Neuroplasticity through Mind Hygiene

Stephanie West Allen, our lawyer-blog­ger friend and Dr. Jef­frey M. Schwartz, a research psy­chi­a­trist at the School of Med­i­cine at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia at Los Ange­les and a neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty expert, have writ­ten a thought-pro­vok­ing arti­cle for The Com­plete Lawyer.

See Arti­cle: Exer­cise Mind Hygiene On A Dai­ly Basis. Excerpt:

- “Here’s an exam­ple of a Gold­en Moment of Choice: You have decid­ed that you are going to keep your promise and get home each evening in time to put the kids to bed. When 7 p.m. rolls around, you rec­og­nize that you can move in one of two direc­tions: you can keep work­ing or get going. Because of your habit of work­ing very late, the synaps­es in your brain have been forged to sup­port your habit, and you feel the urge to stay. This phys­i­o­log­i­cal com­po­nent of your habit­u­al behav­ior is mak­ing your deci­sion dif­fi­cult. Nev­er­the­less, you decide to leave. Now, each time you make this new choice, it will be eas­i­er: You will be lay­ing down “going-home-to-the-kids” synaps­es to sup­port the new behav­ior (and you will be using self-direct­ed neuroplasticity).

- Our abil­i­ty to step back and see that we have the choice is key. Often we do not even get that far: 7 p.m. comes and goes with­out our real­iz­ing that it’s a GMC. In order to improve your abil­i­ty to observe your­self and your choic­es, you need to devel­op your self-awareness”.

Arti­cle: Exer­cise Mind Hygiene On A Dai­ly Basis

Read­ing this, and with a wife  and 6‑week-old baby start­ing to fall asleep, reminds me of something…

how to say, “Good night, dear Blog!”