Neuroplasticity: For adults and children, flexibility or rigidity in what we learn

Neuroplasticity: For adults and children, flexibility or rigidity in what we learn

By Nancy Ortiz

When we do something and repeat it many times we generate in our life what we call habit. A habit can be a way of being or a way of doing, which was learned by repeating it many times. For example, we may be accustomed (used) to make the bed every time we wake up, to wake up at the same time even if we have fallen asleep at different times; we can have the habit of bad mood in the morning, of being anxious, tending to passivity, kindness, joy, or even illness. In short, we can have the habit of doing something that makes us happy or unhappy, and continue to sustain it only because, by repeating it so many times mechanically, we seem programmed to continue doing so.

It is all a matter of how many times we have systematically rehearsed an action or way of being, thus generating an apprenticeship, which added to the totality defines and creates us.

Learning or unlearning is a matter of neuroplasticity

Every time we think about doing an action, the brain sends the order for our body to do what is desired. It does so with the help of neurochemicals who transmit the message. Neurons are the ones that receive this information, connect with each other (neuronal synapse), and finally our body responds by doing what we wanted.

But here is the point that can help us to know and know what happens to us: The synapse or contact between neurons is reinforced, even made permanent, with use. That is, when we repeat something over and over again the same chemicals are always generated, and the neurons make the same path over and over again. The body becomes accustomed to these chemicals, the neuronal path leaves more and more traces, and from both repeating and doing the same, the neurons memorize the path; even sometimes they don't travel anymore, they stay there permanently, the neural connection crystallizes in a certain place. Thus we acquire a new learning.

This property of the brain to learn and fix new learning from experience is called neuronal plasticity.

Now, what if what we learn does not make us happy and we are simply slaves of a stiffness in our brain because of systematically repeating the same thing, because maybe they have taught us that way or we did it and it served us in a moment but now no more?

Of course when talking about learning we should also talk about Children. In the education of children, unfortunately, they are taught daily habits that later work hard to reverse. Many are taught by unconsciousness. Simply by the adult doing certain things or being repeatedly determined, he is fixing the child with an apprenticeship. That is to say, it is fixing a neural network that will then act on its own in the child. I receive daily consultations on the topic "Limits", the questions in general are around "how do I do so that the child does not do such a thing and learn another", "how do I do to respect when I talk with other adults, how do I do so order your toys, how do I respond in a certain way, etc. ”

What I answer is: “The child at some point learned what is so annoying or we want to change. Whose, how and why is work to observe in the actions of adults and the surrounding environment. Now we have to work to reverse it. ”

If it's about changing something as adults, let's agree that maybe what we want to change we have repeated, even for 20 years! Changing this rigid neuronal synapse can take time, patience and much awareness, since the brain will want to return to the known path because we have taught it that way.

Fortunately, the child has a greater brain plasticity. That is, as quickly as you learn something, you can quickly learn something else and supplant previous learning. And it will naturally, because naturally it is plastic (flexible) neuronally. That is why there is nothing that cannot be reversed.

But be careful, not only we, the adults, are their educators. Excessive exposure to TV and violent technology games are ALSO masters of the child's flexible and absorbing brain. It predisposes them to violence and aggressiveness because the brain learns by repeating inside what it sees outside. So here you also have to focus.

Continuing, as I said, we have in favor of the child (and in our favor), that they have even more neuroplasticity than adults. Just as you can incorporate something quickly, you can also change it for a new habit and forgetting the above, if we teach you that way. It will of course require the help of a willing and conscious adult.

If we are parents, teachers, child therapists, the question I suggest asking is: What are we teaching children? How do we reverse that insane way? How do we enhance what gives the child harmony and balance?

And for you I suggest you ask yourself: What have you repeated systematically? Does your body respond to a memory that expands or limits your Being? What path do you repeat daily, where is it taking you? Do you feel full in that place?

The road to new learning:

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit. ”Aristotle.

Neuroplasticity

Then translated into the language of the brain we can be NEUROPLASTICS or NEURORIGIDS.

Neuroplasticity is the ability of our brain to change connections thanks to new experiences. Plasticity is what allows us to do and change our actions. Live a new life every day if we wish.

Neuro-rigidity is generated when only synaptic connections pre-structured by our brain are used without creating new ones. In short, rigidity is not learning or incorporating new things. It is always doing and thinking the same; and even pretend a different result.

The path to new learning is to know that we have the ability to create ourselves day by day as we would like. It is to begin to break outside the structures that isolate and limit us, so that inside us, new gears begin to oil and move.

As we have said, the more rigid we have been, the more we have repeated something, the more difficult the change can be. But remember that we have in our favor an intelligent ability: NEUROPLASTICITY. We can make the brain activate new patterns and combinations by being and doing what we want, and by sustaining it daily in our lives.

Many times we try to modify our emotional habits with great effort; However, we do not know that this is the response of a conjunction of neurochemicals and connections that we have reinforced daily with our way of being and doing. If we generate a change with the awareness that new sprouts begin to be born within us, and the old ones fall naturally like leaves in the middle of autumn, day by day we will be new Beings and we will be closer to who we want to be, or more precisely, WHO WE ARE REALLY.

Appendix for the Education of Today's Children

To generate a change in children, adults must first be determined to SUSTAIN that change. Because if one day we do it and the next day, out of fatigue, to avoid tantrums or wear situations, we allow something that we want to change to happen again, we will be feeding more than what is no longer healthy. .

Consciously holding are the words that the new educator has to incorporate.

We know that the child is completely dedicated to learning, even the Children of Today: They love to learn. We can convey great values ​​to them, teach them about their freedom, peace, love, compassion, and let us take advantage of the power and openness they have brought, and be aware that every action What we do generates an echo: It molds a Human Being and Awakens a Spiritual Being.

Author: Nancy Erica Ortiz

Creator of the The Children of Today

www.caminosalser.com/nancyortiz

Nancy Erica Ortiz

www.caminosalser.com/nancyortiz

www.caminosalser.com