Train Your Brain To Adapt To Changes – Here’s How To Do It!

Mental HealthMay 19, 2021

As we age, it becomes difficult for us to accept changes the way we would have done, while we were our younger selves. But to put it simply – change can be a good thing, really. There are times in our lives when accepting transitions become mandatory and that can completely set our routines differently. Think of those moments when you had to start a new diet and enroll yourself in a gym or include meditation into your daily regimen. Even relocation to a new city, switching jobs, or marriage and divorces can alter life’s functioning to a considerable degree. Whether changes are good or bad can often be best explained at what situation we are in our lives and how far adjusting to the changes is feasible. A large part of it is dependent on the brain’s resistance, the response systems that are pre-built in us.

Brains Can Favor Familiarity

Neurological experts say that at the time of our birth, our brain is malleable and we experience new things most of the time. We rather undergo the process of sorting out what is essential for our survival or positive and negative behaviors and also avoid outcomes that result in short-term pain. After a point of time, we learn that the brain has a separate way of distinguishing things or make us perform something different than the others.

Essentially, the brain masters the art of what works and what doesn’t much before. As much as it’s good that we don’t relearn positive behaviors, but the shortcoming is the brain gets used to doing few things in a tried-and-tested manner. As a result, introducing new behavioral norms poses a challenge. Change is ideally an ‘upheaval of many things and the brain needs to learn how to fit within the existing framework.

Brain Is Protective To Flaws

Routines change and we know that for a fact. So the brain is also constantly on the guard and would pounce after knowing that there can be some possible hazards if the change is such. If you look at it from the evolutionary standpoint, there are neural pathways that you should adapt to survive.

This is when the brain moves into a protective mode. Energy is best used from the reserves and assessment is made by the brain whether the change is going to bring about something good or bad. A lot depends upon the nature of the person too. So if you’re someone who gets angry frequently, that change adjustment is a struggle, but not the same for someone who is far more naturally relaxed.

Mentor Your Brain To Adapt To Changes

Change is no doubt difficult to accommodate as we keep aging, but it becomes essential for our ‘cognitive health’ to be stimulated and thereby encourage the same. Studies show that keeping the brain agile is a great way to slow down the process of aging. Hence, try and teach your brain to get accustomed to changes.

This begins with “changing the aversion to change”. Now we have our comfort zones too, so if you stretch your brain beyond its earmarked zone, there is the possibility that you’re allowing the door to become receptive to several other changes.

The More The Changes, The Better The Confidence

Surely, you might have done a lot of things or even think of doing so which you perhaps have never thought of earlier, but can as of now. This helps in the shaping of your confidence that would enable you to become receptive to several others, but lesser controlled changes. Deep within we’re all scared. The fear of failing can become overpowering if you don’t put a restraint upon it. When you realize that something is doable, it will help you become braver and receptive.

The neural pathways factor is totally distinct from the emotional and therapeutic factors. So, with time, you view all such successes and failures in a light that keeps diminishing as you age. Confidence is best instilled when you surprise yourself with new things. And that’s something you should always do. Eventually, that keeps the success rate intact. It is all about adjusting and learning to take these changes in stride. And the brain can actually work on it if you make it do so.