improved control over these mental processes.
- 🧘 The practice of mindfulness can buffer the effects of stress, allowing for more flexible attention and a greater capacity to manage challenging emotions.
- 🔍 The script highlights the importance of consistent input for neuroplasticity, suggesting that regular mindfulness practice can lead to significant and lasting changes in the brain.
- 🌱 The journey of understanding and enhancing neuroplasticity is ongoing, with more research needed to fully understand its potential for rehabilitation and personal development.
Q & A
What is neuroplasticity?
-Neuroplasticity is the brain's ability to change and reorganize itself by forming new neural connections throughout life. This process involves the brain's ability to adapt and learn from experiences, which is fundamental to learning and memory.
How does the brain change its structure due to neuroplasticity?
-The brain can change its structure by altering the connections between neurons. When neurons fire together, they strengthen their connections, which can lead to changes in the brain's functional networks and even the physical organization of brain areas.
What role does stress play in neuroplasticity?
-Stress can inhibit neuroplasticity. High levels of stress hormones like cortisol can be toxic to brain regions that are highly plastic. This can hinder the brain's ability to adapt and learn, especially in areas related to emotional processing.
How does mindfulness meditation affect the brain?
-Mindfulness meditation can reduce stress and increase neuroplasticity. By focusing on the present moment, it can help buffer stress and increase the brain's capacity for change, particularly in areas related to emotional regulation and attention.
What changes were observed in the narrator's brain after six weeks of meditation?
-After six weeks of meditation, the narrator's brain showed a decrease in the volume of the amygdala, which is associated with stress reduction, and an increase in the posterior singular cortex, which is related to controlling mind wandering and rumination.
What is the significance of the changes observed in the amygdala and posterior singular cortex?
-The changes observed in the amygdala suggest a reduction in stress levels, while the changes in the posterior singular cortex indicate increased control over mind wandering. These changes are significant as they demonstrate the brain's ability to adapt and improve its functions through mindfulness practice.
What is the defal mode network and how is it related to meditation?
-The default mode network is a set of brain regions that become active when the mind is not focused on the outside world. It is associated with mind wandering and self-referential thinking. Meditation, particularly mindfulness, can help regulate this network, reducing excessive mind wandering and promoting focus.
How does neuroplasticity relate to neurorehabilitation?
-Neuroplasticity is central to neurorehabilitation as it is the mechanism through which the brain can repair itself after injury or disease. By promoting neuroplasticity, therapies can help patients regain lost functions and adapt to new circumstances.
What are some ways to harness or boost neuroplasticity in daily life?
-In addition to mindfulness meditation, other ways to boost neuroplasticity include engaging in physical exercise, learning new skills, social interaction, and ensuring a healthy diet. These activities can stimulate the brain and promote its ability to adapt and change.
What is the potential long-term impact of boosting neuroplasticity?
-Boosting neuroplasticity can have long-term benefits such as delaying the onset of degenerative diseases like dementia, rewiring the brain after psychological trauma, and improving overall cognitive function and resilience.
Outlines
🧠 The Marvel of Neuroplasticity
The script introduces the concept of neuroplasticity, the brain's ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections throughout life. It emphasizes the brain's capacity to adapt, learn, and grow, which is crucial for human intelligence. The narrator, a science journalist, embarks on a journey to understand and potentially enhance neuroplasticity. The journey includes a visit to Royal Holloway University of London for a brain scan and an exploration of how mindfulness meditation can influence brain structure and function, particularly in stress management and emotional processing.
🧘♂️ Mindfulness and Its Impact on the Brain
This paragraph delves into the practice of mindfulness and its potential to enhance neuroplasticity by reducing stress. The narrator participates in a brain scan before and after a period of daily meditation to observe any changes. The script explains that stress can inhibit neuroplasticity, as high levels of cortisol can be toxic to brain regions. Mindfulness is presented as a tool to manage stress and promote a more flexible and aware state of mind, which can lead to physical changes in the brain, such as a reduction in the volume of the amygdala, a key area for emotional processing.
🌟 Harnessing Neuroplasticity Through Meditation
The final paragraph discusses the results of the narrator's brain scan after a six-week period of meditation. It reveals changes in the posterior singular cortex, which is associated with controlling mind wandering and rumination. The increase in the size of this region suggests improved control over these mental processes. The paragraph concludes with the idea that consistent meditation practice can lead to further enhancements in neuroplasticity, and the narrator considers the practical implications of integrating such practices into daily life.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Neuroplasticity
💡Adaptability
💡Mindfulness
💡Stress
💡Meditation
💡Amygdala
💡Posterior Singular Cortex
💡Default Mode Network (DMN)
💡Cortisol
💡Rehabilitation
Highlights
The human brain's incredible capacity to adapt, learn, and grow is due to neuroplasticity.
