Episode 2 Neurplasticity

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Can rewrite our story. Our brains have neuroplasticity. We can have neurogenesis where we're creating new pathways that allow our brains to make different connections. New connections that come out with different reactions to situations.

Hello, friends. You are listening to the All Things Good for your podcast. I am your host, Brian Bowen, founder of Integrative Health, Inc. And I'm Amy.

Christiansen, your co host and creator of Amy Christensen Health and Wellness Coaching.

Join us as we explore the world of health and wellness and all things that make you feel good. From ancient traditions to modern advancements in technologies that give you the tools for a life well lived.

What new paths might you discover on your health and wellness journey? Tune in each week as we deep dive into a variety of concepts and hear from other fun, passionate health and wellness experts on their experiences and philosophies.

And remember, stay open minded and integrated.

All right, all right. Hello, podcast land. This is Amy Christensen and Brian Bowen and we are here to welcome. Hey, we're here to welcome you to our second podcast. So here we are. Brian. Good morning.

Episode two already, huh?

Episode two. We are just moving right along.

I love it. So much more efficient now, too. Just had my act together this morning.

You did, you did. We're on it. We've got this going. It's a little technical. Hey, you know, we're older, but we're having to learn new things. Right. We're not old by any means, but we're just going to lead right into what we want to talk about today. Yeah.

Because that in itself. Real quick. Sorry, Amy, that in itself is a mindset thing, right?

Yes.

And you just said we can learn new things. So. Sorry, what were we talking about exactly?

And we might talk about brain health because you just remembered what we were talking about. So we might need to dive into how neuroplasticity works with learning and how we have dispelled the idea that old dogs can't learn new tricks because they can. They just have to really want to. Right?

Absolutely. I love that. We just know that because first of all, it takes away all excuses, so it's removed a barrier that's been around. I remember back in the day, my grandfather maybe saying something like that, you know, or like, you know, I don't know where that originally came from, but now we know that it is not true.

Right. We should do a podcast. I'm going to make a note for us that we should do a podcast about all the things our grandparents used to say that we've now disproved. Like, money doesn't grow on trees.

That's right.

I have a money tree in my house, and it's doing quite well.

Well. And if you're really utilizing your reticular activating system in the appropriate way as a filter, then you will see it in the way you choose to see it, which we'll talk about in relationship to neuroplasticity.

Yeah. So neuroplasticity has kind of come a long way in the last 10 years or so. So a lot of people may be familiar with it, but some people may not be. So what is neuroplasticity and what are we talking about? So we used to think that the brain started as a baby growing, and at a certain age, in adolescence, we grew a certain number of neurons and synaptic connections, and that once you grew that amount, that was all you had. And then you kind of started going in reverse as you got older, as you lost brain neurons and connections, that once you lost that, or a part of your brain was injured or something due to a toxicity or an abuse or what have you, that if you lost that brain neuron capacity, that we were done right, that that was, you would. You can't grow it back. And we have since learned that that's not true. We do continue to regenerate new neurons. We do have neurogenesis, which is very exciting in a number of ways. I mean, specifically for folks with TBI or dementia, but. But also for people who are just looking to make improvements. And we. No matter what, like we just said, as long as you have blood pumping through your veins, you have the ability to regrow connections in your brain and to expand your brain, expand your learning and learn new habits, learn new things.

I just got to say that makes me feel very hopeful and liberated, even on a personal level. Just to hear you say it, I know it's true, but to hear you say it, like, I'm like, oh, thank God.

Right? Exactly. And there's power in what we have to say. Boy, this is opening doors to so many great future podcasts. Right. So the words we speak, there's even a connection to that and how we solidify these pathways in our brain. So back to the neuroplasticity. I don't think I gave a really good explanation of it, but it's basically the ability for the brain to flow and reorganize synaptic connections in response to a learning or an experience.

The great thing is neuroplasticity has been well researched and is just very accessible and out there. And psychology today has it as neuroplasticity is the brain's capacity to continue growing and evolving in response to life's experiences. Plasticity is the capacity to be shaped, molded, or altered. Neuroplasticity, then is the ability for the brain to adapt or change over time by creating new neurons and building new networks.

