Neuroplasticity and Growth Mindset
Hello again, and thanks for coming back to this new post!
Today's topics are two very closely related concepts introduced in the past decade in psychology, medicine and education. Neuroplasticity and Growth Mindset are both key components of a growing movement looking for new ways to interpret life and human development in all its presentations. For this article, we will focus on how these two ideas affect our learning processes, and how we can use them to unlock in ourselve a potential we may have believed wasn't there at all.
To get us started, let's grab Neuroplasticity and clarify the term and its implications. The idea of the brain being able to change by being exposed to stimulation is not as new as we think, as early as the 1900s there were mentions of "neuronal plasticity", references that weren't too abundant until the term "neuroplasticity" was coined in 1948 by a Polish neuroscientist called Jerzy Konorski, to describe "changes in neuronal structure" observed in his studies. The term wouldn't be widely adopted until the 1960s. It was in this decade that it was found that the brain cells could rearrange themselves and change functionality after traumatic events, and not only that, the very structure of the brain could change too with this reconfiguration.
Much water has gone under the bridge since then, and now, many decades and research papers after the first mentions of the term, a wider, if not necessarily clearer, understanding has been achieved. So much so that now there are different interpretations of what Neuroplasticity is and its implications. There are those who consider it to be "one fundamental process that describes any change in final neural activity or behavioural response", while others call it "an unbrella term for a vast collection of different brain change and adaptation phenomena". Bringing it all together, the crux of the matter is: we have witnessed the brain's ability to change and restructure itself according to needs presented either by the persons use of their brain or sudden, traumatic events that necessitate an alteration to brain structure and functioning.
For us, by far, the most exciting portion of this discussion is the one that implies that our brains can grow and be trained according to intentions and practices set in place by ourselves, or perhaps our family circle or culture. Exploring this thought a bit further, we can compare our brain and its structure to a bonsai tree, which will grow in line with the training the gardener give it. Let's say we decide to train our mind on the path of linguistic skills, by learning Te Reo Maori, some of us may have already a small seed to begin with or even roots that will grow with each time we practice and any new word we learn, as well as some resources to learn from that can act as a soil amendment to support the growth of this part of our brain structure. The more effort, attention and intention we dedicate to adding to our Reo, the more our bonsai brain will grow and strengthen itself, until it has a thick trunk and strong branches. This is not necessarily a fast process, but if we have ever come accross a 30 year old bonsai, we can be sure it will be worth it.
Many of us may have grown in an environment that left no room for seeing our minds as a changing or changeable thing, it may well be that we were considered to be smart, strong, good at sports, creative or some other trait and identified with by our peers and elders, to the point that we believed that was all we were and could ever be; some of the time these traits we identified with were on the negative side of the spectrum, so we grew up idenfying ourselves with labels such as weak, dumb, lazy, useless or worse. And so, we may have had a limited perception of who we are and what we can become or achieve. With an undrestanding of Neuroplasticity and its implications, we can deliver ourselves from these mental shackles and reframe our sense of capability and even identity by setting our own definition of who we are and who we want to become. This doesn't mean we will be able to change every little part of ourselves overnight, or that whoever we are right now is not good enough; but, much like our bonsai analogy, with time and dedication we can guide ourselve to become what we want to day by day. This realisation, as simple as it seems, means everything to someone first engaging in a change in carreer, or a sudden event in their life that has turned every upside down; for as long as we are alive and willing, we have the ability to restart, recover and thrive in any situation.
How, then, do we use this new and exciting knowledge to prop ourselve upwards and onwards in our learning? The answer to that will always depend on our starting point and what we set our goals to be. From sleep to traveling and intermittent fasting, many practices and behaviours that we wouldn't necessarily associate with developing our brain, but for the purposes of this article we will explore one: Non-dominant hand exercises. Many of us may have tried, at least once, to brush our teeth with our other hand, maybe with the intention to become ambidextrous, or just to try something new; little did we know that by doing this simple (yet quite challenging) change in the way we do things, we can create new neural pathways and strengthen the connection between our brain cells. It also makes us more flexible and aware of unseen limitations to our ability to use or less dominant side of the body, allowing us to explore new ways to feel and relate with our bodies and minds. This in itself may not be a transformative experience (although for some of us it can be), but in conjunction with other practices, as well as our own everyday engagements, it may well build up to something new and exciting within ourselves.
There are many more practices and resources I found useful in exploring this topic. This video, and this article were specially great, so make sure to check them out!
Moving on to our second subject at hand, Growth Mindset can perhaps be described as a reframing of our perception of ourselves and our ability to change and evolve. Psychologist Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D. published in 2007 her book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, where she explores and describes the relationship between our systems of self-perception and our ability to transcend them and find new horizons of growth that our previous beliefs limited us from ever seeing, let alone reaching. The basic premise is not too different from the findings in the field of neuroplasticity, telling us that traits and skills can either be perceived as being set in stone (fixed mindset) and given to us from birth, or as a contiously changing and growing tree (growth mindset) that we can train, prune and support to become what we decide we want it to be. Within this framework, a person that grew up focusing on strengthening their body and reflexes to play Football as a career, can then retire at 33 years old and dedicate themselves to study Anthropology, Litearture, and performing arts, using the already acquired skills such as discipline, ability to work under pressure and quick decision-making and applying them to the training and exploration of their creativity and linguistic skills. It would be, in a way like grafting an orange tree branch into a full grown lemon-tree with the ability to support and sustain it.
If this information surprises and confronts your vision of yourself and the world around you, you are not alone. Myself included, many people, mainly in sectors adjacent or incumbent to education, have taken these findings to heart and started asking themselves: How does this change the way I go about my life? In my personal case, it has served as a strong reminder, and a sort of wake-up call, to challenge the way I talk to myslef about myself, to focus not only on the thoughts and feelings that reinforce my identification with struggles and perceived failures and, instead, allow the full picture to come into view, acknowledging both my challenges and shortcomings and my victories and strong points.
More than that, it has encouraged me to question myself about the type of person I want to embody and the kind of life I want to lead; I can now contrast this to my updated view of my person at the present and start charting a course towards my goals. A very useful part of this process is the gentle reminder that every day is a new opportunity to change in the direction I choose to, that small, incremental changes usually amount to much more than sudden and inconsisten bursts of energy that can dissolve into confusion. The importance of being present in the current moment, up to date with my state of being, becomes highlited then, as this improves my chances of navigating the process of growth I decided to embark myself upon. Mindfulness takes a key role, including meditation practice and journaling to be able to check and register where I am at different levels of my self.
There is so much more to discuss and find out about regarding growth mindset and how to work within this field. Please feel free to visit this article, literally riddled with useful tools or maybe take a 5 minute break to watch this great little video that I'm sure will help illustrate (pun intended) this better.