Feature: The power of neuroplasticity – Stepping out of your comfort zone

We all know the pleasure of our routines: waking up a certain way, sipping our coffee (or tea) before heading to the shower. Routines provide us with a sense of comfort, a sense of security and, importantly, provide us with a means to auto-pilot, reducing the demand on our already overloaded brains. But when do routine and comfort start to hamper us? When does it start to reduce our effectiveness and hamper our abilities?

Neuroplasticity is an exceptionally important characteristic of the brain. It refers to the ability of the brain to change and adapt, the ability to build new neural pathways and lose those it no longer needs. This is important, because it shows us how the adage ‘You can’t teach an old dog new tricks’ is not much more than an old wives’ tale. However, to ensure neuroplasticity is happening and the brain is adapting you need to do a little more than the odd crossword puzzle and a Sudoku on the train (although those do help). True plasticity comes from challenging the brain, making it work hard; like many muscles need exercise to grow, so does the brain. Think of those hard things you had to learn: riding a bike, playing an instrument, memorising the words to a speech or poem − all those difficult things to do but once learned are remembered best.

As AI and automation continue to rise in the knowledge workplace, humans are going to perform progressively less and less systematic and monotonous tasks with an expectation to perform more complex tasks requiring a much higher cognitive load. The need to become good and staying good at learning is going to become more of a critical skill. This is referred to as brain agility, which is our ability to continuously learn new skills and apply existing skills to new problems and situations − both of which require a high degree of neuroplasticity. Sorry folks, the knowledge work of the future is going to have far less routine and far more unstructured new thinking requiring us to be problem-solvers and think creatively: relying on our old neural pathways is just not going to be efficient anymore.

According to Forbes magazine, Professor Carol Deck of Stanford University did extensive research that classified people as having predominantly either a fixed or a growth mindset. Those with a fixed mindset believed abilities were either innate or couldn’t be developed past a young age. However, those with a growth mindset recognised that most, if not all, skills could be developed with effort and time. Dweck’s research went on to show that most successful people continued to develop themselves throughout their lives. Knowing and understanding our mindset towards growth is critical in setting ourselves up for creating a learning and agile mindset. For some of those who are more fixed in nature, it may require more drastic steps to change the mindset and rewire the neurons.

The counterbalance to all the sweat and tears of developing new neural pathways through practice and challenging ourselves and learning is being able to press the pause button on our lives and provide the brain with some space to cement those new neural pathways. One of the most effective ways of creating space for the brain is to practise mindfulness (or meditation for some). Practising mindfulness provides two key critical aspects to improving neuroplasticity. The first, in the short term, is that it helps to lower stress levels. This is important, because cortisol levels are lowered, which allows the brain to shift its thinking away from the amygdala (the fight-or-flight stress and anxiety part of the brain) back to the pre-frontal cortex. This part of the brain is where higher-order thinking happens, and the two don’t work well at the same time. In short, a little bit of mindfulness will help bring clarity to thought. This clarity allows the new neural pathways to settle in and form thicker connections. Secondly, mindfulness when done on an ongoing basis results in gyrification of the pre-frontal cortex. In other words, more and deeper folds are created, which means the area of the brain increases and as a result, there is more space to make more and denser neural pathways and more space for neurons to connect.

Bringing it all together … As the world evolves and changes, getting progressively more complex, the ability for us to rely on routine and monotonous tasks to stay ahead is going to become progressively more difficult. Relying on the comfort of ‘I know my job’ and ‘I know what I do’ needs to make way for an approach of continued learning. But before we can embark on our journey of rewiring the brain and becoming more successful, we need to know and understand our current mindset and where it is a fixed mindset, we need to make a conscious decision to change it. Once we begin learning, we start to develop new neural pathways which slowly thicken and strengthen making it easier to complete new and more complex tasks. The more we develop, the more complex we can manage and the more complex we can manage, the easier it is to develop new pathways. Lastly, we need to give ourselves regular space to practise mindfulness to allow the brain space and time to cement these new pathways and develop the brain into providing more space and building material to create ever more neural pathways (making us smarter and quicker at problem-solving).

The first step, however, remains to have courage − the courage to step outside our comfort zone and start a new journey of growing that brain.

Author
Wesley Moffett CBAP, MBA is the programme head for Customer Tax Programmes at First National Bank