Our mindset plays a huge role in our overall health and wellbeing, as I mentioned previously in the spring liver cleansing article.  Health and wellbeing, or our overall wholeness and balance, includes physical, mental, emotional, intellectual, social and spiritual.  The focus for this writing is the brain, its neural connections and how these effect our mindset – mental and emotional.

Science tells us that we have about 100 billions neurons(nerve cells) and about 100 trillion brain connections firing throughout our brains and bodies, much like the multitude of galaxies in our visible universe.  Our neural connections extend out about five thousand miles high!

Our brains are active, whether we’re awake or asleep, and whether we are aware of what we’re thinking or not aware.  Generally speaking, when we’re awake and focused on something, our brain seems most happy and satisfied.  When our brain is not in a focused mode, on a specific thing, our thinking brain goes into default mode(mind wandering), which can be positive or negative, depending on your default brain setting.  These defaults can be anxious, ruminating, obsessive, or creatively imaginative, and dreamy.

Research points out that most default thoughts are either neutral or negative, especially under stress!  How much stress is in your life, externally and internally?  Research also shows that about 50% of the time, for the average person, our minds wander during our waking hours of the day, so with stress that number increases.  I think of mind wandering as ‘monkey mind’; there are too many things crammed into your brain, undone tasks, unresolved issues, too many files open in your head.  This is enough to make anyone feel overwhelmed.  When your spontaneous thoughts continually focus on negative imperfections, this is when default mode is the most self-destructive.  When negative thoughts dominate, naturally negative emotions are close by too.  Luckily, some of the default thinking is creative and imaginative, so positive circumstances can arise from these random thoughts too.

The other 30-50% of the time in our brains, when we’re awake, thinking is more focused. This mode is happening throughout the day when you’re focused on your work tasks, reading a book, learning something new, problem-solving, planning, organizing, and a host of many other focused situations.

Neurons that fire together wire together, was first said in 1949 by Donald Hebb, a Canadian neuropsychologist, and later this theory was proposed by Sigmund Freud. As you learn new information, skills, and behaviors, your neurons are shifting and rewiring.  In essence, neuroplasticity is happening in our brains regularly. When you reinforce the information that you’re learning and truly learn it, your brain has shifted, your mind has shifted, into remembering this information, skill, behavior; now the brain is able to sustain the new neural connections and prune away the old connections that aren’t being given the focus.  Remember the old saying “Use it or lose it”?  This is exactly what happens in our brains.

So now, back to mindset.  Knowing that about half of our thoughts are default (you might call them unconscious thoughts), most of which are neutral or negative, and that stress is a given in our lives, there is a high likelihood that your mindset is negative, possibly at least about half of the time.  With a negative mindset comes negative emotions and negative actions and negative vibrations.

Here’s a simple example.  Let’s say you are a snowboarder, or skier, you live within range of and have the resources to go to the snowy mountain.  You wake up on your day off of work, and it’s really raining outside.  Do you think, “Oh, it’s going to be a bad day, all this rain.  I’m going to just stay home today and do nothing”.  Or, do you think, “It’s rainy outside, that means fresh powder on the mountain, let’s go snowboarding”.  Or maybe you’re somewhere in the middle and think, “It’s raining today, the ground is wet and soggy, I think I’ll work on an indoor project today”.  Your mindset helps you decide what you’re going to do and how you’re going to feel.

What is your mindset?  Are you happy, grumpy, satisfied with your mindset?  Do you notice its fluctuation, depending on the situations in your life?  Is your mindset helpful?  Are you interested in shifting your mindset to be more helpful?  This shift of mindset means learning a new skill.  This means rewiring your brain, rewiring your mind.  It takes practice and dedication to shift your mindset, but once you decide to do it, it’s like riding a bicycle, if you practice enough, those neurons rewire and your brain remembers.

Mindset changes require awareness of your internal dialogue, noticing what external or internal triggers change your internal ecosystem and deciding that you are going to take steps to rewire that internal dialogue and go forward with that.  Sometimes this requires a little help from others, sometimes you can do it on your own.  Please let me know if you’d like a little assistance with this!

Love Life Synchronicities!

Here are few of my resources, along with my many years of working with and understanding people:

The Mayo Clinic, Handbook for Happiness, Amit Sood, MD

Joe Dispenza, DC

Carol S. Dweck, PhD