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Hi everybody. Thanks for joining me today. Glad to have you with me on the podcast. When I was growing up, my dad had a saying that he liked to repeat, which is no pain, no gain. You've all heard it. It used to irritate me. It wasn't until I became an adult that I realized that this was true. And athletes know about the truth of this saying. They know that you're not gonna get stronger if you're sitting on the couch. Your muscles don't get signaled to strengthen themselves unless you stress them. And it's the stress from exercise that tells your body that it needs to strengthen those muscles so that they can be used in the future against more stress of the same kind. Whereas if you just sit on the couch, your body thinks, well, I don't actually need these muscles, and it starts to break them down and you lose them.

A similar type of situation is true for the brain as well. Now we've all noticed that kids have a remarkable ability to learn, to acquire new skills that become a lot harder to acquire as an adult. For example, a kid can learn a new language effortless, effortlessly and fluently, and speak without an accent and speak without thinking, whereas an adult really has to work hard and it's hard for them to ever lose their accent. Take me for example, I've lived in Brazil for the last 16 years and I speak Portuguese pretty well, but people, as soon as I open my mouth, people ask me where I'm from. I just can't get rid of my accent completely. Whereas my kids who came to Brazil when they were young, they speak without an accent and people assume that they're Brazilian. You may have found yourself wishing before that you as an adult could access the same ability to learn and acquire new skills that kids have. Kids that start really young to learn to play the violin, who start at three years old for example, have a tremendous advantage over people who start only when they're 20. They end up with a facility and an ease of playing that you simply can't attain to the same degree if you start later as an adult. Or maybe you're someone with anxiety and we've talked about hang, how anxiety comes from your brain having a habit of looking at the demands that you're up against as too much for your resources. And you may have found yourself wishing that you could just change your brain's habit of the way that it looks at your life so that you could not have anxiety all of the time. So these are some different reasons why we might wanna be able to access that childhood ability to learn, but it's not as easy when we're adults to access that, but it's also not impossible. Let me explain how it works.

So this ability to learn is, is what neuroscientists call plasticity, and it's the brain's ability to rewire itself, to reshape its connections, to update it to wiring diagram so that you can learn new skills and adapt to challenges. But rewiring is really costly in terms of energy. It takes a lot of energy, and your brain has adapted to be really efficient as far as energy expenditure. And this is because we evolved in an environment where energy sources were scarce and unpredictable, and so we had, our brains had to be able to use the least amount of energy possible. The problem is our brains consume a lot of energy just for their baseline functions. About 20% of our resting energy has to go to our brain just to maintain its baseline processes, and, and if we want to have something besides these baseline processes, like we wanna have conscious thought that's even more expensive in terms of energy. So our brains are wired to stay energy efficient and keep us on that default mode except when survival or adaptive behavior demands that we switch to the learning mode. And this learning mode actually requires different networks in our brains that are a lot more energy intensive. But our brains will shift to that learning mode when we encounter discomfort or novelty or conflict. This will signal our brains that the old wiring is not sufficient for what we're meeting right now, and it needs to rewire our brains. And so it opens those gates for learning. So discomfort acts as a flag that the current wiring is not sufficient for this situation. And it opens the gates for adaptation because the brain recognizes that staying in the low energy default is going to be maladaptive, meaning we might not make it through this situation if we don't make some changes. This tells us that discomfort and effort are not just obstacles, they are triggers. They're biological triggers that tell the brain to spend energy, to adapt and to rewire itself. So maybe we can't access learning and change with the kind of ease that a child does, Whose brain is just an open sponge and constantly rewiring itself to everything that it experiences, but we can access this rewiring state when we go, when we encounter something that is uncomfortable or hard. And this is, this is fascinating. You can think of discomfort as kind of like the spinach in that old cartoon Popeye. That he eats it, he suddenly gets the power to fight whatever enemy he's up against. When we have discomfort, that gives us our brains a signal that we can spend energy and change the brain, and that's when we're able to learn and adapt. It makes us able to become someone different. And we're not able to learn or grow otherwise in our adult phase. We can't do it without this signal that it's time to spend the extra energy. This is the way our brains are wired.

