Optimize Your Brain For the New Year
Got your New Year's Resolutions formulated yet? Neither do I, but they are going to be similar to what I have been doing for the last several years anyway, which is to continue to develop another income doing something I am fascinated by, learning how to build an online business, so that I can have the freedom to do what I am already doing, earning a living following my interests.
I have been following a path of personal growth for a long time, about 30 years, and I believe I am more aware of the internal factors that impact my decisions than ever before, which doesn't always translate into decisions that an outside observer would see as wise.
However, I believe that it translates into wisdom at the personal level.
More and more I opt to create a feeling of contentment inside my body, which is based on what I think only.
So I have to pay attention to my thinking.
The followers of AA might call that serenity, students of Mihalyi Czikszentmihalyi (SP?) might call that flow, my Chi Gong master might call it energy conservation, Judith Beck might say I am dealing very effectively with my automatic thoughts, the HeartMath folks would say you have created great heart rate variability coherence, (which I can do) and what life is teaching me slowly is that I can create this physiology based on how I think, which is never contingent on what I have or do not have, and I can create that 'feel good' anytime I want.
So it would appear that whatever I resolve for the new year, I need to optimize my brain so that I can make quick adjustments back to the "attitude of gratitude" or high heart rate variability coherence or both for example.
So can you optimize your brain to aid and abet the feeling-of-contentment process? Can an optimized brain help you make wise choices in the business and personal realms, wiser decisions of the heart and pocket book? I believe so.
And the scientists are agreeing.
They have discovered something called neurogenesis and neuroplasticity which overthrew decades if not centuries of neuroscientific dogma.
By the way, neurogenesis is the growth of new brain cells and neuroplasticity is changes in patterns of usage of neurons.
For example, learning to type or play piano changes the size of maps of neurons dedicated to the use of your fingers in the sensory moter cortex, for example.
Stimulating neurogenesis and neuroplasticity are wonderful resolutions in and of themselves, and that stimulation will be a key piece of any change you make, any resolution you keep, because your brain is a key player in sustaining attention on new habits, which is what goals and resolutions are before they become habits.
Old habits are actually brain maps, which have to be re-written or overwritten, and they assert themselves in me by leaving me feeling disconcerted, disoriented, which requires a difficult switch of attention from external to internal until I get back to the new brain pattern.
If you want to lose weight, change a job, earn more money, the brain you have and patterns of behavior (habits) stored in it will require a bit more attention initially and practicing any of a number of available brain optimization programs will give the needed attentional skills to deal with a thought or habit which you want to change right away.
If you have ever done EEG brainwave biofeedback, or HeartMath heart rate variability biofeedback, then you understand that you can train your brain to cycle in a particular frequency which might be measured in cycles per second, or heart beats per minute for HeartMath.
I think peak performance should be taught in small increments, like cycles per second, or heart beats per minute.
It takes only an 1/18th second to perceive and interpret sensory data, and I can change the course of my life in that short amount of time.
Using brain fitness tools helps me have a brain platform that optimized for movement in a direction helpful to me and the other humans around me.
Which brings to mind what Steve Pavlina says about resolutions.
"In reality you are never in the past or future.
You exist only in the present moment.
Even when you remember the past or envision the future, you're still thinking those thoughts in the present.
All you really have is right now.
And that's all you ever will have.
You can't control the passage of time, but you can control your present moments focus.
That's all.
No past.
No future.
Just now.
"
I have been following a path of personal growth for a long time, about 30 years, and I believe I am more aware of the internal factors that impact my decisions than ever before, which doesn't always translate into decisions that an outside observer would see as wise.
However, I believe that it translates into wisdom at the personal level.
More and more I opt to create a feeling of contentment inside my body, which is based on what I think only.
So I have to pay attention to my thinking.
The followers of AA might call that serenity, students of Mihalyi Czikszentmihalyi (SP?) might call that flow, my Chi Gong master might call it energy conservation, Judith Beck might say I am dealing very effectively with my automatic thoughts, the HeartMath folks would say you have created great heart rate variability coherence, (which I can do) and what life is teaching me slowly is that I can create this physiology based on how I think, which is never contingent on what I have or do not have, and I can create that 'feel good' anytime I want.
So it would appear that whatever I resolve for the new year, I need to optimize my brain so that I can make quick adjustments back to the "attitude of gratitude" or high heart rate variability coherence or both for example.
So can you optimize your brain to aid and abet the feeling-of-contentment process? Can an optimized brain help you make wise choices in the business and personal realms, wiser decisions of the heart and pocket book? I believe so.
And the scientists are agreeing.
They have discovered something called neurogenesis and neuroplasticity which overthrew decades if not centuries of neuroscientific dogma.
By the way, neurogenesis is the growth of new brain cells and neuroplasticity is changes in patterns of usage of neurons.
For example, learning to type or play piano changes the size of maps of neurons dedicated to the use of your fingers in the sensory moter cortex, for example.
Stimulating neurogenesis and neuroplasticity are wonderful resolutions in and of themselves, and that stimulation will be a key piece of any change you make, any resolution you keep, because your brain is a key player in sustaining attention on new habits, which is what goals and resolutions are before they become habits.
Old habits are actually brain maps, which have to be re-written or overwritten, and they assert themselves in me by leaving me feeling disconcerted, disoriented, which requires a difficult switch of attention from external to internal until I get back to the new brain pattern.
If you want to lose weight, change a job, earn more money, the brain you have and patterns of behavior (habits) stored in it will require a bit more attention initially and practicing any of a number of available brain optimization programs will give the needed attentional skills to deal with a thought or habit which you want to change right away.
If you have ever done EEG brainwave biofeedback, or HeartMath heart rate variability biofeedback, then you understand that you can train your brain to cycle in a particular frequency which might be measured in cycles per second, or heart beats per minute for HeartMath.
I think peak performance should be taught in small increments, like cycles per second, or heart beats per minute.
It takes only an 1/18th second to perceive and interpret sensory data, and I can change the course of my life in that short amount of time.
Using brain fitness tools helps me have a brain platform that optimized for movement in a direction helpful to me and the other humans around me.
Which brings to mind what Steve Pavlina says about resolutions.
"In reality you are never in the past or future.
You exist only in the present moment.
Even when you remember the past or envision the future, you're still thinking those thoughts in the present.
All you really have is right now.
And that's all you ever will have.
You can't control the passage of time, but you can control your present moments focus.
That's all.
No past.
No future.
Just now.
"
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