Correct. Thank you for reading that off, because I lost it in my notes here. But yeah, we're just big balls of clay, really. We're all just little kids at the table making play DOH forms. So what do you want to look like?

My play DOH forms aren't so great. I'm a little nervous now. I had hope earlier, but it just slipped away.

I had one of those barber ones where you stuck the little people on the chair and that pushed the play doh up through their head and they had like spaghetti hair and curly hair and you could trim it and cut it. So I feel like I'm pretty advanced in cutting.

Oh, yeah. So from your definition, then neuroplasticity would be reloading your play doh with a different color of play doh to push.

Through there, you know? Yes, I guess we could go that way.

Are we reaching here?

We might be. We might be. But now I'm thinking of experiential coaching processes and why we play with clay while we're learning. So we'll get to that at some point. So anyway, so this big noggin that we carry around right on our space and that we know we only use such a small amount, we have all this extra white matter and gray matter and, you know, brain is 2% of our body weight. Right. Uses 20% of our energy. So just sitting around every day, your brain is going to be feeding itself. And it's a big energy user. And feeding our brain is a big deal. People like to think that they can eat lots of sugar to feed their brain, which is not necessarily the case, but we're not going to get into sugar arguments today. So the brain.

If my brain uses that much energy that I'm going to be burning calories if I overthink and worry Is that what you're saying?

There is some actual research that has been kind of back and forth on that. And your brain is always keeping a. Unless you're starving or there's a nutritional deficit like genetic process or disease process, your brain always has enough power set aside. It will eat away all your reserves to keep your brain alive. Oxygen is probably more important at that point. So your anxiety and your fear is burning up different types of energy and causing different stress mechanisms which make you feel tired more than depleting your brain. So I agree, like stress in general can affect our brain and worrying affects our brain. But as far as calories go and energy, I think there's some debate in that realm and there's a lot more research that's coming out on just how significant that is. But there's no doubt stress and anxiety will cause to at an extent a negative process. Some stress is good.

Yeah, it doesn't like that cortisol. And plus we know from the first episode, the second battery of the post nasal postnasal. Yeah, Postnasal drip, postnatal qi has a leak in it at that point. So just. If you didn't hear the first episode, we were talking about having two batteries. So in that model it would not be good.

Yeah, let me expand just a little bit on that, Brian, because my experience in Chinese medicine is extremely limited. Modern research is showing that there may not be that much of a drain on the brain. But tell me a little bit more about what the Chinese medicine might.

Well, not to go too far away from the neuroplasticity components, but I mean, I still think there's, like you said, there's a good stress and a bad stress which to tie into neuroplasticity, I do think we need an, we're going to call the good stress an evolutionary tension. Right. So if we have a positive stress, meaning something that's activated us to want to try harder, something that's activated us to want to be challenged, something that's activated us to be inspired to reach further, that I think has a positive consequence, that evolutionary tension. But when we're burning and churning and just over worrying and overthinking and mentally chewing over and over on stuff that does not serve us well, then I think that that's a negative stress that then creates that cortisol. Right. Dompen that create kind of low grade inflammation, if you will, on our nervous system or throws our nervous system tone out of balance. Right. So just like our muscles, we don't want to be hypertone or Hypotone, we want to be in that space between. And so in this situation, I think that nervous system becomes hypertone, which then causes a cascade of other health effects. So in that model of the first battery and the second battery, and if you had that negative kind of stress that's going to cause that kind of crack in that foundation and put a drain on you, so it's depleting and not serving us well.

Right. And it's kind of about the amounts, I think, of, like good stress, bad stress, kind of like bone health. Right. If you go your life and you're using things and doing things that one, deplete your body of calcium and things that are feeding off of your bone, but you're not doing exercise. And as we know as we get older, muscle health and strengthening. Nothing crazy, but some tension on the bone from the muscle pulling is significant to help inspire the bone to grow stronger. And we see this in a negative way with posture, but I think some tension is important. We need that tension, that pulling, that stretching to grow, whether it's a muscle fiber or a bone structure or a brain dendrite, that some tension is good. And even cortisol, you know, cortisol gets a bad rap and people think, oh my gosh, I can't have any cortisol. Well, that's not true. Cortisol is a part of our body's processing. It's a hormone that we need.

