Positive neuroplasticity and mindfulness (Adapted from Dr Rick Hanson)

I had the pleasure of training with Dr Rick Hanson last year. He argues that through what’s called “experience-dependent neuroplasticity”, the main way to develop inner strengths is to practice having experiences of them. He argues that repeated feelings of gratitude make a person more grateful. Hanson states that positive neural traits are built from positive mental states.

Neurons that fire together, wire together!

Hanson has developed techniques to support people to turn everyday experiences into ‘a powerful sense of lasting well-being’. He suggests with these simple practices we can hardwire more love, gratitude and wisdom into our brains and into our lives. If we worry a lot, those neural connections in the brain will be well developed, so it may take time to fire up the neural pathways of love, gratitude and safety. You might like to think of this like different roads in the brain, if we don’t use particular roads much they are like thin lane-ways, whereas the roads we use a lot are like wide motorways, well-travelled and very easy to access! For some of us anxiety, feeling not good enough and feeling not loved are very easy feelings to access. And because of this we miss some of the good things we have in our everyday lives, like the ability to breathe, to walk, to talk, to have somewhere safe to sleep, to have clean drinking water… There are so many wonderful things happening in our days that we are often missing them because the pathways in our brains aren’t wired to notice these experiences. Hanson argues that developing inner strengths and positive emotions of gratitude, compassion and joy helps reduce stress in our lives. So how can we develop these neural pathways and networks?

The Negativity Bias: Our Stone Age Brain in the 21st Century!

It is useful to know that we learn faster from pain than from pleasure. Hanson says that our brain is like Velcro for the bad and Teflon for the good! If you think back to your last work appraisal, your manager may have mentioned 10 areas that you are working really well in and 1 area where there is some room for development, what do you think we end up thinking about afterwards? It’s usually the negative feedback right? Rick Hanson has developed a technique called ‘Taking in the Good’ and the ‘HEAL’ process to balance out this Negativity Bias. Basically noticing a good experience and savouring it, allowing it to be absorbed for 5-20 seconds, 2-3 times a day, which is outlined in more details below. He is very clear that this is not positive thinking, it is opening up to pleasant experiences that are already here, but often we don’t notice them due to autopilot and the negativity bias. To survive in the past, it was more important ‘to eat lunch, than be lunch’, so being on high alert for danger was a helpful survival technique for our ancestors. Hanson argues that this is a ‘bug’ in the Stone Age brain: most of the time we are relatively safe, however our brain and body often doesn’t feel like this!

The 3 Parts of the Brain – ‘Pet the Lizard, Feed the Mouse and Hug the Monkey’

Hanson states that the brain is crudely divided into three sections: the oldest part of the brain is the Brain Stem, the Reptilian part of the brain to do with feelings of Safety, the middle part of the brain the Limbic/Mammalian part is to do with feelings of Satisfaction, and the Neo Cortex, the most recently developed, is to do with our feelings of Connection. He uses some phrases to remember each section: we need to ‘Pet the Lizard (Reptilian), Feed the Mouse (Mammalian) and Hug the Monkey (Neo Cortex)’. He suggests we need to know what our ‘Vitamin C’ is? For example, if we feel a lack of connection in our lives, our ‘Vitamin C’ will be practicing experiencing feelings of connection. If we feel anxious or fearful a lot of the time, we need to spend some time letting the Reptilian part of the brain know we are safe, this might mean practicing phrases such as ‘I am safe and protected right now’ and really spending time feeling and absorbing this feeling of safety. He says if we are not sure which part of our brain needs most support, the good news is that practicing Love, connection and compassion is the multivitamin that supports all of these 3 systems of the brain.

Try this Two to Four week challenge:

Listen to one of these short meditations each day or do the 5 minute 10 Finger Gratitude each night before bed. As well as the HEAL technique a few times each day (5-20 seconds)!

Dr Rick Hanson’s HEAL technique:

Throughout your day see how it is to stop and during the day 2-3 times and notice something good that is part of your experience in that moment. It could be the really small things like listening to the birds, breathing in fresh air, someone smiling at you or said something nice. And then practice the HEAL technique 2-3 times a day for 2-20 seconds each time:

1. Have a positive experience. Notice a positive experience that’s already present in the foreground or background of your awareness, such as physical pleasure, a sense of determination, or feeling close to someone. Or create a positive experience for yourself, for example you could think about things for which you are grateful, bring a friend to mind, or recognise a task you’ve completed. As much as you can help ideas like these become emotionally rewarding experiences, otherwise it’s merely positive thinking.
2. Enrich it. Stay with the positive experience for 5, 10 or 20 seconds or longer, open to the feeling in it and try to sense it in your body, let it fill your mind. Enjoy it. Gently encourage the experience to be more intense. Find something fresh or novel about it. Recognise how it’s personally relevant, how it could nourish or help you. Get these neurons really firing together, so they’ll really wire together.
3. Absorb it. Feel and sense the experience really sinking into you as you sink into it. Let it really land in your mind. Perhaps visualise it shifting down through your body, or feel it easing you like a soothing balm. Know that the experience is becoming part of you, a resource inside that you can take with you wherever you go.

If you want to learn more: check out Dr Rick Hanson’s TED talk

And Fiona’s free Meditations (lots more free resources can be found on mindfulness.ie)

Breath & Body Meditation 10 Mins
Mountain Meditation
Short Body Scan
Ten Finger Gratitude Exercise

For more information, check out Fiona’s upcoming courses and feel free to contact Fiona.