Changing your brain with Rick Hanson

The how of changing your brain for the better is really simple. It's two steps. Experience whatever you want to grow and then help it leave a lasting mark on your brain. Without that internalization of an experience of mindfulness or happiness or determination, that experience washes through your brain like water through a sieve. While negative experiences are routinely caught due to the brain's negativity bias, the second step is easy. You just need to stay with the experience for a breath or longer. That'll help those neurons to keep firing together so they wire together. Feel it in your body. The more embodied our experiences are, the greater the neural trace that's left behind. Focus on what feels good about this experience of self respect or closeness with another person. That increases activity of dopamine and norepinephrine in your brain, which increases the physical trace. So each day you can grow a little bit of the qualities inside you that help you become more resilient.