Posted by Dr. Joshua

In 2006 I wrote about personal development through hardwiring your brain to do the right thing. It’s time to revisit that theme. Please read the original post to get an idea of what I am talking about. Essentially, it’s about improving your life by enforcing good habits through the reinforcement of synapses by immediate action - a personal development strategy based on neurobiological systems.

To summarize the original post, what is needed for a better control of our life is the understanding that each decision we make will affect our future decision-making process. Each action we take will increase the probability that we take that same action in the future. Fundamentally, it’s about utilizing synapse reinforcement to change the way we live our lives.

For instance, if you need exercise, but find it hard to get around to doing it, the first (and only) thing you need to do is put on your sneakers and go out the door. Even if you only intent to jog for two minutes, then turn back and come inside to watch TV. The whole process will only take 5 minutes of your life, and could change it completely.

Normally, you would just stay inside and watch TV, thereby reinforcing the “TV-watching” synapses in your brain. The stronger those synapses are, the more you are the prisoner of that course of action. By just initiating the opposite action (even if you just go out the door and jog for two minutes), you reinforce the “Go out and exercise” synapse, consequently increasing the probability that this synapse will compete with the TV watching synapse in the future.

When you go out the door, three things will happen. All of these are based on neurobiology.

One, you will likely jog for more than five minutes, because it’s probably going to feel like a nice change, and you’ll see interesting things outside. Our brain is programmed since birth to enjoy new and different things, changes to our daily routines - this is how we learn and adapt. Even though the force of habit (staying inside to watch TV) can be strong, a new and different event (going out the door) will cause a reward effect in your brain - you just have to break the habit barrier by taking the initial action needed to go out the door.

Two, a new synapse, the “Go out and exercise” synapse, will physically form in your brain. It will connect itself with the synapses associated with the time and the place you took the action, and will be connected to and reinforced by growth factors supplied by the synapses that relate to your positive experiences while jogging outside.

Three, the next time you have the choice of watching TV and going outside to exercise, the action of putting on your sneakers and going out the door will be easier, because there is already a synapse ready to help you take that action. And the more times you repeat this action, the stronger the synapse will become, and the more likely it will become that you will find it easier to go out than to stay in and watch the TV.

That’s all there is to it. Essentially, the shoe ad was right in saying “Just Do It”. What I am adding to that is that you only have to take the initial step in order to create a new force of habit. You don’t need to go out and jog for 30 minutes the first time around. All you need to do is go out the door. It’s all in the synapses.

Tags: brain, exercise, neurobiology, personal development, self improvement, synapses