Recently, I've spent some time looking at habit change and the way that neurological mindmaps are formed. Mindmaps bring together all the ingredients of a habit, and do so in such a seamless, almost instantaneous way that it can make our habits appear automatic.
In this blog, I would like to share what I've learned about how we can support ourselves and the people we care about to shift unwanted, or unhealthy behaviours.
Mindmaps create physiological responses in the body that reinforce behaviour, creating a feedback loop that interacts with our environment and our DNA to lock in behaviours, even the unwanted ones.
This creates the illusion that our habits are entrenched, beyond our control and inflexible, when really any habit is like a track in the snow we have walked along many times. We could walk outside the track, but it feels easier to walk within the track, it's familiar and well trodden, whereas walking outside the track feels more difficult and unfamiliar. The more we walk along the track, the more likely we are to walk down it again. However, we can walk outside of the track, and the more we chose another path, the more familiar it becomes and the easier it feels.
The illusion that our habits are fixed leads many of us to think we cannot change, that our habits are beyond our control and that we are slaves to them. Regardless of whether a habit is a repetitive ritual, like hand-washing, or checking the locks in your house over and over, or the habit is co-dependent like tobacco, drug or alcohol addiction, over-eating, gambling, over-exercising, gossip mongering, or sex-addiction, all habits have mindmaps, and most have several that link together.
We are all the product of our mindmap driven habits. When I consult to government and industry, and conduct 360 degree profiling, over and over again I see the same patterns. Those who invest their time and energy in health sustaining habits and optimism look 10 to 20 years younger and are 10 to 20 years younger biologically than people of the same age who invest their time and energy in health-depriving habits and negativity. We are the products of what we think, say and do. It shows up in each and every one of our cells, activating the latent potential in our DNA.
For example, alcohol and drug use have been shown in recent studies to change the way the brain assesses risk and handles impulses. The more often we drink, or the more we drink, the more we shut down our ability to assess risk or manage our impulses, and the more we fire up the area of our brain that seeks short term gratification (Researchers Link Alcohol-Dependence Impulsivity to Brain Anomalies ScienceDaily Apr. 15, 2011 / Impulse Control Area In Brain Affected In Teens With Genetic Vulnerability For Alcoholism ScienceDaily Nov. 7, 2008)
At the end of this article I've included a report from Science Daily of a study that identified the brain area responsible for impulsive behaviour, and how impulse control is implicated in many behavioural anomalies including ADHD, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Alcoholism, Substance Abuse, Binge Eating, Gambling to name just a few. It's an interesting study and shows just how far we have come in understanding the mechanisms behind behaviour.
Impulsive behaviour is now understood to be a brain function issue; too many neurons in a particular area of the brain fire, while the problem solving area of the brain is shut down. In some individuals this triggers the activation of genes for anxiety, alcoholism, depression or violence. However, when this area of the brain is not stimulated these genes are not expressed. This is how someone with an impulse driven behaviour can appear to be two different people, depending on whether they are engaging in the impulsive behaviour or not.
The mindmap for impulsivity is now understood, and can be mapped. What is exciting is that because it is a mindmap, and not a personality trait, it can be changed. The brain's own inherent flexibility can be called upon to learn, repeat and perfect an alternative behaviour to replace the negative, impulsive behaviour, which in turn makes the associated, destructive genes dormant again.
So what does this mean for you and I? Well it means we are not the slaves of our behaviour. And even our most negative habits are not out of our control. It means that if we choose to create a different track in the snow to walk along, and take that path as often as we can, eventually it will have a stronger, richer, more dominant mindmap than the old path. This means that newer, more desirable habits do have a chance.
I think this is why it usually takes people several attempts to quit smoking, stop drinking or abusing substances. Each time they try a new track, they are creating a new set of mindmaps. When stress or environmental factors in their life draws them back to the old path, friends and family lament and fear that all the time spent creating good habits has been lost. But that's not the case. The newer path is still there, and if it felt good to walk that path even for a little while, the memory of that feeling will at some time in the future tempt the individual to try it again.
Each time the path of the new habit is attempted, it gets stronger. What we know is that if reward is associated with a behaviour, it is reinforced, so positive reinforcement will do more to draw a person back to a good habit than punishment will. Eventually the new behaviour will have a strong enough pull, and have enough positive associations to become dominant, so that even if an individual is drawn back to an old behaviour for a time, they are less likely to be stuck in the behaviour, because they know they have a choice, and they know what that feels like - they have a mindmap for an alternative life.
That being said, the longer an individual can stick to a new behaviour, the better. Returning to old, destructive behaviours can have disastrous effects. Even a short period of impulsivity due to substance abuse or gambling can shatter someone's life.
