You can change your mind

Category : General advice, Philosophy 9th February 2015

Inside Yoga 129 (9/2/15)

There is a form of science that is making waves and changes to way we think about our brain and the things it can do. The science is called neuroplasticity and one of its leading pioneers, Norman Doidge, has just published a new book on this fascinating field of discovery.

For centuries, the Buddhists and yogis have been training their minds to do so many wonderful things, and I recall many years ago being told that we only use 10 per cent of our brain, imagine what we could do if we tapped into the other 90 per cent?

Last Sunday’s Observer newspaper has an interesting interview with Doidge, who according to the paper is, if not the inventor, then at least the populariser of a brand new science.

The article reported that “this science called neuroplasticity has developed from a growing understanding that the human brain – for centuries thought a fairly fixed and unregenerative organ that, if injured or diseased, is subject to only very limited recovery – is in fact capable of much more significant self-repair and healing. Not only that, but much of the healing – for conditions that range from Parkinson’s disease, to autism, to stroke, to traumatic head injury – can be stimulated by conscious habits of thought and action, by teaching the brain to ‘rewire itself’.”

Doidge’s first book, ‘The Brain That Changes Itself’, described how the principle of such healing – of the plastic brain – was becoming established fact in the laboratory through a greater understanding of ways in which circuits of neurons functioned and were created by thought. And his new book, ‘The Brain’s Way of Healing’, takes those findings to the next logical stage. He goes in search of cures and recoveries that either derive from or support that shift in thinking.

As a student of yoga and Buddhism for 20 years I have come to believe in and respect the power that our brain has and what it can do, and much of what neuroplasticity is discovering is found in these ancient Eastern practises. Doidge talks about this in the interview, he explains after his first book: “I had come to the conclusion that many of the claims that eastern medicine was making, which led to a lot of eye-rolling among western doctors, had at least to be re-examined in the light of neuroplasticity. By the time I had finished ‘The Brain That Changes Itself’, there were significant studies, which no one disputes, which show major changes in the structure of the brain of Tibetan monks, for example, brought about through the practice of meditation. I suppose it is not really a hard sell once you have grasped that the brain is plastic, that someone who has spent 30,000 hours meditating might actually have changed the structure of their brain. I mean, a London taxi driver can change his brain by studying routes through the city for a year or two.”

If it seems amazing, Doidge would perhaps agree, as he says: “I still have to pinch myself about what is possible. Having been educated in the period in which belief in the doctrine of the unchanging brain was mainstream, still when I hear about some person who has had brain damage or some other problem I find that my heart sinks. But I also realise that mainstream reaction is not adequate. We really do not know what a particular person will be able to do until we attempt some of these interventions.”

Anything is possible perhaps? Sounds like new age ramblings? He says: “I would listen and people would be saying “energy this” and “energy that”. We have to know that we are not talking in some kind of magical way.”

He adds, “All the energies I describe can be easily defined and measured in western terms. The thing is, there are no lights, colours, smells or sounds inside the brain. There are patterns of electrical information and our sense receptors, our retinas, the cochlea in the ear are, in energy terms, transducers. Meaning that what they do is translate one form of energy – sound, light, heat – into another. It is the latter – electrical patterns of energy in the brain – that in one way or another help or cause the brain to sculpt itself, neuroplastically. Somehow or other, thought itself can do that work. It became apparent that this link between mind, brain and energy really is central to who we are and what we do.”

Neuroplasticity is changing the world we think we understand, as Doidge says: “We don’t know the limits…The whole idea of the patient as the passive recipient of medical intervention would be overturned. With learning disorders, for example, a tremendous amount of human suffering could be avoided if schools did some very simple assessments and gave children some of the very simple interventions that I describe in the two books when they are very young.” He goes on to say: “Too many of our interventions are based on looking at symptoms and not nearly enough on what we might call pathogenesis – underlying causes.”

And if you are now reading this with a sense of wonder, you are not the only one, as Doidge admits: “the real scientist begins not with a particular task but a sense of wonder at how the world works. I became comfortable with wonder – it triggers curiosity and pulls you towards it, but it triggers anxiety at the same time because you don’t know what is behind it. I have tried to explain over and over again how mind changes brain structure and function but nobody alive has yet properly defined mind and no one has explained properly how so-called ethereal thought can change so-called material structure. The whole subject is filled with wonder.”

To read the interview, go to Observer Review Sunday February 8, or click on http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/feb/08/norman-doidge-brain-healing-neuroplasticity-interview

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