Our brain is nothing but a highly advanced computing machine that runs the operating system of our projected thoughts, beliefs & emotions. It computes billion of bytes of data per second & we know only small of them.
(Read “automatic mind” or subconscious mind & “predictive brain” once again in my blog if that is necessary)
The actively firing neural sets that make us up what we are today. It determines our personality as a whole. The way we think, we take actions are the results of these hard-wired neural nets. But at the same time, we should remember, that these neural nets are modifiable by our own thoughts, emotions & experiences in a feedback loop manner. By our frontal lobe, we can push our body & mind to do new things, then with repeated activity, these new things become our automated learning. These projected thoughts & emotions from our subconscious mind create the interface of our operating system that our brain runs a daily basis. These superficial continuous thoughts randomly project thoughts, beliefs & ideas and get our feedback on that thought process. As it goes on receiving affirmations, it goes on adjusting the thought process, the predictive model & the algorithm accordingly & continuously. That becomes the way we interact with the world around us and process the data.
Like a software system may require some update from time to time. We also require to update some of these neural nets (thoughts & beliefs) from time to time, so that these better serve us in our life. The world around us is in a dynamic state and it’s changing every second – but if we remain fixed in our lifetime, it may create a big problem. As the world is ever-changing, we need to upgrade our thoughts and beliefs from time to time to go beyond our problems and position ourselves with the altered circumstances. We can grow beyond and above our problems by creating a new state of the mind. We can form new healthy habits.
Now that we know the need for these upgrades is there. We should also gain some knowledge- how to upgrade our system? How to remove old, negative & unproductive neural nets? How to create new neural nets (thoughts and beliefs)? How to make them a part of our sub-conscious to automate them? So that healthy habit formation becomes easy & spontaneous. For our convenience, we will call these neural nets the “APP”. We can uninstall the old app with errors and install a new app that serves us better. Thus, we can create an upgrade for our existing OS.
The upgrade needs to use the power of the subconscious mind to form healthy habits: example:- How to uninstall the old app? Now in a given situation of life, you may find that an old habit or thoughts may seem not working anymore for our best. These thoughts then need change. But how we do that? For example, you have an App installed in your OS “I am a busy person. I do not exercise”. Now in your present life situation as your doctor already told you that you are having a cholesterol problem and borderline diabetes. And you need to exercise regularly, lose weight & thus you may lead a healthy life without any medication. You promised yourself that from that very day you will start your regular exercise. So, you get some knowledge from google about the kind of exercise regime you would follow. You have also surfed for days to find out the best rated TMT machine for you. Now you like some muscle in your body with a flat belly. You have always thought about that but could not do it. You have also bought DUMBLE, Burble, ABB-exerciser & chest press table. You have also read some articles online about exercise & all. Now let’s move the time three month’s forward and you find yourself not exercising again & gaining weight. Your purchased items are well-packed in a way that does not even produce a visual element anymore. From the healthy & muscular body future, you are shifted to your un-healthy diseased self again, in-spite of yourself. Is this scenario known to you? The answer to this is probably “YES”.
You know why is this happening? Because by telling yourself a declarative statement again & again you have created a neural net, an App that runs a sub-conscious program of “I am a busy person. I do not exercise”. It fires now & then even without telling you. It projects thoughts, emotions & actions for you, so that you can successfully avoid the situation of exercising. And it does that without telling you. Remember it is hardwired in the past & strengthened further with repeated feedback & declarations from our conscious mind .
The process: -Now the process of uninstallation of the unproductive App and simultaneously installing a productive App is required. The actions required as follows –
- Recognition: Recognise clearly that not exercising is not helping you anymore. Practice to write journals – it’s a great way to produce new thoughts & beliefs. Write in your journal “Not exercising daily is causing me many problems …………….”. Write down five to ten problems that it will create in the near future. “Exercise is highly productive for my long-term future because ……………………….”. Write down five to ten facts about it. Read this every day in the morning & at night before going to bed.
