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Fitness Training for the Neuroplastic Brain
  
Neurofeedback
Imagine sitting in a super-comfortable recliner in a quiet, pleasant environment, listening to continually-changing musical tones that reflect the continually-changing electrical activity of the surface layer—the cerebral cortex—of your own brain. You are aware that the tones you hear are giving you accurate and instantaneous information, known technically as feedback, about changes in your brain’s functioning. You are also aware that this feedback, this ongoing information stream, is helping your brain adjust its functioning to better serve the purposes of your life, because an optimally-functioning brain is essential to maintaining a healthy body, a clear, coherent, flexible mind, and a heart that is loving and kind.
By repeatedly receiving this feedback in various forms, from various parts of your cerebral cortex, the new, optimized patterns of functioning in your brain become ever more stable, ultimately replacing maladaptive, trauma-based patterns.
Not only do the optimized neural patterns become more stable with continued use of the feedback, it is virtually certain, according to recent findings by neuroscientists concerning neuroplasticity, that your brain’s structure is actually changing in response to the newly-optimized patterns of functioning. You are literally growing new brain cells to support the higher functioning.
Thousands of people all over the world have experienced this process, and thousands of lives have benefited as a result—sometimes in seemingly miraculous ways, more often in quiet, subtle ways. Amazingly, the technology and discoveries that make this possible have been developed only in the past four decades.  Prior to the advent of biofeedback and neurofeedback, it was not possible for ordinary folks to receive accurate, instantaneous information about their own bodies and their own brains that enables them to change those bodies and brains for the better.

There is a power in that capability that is within reach of every person who seeks it.
Neuroplasticity
Neuroplasticity refers to the fact that human brains change and grow in response to experience. Until recently, neuroscientists assumed that such growth entailed only an increase in connections among the approximately ten billion neurons—nerve cells—in the brain as a result of learning and adaptation. They believed that the brain stopped growing new cells at an early age, after which neurons that die go un-replaced. The fact that neurons die in great numbers every single day makes this belief rather grim, implying that, brain-wise, we are on a downhill course from childhood on.

Just over a decade ago this belief was overturned by the staggering discovery that neurogenesis—the creation of new neurons—does not stop in childhood. We now know that human brains create new cells continually throughout their entire life.  This discovery radically changes the notions of neuroplasticity that most psychologists and doctors were taught up to a decade ago.

Not only do neuroscientists now know that neurogenesis is a lifelong process in humans, they are quickly discovering the subtle and powerful methods by which people can deliberately influence the ways in which their brains grow.

An exciting little book published in 2007, Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain by Sharon Begley, summarizes the research underlying the revolution in neuroscience, research that was presented at the 2004 conference of the Mind and Life Institute that took place in Dharamsala under the sponsorship of the Dalai Lama (www.mindandlife.org).

Tibetan Buddhist Mind Training
The Mind and Life dialogues have been held almost every year since 1987, usually in the Dalai Lama’s home-in-exile in Dharamsala, and have generated ten books so far. The topic of the 2004 conference is of special interest to the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, because it provides a basis formed by rigorous Western science for the validity of traditional Tibetan Buddhist practices for training the mind.

The highest purpose of these practices is to relieve suffering for all sentient beings. Apropos of that, Begley ends her book with a section titled “Above-the-Line Science”:

If we score mental health on a scale that runs from very negative values (mental illness) through a zero point and then up into very positive values, the absence of mental illness is akin to the zero point... Virtually all of biomedical science focuses on getting people up to the zeroth level and nothing more. As long as someone can attain nonsickness, that is deemed sufficient. As Buddhist scholar Alan Wallace put it, “We in the modern West have grown accustomed to the assumption the normal mind, in the sense of one free from clinical mental illness, is a healthy one. But a normal mind is still subject to many types of mental distress, including anxiety, frustration, restlessness, boredom, and resentment... We call unhappiness a normal part of life and say ‘it’s normal’... There are so many people who are sick in the same way that we accept that as being normal.”

Tapping into the brain’s powers of neuroplasticity offers the hope of changing the understanding of mental health... the power of mental training to harness that neuroplasticity to change the brain suggests that humanity does not have to be content with this strange notion of normalcy, with the zeroth level of mental and emotional health... we are therefore poised at the brink of ‘above-the-line’ science... Neuroplasticity will provide the key to realizing positive mental and emotional functioning. (pp. 250-251)

Begley speaks of mental training as a path to change the brain. Neurofeedback can be a highly efficient method of brain fitness training that is in most ways equivalent to the mental training to which Begley refers. Moreover, brain fitness training via neurofeedback works best when augmented by one or more other practices such as regular meditation, visualization, prayer, yoga, integrative counseling, or time in wild nature. Neurofeedback can get us above zero very quickly.  In order to consolidate and sustain the brain changes thus gained, an ongoing practice of mental training is very important.
Self-discovery and Social Intelligence
Brain training can also be used as a platform for self-discovery. Some clients choose to remain fairly passive, allowing the feedback to work largely unconsciously with the brain.  Others train more actively by paying attention to their inner responses. For example, they might discover a pattern of tension or anxiety that they can then consciously release with the help of the feedback. People can do this with or without the exploration of personal history. In this way, they can train their mental and emotional responses along with their brains.

Brain training can increase “social intelligence” by replacing unconscious defensive neural networks with patterns that connect us more readily with other people—a critical factor in health, as neuroscientists are discovering. We have all built up these defensive neural networks in response to trauma and stress; they continue to operate long after the traumatic circumstances have passed. Brain training helps the brain to quiet these fear-based “knee-jerk” reactions and to respond to present life circumstances creatively and cooperatively—with gratitude and love.

Clearly, the enormous challenges we face today require a great deal more equanimity and resilience than most of us have. Feedback-assisted brain training (along with other psycho-spiritual practices) can help us develop these powers of mind. Indeed, brain training may be one of the best uses for our advanced computer technology.
Click on this picture to watch an inspiring and informative talk on the complementary dynamics of the left and right hemispheres of the brain.