At the very least impulsivity affects an individual's performance, at home and at work. Addressing our destructive habits gives us the best chance to live consciously and end up with the things and events in our life that we desire. Turning up each day with a full, positively charged bucket of energy is a decision, not a fluke. It requires us to make conscious choices about what we consume, do and think, the mindmaps we fire up and those we shut down.
It requires us to choose which path we will walk down today...
Brain's Impulse Control Center Located
ScienceDaily (Oct. 14, 2010) — Impulsive behaviour can be improved with training and the improvement is marked by specific brain changes, according to a new Queen's University study.
A research team led by neuroscience PhD student Scott Hayton has pinpointed the area of the brain that controls impulsive behaviour and the mechanisms that affect how impulsive behaviour is learned. The findings could have a significant impact on the diagnosis and treatment of several disorders and addictions, including ADHD and alcoholism.
"In the classroom, kids often blurt out answers before they raise their hand. With time, they learn to hold their tongue and put up their hand until the teacher calls them. We wanted to know how this type of learning occurs in the brain," says Mr. Hayton, a PhD student at the Centre for Neuroscience Studies at Queen's. "Our research basically told us where the memory for this type of inhibition is in the brain, and how it is encoded."
The team trained rats to control impulsive responses until a signal was presented. Electrical signals between cells in the brain's frontal lobe grew stronger as they learned to control their impulses. This showed that impulsivity is represented, in a specific brain region, by a change in communication between neurons.
Impulsivity is often thought of as a personality trait, something that makes one person different from another.
Children who have difficulty learning to control a response often have behavioural problems which continue into adulthood, says Professor Cella Olmstead, the principal investigator on the study. She notes that impulsivity is a primary feature of many disorders including addiction, ADHD, obsessive compulsive disorder and gambling. Identifying the brain region and mechanism that controls impulsivity is a critical step in the diagnosis and treatment of these conditions.
"In conditions where learning does not occur properly, it is possible that it is this mechanism that has been impaired," adds co-investigator neuroscience Professor Eric Dumont.
The findings were recently published in The Journal of Neuroscience.
Journal Reference:
1. S. J. Hayton, M. Lovett-Barron, E. C. Dumont, M. C. Olmstead. Target-Specific Encoding of Response Inhibition: Increased Contribution of AMPA to NMDA Receptors at Excitatory Synapses in the Prefrontal Cortex. Journal of Neuroscience, 2010; 30 (34): 11493 DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1550-10.2010
In this blog, I would like to share what I've learned about how we can support ourselves and the people we care about to shift unwanted, or unhealthy behaviours.
Mindmaps create physiological responses in the body that reinforce behaviour, creating a feedback loop that interacts with our environment and our DNA to lock in behaviours, even the unwanted ones.
This creates the illusion that our habits are entrenched, beyond our control and inflexible, when really any habit is like a track in the snow we have walked along many times. We could walk outside the track, but it feels easier to walk within the track, it's familiar and well trodden, whereas walking outside the track feels more difficult and unfamiliar. The more we walk along the track, the more likely we are to walk down it again. However, we can walk outside of the track, and the more we chose another path, the more familiar it becomes and the easier it feels.
The illusion that our habits are fixed leads many of us to think we cannot change, that our habits are beyond our control and that we are slaves to them. Regardless of whether a habit is a repetitive ritual, like hand-washing, or checking the locks in your house over and over, or the habit is co-dependent like tobacco, drug or alcohol addiction, over-eating, gambling, over-exercising, gossip mongering, or sex-addiction, all habits have mindmaps, and most have several that link together.
We are all the product of our mindmap driven habits. When I consult to government and industry, and conduct 360 degree profiling, over and over again I see the same patterns. Those who invest their time and energy in health sustaining habits and optimism look 10 to 20 years younger and are 10 to 20 years younger biologically than people of the same age who invest their time and energy in health-depriving habits and negativity. We are the products of what we think, say and do. It shows up in each and every one of our cells, activating the latent potential in our DNA.
For example, alcohol and drug use have been shown in recent studies to change the way the brain assesses risk and handles impulses. The more often we drink, or the more we drink, the more we shut down our ability to assess risk or manage our impulses, and the more we fire up the area of our brain that seeks short term gratification (Researchers Link Alcohol-Dependence Impulsivity to Brain Anomalies ScienceDaily Apr. 15, 2011 / Impulse Control Area In Brain Affected In Teens With Genetic Vulnerability For Alcoholism ScienceDaily Nov. 7, 2008)
At the end of this article I've included a report from Science Daily of a study that identified the brain area responsible for impulsive behaviour, and how impulse control is implicated in many behavioural anomalies including ADHD, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Alcoholism, Substance Abuse, Binge Eating, Gambling to name just a few. It's an interesting study and shows just how far we have come in understanding the mechanisms behind behaviour.