So I think it's really important to understand this concept because it helps us to see that uncomfortable situations, discomfort, hard things, difficult things that we go through, they come with a gift, they come with our brain's ability to adapt, to change itself. And many of you have heard my story that I told about in the introductory episode and that I've gone over at various times and other episodes about how I went through the process of moving from somebody who was, whose default was anxiety, who felt anxiety most of the time to someone who doesn't anymore. I'm not an anxious person by default anymore. And this happened during a period when I was going through something really hard, I had long COVID for three years. I was extremely sick. There was no cure for the illness, although I was searching for it all over the place, and so I just had to learn to manage my symptoms because there wasn't any immediate answer for how to get better right now. And I've explained in that introductory episode that during the time that I had long COVID, I was also doing my doctoral research. And this is important to note that these two things happened in tandem because my doctoral research was about anxiety management. And my long COVID because I wasn't able to cure it, I had to just manage it, and one of the things I had to learn to do to manage it was to manage my anxiety because I found that when I felt anxious, my symptoms got a lot worse. So if I let my anxiety run wild, my physical symptoms would be overwhelming. when I could manage my anxiety and bring it down, my physical symptoms would be more manageable. And so I was really motivated to learn how to manage my anxiety overall. So as I was doing my research on anxiety management, I would learn something about emotion regulation or about a regulation strategy, and I would immediately try and put it into practice and start to apply it. And because my brain had opened these gates for rewiring, because I was going through such a difficult experience with my long COVID, I was able to acquire new habits and they stuck. I was able to learn these strategies, put them into practice, and they actually became the way that I saw the world. It changed my default appraisals of how I view my resources in comparison to my demands as I was able to rewire my brain and move it from having a tendency to see everything is too much for me toward tendency to see that I can rise to the challenge and I can do this. It's like our brain is always trying to weigh what it is that's gonna cost less in terms of energy. Is it gonna cost me less to live with my anxiety, or is it gonna cost me less to make some new mental habits? Well, in my case, when I was so sick and anxiety was making my physical symptoms way worse, it was gonna cost me a lot more to live with my anxiety than it was to make some new mental habits. And so my brain was able to open those gates and say, here you go. Let's do this. And rewire those habits so that they stuck on a subconscious level.

Now, I wouldn't wanna go through long COVID again, and I wouldn't wanna see anyone else go through it. But I also wouldn't wanna go back to being who I was before it.. I'm so glad that I have the new brain that I have. Life is a lot richer and more wonderful for, for me now than it was before I had long COVID because I was able to make and adopt these new habits that I practiced during those times.

But the good news is you don't have to have long COVID in order to rewire your brain. You can actually do it through choice. Let me give an example. I have a friend who had really terrible social anxiety. And when the pandemic hit, she was actually glad because she would rather just stay at home and not have to talk to anyone. But the problem was that when the pan pandemic ended, it was really hard for her to go back out and start interacting with people. And she had so much anxiety around it that she just kind of chose not to, and she tended to avoid, continue to avoid more and more any kind of social interaction. But the problem was that she ended up pretty depressed and anxious and lonely. So her therapist gave her an assignment and he talked about how what she needed to do was to do exactly what she was afraid of. She needed to do what was gonna make her uncomfortable and make her feel that awful anxiety of going out and talking with people. She needed to do it because the more she did it, the more she exposed herself to having to interact with people socially, the easier it would get and the less it would make her feel anxious. Well, she believed him and she started to make herself go to social events, make herself engage with friends, make herself go to activities at her church, make herself go to professional opportunities like conferences that she, she hated doing 'cause she'd have to make small talk with people for an entire weekend. But because she believed that it was going to help her, she did it. And what happened was she started to get less anxious about social situations. She started to get more comfortable reaching out to people, and she started to feel better overall and feel less anxious and less depressed. Let's zoom in on what happened here. She did, she did something that was difficult and uncomfortable for her. She engaged in something that was strenuous. She created those conditions of discomfort and novelty for herself, and that then triggered her brain to open the gates for rewiring. Her brain, started to see that social interactions were not dangerous and that they could be beneficial and that they could feel good and that they could give her connection. So she started to view, her default view of social interactions started to change because her brain opened the gates for rewiring as a direct result of her effort and her dis her discomfort.

