Imagineaza-ti ca mintea ta este ca o gradina. Ai putea fi pur si simplu cu ea, uitandu-te la buruienile si florile ei fara sa judeci sau sa schimbi nimic. Sau, ai putea smulge buruienile scazand ceea ce este negativ in mintea ta. Sau, ai putea creste flori prin cresterea pozitivului din mintea ta. In esenta, va puteti gestiona mintea in trei moduri principale: lasati-va, lasati-va sau lasati sa patrunda.
Cand se intampla ceva dificil sau inconfortabil – cand vine o furtuna in gradina dvs. – aceste trei moduri de a va angaja mintea va ofera un lucru foarte util . , secventa pas cu pas.
© Fotosmurf03
First, be with your experience. Observe it and accept it for what it is even if it’s painful. Second, when it feels right—which could be a matter of seconds with a familiar worry or a matter of months or years with the loss of a loved one—begin letting go of whatever is negative. For example, relax your body to reduce tension. Third, again when it feels right, after you’ve released some or all of what was negative, replace it with something positive. For instance, you could remember what it’s like to be with someone who appreciates you, then stay with this experience for 10 or 20 seconds.
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Pe langa faptul ca te simti bine in acest moment, acest al treilea pas va avea beneficii de durata, pentru ca atunci cand iei experiente pozitive, nu doar cresti flori in mintea ta. Cresti noi circuite neuronale in creierul tau. Sunteti un fir de fericire.
Neuroplasticitate dependenta de experienta
The brain is the organ that learns, so it is designed to be changed by your experiences. It still amazes me but it’s true: Whatever we repeatedly sense and feel and want and think is slowly but surely sculpting neural structure. As you read this, in the five cups of tofu-like tissue inside your head, nested amidst a trillion support cells, 80-100 billion neurons are signaling each other in a network with about half a quadrillion connections called synapses. All this incredibly fast, complex, and dynamic neural activity is continually changing your brain. Active synapses become more sensitive, new synapses start growing within minutes, busy regions get more blood since they need more oxygen and glucose to do their work, and genes inside neurons turn on or off. Meanwhile, less active connections wither away in a process sometimes called neural Darwinism: the survival of the busiest.
All mental activity—sights and sounds, thoughts and feelings, conscious and unconscious processes—is based on underlying neural activity. Much mental and therefore neural activity flows through the brain like ripples on a river, with no lasting effects on its channel. But intense, prolonged, or repeated mental/neural activity—especially if it is conscious—will leave an enduring imprint in neural structure, like a surging current reshaping a riverbed. In the saying in neuroscience: Neurons that fire together, wire together. Mental states become neural traits. Day after day, your mind is building your brain.
This is what scientists call “experience-dependent neuroplasticity,” which is a hot area of research these days. For example, London taxi drivers memorizing the city’s spaghetti snarl of streets have thickened neural layers in their hippocampus, the region that helps make visual-spatial memories; like building a muscle, these drivers worked a part of their brain and grew new tissue there. Moving from the cab to the cushion, mindfulness meditators have increased gray matter—which means a thicker cortex—in three key regions: prefrontal areas behind the forehead that control attention; the insula, which we use for tuning into ourselves and others; and the hippocampus. Your experiences don’t just grow new synapses, remarkable as that is by itself, but also somehow reach down into your genes—into little strips of atoms in the twisted molecules of DNA inside the nuclei of neurons – and change how they operate. For instance, if you routinely practice relaxation, it will increase the activity of genes that calm down stress reactions, making you more resilient.
If you step back from the details of these studies, one simple truth stands out: Your experiences matter. Not just for how they feel in the moment but for the lasting traces they leave in your brain. Your experiences of happiness, worry, love, and anxiety can make real changes in your neural networks. The structure-building processes of the nervous system are turbocharged by conscious experience, and especially for what’s in the foreground of your awareness. Your attention is like a combination spotlight and vacuum cleaner: It highlights what it lands on and then sucks it into your brain—for better or worse.