Impulsive behaviour is now understood to be a brain function issue; too many neurons in a particular area of the brain fire, while the problem solving area of the brain is shut down. In some individuals this triggers the activation of genes for anxiety, alcoholism, depression or violence. However, when this area of the brain is not stimulated these genes are not expressed. This is how someone with an impulse driven behaviour can appear to be two different people, depending on whether they are engaging in the impulsive behaviour or not.
The mindmap for impulsivity is now understood, and can be mapped. What is exciting is that because it is a mindmap, and not a personality trait, it can be changed. The brain's own inherent flexibility can be called upon to learn, repeat and perfect an alternative behaviour to replace the negative, impulsive behaviour, which in turn makes the associated, destructive genes dormant again.
So what does this mean for you and I? Well it means we are not the slaves of our behaviour. And even our most negative habits are not out of our control. It means that if we choose to create a different track in the snow to walk along, and take that path as often as we can, eventually it will have a stronger, richer, more dominant mindmap than the old path. This means that newer, more desirable habits do have a chance.
I think this is why it usually takes people several attempts to quit smoking, stop drinking or abusing substances. Each time they try a new track, they are creating a new set of mindmaps. When stress or environmental factors in their life draws them back to the old path, friends and family lament and fear that all the time spent creating good habits has been lost. But that's not the case. The newer path is still there, and if it felt good to walk that path even for a little while, the memory of that feeling will at some time in the future tempt the individual to try it again.
Each time the path of the new habit is attempted, it gets stronger. What we know is that if reward is associated with a behaviour, it is reinforced, so positive reinforcement will do more to draw a person back to a good habit than punishment will. Eventually the new behaviour will have a strong enough pull, and have enough positive associations to become dominant, so that even if an individual is drawn back to an old behaviour for a time, they are less likely to be stuck in the behaviour, because they know they have a choice, and they know what that feels like - they have a mindmap for an alternative life.
That being said, the longer an individual can stick to a new behaviour, the better. Returning to old, destructive behaviours can have disastrous effects. Even a short period of impulsivity due to substance abuse or gambling can shatter someone's life.
At the very least impulsivity affects an individual's performance, at home and at work. Addressing our destructive habits gives us the best chance to live consciously and end up with the things and events in our life that we desire. Turning up each day with a full, positively charged bucket of energy is a decision, not a fluke. It requires us to make conscious choices about what we consume, do and think, the mindmaps we fire up and those we shut down.
It requires us to choose which path we will walk down today...
Brain's Impulse Control Center Located
ScienceDaily (Oct. 14, 2010) — Impulsive behaviour can be improved with training and the improvement is marked by specific brain changes, according to a new Queen's University study.
A research team led by neuroscience PhD student Scott Hayton has pinpointed the area of the brain that controls impulsive behaviour and the mechanisms that affect how impulsive behaviour is learned. The findings could have a significant impact on the diagnosis and treatment of several disorders and addictions, including ADHD and alcoholism.
"In the classroom, kids often blurt out answers before they raise their hand. With time, they learn to hold their tongue and put up their hand until the teacher calls them. We wanted to know how this type of learning occurs in the brain," says Mr. Hayton, a PhD student at the Centre for Neuroscience Studies at Queen's. "Our research basically told us where the memory for this type of inhibition is in the brain, and how it is encoded."
The team trained rats to control impulsive responses until a signal was presented. Electrical signals between cells in the brain's frontal lobe grew stronger as they learned to control their impulses. This showed that impulsivity is represented, in a specific brain region, by a change in communication between neurons.
Impulsivity is often thought of as a personality trait, something that makes one person different from another.
Children who have difficulty learning to control a response often have behavioural problems which continue into adulthood, says Professor Cella Olmstead, the principal investigator on the study. She notes that impulsivity is a primary feature of many disorders including addiction, ADHD, obsessive compulsive disorder and gambling. Identifying the brain region and mechanism that controls impulsivity is a critical step in the diagnosis and treatment of these conditions.
"In conditions where learning does not occur properly, it is possible that it is this mechanism that has been impaired," adds co-investigator neuroscience Professor Eric Dumont.
The findings were recently published in The Journal of Neuroscience.
Journal Reference:
1. S. J. Hayton, M. Lovett-Barron, E. C. Dumont, M. C. Olmstead. Target-Specific Encoding of Response Inhibition: Increased Contribution of AMPA to NMDA Receptors at Excitatory Synapses in the Prefrontal Cortex. Journal of Neuroscience, 2010; 30 (34): 11493 DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1550-10.2010
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