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To signal and signify certain processes in the body. What's bad is when it doesn't get stopped. And it's a constant feed, which is where most of American society lives in is a constant feed of imbalance of cortisol. Right. So where I know we're delving just slightly away from neuroplasticity, but with all of that. Not really. I mean, the reason we want to talk about neuroplasticity is that you can make a change in how we either think or the choices we do or how we use our body, what we're doing with ourselves on a daily basis, whether it's your posture, whether it's a workout, whether it's how you perceive, like you said, your filters. And that's really where it starts. Because if you don't believe you can, you won't. Right? I know that seems a bit cliche, but it's really true. And it's not just making a decision and saying, oh, I think I can do this. It does take some time for something that you maybe have some subconscious beliefs about, maybe something that you grew up with in a culture or. Like we were talking about their grandparents. You were little. You didn't know to question whether money grew on trees. You probably knew technically, you went outside and looked at a tree and thought, is there a place in the world where there's money on trees? But you kind of understood the basic thing is that there's a lack. It's scarcity, and it's not easy to come by. And that became a subconscious belief. And for you to change that as you got older and maybe saw proofs of that, your concepts, you have to do some significant, consistent work or something very extreme for your brain to fire differently on its process and interpretations. And we are not neuroscientists, by the way, folks. So we're going to keep it very simple, fairly simple. So if you're a neuroscientist and you know this better than I, please feel free to let me know if I just completely mutilate a term or something. But.

But we are who we think we are. So the grandparents, they said some things that we questioned. Right. You know, back in the day. But there's some great things that they used to say, too, like, we can do anything we put our mind to. Right? Or we are what we think we are. So we are not technically trained neuroscientists, but to start down that path of desire and to challenge us to want to go down a certain thing. If we start behaving and thinking that way, then sometimes that pushes us. Now maybe we want to go take our education to another level. Right? Because we've been inspired at a. At a. At a different level. So there's some cool things that they used to say. So, going back real quick, if you don't mind, Amy, into the filters, you know, we have epigenetics and genetics. And so a lot of times we blame genetics on certain things, right? I'm this way because my grandfather was this way, or I'm this way because my mom was this way. But the epigenetics is a learned behaviors, right? Whether it's postural behaviors, whether it is the way we see the world, whether it's the way we act in the world. And there is a lot to be said for those. Epigenetics are what helps create our filters. And so there's a system that is really kind of playing around with, just exploring how all this ties in together, called the reticular activating system, which is basically, just think about it, the top part of our spine base of our brain, and it interprets the way we see, feel, things like that. It creates. It starts kind of filtering things out. And so if we put something in our mind's eye, then it's going to put a focus on that point a little bit more. So we can use that reticular activating system in a way to help us reprogram the way we see things. So there's a space. Anthony Trucks has a framework, if you will, called hard. And it's habits, actions, reactions, and drivers. And there's a space between where he feels like a lot of this change happens between acting and reacting. And I think that the reacting. And again, the tying into neuroplasticity here is old behaviors or patterns, right, from the epigenetics that our reticular activating system programmed. So you're a little kid, inputs coming in, right? Your reticular activating system, Based off of the way you hear the people talk and the words that they use and the way they look and all these things, that reticular activating system takes it in, starts forming these opinions and ideas around them, which is basically epigenetic behavior. The brain starts formulating its own patterns and then moves it to the conscious mind, right? And so. Or maybe it's a subconscious mind, I don't know, that gets into a whole other thing. So I think for us with neuroplasticity, to be able to find that space between acting from what a pattern is from where we typically operate and pausing instead of reacting from the place that we are familiar with, or those habits taking a pause and acting in a different way, Right.

Responding and choosing your processing. Yeah, yeah.

