The complex challenges of change, personalised mosaic’s & the wonders of neuroscience!
Last month I wrote about the neurobiology underpinning integral elements to our mental wellness, such as, memory and core beliefs. Today, I’ll share how and why change, via neuroplasticity, is so incredibly difficult.
Whether it be a personal change (such as a career change, relationship change, changing behaviour or responding differently to a bodily sensation) or a change in the body politic, we can’t just rely on surface level cognition to get us through. My own relationship with change has been way more visceral than intellectual, not just for initiating any change but also for executing it.
A homeostasis, allostasis & interoception refresh
Ahead of any intellectual thinking, our nervous system’s primary role is to keep the body in homeostasis -the safe zone. Sugar levels, heart rate, how full we feel after eating and so much more is constantly monitored out of conscious awareness. But as you can appreciate this system needs to be dynamic and uses prediction to adapt quickly to changes. Ultimately this prevents us dropping in to the red zone, through a process known as allostasis. Integral to this process is interoception. Changes in our bodily state vary, ranging from subtle blood pressure changes out of conscious awareness to an’ in your face’ sense of rage, excitement or simply knowing you need to go to the toilet. There are multiple types of bodily sensations (sensory, emotional or physiological) and we use thoughts and memory to try to make sense of them and decide next steps.
So a ‘simple’ example of change could be deciding to do the ‘couch to 5k’ after work, with a new running group. The body will have to adapt and learn to understand the physiological needs to meet the challenge ahead i.e. change from being sedentary each evening to moving. It may well also have to factor in other emotions such as fear, embarrassment or even avoidance. We’re are painting a picture of why change is so hard. What ramps up the difficulty level of a new habit or challenge ? In this case, the challenge combines a new physical activity plus a new group of people to understand and connect to. It takes a metabolic toll on the brain because its predictive prowess cannot function as effectively by virtue of the fact it is all new!
Controlled hallucinations
From the get go our biology interacts with our environment to establish neuronal networks via learning and memory. It is constantly building out self awareness and experience for movement (such as - learning to walk, cycle or kick a ball), for sensations in the body ( such as, can I sense safety? Am I comfortable in my own skin?) for cognitive intellect ( such as- retaining and utilising knowledge). The nervous system is interpreting data from our external world and internally from the body, to produce our individualised reality. Our very own mosaic, constantly updating pieces of data to produce what many leading neuroscientists view as our reality being a safe stream of ‘controlled hallucinations’. No one brain is the same. Even being an identical twin this makes perfect sense to me. Our genes are the same, along with some elements of our mannerisms, our memories, our coping strategies, our behaviour, our thinking, our perceiving but ultimately the entire electrochemical network holding individualised reality- is not shared.
The ability to unlearn
Forging new connections in the brain requires the capacity to unlearn, to weaken old synaptic connections and change would not be possible without it. But this takes energy. Do you see the paradox? To change takes energy but yet the brain is constantly trying to pre-empt and conserve energy. Adding to the complexity further is if you keep depleting your energy reserves, with the same patterns of behaviour, then not changing can be just as costly. Ironically, this actually maybe our nervous system's way of telling us to change ahead of conscious, cognitive intellect recognising it.
Curiosity is required
Allowing ourselves to get curious with old and new pieces of the mosaic is key and this certainly ties into understanding and meeting our more complex needs. Complex needs are core to our sense of self, sense of safety and the many facets that make up our identity. Our day to day behaviour is often driven by external rewards such as money or status, an expectation to live up to what society, organisations, social media or family expect us to be. Ironically by playing that game we are meeting complex needs of feeling accepted and worthy. But it comes with ‘conditions’ and this means we potentially squash or ignore our embodied, innermost values, strengths & uniqueness.
If we beat ourselves up because of a struggle to make the changes we want, remember our brain and body is alive with electrochemical connections, that are heavily influenced by our past and present environments, genetics and epi genetics. Change, although possible, is not simple because it interacts with the physical, emotional and mental. It takes a lot of effort to alter the underlying processes that drive these aspects of life.
Key takeaways
I’ve shared some examples of why change is incredibly hard but here are some key takeaways to keep in mind while supporting whatever large or small change you would like to make.
Change of any kind takes energy. Equally not changing can also take energy. Both options can feel mentally, emotionally and physically uncomfortable, even horrible. But try to dare to lean in to them to build out ongoing self awareness.
Change is underpinned by complex networks across memory, biology, emotion, movement and cognition
Incremental steps of change can balance energy needs by making bite-size shifts.
Failure is guaranteed with change, so embrace it and view it as a reminder to consciously look back to see where you have come from.
Be patient and go easy on yourself. If change was easy everyone would do it.
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Photo by Edouard Dognin on Unsplash