This message is not new here: Our brains are changing all the time. We can be in charge of those changes, i.e., change our brains on purpose, or let life change our brains willy nilly. Who wants a willy nilly, haphazard, accidental brain?
This news release from UC Berkeley about brain changes resulting from LSAT prep reminded me of an article I had written with Jeff Schwartz about changing our brains with deliberation. We begin:
Warning: reading this article will change your brain. But so will your next phone call, your next drive home, your next worry or wish.
Not so long ago, scientists believed that by the time people were young adults, their brains were fixed, static, hard-wired. Now we know that quite the opposite is true. Every experience shifts, shapes and sculpts the brain. The synapses (connections) between the neurons (brain cells) realign as we go about our daily life.
If we decide to take control of our thinking, we have choices about that realignment. If we are passive or indifferent to our thoughts, life steps into the void and molds our brain outside our awareness.
Taking control is similar to riding a horse. ...
Click to read the rest. And click to read a post on the same topic from a while back at my other blog: Managing the blessings and burdens of thinking like a lawyer: A couple of tips.
More about our ability to change our brains for the better from the news release:
John D. E. Gabrieli, a professor of cognitive neuroscience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who was not involved in the research, noted that researchers in the past have shown anatomical changes in the brain from simpler tasks, such as juggling or playing a musical instrument, but not for tasks as complex and abstract as thinking or reasoning, which involve many areas of the brain.
“I think this is an exciting discovery,” he said. “It shows, with rigorous analysis, that brain pathways important for thinking and reasoning remain plastic in adulthood, and that intensive, real-life educational experience that trains reasoning also alters the brain pathways that support reasoning ability.”
Make you want to pay attention to how you're using your brain? And help your clients to pay the same attention? That's all it takes to be an attention choreographer, one of the best roles you can play in conflict resolution.
At least, that's what I think. And I think about it everyday. Because of that frequency, my brain often reinforces the value and skill of attention choreography. Want to learn more? Come to one of my attention choreography seminars. Or read past posts (e.g., these) in this blog. Or, best of all, do both!
Note: Click to read the study: "Experience-dependent plasticity in white matter microstructure: reasoning training alters structural connectivity" (Frontiers in Neuroanatomy).
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