So like, not to get political here, but like in a political environment, because it's so divisive right now. Let's say I grew up in a certain household that supported one thing over another, right? And so I automatically want to respond in a way that supports those ideas. And I might not even have really stopped to really deep dive into why I believe some of those things, right? And I react in a way that isn't necessarily the healthiest. So maybe you say something that makes me feel hyper, makes my nervous system hypersensitive and I start to become more reactive. Instead I'm going to pause and be like, wait a second. Instead of opening my mouth and saying what I was going to say, I'm going to take a pause and I'm going to open or I'm going to listen with an open mindedness and then I'm going to ask a question in a totally different way, right? So I'm challenging the way my brain has behaved and changing in my social interaction with you to challenge that neuroplasticity, right? To challenge that reticular activating system in the way it all integrates together. Hey guys, it's Brian. I just wanted to take a pause for a moment in the middle of this podcast to thank our sponsors, Ouch, who's helping to make this podcast possible today. Ouch believes everyone should enjoy what life has to offer without enduring pain. They are a pain relief company. Listen guys, I use their products a lot. Their proprietary herbal formula built on top of a 2000 year old formula, giving it time tested, effective results and I'm going to listen to that any day of the week. The combination of that with the founder having over 22 years of actual hands on experience treating patients for musculoskeletal pain makes Ouch a very special company. Ouch is made with the highest quality of certified herbs and CBD from organic hemp oil. Their ingredients are extracted with the utmost integrity to ensure the healing properties remain pure and concentrated to promote natural muscle pain relief and other benefits. I gotta tell you, I appreciate that so much. As a consumer I want to know what I am getting is exactly what's being sold to me. So they take it a step further. They have a certificate of analysis for all their ingredients before it goes into production and after production to ensure that you're getting what you're paying for. Listen here guys. Don't settle for a lesser version of your best self today. When you can feel your best today, check out Ouch Shop, that's spelled O U T C H dot. Shop for a full line of their products. They're an amazing company. I use their products on a daily basis so check them out.

And you can take that and put it into everything. You can put it into relationships, what your background is and where you're coming from. We almost are always operating out of a habit, a pattern and a system and you know, we can even put that into pain and how we respond to pain and what pain is, what's the signal and the message that we are interpreting from a signal or a message from something else, whether it's another person or situation or feeling. And it kind of goes in, you know, the brain likes.

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To create a pattern, it likes to literally fire energetic connections, right? And chemical flows. And a lot of that gets so technical. And I love neuroplasticity. I love neuroscience. It's so deep. It's like this fabulous little rabbit hole because it depends on so many different things, right? If your hormone systems and if your chemical system is out of balance or out of whack, you're going to have trouble kind of processing some things. Like if you have a dopamine issue or a serotonin oxytocin need that you're getting through chemical fixes or medications. It changes what your brain is doing with neuro plasticity and firing, right? It might be harder for you or you might seek out certain behaviors in certain situations to help produce a chemical that normally might be there in a different way. Anyway, that's another process. But my point being your brain likes very specific habits. It likes to create a thought process, a reaction, a belief system. It engages this pathway through your brain and connects all the different areas of your brain very, very quickly and then puts out a response and gives interpretation very quickly. It likes habits. I like Dr. Tara Swart. She wrote the book called the Source and she does an excellent imagery of It's a dirt road. Your Brain and the pathways, right? You have a dirt road and when you first maybe build your little log cabin and you've got your very bumpy, rough dirt road, well, the more you use that road, the more you drive down it, the bigger your car gets, the more packed that dirt road becomes. Until eventually it's a six lane massive highway. And your brain wants to just use that. It doesn't want to use the back road, it doesn't want to use a new dirt road. It wants to just get on the massive highway and go to the same spot. So we have to be able to recognize one that can change. We can pick different ways, we can create different neural pathways and processes and responses and, and how do we do that? It's simple, but not always easy because people have to try at something. It takes an effort, right? So for change to set in with our brain and changes for neuroplasticity, we've got to, it's got to be a meaningful why there's got to be the purpose behind. It has to matter to you. If you're trying to do something that's not important to you, even if you think it's important to you and it's really not, or you're confused to the reason, what you're going to get from it, you will find a way to thwart the efforts are going to need to make it intense. So the body needs to pay attention again. It ties into the chemical process of making a change. There has to be something that's a bit significant, it has to be a bit hard, has to add a challenge to your brain. It has to be repetitive, unless it's something outweighing into the significance. So if you had a trauma or if there was something even like super exciting, the brain can process that change quicker. But in most cases it needs to be very repetitive. It needs to be specific to the individual and it needs to come back. The more you can add in all your different sensories, whether it's visual, tactile, kinesthetic, auditory. The more ways you show the brain and feed the brain this new process, the quicker and more deep that's going to set in.