So to summarize, why is it so hard to make new habits as an adult? Well, it's because you need discomfort in order to trigger your neuroplasticity, you need to feel pain in order for your brain to rewire. Neuroplasticity is hard to trigger. When we were kids, it was just our default state. We felt that way all the time. We were always learning and we were always rewiring. As an adult, our brains are wired to conserve energy. So if we are feeling safe and we are feeling comfortable, our brains are gonna conserve energy and they're gonna stay in that default mode, and they're not going to open the gates for rewiring. Our default mode is energy efficiency conservation. Neuroplasticity is expensive. Energy wise, our brains don't wanna pay that energy price tag, unless pressured by circumstances, by uncomfortable circumstances, by novel circumstances, by some kind of conflict in our environment that tells our brains that it's time to spend the energy to re wire and to adapt. These are the biological triggers that will allow us to get new habits.

So I think this is really wonderful to to understand for two reasons. One, because when you're going through something hard, you can recognize that this hard experience also comes with a bonus. And the bonus is that now my brain can rewire itself. Now my brain is triggering the chemicals that will allow me to gain some new habits, to learn something new, to adapt to the change that is happening to me. And two, understanding this gives us some motivation that we need to do stuff that's uncomfortable, that's new, that requires effort, that reti requires practice, because it's this very effort, which feels painful in our brains. Anytime we exert any kind of cognitive effort, any kind of thinking, it feels painful, uncomfortable on some level, but this very pain and discomfort is what will open the gates for learning for rewiring. So I just wanted you to understand the neurobiology behind that old adage, no pain, no gain. That it is actually true, not just for our muscles, but also for our brains. So don't be afraid of hard things.

Thanks, and stay tuned now for our kindness narrative. We end up listening to so much bad and disturbing and threatening news. Take this minute just to listen to some beautiful, kind, loving news about your world today. And don't forget to send in your own kindness narrative because it really helps us to keep this practice going. I really appreciate everyone who sent theirs in. But it also will really help you to wire your brain simply because it requires a little bit more effort on your part. And it might be even a little bit uncomfortable, but that will help your brain rewire itself to become more grateful as a default. So that's why it's more powerful to actually send your own kindness narrative in. Stay tuned after the kindness narrative to hear where to send either your audio or your written form of your kindness narrative. Thanks, and see you next time.

This particular kindness narrative was shared with me by a listener in written form, and so I'm going to read it to you today.

About a year ago, I started having these episodes of abdominal pain. At first it was mild, uncomfortable, but manageable. Then one day, the pain hit me hard. It was unbearable. I usually have a high tolerance for pain, so the fact that I couldn't handle it made me realize I needed help. My husband was out of the country and I was home working from my desk teaching and mentoring online. The kids were at school. I reached out to someone from my faith community who's a nurse, just to get some guidance. She told me straight away that I needed to get to the hospital, but in the state I was in, there was no way I could drive myself. She acted so quickly she found someone who could take me. When I got to the hospital, it turned out another nurse I knew was on duty. I couldn't believe it. The waiting line at the ER was over three hours long, but because this nurse knew me, she arranged for me to be seen right away by the next doctor coming on shift. He treated me carefully and with real attention. I was sent for blood work and then for an imaging exam. While I waited, that same nurse managed to carve out a few moments to sit with me and calm me down. She kept checking on me whenever she could. I was so touched and grateful for her kindness. As we talked, I realized that she was actually carrying a heavy burden herself, deep pain as a mother and grandmother, but she had no one to share it with. They gave me an IV medication that took my pain away, so I was able to really listen to her without distraction. She made sure my test results came back quickly, saving me hours of extra waiting and anxiety. Honestly, she was like an angel. I left the hospital relieved that my pain wasn't caused by anything serious, though I knew I'd still need more tests. And then to top it off, this kind nurse even gave me a ride home. I'll never forget her. Strong on the outside, fragile on the inside, but always going above and beyond to care for others.