Provision #749: Repetition Rewires the Brain
Laser Provision
There was a time when I thought coaching was just about learning. Now I realize
that it is also about unlearning. Learning and unlearning are two different,
albeit related, processes. To unlearn things we have to grieve the loss of old
familiar patterns and enjoy the discovery of new ones. To make those new
patterns stick, we have to repeat them on a daily basis for at least six months.
Such repetition literally rewires the brain. Until that happens, however, there
is constant risk of relapse. That's why people benefit greatly from developing
rewarding relationships with those who model and support our learning goals. Coaching is one such relationship, but there are many others. Do you want
to change for good? This Provision sketches out the route.
LifeTrek Provision
When people contact us for coaching, they usually show up with a behavior-change
agenda. They either want to stop doing something they are in the habit of doing
or they want to start doing something they are not in the habit of doing. That
makes coaching a personalized system for unlearning and learning.
It's personalized because the process takes place in the context of a one-on-one
relationship. The latest acronym for that process is RBDP: Relationship-Based
Professional Development. People are neither figuring it out for themselves nor in groups. They are
in an individualized relationship focused on personal and professional growth.
It's a system because coaching, at its best, employs evidence-based practices.
Coaches are not just shooting from the hip; we are reflective practitioners who
have systematically developed mental models for initiating
and facilitating those growth-fostering relationships. What do we do first? How
do we get started? What kinds of questions do we ask? When do we give advice?
How do we generate new ideas? How do we handle resistance? What will enable
people to not only achieve their behavior-change goals, but to be transformed in
the process?
Such concerns indicate that coaching is not just a learning system; it is
also an unlearning system. Those two processes, learning and unlearning, are not one and the same. Great coaches know how to
work with both dynamics in order to better facilitate the behavior-change
process. That's where the growing body of brain research really comes into play,
since the evidence points in some clear directions that coaches would do well to
know about.
Unlearning
The things we do repeatedly wire our brains in such a way as to maintain
those behaviors without our having to think about them. That is what
neuroscientists refer to as neuroplasticity, the adaptive nature of the brain to
change itself. Plasticity is what enables the brain to convert repeated
behaviors into self-sustaining habits. And that's a good thing when it comes to
something desirable. If we had to think long and hard about brushing our teeth,
for example, each and every day, weighing the pros and cons and working up the
nerve to do the deed, life would be a very tedious proposition indeed. Better to
just set it and forget it with the help of those
neural pathways and
glial structures that I have been writing about for the past couple of
weeks.
Unfortunately, the brain works the same way when it comes to something
undesirable. When we smoke cigarettes, bite our fingernails, take drugs, or
overeat, to mention only four common habits that people often think of as
undesirable, our brains wire themselves to maintain those behaviors as well. To
change those behaviors, then, we have to weaken the neuronal and chemical links
that maintain them. And that's not easy, which is why the pharmaceutical
industry has become a $1
trillion USD per year enterprise. People are looking, at times desperately, for the magic bullet
that can help us stop our addictive, obsessive, compulsive, hyperactive, and
other undesirable behaviors.
As everyone knows, however, there is no magic bullet. Even when drugs get
prescribed, it still takes desire, work, and time to unlearn a behavior. The
brain doesn't give up those connections easily. In his excellent book,
The
Brain That Changes Itself, Norman Doidge writes about this phenomenon:
"Competitive plasticity also explains why our bad habits are so difficult
to break or 'unlearn.' Most of us think of the brain as a container and
learning as putting something in it. When we try to break a bad habit, we
think the solution is to put something new into the container. But when we
learn a bad habit, it takes over a brain map, and each time we repeat it, it
claims more control of that map and prevents the use of that space for
'good' habits. That is why 'unlearning' is often a lot harder than learning,
and why early childhood education is so importantit's best to get it right
early, before the 'bad habit' gets a competitive advantage."
Doidge also notes:
"The science of unlearning is a very new one. Because plasticity is
competitive, when a person develops a neural network, it becomes efficient
and self-sustaining and, like a habit, hard to unlearn. Different
chemistries are involved in learning than in unlearning. When we learn
something new, neurons fire together and wire together, and a chemical
process occurs at the neuronal level called 'long-term potentiation,' or
LTP, which strengthens the connections between neurons."
