Ever been told you need to change your outlook,
or adopt a more ‘resilient mind-set’? Are mindsets even real, or are they just psychobabble?
According to brain plasticity experts, mindsets
are real and the result of the interaction between our environment, nervous
system and DNA. A mind-set is actually a group of neurological mind-maps that
we create to perform a task, or respond to input coming from the senses.
Resilience has become a buzzword for a group of
behaviours that enable an individual to withstand, or recover quickly from,
adversity or adapt to changed conditions. Much attention has been paid by researchers to the
study of individuals who demonstrate a resilient mind-set in the face of
trauma, in the hope that a model of resilience can be developed and taught.
In my research into the interaction between
behaviour, our DNA, and the environment, I was drawn to the work of
neuro-plasticians (scientists who study the brain’s ability to change itself)
like Edward Taub and Michael Merzenich,[i]1 whose work is complementary to that
of quantum biologists Pjotr Gariaev and Vladimir Popponin.
While quantum biologists, Gariaev and Popponin,
investigate how environmental mechanisms switch DNA on or off, Taub and
Merzenich have dedicated their lives to understanding how the nervous system
responds to signals from the environment, learns new skills, and develops
habits. Their research
reveals a dynamic neurological process where the mind creates maps for how it
responds to signals coming from the senses, and then recreates them on demand.
What do we use Mindmaps for?
There are maps for everything we do, hear, see,
feel, taste and smell. These maps contain the precise sequence and location of
neurones (cells) in the brain as they are fired. The more we are exposed to
something, and respond in a similar way, the more defined and refined these
maps become, and the more of our brain the map owns. We have maps for walking, for
holding a ball or gripping a cup, and we have maps for our emotions, for what
triggers feelings of love, sadness, fear, anger or arousal.
Being aware of how our behaviour is laid down
in our nervous system by repetition and reward allows us to decide if a
particular mind-set is productive.
Mindsets are literally groups of associated
neurological mind-maps that work together, or fire together. There is a saying
in brain plasticity that says: ‘neurones that fire together, wire together’ and
‘neurones that fire apart, wire apart.’[ii]
This grouping of mind-maps doesn’t just apply
to physical responses, but to the secretion of brain chemicals that underpin
emotion. Our brain maps our experience by creating 3D, holographic,
topographical maps and then storing these throughout our cells, from the brain
stem and spinal cord, down into the peripheral nerves themselves.
When a situation resembles an aspect of a past
experience, this triggers the projection of the 3D mind-map almost
instantaneously, and causes neurones to fire in a precise sequence, making our
response feel automatic or unconscious. Every time we relive an experience, we
add detail to, or amend information in the map, literally re-writing our past.3 The brain then links experiences to deepen and add detail to mind-maps, making them more refined and
complex.
Overcoming Damaging Mindmaps
Sometimes, however, circumstances in the
environment change so swiftly that our mind-maps are no longer appropriate.
It therefore follows that someone who is good
at playing piano will have a bigger map for the movement of their fingers and
hands than a soccer player. While the soccer player would have more of their
brain devoted to the nuances of moving the body, legs and feet than would the
pianist.
Mind maps draw on abilities we have inherited
from our parents that are the best fit for a particular experience or stimulus
coming from our environment. This explains why we can carry a gene for
depression and anxiety, but if we do not experience sustained bullying or
trauma as a child, this gene may not be called on. Meanwhile if we are taught
functional ways to handle aggression and conflict, these skills will instead become
the basis of a mind map that gives us an evolutionary advantage for survival
and thus reproduction, and may then be naturally selected for over the
generations in preference to humans with the older code.[iii]
If this mind map is reinforced over and over again
by practice and experience, there is a good chance it will be laid down in the
DNA as an alternative code, which can be passed onto future generations. A
parent who copes well with conflict and aggression is also more likely to teach
these skills to their offspring, further reinforcing the resilient behaviour.
Over multiple generations, this reinforcing of a healthy response to aggression
and conflict may lead to a dominant trait in descendants that predispose them
to resilience.
This brilliant, new research over-turns both
the ‘dominance of the gene’ and ‘brain localisation’ theories, proving the
dynamic interplay between genetic material and our experience of the world
through our senses.
Developing Resilience
Resilient individuals can be said to have
highly functional maps that provide a strong pattern for the nervous system to
rely upon, as well as the ability to be able to break these maps down when they
are no longer useful and replace them with better response maps.
Positively charged emotions like gratitude,
love, acceptance and joy produce dopamine and endorphins that help lay down new
mind-maps, as well as oxytocin that helps dissolve the old mind-maps being
replaced. This explains why it is only at the point of acceptance in the cycle
of grieving that individuals are able to finally let go of what was lost and
move on. Acceptance promotes the production of the very brain chemical that
melts away old mind-maps and allows new mind-maps to supersede them.[iv]
Experiencing a reward for new behaviour also
triggers more dopamine, helping to reinforce connections between neurones,
strengthening a new map. Fear, on the other hand, shuts down the nervous system
and DNA expression, leaving us with only the most primitive maps to fall back
on.
This explains why fear and anxiety can render
us speechless and unable to respond. Soldiers are trained to overcome this
through the repetition of skills under extreme pressure, and through receiving
rewards for the desired, resilient behaviour.6 Even soldiers, when exposed repeatedly
to stress and trauma, may experience post-traumatic stress symptoms and be
overwhelmed by fear, rage or depression.
The amazing thing about mind-maps is that they
are three dimensional, and stored holographically within the nervous system and
DNA. But even more amazingly, they are plastic and highly susceptible to
change. This new
evidence is transforming the way medicine rehabilitates stroke victims and
brain injury patients, leading to a virtual rewiring of damaged brains around
dead cells. The key to this new model of rehabilitation is to re-learn skills
for the damaged limb, motor skill or brain function as if for the first time,
step-by-step, like a baby, and by providing a reward for each incremental
improvement.[v]
In this way, some patients with catastrophic
damage have regained almost full function of motor-skills, despite a prognosis
they would never recover.[vi]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Elisabetta is the author of the best-selling non-fiction book - The Energy Code.
She is also the author of The Infidel, Veritas and Nemesis and was the librettist for the musical - D'Arc, The Legend of Saint Joan.
Elisabetta works as a consultant to government organisations, entrepreneurs and NGOs on innovation, change management and talent retention.
Learn more about Elisabetta at:
[i]
M. M. Merzenich, 2001, Cortical plasticity contributing to
childhood devSiegler, eds. Mechanisms of
Cognitive
Development: Behavioural and Neural
Perspectives. Mahwah,
N.J: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, p68.
[ii]
Norman Doidge, MD, The Brain
that Changes itself, Scribe,
Melbourne 2010
[iii]
Ibid.
[iv]
4 Sugden, Karen, Kings College
Bullying Study, Kings College
2010, London
[v]
Ramachandran, V.S, The
Tell-Tale Brain, 2010
[vi]
Doidge Opcit, p119