There’s a traditional saying that the mind takes its shape from what it rests upon. Based on what we’ve learned about experience-dependent neuroplasticity, a modern version would be that the brain takes its shape from what the mind rests upon. If you keep resting your mind upon self-criticism, worries, grumbling about others, hurts, and stress, then your brain will be shaped into greater reactivity, vulnerability to anxiety and depressed mood, a narrow focus on threats and losses, and inclinations toward anger, sadness, and guilt.
On the other hand, if you keep resting your mind on good events and conditions (someone was nice to you, there’s a roof over your head), pleasant feelings, the things you do get done, physical pleasures, and your good intentions and qualities, then over time your brain will take a different shape, one with strength and resilience hard-wired into it, as well as a realistically optimistic outlook, positive mood, and a sense of worth. Looking back over the past week or so, where has your mind been mainly resting
De fapt, ceea ce acordati atentie – asupra caruia va odihniti mintea – este modelul principal al creierului dumneavoastra. In timp ce unele lucruri capteaza in mod natural atentia unei persoane – cum ar fi o problema la locul de munca, o durere fizica sau o ingrijorare serioasa -, in general, aveti o mare influenta asupra locului in care se odihneste mintea. Aceasta inseamna ca poti prelungi si chiar sa creezi in mod deliberat experientele care iti vor modela creierul in bine. Acesta este ceea ce eu numesc „a primi binele”.
Aceasta practica, aplicata experientelor pozitive, se rezuma la doar patru cuvinte: ai, bucura-te de el. Si vezi singur ce se intampla cand o faci.
Experientele care te servesc cel mai mult
Contemplandu-ti gradina mentala in aceste zile, ce flori ar fi bine sa cresti
Anumite tipuri de experiente te vor ajuta mai mult decat altele.
Negative experiences could still have value for a person. For instance, working the graveyard shift in a bottling plant one summer while in college toughened me up. But negative experiences have inherent negative side effects, such as psychological discomfort or the health consequences of stress. They can also create or worsen conflicts with others. When my wife and I were tired and frazzled raising two young children, we snapped at each other more often. The costs of negative experiences routinely outweigh their benefits, and often there’s no benefit at all, just pain with no gain. Since neurons that fire together wire together, staying with a negative experience past the point that’s useful is like running laps in Hell: You dig the track a little deeper in your brain each time you go around it.
On the other hand, positive experiences always have gain and rarely have pain. The most direct way to grow inner strengths such as positive emotions, determination, and compassion is to have experiences of them in the first place. If you want to develop more gratitude, keep resting your mind on feeling thankful. If you want to feel more loved, look for and stay with experiences in which you feel included, seen, appreciated, liked, or cherished. The answer to the question of how to grow good things inside your mind is this: take in experiences of them. This will weave them into your brain, building up their neural circuits, so you can take them with you wherever you go.
How do we do this, exactly
Explic cum sa observ binele in detaliu in noua mea carte, Hardwiring Happiness. Dar pentru inceput, poate cel mai elementar mod de a avea o experienta pozitiva este sa observam lucrurile bune care ne inconjoara deja in viata de zi cu zi.
Incercati aceasta scurta practica menita sa va ajute sa observati experientele pozitive care plutesc deja pe marginea constientizarii voastre – o modalitate simpla de a va ajuta sa aveti o experienta pozitiva. Apoi parcurgeti urmatorii doi pasi de a primi binele, imbogatirea si absorbtia acelei experiente pozitive.
1. Au:Gasiti o senzatie placuta care este deja prezenta in prim-planul sau fundalul constientizarii voastre. Poate o senzatie de respiratie relaxata, o caldura sau racoare confortabila sau un sentiment corporal de vitalitate sau de viata. Aceasta senzatie poate fi subtila sau usoara, dar totusi se simte bine. Pot exista si alte senzatii, sau ganduri sau sentimente, care sunt inconfortabile si este in regula. Lasa-le deocamdata si atrage-ti atentia asupra senzatiei placute. Cand gasiti o senzatie placuta, treceti la pasul urmator.