So this is supporting. I had a mentor of mine once tell me that I couldn't evolve by laying in a hammock. And you're actually supporting his philosophy and I don't like it. I want to try it for a while.

Well, hey, you know, while you sleep and you take naps, you regrow dendrites so you can still grow while laying in a hammock. You just can't do it all the time.

That's right. And there is something to be said for also quieting that mind. And you know, the one thing we, that we haven't even really brought into this, to throw another thing in there about how all this ties together and is, you know, some people say that 95% of things going on is in our subconscious brain and only 5% in our conscious. So like when we're thinking about the reticular activating system and how it helps create filters and how that's based off of some epigenetics and how that helps change and works with neuroplasticity, like how much do we not even recognize at a subconscious versus conscious level to either A, know that those patterns exist, B, want to change those patterns or even taking a look at that. So I think like laying in that hammock, I think that could help me maybe tap into my subconscious a little bit more. So we're going to make space for it.

Absolutely. Sleep is so important. Rest is so important. I mean, look, why meditation right now is really coming to the norm in our society. And I think we have different ways of meditating, but resting the brain, quieting our conscious thoughts, listening and thinking, going a little bit deeper within ourselves is becoming much more of a normal accepted practice. And we're seeing why it's very helpful to a number of processes that we do through the day. So sleep and rest. Sleep is huge. I don't know if I'm the only one catching onto this, but the whole health and science world is coming to a head on how significant it is. It's just so very important. And that's why I say some of the things we can do are simple. They may not be easy, but they're simple because it really comes down to making some small changes on how we eat, how we sleep, setting up a good environment. And it's almost to the point when I'm coaching and working with people, they want a big ta da, right? They want this, I've got to do this and this and I'm going to have to work on that. And I have this big plan. There's some resistance or questioning when it comes down to we're going to start off with just these few little things and we're going to just get these baselines done. And they're really simple. I mean they're really easy. I'm probably kind of switching those terms around, but they seem really simple. They're not always easy to implement because again, it doesn't matter how simple it is. Brush your teeth with your left hand. That's a simple thing, but it's not easy. Or if you're right, whatever the opposite hand. Right. It's really not this big world changing moment where you're thinking, I'm just going to brush my teeth with my opposite hand and I'm going to feed my brain. You are. And something that little can really make a difference in opening your brain and challenging your brain and exciting the brain. The brain wants novelty. It wants change. It likes it, even though it's a little resistant. It's kind of like the kid who doesn't want to take the nap or doesn't want to go to this activity. Once they get there, they're like, oh, hey, that was actually really fun. Or yeah, I needed a nap. Of course, I don't ever hear kids actually say they need a nap, but you know what I mean? They show up better afterwards. So your brain is kind of like a little child that 7 year old you forever.

So naps are awesome. And then Psychology Today also said, which I thought that this was interesting, that aerobic exercise helps the brain as much as the heart in the brain. I'm reading from this, just so you guys know. It stimulates and releases a substance known as brain derived neurotropic factor, or bdnf, which sets in motion the growth of new synaptic connections and bolsters the strength of signals transmitted from neuron to neuron.

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So naps are good, but so is.

Some exercise even just 20 minute brisk walks, right? They've got tons of research out there that shows that. They did a bunch of studies on kids and teenagers in high school and early college years. And there's more on older folks too. But they would take brisk walks before their tests. All their test scores for the kids that did it went up and then over the years they studied children and these kids in from high school to college, the ones that did it on a regular basis that whole time performed better, had better jobs, had better mental state and better health in general. So even just 20 minutes of brisk walking and moving your body is significant. I remember when I was studying for TBI training, when I was in physical therapy, one of the things that came up, if you didn't do anything else in your life, get up in the first hour of your day, get 10 minutes of elevated heart rate, and you will decrease. Forgive me for I forget the statistics, but you significantly decrease your risk for stroke just by getting your body moving in that first hour for 10 minutes, raising your heart rate and getting your blood pumping so it doesn't have to be again, this big, massive workout plan. And you don't have to become a CrossFit elite athlete, which is fine if you do, but you don't have to to have a long life. And we see that even in. Again, I'll reference back to the blue zones. Those people aren't going to the gym every day. They're not doing some massive workout plan. They're not doing extreme dieting, not any of the different cultures who have a slight different approach on diet. They're pretty small, easy, daily activities that have made them live healthy and moving over 100 years.

