Neuroplasticity: Change How You Feel by Changing How You Think 16/30

when you change how you think you change how you feel in this video you're going to learn about neuroplasticity how you can change the structure and the chemistry of your brain by changing how you think changing your habits can be really hard today's video is sponsored by fabulous the number one self-care app developed at duke university to help you build healthy habits and achieve your goals so fabulous you can learn to improve your mood or your physical health or you can learn to become more productive or learn to practice mindfulness when i first started using fabulous i was immediately impressed with the beautiful animation and i quickly found some things that helped me improve my day the first was a quote from ben franklin about starting his day with the question what good shall i do today and i also really liked a self-care checklist that i found on it i also really appreciate that this app encourages you to make changes through really small and simple steps and reminders and the app is currently helping me remember to drink water first thing in the morning fabulous can help you get rid of bad habits and build daily routines that improve mental health these are little things like breathing and self-care and getting enough sleep so start building your ideal daily routine today the first 100 people who click the link will get a free week trial and 25 off a fabulous subscription okay back to the video now imagine this scenario you're hurrying to work you're running a little late but you know that it's your co-worker's birthday today and she loves donuts so you decide to make a quick stop to the best donut shop in town to pick up some donuts for the office if you hurry you'll make it just in time for your first meeting with a few minutes to spare so you go to the store and it smells delicious and there's only one guy in front of you you start planning out your order but the guy in front of you is taking forever he can't seem to make up his mind and he keeps asking dumb questions like what's on that donut which donuts have cream inside do you have any donuts with sprinkles okay the donuts are right there in front of him and if he just looked at them and if he just looked at the signs he would know what was in them as your frustration mounts you start to feel worried about the time you're probably going to be late what is taking him so long you think why can't he just pick out some donuts and now he's asking if they have any strawberry donuts they are right in front of you you silently scream inside of your head okay so now you're angry what's the matter with these people at the very least he could see that i'm waiting and step aside while he tries to decide you start thinking he is so rude and he's stupid ah this is so irritating you start thinking you're furious right with the help of the worker he finally fills his box and he turns to pay and that's when you see that he has a cane and it's not just any cane it's a long white cane with a red tip the man in front of you is visually impaired suddenly your anger melts away instead of impatience you feel compassion for him and a little bit ashamed of yourself the minute you realize that he's not being rude dumb or slow but instead he's actually doing pretty good with the abilities he has you feel completely different your anger disappears and you're filled with a completely different feeling but what has changed here you're still late it still took the guy in front of you eight minutes to order his donuts you're still in the donut shop what changed it wasn't your circumstances that changed how you feel it was your paradigm shift it was how you thought about the situation that changed you went from thinking this guy is such a jerk which made you feel angry to thinking this guy is so impressive for being independent with a disability which made you feel a sense of kindness and awe and a whole lot more patience max planck said when you change the way you look at things the things you look at change when you change how you think you can change how you feel this video is number 16 in my course how to process your emotions and this video is the introduction to section 3. this entire section of this course is all about changing how you think so let's talk about what is neuroplasticity you were born with a brain wired for change scientists psychologists they all used to think that after you were about 20 your brain was set in stone and there wasn't much that could be done to change it but new research and new imaging technology has demonstrated that when you change how you use your brain you can actually change the physical structure of your brain and you can change your brain chemistry this is called neuroplasticity neural meaning brain and plasticity meaning flexible or changeable neuroplasticity makes your brain extremely resilient and it's how all learning takes place it's how you learn to speak and how you learn to walk or play an instrument and it's also how you learn from your childhood environment whether the world is safe or threatening as a child your brain is extremely flexible and as you get older some things get more hardwired but there's always room for growth and that's because your brain is wired to change it's built to adapt to new circumstances and new ways of thinking neuroplasticity enables people to recover after a stroke or a brain injury by using different parts of their brain to perform tasks neuroplasticity makes it possible for people to improve symptoms of autism add learning disabilities and other brain deficits neuroplasticity makes it possible to pull out of depression and addictions and to reverse obsessive-compulsive patterns let me give you some quick examples daniel kish was born with the ability to see but he lost his eyesight as a baby he learned to use echolocation to navigate so he's completely blind but he can ride a bike safely and he does this by making clicks with his mouth and then he listens to the echo to know where objects are around him brain scans revealed that his brain adapted the visual cortex the seeing part of his brain to be able to process sounds instead of light let me give you another exciting example talk therapy changes your physical brain there is a lot of research on this studies have