Let us imagine for a minute that we live in an area without any paved roads. Every time you walk, ride a bike or drive your car through an area, there becomes a small imprint of your track. If you take that same path every single day, eventually that imprint will become deeper and deeper. The deeper the markings of the path on the ground, the longer it will take for rain and erosion to level out the path again. If you want to add a turn to your path, that too would take time to have the new path connect seamlessly to the old path. This analogy can be translated to the concept of neuroplasticity.
Neuroplasticity is how the brain can establish new or modified neural networks or pathways. Neurons are information messengers that transmit information between the brain and the rest of the nervous system. So, in the previous analogy, neurons would be the person that went from point A to point B. Neurons are connected with other neurons to form an entire complex network. The human brain alone has approximately 86 billion neurons.
The neural networks that we have are a compilation of networks we are born with and networks that are switched on or modified as we go through life. The neural networks we are born with include all of the automatic bodily systems. All the other neural networks are ones that are created, modified, or destroyed based on our environment and learned experience (think of how the path can diminish or change routes through repeated use). Repeated signals can become so strong that they can become automatic. For example, learning to eat, driving a car, riding a bike, brushing our teeth, tying our shoes, etc. We were not born with the ability to complete these tasks with ease. It was our neural networks that established fluent communication to make these processes feel natural. When pathways do not have frequent communication, they die off. In most instances, cell death is normal and part of neuroplasticity and is a healthy part of development. In other cases, cell death may be related to a traumatic injury, disease, environmental toxins, etc.
Why this information is imperative for healing
Neuroplasticity allows us to heal from painful experiences, establish healthy patterns, learn, store memories, experience emotions, and adapt to life circumstances.
If you've ever felt like you "can't" do something, I want you to understand that you "can" do anything. You can train your brain and your body to do anything you set your mind to. There are countless success stories of people with a wide spectrum of issues, healing their bodies and brain every day. People with traumatic brain injuries, cognitive deficits, physical impairments, emotional trauma, etc, are healing their brains and forming new neurons that create desired outcomes.
If you've experienced childhood trauma, it is likely that many maladaptive patterns were formed thus creating unwanted pathways. These pathways may have been beneficial during the time of the trauma, however, once the trauma was over, they only caused stress and unhelpful symptoms. Oftentimes, the traumatized brain makes neural connections to aspects of your environment that it perceives as a threat. For example, if you were eating popcorn and watching a movie with your sibling when your sibling started choking on a grape, your brain would create a neural pathway that popcorn is dangerous even though the popcorn had nothing to do with the traumatic incident. The more time you spent avoiding popcorn because it made you feel scared, the more that pathway was reinforced- "popcorn equals something bad happening."
So, to correct all of these unwanted pathways that result from trauma, you re-wire the connections. So in the example of the "popcorn trigger", the non-chocking sibling would have to see, smell and taste popcorn in environments where nothing bad happens in order to rewire that network. Eventually, the original path destination would die off from lack of stimulation and a new, healthy and safe feeling pathway would be established.
To generalize this information to other aspects of your life, focus on creating repeated behaviors and experiences that you want to be reinforced and limit your behaviors and experiences to anything you don't want to be reinforced.
If you've experienced trauma, there are many therapeutic modalities to help in the rewiring process of the brain. Check out my previous posts on therapy, trauma, and the brain to learn more, and feel free to reach out if you have any questions.
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