Neuroplasticity allows the brain to change its structure and function throughout life.
Mindfulness practices can induce neuroplastic rewiring, even after just a few weeks.
Reducing stress through mindfulness allows for more neuroplasticity to occur.
Neuroplasticity is a mechanism for the brain to repair itself.
Increasing neuroplasticity can delay degenerative diseases like dementia.
Meditation can rewire the brain after psychological trauma, suggesting trauma is not permanent.
The brain scan reveals changes in the brain's structure after a period of meditation.
Mindfulness can reduce the volume of the amygdala, associated with stress reduction.
Changes in the posterior singular cortex suggest increased control over mind wandering.
Consistent meditation practice can further boost neuroplasticity by reducing stress.
The brain is constantly changing and adapting, indicating the need for consistent input.
Neuroplasticity is not limited to youth but is a constant force in shaping who we are.
The brain's ability to change is a Dynamic process involving the entire brain.
Neuroplasticity plays a role in learning, memory, and the brain's functional networks.
Stress hormones like cortisol can inhibit neuroplasticity if levels remain high.
Mindfulness training can help manage stress and its impact on neuroplasticity.
The brain scan before and after meditation shows physical changes indicative of neuroplasticity.
Meditation can increase the size of brain regions associated with attention and control.
Transcripts
Modern Life the school run work hols
inflation remember your lines scientists
are carrying out pioneering research
whole okay the whole thing the whole
thing our brain never evolved for any of
this and yet here we are getting on with
it as best as we can and it's all thanks
to our brains incredible capacity to
adapt to learn to grow I'm on a journey
to understand the miracul ous plasticity
of the human brain the brain will even
change its structure the core the
architecture of the brain can change
this is
neuroplasticity once thought to be
limited to youth we now know it's a
constant force in shaping who we are
your mind can change the very substrate
of its own operations helping us to
learn adaptability this is one of the
most remarkable aspects of human
intelligence and I think plasticity is
the mechanism behind and to heal well
neuroplasticity actually is at the core
of a neuro Rehabilitation an active
field of study that's helping us to
understand how we became us as things
move forward we're going to see more and
more how much our motor ability actually
is tied to the way we think and feel and
I want to know whether there's anything
we can do to harness or boost
neuroplasticity in our daily lives on
this journey I'm going to give you three
hacks to help strengthen crucial
connections and keep our minds younger
in the
[Music]
process as a science journalist I've
always been fascinated by the workings
of the mind and today I've come to Royal
Holloway University of London to scan my
brain before embarking on a six week
brain altering
[Music]
course
[Music]
I'm just taking a moment to settle into
this posture this is Thorston barnhofer
professor of Clinical Psychology at sari
University he's currently running a
study on the effects of mindfulness in
managing stress and difficult emotions
he's also been looking into how
mindfulness changes the actual structure
of the brain itself showing signs of
this neuroplastic rewiring even after
just a few weeks
and what makes mindfulness especially
impactful is that by reducing stress it
allows even more plasticity to take
place but will it work on my brain we're
about to enter the fmri scanner to see
what my brain looks like from the inside
I'm getting my brain scan before and
after a period of doing just 30 minutes
of meditation a day hi Melissa how are
you yeah good so all you need to do is
just relax try to keep still and look at
the fixation cross okay and it'll last
for about 15 minutes right so that's
quite a long time but what exactly is
neuroplasticity plasticity is the
ability of the brain to change based on
stimuli that is given these are the
basis of learning a memory it's a really
Dynamic process that involves the whole
brain and something else really
fascinating that we've only learned
recently the brain will even change its
structure our brain is um constructed
from a billion of neurons and uh when
neurons fire together they it's called
wi together they become stronger and the
the connection between them is become
stronger these can change and shift a
lot more in the early years of life than
they can as we get older of course
they're still changeable later on and
that's really what we call brain
plasticity the ability of the brain to
keep reorganizing itself um throughout
the lifespan that affects the functional
networks uh in the brain and a
functional change will be what areas of
the brain are connected to what areas
there's also a structural part of
plasticity mainly changes in how the
areas are organized in the brain whether
areas are more dense or less dense well
neuroplasticity actually is the
mechanism through which the the the
brain repair itself and now there are
many ways to hardness and boost
plasticity in patients with neurological
disorders so neuroplasticity the brain
responding to change actually takes
place all the time but we have the power
to influence this to some extent too and
there's good reason to want to boost it
increasing studies suggest it can play a
role in delaying degenerative diseases
like dementia it can also help us to
rewire the brain after psychological
trauma meaning that trauma itself is not
permanent back back in the scanner I'm
shown a series of numbers and asked to