"When the brain unlearns associations and disconnects neurons, another
chemical process occurs, called 'long-term depression, or LTD (which has
nothing to do with a depressed mood state). Unlearning and weakening
connections between neurons is just as plastic a process, and just as
important, as learning and strengthening them. If we only strengthened
connections, our neuronal networks would get saturated. Evidence suggests
that unlearning existing memories (and loosening existing connections) is
necessary to make room for new memories (and connections) in our networks."
So what's the secret to unlearning? Grief and Pleasure. For the brain to let
go of its existing maps, which have become so easy to navigate that we can trace
them in our sleep, there has to be a strong inducement and a period of mourning.
Willpower alone is not sufficient, and may even be counterproductive (since it
tends to focus our attention on the problem, the undesirable way the brain is
wired and firing). For the brain to unlearn something it has to be seduced by
dopamine and other neurohormones released by the Limbic System in response to
pleasurable activities. These are the chemicals that can induce the brain to
release existing connections and let go of existing maps.
The brain also has to grieve. Even when we know there is something we want to
give up, and even when we have tasted the pleasure that comes from something
better, it is still painful to unwire those connections and still unnerving
(literally) to ignore those maps. "We grieve," Doidge writes, "by calling up one
memory at a time, reliving it, and then letting it go. At a brain level we are
turning on each of the neural networks that were wired together, experiencing
the memory with exceptional vividness, then saying goodbye, one network at a
time."
Learning
When it comes to learning, then, Alan Deutschman had it right in his 2007 book,
Change or Die.
The three Fs, facts, fear, and force, do not induce pleasure and do not permit
grief. Persuasion and intimidation make the brain dig in its heels or run away,
not open up and learn new things. Parents know exactly how this works if we
have ever tried to make our children do things for their own good. The best
arguments in the world, combined with coercive authority, cannot make a child
learn to play the piano, speak a foreign language, or solve a math problem. And
that's without even having to unlearn anything!
The three Fs become even more ineffective when we are trying to replace old bad
habits with new good habits. The more reasons we give and the more force we
apply the more resistance we generate and the more stuck people feel. Deutschman
therefore replaces the three Fs with the three Rs: relationships, repetition,
and reframing.
If you want to learn something, start relating to people you enjoy being with
who can serve as role models, coaches, and friends through the learning process.
This is ancient wisdom, but we too often forget the message:
- "Be careful the company you keep."
- "We shape our environments and they, in turn, shape us."
- "Choose your friends wisely for they shall determine the way you go."
The people we want to hang out with, according to Deutschman, are the people
who inspire us to be our very best, who believe in us, who walk the talk, and
who make learning fun. But that's only part of the equation. If we want to
rewire our brains with new connections, then we have to keep going back to those
people, over and over again, repeating the new behaviors and understandings that
they have to teach us. Repetition, both actual and imagined, is the key to brain
plasticity. Given enough time, with enough repetition, anyone can learn
anything.
That's why it's so important to find people who fill us with hope and love. To
repeat new behaviors and thought patterns is not easy. The transition through
unlearning and learning, through grief and pleasure, is fraught with powerful
emotions that can easily sidetrack behavior change. It takes at least six months
for new brain maps to be drawn and the process is never over. Brain plasticity,
as neuroscientists have now demonstrated, is lifelong. What's here today will be
gone tomorrow unless we keep using it. "Neurons that fire together wire
together," is a description of what happens through the learning process. Do it
once and we get a spark. Do it for six months or more and we get wired.
Coaches are in learning relationships with our clients. We seek to model,
encourage, engage, support, and challenge our clients as old behaviors loosen
and new behaviors develop. Coaching conversations are themselves part of the
process. The brain fires the same way when it thinks about doing something as
when it is actually doing something. Mirror neurons are part of the morphology,
but it goes even deeper than that. The more specifically we imagine new
behaviors the more likely we are to involve the whole distributed brain in the
learning process: mind, heart, and body.