- Declaration: Write down in the journal “I am an athlete with great body fitness”. Write it down ten times. Then read it or if possible, write again & again, ten times in the morning & ten times before going to bed daily. Also, whenever you talk to yourself, declare “I am an athlete”. Declare this affirmative thought to yourself consciously again & again. You need to do these repetitive act for two to three months. After that the thought becomes hardwired, the App gets installed. Then you will become the thought. You will start thinking, behaving and acting according to your new thought, even unknowingly.
- Self-hypnosis & Visualisation : Relax & visualise with your closed eyes, Relax & breathe.
Self-hypnosis is a focused & relaxed state where your subconscious mind listens to your inputs more vividly) Sit relaxed & close your eyes. Take breath ten times – count it backward. Relax and now consider that with each count back, “my state of relaxation will double “ – count 10. 9. 8. 7. 6. 5. 4 . 3. 2 & 1. Breath. Fix your gaze at your CEO ( the frontal lobe of your brain in between your eyes). Breathe 10. 9. 8. 7. 6. 5. 4. 3. 2 & 1. Visualize our relaxation spreading slowly from your forehead to your toes. Relax & breathe. Now hold your palms facing each other at a distance of two feet or so. Now with closed eyes & CEO gaze & relaxed state, consider your palms are getting attracted to each other with a strong magnetic force. As you count from 10 to 1, consider “the magnetic force is doubling with each count & getting attracted to each other” the force is pulling & pulling your palms together. As your palms coming closer, feel the strong magnetic force. Your palms gradually meet each other – now relax & breathe.
Recognize the disease and suffering that comes from the habit of not doing the regular exercise – feel it in your mind. Recognize the pain, feel it. Recognize it’s coming from an unproductive thought. And remove the ideas with your figures from your brain and sacrifice those thoughts (. “I am a busy person. I do not exercise”. ) in a streaming river of a serene mountain. Visualize, you are coming out of the river with your new belief – “I am an athlete. I have a great body. I do exercise regularly”. Look at yourself in a mirror & appreciate the fact of how exercise has transformed your body. Feel the heightened energy & vitality. Feel the happiness & the motivation in your mind. Feel how you inspire others to lead a healthy life with a fit body. Now, come out of the visualization slowly with a count of 10 to 1. Gradually open your eyes with the new belief’s power – “I am an athlete with a great body and fitness.”
This is just an example of a visualization exercise. Always be creative & make your visualizations emotionally vivid. Feel the change happening. The best time to do visualization exercise is the morning time, within the first hour of waking up.
Be creative & make your visualisations emotionally vivid. Feel the change happening. The best time to do visualisation exercise is the morning time, within the first hour of waking up.
The science behind it – When you write in your journal, you are focused and you are producing muscle memory by creating the thoughts and the experience of writing at the same time. You repeat the process again & again and it accelerates the process of new neural net formation according to the experience and the emotion. that the journal. Keep doing it and you will start noticing the change within 2 to 3 months.
When we declare things to our mind who we are – when do this when we are alert & awake repeatedly, it creates a new neural net about “who we are?” and prune down the neural net of “who we are not”. The declarative memory with repeated experience gradually becomes hardwired in our brain.
When we visualize things vividly with strong emotions – we form memory. We discussed already that we can recreate any event in our mind without it being actually happening and it creates the same response in the brain & in our body as if it were occurring in real-time. When you just wake up in the morning your brain state is in Alpha and when you close your eyes the brain easily drifts into Alpha brain waves. Remember, Alpha is the bridge between our conscious and subconscious mind. So, learning happens faster when we are in alpha. When you start visualizing and add emotions to the visualization like the feeling of pain, frustration, motivation, happiness, etc you can start producing the theta also. Your memory formation is fastened and you start forming new memory for yourself with the help of your temporal lobe & hippocampus. With the repeated firing of these new neural bundles, it is hardwired in our brain and thus in our sub-conscious. This thought is then automated. Now the thought will start firing in-spite of you. Thus, when the new App is installed, it may become very difficult for you not to exercise regularly. And as you are virtually no more using the old unproductive neural net – it will prune away. Thus, the old App is uninstalled.
Also have a look to the this article.