recall the preceding number to test my
working memory there will be other
processes underneath the working memory
process that get interesting um so mind
wandering will happen and if mind
wandering happens or it comes close to
it there will be a certain uh brain
system that becomes more
active mind wondering is something that
of course might be helpful uh in many
ways uh it might help us with creativity
but it's also something that can go arai
and this is where repetitive thinking
comes in where ruminative thinking comes
in where worry comes in and um those are
the factors which increase stress stress
hormones for example cortisol it will go
up and if levels of cortisol remain High
um that can actually become toxic for
your brain for regions of your brain
which are very plastic this shows that
stress amongst many other things is a
direct inhibitor of neuroplasticity so
as part of my first brain hack I'm
training myself to manage stress through
[Music]
mindfulness over the following 6 weeks
I'm going to spend time learning to be
as aware as possible to the present
moment and see what impact this has on
my brain so what mindfulness does is uh
it can buffer stress you become aware of
challenges those more woman attive
responses uh a tendency to worry we
can't take away the pain of uh any
stressful situation but uh there's a
sense of us being able to choose what
the next step is so the very first step
uh within this is to say yes let's come
back uh from this complexity to
something that is relatively simple and
stay with
that so finding this point where the
breath is most Vivid for you and then
following the breath moving into the
body and out of the
body I feel calmer
already but my mind was it's the idea to
not let your mind wander um so I was
thinking about like oh I need to send
that email I need to do this and I was
like okay no how interesting breathing
that's that's a really interesting
observation um so so first of all we we
can feel that actually as I'm doing this
I come to it with the intention to stay
with the breath uh to keep my attention
on the breath and actually what happens
uh this is just what the Mind does it
will wand off that tells you about the
working of the mind that's something
which is relevant so we can simply go
and say Ah that's what it is we come
back go back to the breath go back to
the breath so we do two things at the
same time if you like we're we're
strengthening our muscle for attention
for staying on the breath and we're
cultivating our capacity to come back to
be more flexible in our attention we're
also gaining insight into the working of
the mind because we're realizing ah this
has come
up after 6 weeks of meditation kindly
Guided by Thorston I did feel a lot
calmer but would this feeling show up as
a physical change in my brain we'll
see after another brain scan I went to
Sur University to find
out this is very exciting to see my
brain on the screen that's your brain
yes do you see any results in my brain
yes of course we we see changes uh in
the brain it's alive it always changes
I'm alive that's that's a good sign
that's a good sign and we have some
interesting uh uh changes uh that align
with what we see in the literature I'm a
sample size of only one of course yes
exactly so we need to be cautious for
all those who are scientifically minded
uh they wouldn't forgive us so what have
you found we looked at the amydala um
that's in light blue one of each in each
hemisphere and they are very important
for emotional processing and we see
change in that region particularly do
you see change yeah yeah it's amazing
yeah the ride uh amydala uh is reduced
in um
volume and that's what you would expect
as a stress reduction effect uh so it
gets bigger the more stressed we are um
it's uh increased in people suffering
from depression or anxiety disorders and
with mindfulness training we see that
reducing in volume and there's a hint of
that in in your data and I wasn't very
stressed to begin with but even so we we
see a tiny decrease which is I think
that's quite exciting exactly yeah but
that wasn't the only change he saw he
also found changes in my posterior
singular cortex a region involved in
controlling mind wandering and
rumination what was interesting to us
was that um we see an increase in the
posterior uh region of this and uh yes
in in the darker uh blue it's part of a
wider distributed Network in the brain
which is referred to as the defa mode uh
Network the system comes online when our
mind wanders and of course that's
something which is very Central to to
meditation and we have seen in previous
studies uh changes in this region and uh
that's exactly uh what we find in your
data also a small change in that uh
direction did it increase in size or
decrease uh it increased in size which
should be an indication of an increased
control so literally just by being
mindful I managed to increase a a part
of my brain that prevents my mind
wondering too much plasticity means that
there there's constant flux so we would
imagine that consistent input is needed
so it sounds like I need to continue
meditating and come back and see you in
a year and then we'll see some really
significant things we would recommend
yes it's amazing to think that after
just 6 weeks of meditation there was a
visible change in my brain and that
through repeated practice I could
further boost neuroplasticity by
reducing
stress that said I realized we don't all
have access to metaphorical Sicilian
mountainscapes to meditate
on and in real life carving out this
additional time can be
tricky minut one minute so in the
following episodes we'll be looking at
other ways to harness and boost
plasticity
okay
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