Neuroplasticity: You Can Control Your Brain

Neuroplasticity only means the ability to shape our brain.

Believe it or not, our brain is like Plasticine. Our brain can be shaped according to our desire, although this may take time and effort. Our way of thinking is shaped by the neural connections that we create consciously or subconsciously throughout our lives.

For example, if we think negatively about a certain situation, we will create that "negative thinking" neural connection in our brain. The more frequent we think negatively, the stronger the negative thinking neural connection will be. This makes the person to automatically think negatively because our brain will do what we trained it to do. Our brain will do what it knows best.

The good news is that the neural connection that we have created for that negative thinking pattern can become weaker.
How? Merely by not using the neural connection!

Okay, of course it is not easy as it sounds, but not easy does not mean it is impossible. It only means you need to put in more effort. (I know how annoying this can sound but do bear with me :) )

So, back to making the negative thinking neural connection weaker, we can do so by forming another neural connection, the ones that are responsible for positive thinking. We can form that neural connection by changing the way how we think and perceive, as the saying goes perception is reality. When we think positive, we feel positive. Basically this is the idea of psychotherapy such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). Of course, it is never as easy as it sounds. That is why CBT, although it gives more lasting good effects to our mental health, it requires more effort, compared to just taking psychiatric medicine.

However, do bear in mind that psychiatric medicine ALONE will not help you manage your mental illness fully. Psychiatric drugs helps you in managing the chemistry imbalance or physical symptoms, but it does not help you to rewire your brain. Psychotherapy helps you to rewire your brain and gradually improve the serotonin levels in the brain.

In the brain, serotonin is involved in the regulation of mental pain and endurance of feelings of frustration and anger. Serotonin plays a major part in the symptoms of depression

Due to the symptoms of mental illness such as anxiety, hopelessness, brain fog and irritability, it can be a challenge for people to undergo CBT or rewire their brain with discipline. However, as mentioned, just because it is not easy, it does not mean it is impossible. It only means it requires extra effort.

How rewiring your brain and psychiatric drugs help?

As mentioned, psychiatric drugs such as anti-depressants help in regulating the brain chemistry. For example, there will be low levels of serotonin in depression. When one has low levels of serotonin, the person will feel the symptoms of depression. So, the anti-depressant drugs will help in improving the serotonin level, to reduce the severity of the depressive episode. The medicine acts as a temporary booster, so which means the effect don't last forever. This explains why we need to take the drugs daily as prescribed by the psychiatrist.

When the person is still in the effect of anti-depressants, where the severity of depression greatly reduces, the person has more capability to rewire his brain and build up new neural connections to help him develop positive thinking pattern. So, this is where psychotherapy which helps to rewire the brain, can be very effective for people with mental illnesses.

So sometimes, despite taking the medications or follow the psychotherapy very well, one may still experience depressive episodes or anxiety attacks. That is perfectly normal. In fact, it is a part of your recovery.

Let's think of anxiety attack and depressive episodes as earthquakes. When an earthquake happened, all the weak things will get destroyed first, right? Similar concept. When we are undergoing psychotherapy, we have already build up some positive neural connections. The strength of the positive thinking neural connections depends on the how frequent you rewire your brain or join psychotherapy.

So if you join psychotherapy for just a few sessions and when anxiety attacks kicks in, it is expected that the newly formed and weak positive thinking neural connections to break, leaving the sufficiently strong negative thinking neural connections.

However, if you join psychotherapy for many sessions, the positive thinking neural connections will get stronger and the negative thinking neural connections will get weaker and weaker due to lack of usage. So, when anxiety attack or depressive symptoms start to kick in, you can snap out of that anxiety attack or depressive episode way FASTER as your brain has already mastered the positive thinking sufficiently.

Therefore, it is VERY VERY IMPORTANT to be patient while rewiring your brain, especially through psychotherapy. The act of rewiring your brain and psychotherapy, although it takes more effort, it give better lasting effect to your mental health.