COACH YOU BLOG

Neuroscience: Beat negative thinking by reprogramming your brain
30/9/2013

 

If you’ve ever learned to do something, you know that repetition is the key … in his latest book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell talks about 10,000 hours practice being the optimum point of being an expert. Just to put that in perspective –if you work an average forty hour week it will take over five years just to master that role. (Clearly, I have a long way to go with the rowing!)  But you’ll know that it does get a little easier every time we practice something/think something, and with good reason.

 

I recently attended a workshop on neuroscience with the fabulous Ann Betz and I’m no expert but I thought I’d share what I learned.

 

Thoughts and beliefs run through your brain on a neural pathway in millionths of a second. Once you’ve done/thought anything once it gives you the opportunity to do it again and this is the way we learn.  The more you use it the faster and easier it gets – a bit like a toboggan run. Each time you repeat the thought it becomes myelinated – the neuron is covered in a fatty coating so that it travels more quickly. 

 

This is why our Olympians have psychological coaching now … visioning the race, seeing themselves winning over and over again to programme their brains to have that experience of exceptional performance … greasing the neural pathway many times before they even have the race.

 

However, most of us have negative thought patterns which can really run our lives. Once the pathway is set up it will always be there but we can interrupt them and take the thought down a different pathway.

 

Have you ever thought “that’s just the way it is?”, “Who am I kidding?” or have a negative thought which crops up on a repetitive basis? My clients know them to be Gremlins, Saboteurs or Self-limiting beliefs and in coaching we use several tools to interrupt that negative thinking pattern.

 

Clients notice each time they think “I can’t …”, “I’m too …old/young/fat/thin/tired …” or “I need …” (that’s particularly poisonous and puts us in a place of victim!).   Noticing in itself interrupts that process, they can then choose how they respond, which could be by ignoring them.  This way they gain back control over their thinking and can reframe it into a more positive thought … which, with a great deal of practice will develop a deeper, well greased and more powerful neural pathway .

 

So if you want to create a positive belief in yourself, then affirmations really can work, so I’ll give you one to practice as many times a day as you can:

 

“Today, this is easy and fun!” I shall be saying this many times early tomorrow morning as I paddle up the river …

There is so much more and I’ll be delving deeper next time.  Have a great month.