Dr. Jeffrey GladdenFounder & CEO of Gladden Longevity

The Surprising Power of Neuroplasticity to Rewire Your Brain in Any Age 🧠

9 Mar 2026 · 1 min

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1:13

In this concise educational monologue, Dr. Jeffrey Gladden explains neuroplasticity—the brain’s ability to physically change and rewire in response to learning, skill acquisition, and exercise. He illustrates the concept with everyday examples such as snowboarding, slacklining, tennis, vocabulary building, language learning, and new hobbies, describing how each activity creates new neural pathways. Gladden draws a parallel to cardiology, noting that just as heart walls and blood vessels undergo real anatomical changes, the brain also experiences tangible structural growth. He emphasizes that the brain is a living organ, not a static computer, and introduces the term “positive neuroplasticity” to describe the strengthening and enlargement of the brain through purposeful mental and physical activity.

Chapters

One of the things that fascinate me about our brain is neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity means that our brain has the ability to change and rewire. So for example, when you learn how to balance yourself on a snowboard, or when you learn to stand on a slackline, or when you learn to play tennis, or you learn to improve your vocabulary, or learn a new language, or pick up a new hobby, In all of those things, you're literally forming new pathways in your brain. One of the things I find fascinating about cardiology is that you can get, you know, the walls of the ventricles can change. And, you know, obviously the lining of the blood vessels can change. These are not hypothetical. These are anatomical changes. The narrowing of the arteries, it's a real thing. And the heart muscle is getting thicker and more fibrotic. It's a real thing. Our brain can anatomically change, physically change. A lot of people think that the brain is like an ear or like a computer, it just sits there. It's not. It's a living organ with a capacity to change. And so when you learn something new, when you exercise, you change the anatomy of your brain, you make it bigger and stronger. This is called positive neuroplasticity.