That's good. I think that there's, you know, again, anywhere from just to go over a couple things to support some of that is the rest obviously is important for that, that exercise is still important for that. Other things like engaging, just being playful, right? Like go play with your friends and do something challenging maybe you haven't done in a while that's more stimulating. Like if you've never been mountain biking, like, do something new, go mountain biking or heck, go take some swing dance lessons or something, you know, some novel activity or some playful activity with some friends and then positive activities that are mentally stimulating and then a big one. I think that I want to have a whole conversation about sometime is developing a sense of purpose and what is purpose and defining purpose for you and things like that. I think that that's so important. But so there's a variety, a variety of things. And I think a lot of times we hear of things like learning a new language, which that's a big goal. And so I think I would want to challenge people in this situation with things that Amy has been talking about or things that I've mentioned. Make sure what you're doing, define it with a why and then make it an achievable goal. So if you're just going to like start learning a new language because somebody told you that that's really good for brain health, that's awesome. But if it's not an achievable goal, Then what happens is, you start it. You're not going to succeed at it. And guess what? That goes into the bank of your mental attitude of, I tried something and I did not succeed at it. And then it's going to be compounding in that brain, which does not set up good filters for us to live with. So you start with something you're successful with and put that in your mental.

Memory bank, and let's go. If your goal is to learn a new language, and that's a bit much, try learning a new word every day or every week. Learn a new word and find a way to incorporate that into your vocabulary throughout the week. That in and of itself opens up the language centers of the brain. And then to your point, building a habit, you know, breaking it down and being very small, it really becomes a confirmation to your brain. You know, I say that the brain doesn't like to change, and that resistance is what we call I can't. And you're going to find ways. Your brain kind of likes to find ways to prove yourself that you can't. So breaking those habits down into small little steps so that you have small little wins is the best way to build a good habit.

My kids don't like it, but I always tell them the only difference between a can and a can't is an N and a T. I think that's how you spell can't. So real quick, I just want to. So I feel like we've really had a good discussion, and I think that there's a mass amount of information out there. So for people who are more interested, you know, dig deeper into some of those things. But still, I'm really always curious to how that reticular activating system and the epigenetics and those components then work with the neuroplasticity in our subconscious conscious mind. And so. And then we've talked about some things to help create flexibility and develop that neuroplasticity of the brain. So I think two things I would like to just discuss to wrap this up, Amy, is why. Why do we care? Why do we want to change? Why do we want the brain to have neuroplasticity and to recreate new neural pathways? And then also, what's some homework we can leave people with to do this week?