That's why coaching involves so much mental rehearsal. What do you want to do? How
do you want to do it? What would it look like? Can you imagine yourself doing it
right now? Let's close our eyes and see what happens. Athletes have been using
that technique since the beginning of time. We don't just do physical training,
we also do mental training. We picture the event and what it will be like, step
by step, to be successful. The more specific our visualization the more power it
has to shape our brain structures.
I was struck by the story in Doidge's book of Anatoly Sharansky, who spent nine
years in a Soviet prison, including 400 days in solitary confinement in
freezing, darkened five-by-six punishment cells. Instead of falling apart,
Sharansky kept himself together by exercising his mind. He played mental chess
with himself for months on end, playing both white and black, holding the game
in his head, from opposite perspectives a truly remarkable feat. After his
release, Sharansky became a cabinet minister in Israel. When the world champion
Garry Kasparov played against the prime minister and leaders of the cabinet, he
beat all of them except Sharansky.
Repetition will do that. It can literally rewire the brain. But those first six
months are hard. That's why it's important to have relationships that keep us in
the game, reframing setbacks as learning opportunities. There is no linear
path to unlearning and learning. it is a circuitous route involving the thrill
of victory and the agony of defeat. I know that from personal experience. I have
dealt successfully, for example, with the challenges of both overeating and
taking habit-forming prescription drugs. But through the transitions there were
times of tremendous grief and pleasure that only relationships, repetition, and
reframing could see me through.
May it be that way for you as well. May you grieve the loss of old patterns and
enjoy the development of new patterns on the way to your best life.
Coaching Inquiries: What habits are you trying to change? What losses do you
want to grieve? What pleasures do you want to enjoy? What is one new behavior
that you would like to repeat? Who could inspire and stand by you through the
process? Who are your role models and coaches? How could you start spending more
time with them on a regular basis?
To reply to this Provision, use our
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talk with us about coaching or consulting services for yourself or your
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LifeTrek Readers' Forum (selected feedback
from the past week)
Editor's Note: The LifeTrek Readers' Forum contains selections from the comments
and materials sent in each week by the readers of LifeTrek Provisions. They do
not necessarily reflect the perspective of LifeTrek Coaching International. To
submit your comment, use our
Feedback Form or
Email Bob.
Thank you for another fascinating issue of LifeTrek Provisions,
"It's
Not All In Our Heads." As a former massage and body worker, trained in Asian
disciplines, I never cease to be intrigued about the magical wonders of human
behavior, what manifests in our physical bodies and how we can heal physically,
emotionally and spiritually. As a more Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM)
oriented practitioner, I share the believe that the heart is truly the
transformer in our bodies. In terms of brain, Asians will always talk about the
two brains, which later in 1996 Dr. Michael D. Gershon, the author of
The Second
Brain and the chairman of the department of anatomy and cell biology at
Columbia, expanded upon. The brain and the colon connection.
By now we know that each cell has its own capacity to produce neurotransmitters
or what Candice Perth, author of
Molecules of
Emotion, calls "information messengers." Her book is another good
source, illustrating that each emotion has its own amino acid strand and if we
look at the function of the colon, e.g. small intestines are responsible for the
quality of the blood (you are what you eat) while the large intestines represent
our second brain (around the 'hara' or belly button, the seat of we call our
'intuition') manifested in our language: " I have this gut feeling
".
In any case, TCM is my world because there is no organ that is 'outranking' the
other:) It is about well balanced team work of all organs, if there is excess
activity in one area, then there is deficiency somewhere else and, often, it
manifests in a physical symptom that is not necessarily the source. This outlook
on body work serves me well in the educational world. :) In any case, just
wanted to mention these two books and can't wait to read your next edition!
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May you be filled with goodness, peace, and joy.
Bob Tschannen-Moran
President, LifeTrek Coaching International,
www.LifeTrekCoaching.com
CEO & Co-Founder, Center for School
Transformation,
www.SchoolTransformation.com
Immediate Past President, International Association
of Coaching,
www.CertifiedCoach.org
Author, Evocative Coaching: Transforming Schools One Conversation at a Time,
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