shown that eight weeks of therapy can increase the size of the hippocampus this is the part of the brain that processes emotion and memory talk therapy can also decrease the size of the amygdala this is the fear center of the brain when we change how we think and act we can actually physically change our brains cognitive behavioral therapy is essentially talk therapy right it focuses on changing how you think and how you act and cbt has been shown to be very effective at treating mental illness it's one of the most effective treatments as effective as medication but it has long lasting benefits and less physical side effects so how do we change how we think here comes a metaphor your brain is like this sandhill as we grow and as we develop our way of thinking and our understanding of the world our brain is formed just like the channels that water makes as it runs down the sides of the hill now some of this is impacted by our environment so for example our brain is impacted by the language we learn and the culture we grow up in and our home environment whether it's you know safe or frightening and some of our development our brain development depends on our biology uh this includes you know the personality we were born with and whether we're more sensitive or not and this impacts how we interpret our environment and then after that every experience we have and how we interpret it these are like water flowing down this hill and these form these little rivulets on this sand hill so for example if you were taught as a child that everything is dangerous that bugs are scary for example then as a kid you're going to develop a more sensitive fear response and that fear pathway is going to flow quickly and easily for you and that's going to make it easier for you to feel fear or anxiety as an adult when you see a bug but if as an adult you decide that you want to overcome that anxiety and you start doing exposure therapy with bugs then eventually your brain will learn that grasshoppers are safe and it starts using new neural pathways so that you don't feel so anxious anymore the more you think something or the more you experience something the deeper those channels grow in your brain in your in your brain these are called neural pathways these are the channels that our thoughts run along the ones we use the most become smoother and faster and wider and the ones we don't use so much eventually get trimmed off so for example if you have a habit of constantly looking for the negative it's easy for you to see all the bad in the world and those brain connections are strong and smooth so if you start to make a habit of looking for the positive your brain starts to rewire and over time it becomes easier and easier to see the good in the world so when we decide to change how we think it's like trying to get water to run down this hill in a different way than it has been running now this is difficult work because the old ways of thinking are easier but little by little we can create new ways of thinking new neural pathways and this eventually becomes easier than our old ways of thinking i once worked with a client who had symptoms of ocd he would worry that his hands were dirty and then he would compulsively wash them and sometimes he would do that over and over again to the point that they dried out and they cracked and they bled now this client always felt that he needed to change his clothes and take a shower and he didn't like touching anything and this kind of got in the way of his relationship with his girlfriend who he really wanted to touch anyways we started working on exposure response prevention this is changing how he thought about his compulsions and understanding the nasty cycle of avoidance so compulsions are a form of anxiety avoidance right you feel a little anxious that your hands are dirty and then you wash them but then that anxiety comes back a little bit stronger so then you wash them twice and the whole point of a compulsion is to avoid that feeling of anxiety so together we me my client and i we worked on this skill of cognitive diffusion and delaying the hand washing as long as possible this is exposure response prevention and the longer he went without washing his hands the more he began to learn that it wouldn't hurt him his brain started to learn that he didn't have to believe his obsessive thoughts and as he worked hard to practice willingness with his fears they gradually didn't have so much power over him now a year later he no longer obsessively washes his hands and he's learned that anxiety doesn't have to control his life sometimes he still gets anxious thoughts or feelings but they just don't impact him as much as they used to he has changed his brain neuroplasticity means your brain is wired to change when you change how you think you can change how you feel in the next eight videos you're going to learn how to change how you think by learning about cognitive distortions reframing cognitive diffusion self-justification mindfulness and more so stay tuned and thank you for watching this video is one skill from my 30 skill course how to process your emotions where i teach 30 of the most essential skills for resolving depression anxiety and improving mental health emotion processing is an essential skill for working through intense emotions but most people have never been taught how to do it i'm putting every single main video lesson on youtube for the world to access for free you watching these videos sharing them contributing to my patreon and my sponsors make this possible if you would like to access the entire course in one place ad free with its workbook exercises downloads extra videos live q as additional short readings and links to extended resources the link to buy the course is in the description below [Music] you

Channel: Therapy in a Nutshell

Views: 235,021

Keywords: therapy in a nutshell, neuroplasticity, neuroplasticity how to rewire your brain, neuroplasticity explained, neuroplasticity and anxiety, neuroplasticity depression, neuroplasticity mental health, mental health, anxiety, depression, change how you think, change how you feel, change how you feel, change how you feel by changing how you think, change how you feel by changing the way you think

Id: 1EHI2hF9Iak

Length: 12min 18sec (738 seconds)

Published: Fri May 28 2021