The neuroscience of building your brain
As a clinical hypnotherapist (AHA), psychotherapist, registered mental health professional (PACFA) and naturopath (ANPA), your brain and mind are what I help you with.
The neuroscience of building your brain is not a phrase you hear very often. You may think your brain just grows and remains there throughout your life – nothing could be further from the reality.
Your education may not have included or truly valued the concept of building your brain as part of your life. Your family or social set may not value the need to develop and increase your brain and mind’s abilities.
Your brain changes throughout your life. It has a neuroplasticity and constantly rebuilds itself. (1)
Do you take care of your brain?
Let’s ask some basic questions:
- What food are you feeding your brain?
- Do you control the brain’s oxygen intake?
- How are you educating your mind?
- Are you protecting your brain?
- What do you do to provoke the adaptation of your brain and mind?
The brain needs nutrition
Not all foods and food products are the same. In fact, some of you are eating a diet that damages your brain and makes it slow. That even brings on early dementia and susceptibility to Alzheimer’s.
Research shows us that those people who regularly eat meat pie, sausages, ham, pizza and hamburgers are more prone to Alzheimer’s. (2)
Adversely, research shows us that those who eat a well-balanced whole food plant-based diet suffer less disease. (3) You get more vitamins and minerals.
Also, there’s a much higher level of diseases associated with saturated fats, which causes vascular blockages in the blood vessels, heart and brain.
As a medical nutritionist I’m always training people to eat for maximum quality physical and mental health and performance.
Oxygen is the breath of life
Most of you don’t pay attention to your breathing, particularly if you experience anxiety and depression. The brain demands at least 20% of your oxygen and if it doesn’t get that it becomes dysfunctional.
A supply of highly concentrated oxygen has been shown to improve cognitive process in young adults and the elderly. (4) This has been known in the East for thousands of years in the practice of yoga, meditation and Buddhist mindfulness.
When I teach you to have better breathing it increases your neurological function and lowers your unwanted auto-immune response that damages your brain.
We need different kinds of breathing for different functions at different times of the day. This means you must learn to change your breathing throughout the day.
Lifelong education
Like any system in the body the brain needs to be constantly stimulated and challenged to stay healthy, maintain and increase its capacity.
Every time you learn something new it changes the shape fo your brain. New neuron connections and synaptic junction are forged to create memory clusters. (5)
Some brain architectecture can remain for life or be superseded by learning and experiencing something new. Language itself is the perfect example. When you learn a new language, it requires you to think about grammar differently, although you can remember the grammar of your original language, you have to structure grammar differently in the new language.
Even in cases of senile dementia when a person doesn’t remember the people around them, including their family, they may still remember how to play complex musical compositions.
The duopoly of brain and mind
Your brain architectural and compacity determines your intellect, memory capacity, and what you can cognitively process.
Your mind and how you feed it intellectually also changes your brain’s architecture and its capacity to facilitate your mind and mental abilities.
It’s a two-way process that is limited by what you do to your body, intellectually expose yourself to, experience and learn. (6)
To create a synchronicity between brain, body and you need to take care of all three constantly, not just part time.
Remember the saying, “Use it or lose it”. Neuroscience is now proving that the brain builds, works and maintains health best when engaged and challenged each day.
Excluding toxic exposure
Harmful food products, excessive harmful mineral, vitamins, alcohol, drugs, tabaco, radiation, noise, light and physical trauma, all harm the brain. (7)
Mental trauma, bullying, threats, violence, unkindness and disappointment all harm the mind that also changes and scares the brain. This can lead to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), lowing self-esteem and living in fear.
Both negative physical and mental harmful exposure can block the ability of your brain to create neural pathways that give you good life experiences.
It’s important to protect yourself from those negative influences and expose yourself to good mind promoting stimuli.
How to create brain and mind adaptability
In mental health the test of good psychological function is that you can adapt to constantly changing circumstances. Nothing stays the same. Life is always changing, and we must change to adapt to those new circumstances.
As a naturopath I am always guiding people towards optimum physical and brain health – how you eat, exercise and what you expose yourself to daily.
As a hypnotherapist I’m always using hypnotherapy to help you make those physical, psychological, emotional and lifestyle changes fast.
My philosophy is that I help you change fast. None of us should give time to self-destructive behaviors.
Here’s what you can do:
- Look after your body as if it is the most precious thing in the world to you – because it is.
- Live a clean life and put into your body only what will benefit it and your brain.
- Exercise to condition your brain and mind.
- Practice the different kinds of breathing that facilitates your different needs throughout the day.
- Learn hypnosis so you can spend time in the Alpha state to help your brain grow and balance your emotions.
- Engage your mind constantly, learning new things every day to sharpen your ability to focus and increase your brain connections.
- Live your life in a positive, constructive way
- Always get good rest and sleep
- Eat to have the best brain you can
When you are promoting both your physical and mental health your brain creates neuroplasticity and increases Gamma brain way activity. That in turn increases your intelligence and you live a happier and longer life.
Do you need some help on how to use hypnosis to build your brain? Call Dr Tracie O’Keefe on 0403 398 303 to book an appointment in the office or by zoom from anywhere in the world. Health funds may apply.
References
(1) Puderbaugh, M., & Emmady, P. D. (2023). Neuroplasticity. StatPearls. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK557811/
(2) Ahmed, T., Zhang, P., & Kumar, K. (2024). Equilibrium of dietary patterns between Alzheimer’s disease patients and healthy people: A comprehensive analysis using multiple factor analysis and classification modeling the Australian Imaging Biomarkers and Lifestyle Flagship Study of Ageing. Journal Name, [details of journal if available]. https://research.bond.edu.au/en/publications/equilibrium-of-dietary-patterns-between-alzheimers-disease-patien
(3) Thompson, I. S., Tresserra-Rimbau, A., Karavasiloglou, N., Jennings, A., Cantwell, M., Hill, C., Perez-Cornago, A., Bondonno, N. P., Murphy, N., Rohrmann, S., Cassidy, A., & Kühn, T. (2023). Association of healthful plant-based diet adherence with risk of mortality and major chronic diseases among adults in the UK. Journal Name, [details of journal if available]. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10051114/
(4) Kim, H.-J., Park, H.-K., Lim, D.-W., Choi, M.-H., Kim, H.-J., Lee, I.-H., Kim, H.-S., Choi, J.-S., Tack, G.-R., & Chung, S.-C. (2021). Effects of oxygen concentration and flow rate on cognitive ability and physiological responses in the elderly. Journal Name, 45(9), e13034. https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.13034
(5) Kastellakis, G., & Poirazi, P. (2019). Synaptic clustering and memory formation. Frontiers in Molecular Neuroscience, 12, Article 300. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnmol.2019.00300
(6) Valtonen, J., Ahn, W.-K., & Cimpian, A. (2021). Neurodualism: People assume that the brain affects the mind more than the mind affects the brain. Cognitive Science, 45(9), e13034. https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.13034
(7) Kumar, N. N., Chan, Y. L., Chen, H., & Oliver, B. G. (2023). Editorial: Effects of environmental toxins on brain health and development. Frontiers in Molecular Neuroscience, 16, Article 1149776. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnmol.2023.1149776
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