2. Imbogatiti: ramaneti cu senzatia placuta. Exploreaza-l putin. Cum este
Ajuta-l sa dureze. Pastrati-va atentia asupra ei timp de 10, 20 sau mai multe secunde la rand. Reveniti la ea daca va rataceste atentia. Deschideti-va la aceasta senzatie din mintea si corpul vostru. Fara stres sau efort, vezi daca poate deveni si mai plin, si mai intens. Bucura de ea. Lasa placerea acestei senzatii sa ajute la mentinerea ei. Vedeti daca il puteti intruchipa prin actiuni mici, cum ar fi mutarea corpului pentru a respira mai deplin sau zambetul incet.
3. Absoarbe:Atat in timpul celui de-al doilea pas, cat si imediat dupa acesta, intentionati si simtiti ca senzatia placuta se cufunda in voi. Oamenii fac acest lucru absorbind in diferite moduri. Unii isi imagineaza ca experienta se impleteste in ele ca apa care se inmuieaza intr-un burete, praful auriu cernut, o bijuterie plasata in cufarul de comori al inimii sau un balsam linistitor. Altii pur si simplu inteleg conceptual ca experienta devine o parte a lor. In absorbtie, exista un sentiment de a primi, de a lasa sa patrunda, de a se inmuia si de a se scufunda in experienta pe masura ce aceasta se cufunda in tine.
Cand ati terminat cu aceasta practica, vedeti cum va simtiti. Obtineti o idee despre cum este sa luati binele.
Mai multe de la Rick Hanson
Inregistrati-va pentru viitorul atelier GGSC cu Rick Hanson, „Hardwiring Happiness”.
Cititi noua carte a Dr. Hanson, Hardwiring Happiness – precomandati-o si primiti gratuit prezentarea sa despre „5 Great Ways to a Better Brain ” .
Daca nu ai reusit sa observi senzatii placute, fie ca ai fost coplesit de dureri agonizante (sper ca nu!), fie trebuie doar sa incerci de cateva ori. Este firesc sa ai dificultati cu primul pas de a lua binele si usor sa-l subestimezi. Cand lucrati cu mintea, va ajuta sa aveti un spirit bland, dar persistent de explorare. Continui sa cauti. Daca nu poti gasi ceva pozitiv acum, poate ca va aparea un moment mai tarziu.
Neuroplasticitate autodirijata
The science of experience-dependent neuroplasticity shows that each one of us has the power to change his or her brain for the better—what Jeffrey Schwartz has called “self-directed neuroplasticity.” If you don’t make use of this power yourself, other forces will shape your brain for you, including pressures at work and home, technology and media, pushy people, the lingering effects of painful past experiences, and Mother Nature herself.
On the other hand, in quick, easy, and enjoyable ways right in the flow of your day, you can use the power of self-directed neuroplasticity to build up a lasting sense of ease, confidence, self-acceptance, compassion, feeling loved, contentment, and inner peace. In essence what you’ll do is simple: Turn everyday good experiences into good neural structure. Putting it more technically: You will activate mental states and then install them as neural traits. When you need them, you’ll be able to draw on these neural traits, which are your inner strengths, the good growing in your mind.
You’ll be using your mind to change your brain to change your mind for the better. Bit by bit, synapse by synapse, you really can build happiness into your brain.
Si facand acest lucru, veti depasi partinirea negativa: creierul este bun la invatarea din experientele rele, dar rau la a invata din experientele bune – daca mintea este ca o gradina, „solul” creierului tau este mai fertil. pentru buruieni decat pentru flori. Asa ca este foarte important sa plantezi semintele fortelor interioare, luand in mod repetat binele.