Well, and we're gonna. I think as this continues, we're just naturally gonna pull in a lot more information on neuroplasticity. Cause I think, honestly, in our notes, we have, like, four days worth of conversation but you know why? Because we can change. You can take your situation, your thought process, your relationship, your understanding of where you're at in life. You're understanding your feelings, your emotions with your pain. You can take where you are and you can change your frame of reference and you can train your brain to think, respond and choose in a different way. We really are limitless when it comes to what we can achieve to an extent. Obviously, you know, there are some things that we may not be able to do, but yeah, I think of people with phantom pain and I know we're going to get into a different conversation later, but. Dr. And I'm going to try not to mess up. His name is Rama Chandran. He did years ago. Folks who, you know, have lost a limb, the phantom pain, they still think that that pain. And when their brain is processing pain, they think that that limb, whether, let's say it's a, you know, a left lower extremity below the knee that's had been amputated, their body and their brain is. They will sit there and think that that is itching or hurting or aching. And they consciously know that that body part is not there. But the brain is still seeking that body part and the brain is still thinking that pain is there. So it's real and it's agonizing. For folks who've had amputae body parts, whatever, what he did was he developed a process where he put, I said a leg, but let's take an arm. He took a box and put a mirror in it. And they could look down into the box and at the mirror. And so the brain would see their existing limb in the mirror and think that it's the amputee limb and they could scratch their existing. But their brain is seeing the non existing limb in the mirror. And the brain and the visual system thinks, I just scratched my leg or my arm, I feel better. And it's amazing. One of the first books that turned me on to neuroplasticity was Norman Doidge, the Brain that Changes Itself. I read years ago when I was working with the soldiers, the wounded transition unit guys here in Colorado Springs. And it just blew my mind at what is possible. And you know, I look at these situations where people were able to just do phenomenal changes to their brains and achieve life again. It really just makes you realize, man, if that can happen on this extreme scale, we can do it for our habits and our perceptions on a daily basis. So why do we care about neuroplasticity? Because we can change. We can change for what we want in life. And you and I are all about people kind of elevating themselves and reaching a feeling of success and potential. And that's possible with neuroplasticity, whether it's your daily habits, your pain, or your relationships.

So it can help change physical or emotional pain. And that's awesome. And like you were just saying, another reason why is if you're not happy or if you're not feeling your optimized self or living up to the most potential that you or I or whoever has, then that's a good reason to want to look at this, and that's a good reason to want to change. And another big reason is the world needs us to. I think our purpose, you know, when we talk about, you know, that I have three kids, I just think part of my purpose is to help the world evolve, right? And if I'm not evolving, then I'm not helping the world evolve. If I'm not evolving, I'm not helping my kids evolve, which then is not helping the world evolve. And so for here to help and participate in that. But there's some people, then we're not doing our best. And then there's some people who just, they're comfortable where they're at. And comfortable can be not awesome, comfortable can be stagnation. And some people are just comfortable with exactly where they're at, and they're like, I don't want to change. And then you have some people, like, I like who I am. I don't want to change. But like, every vibe they're putting out is like, lack of joy, lack of all these other things. So I'm not calling anybody out. I'm just saying that if you are having pain or you are not feeling the most joy or purpose or living your best self, that's a good reason on why.

Yeah. And just like we say pain, whether that's a physical pain or a distress pain in something that you're unhappy with or experiencing that your body just says, or your mind says, I don't like this. It's a signal, it's a message that something isn't congruent or in alignment with what we know in a deeper level to be what we want, what we think we can have, and what is good. And so, yeah, I think we'll wrap that up there because I think that leads into possibly the next podcast talking about pain and perceptions of pain and understanding our pains and not just physical pains, but can also be our emotional pain and what we can do to make improvements and changes there.

Sounds fantastic. So how about Amy, what do you think we can leave our listeners and thank you everybody for listening today with some homework. I'm thinking some possibilities are ask yourself why do I want to look at my neuroplasticity and challenge it? Why do I want to change? And then what's some things they can do, Amy, that you think is an achievable goal that you would like to leave them?

Well, I like you know, there are certain little things that we need to do physically to help increase your brain's capacity to be comfortable with change. Like you said, let's make it small. Try something with your opposite hand. Try something you can chess. Learn a new game. Learn something that challenges your brain to figure something out. Juggling I cannot do. I should put that on my list. I should juggle or learn a new word. You know, do something of course for me. Please take a 20 minute walk outside or jumping jacks. Please something move your body for 20 minutes today.

Get stimulated.

Yeah. Challenge your brain with something new in a different way.

Right? Thank you everybody for listening in for the second episode of All Things Good for your. We appreciate you each and every day and cheers to your health and wellness.

Thanks Brian. Have an awesome day.

Thank you. You too.

Hey friends, thank you for tuning in to the All Things Good for your Podcast. Please note any information, experiences, ideas or opinions discussed today are for educational and thought provoking purposes only and not intended as medical advice. If anything piqued your curiosity, please consult with your doctor or personal medical professional. And if you're enjoying All Things Good for your podcast, hop on over and leave us a five star review so we can continue delving in and providing great content. Thanks again and we hope you are inspired to stay informed and responsible along your health and wellness journey.

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