We Can Rewire our Brains

This short bit from the book talks about Caroline Leaf's decades of neuroscience research that gives us a hall pass just when we think it's too late to change.

Dr. Caroline Leaf shows brain images in Switch on Your Brain detailing the startling difference between a healthy memory that’s clear and a toxic memory that’s dark and muddled. She writes, “As we think, we change the physical nature of our brain. As we consciously direct our thinking, we can wire out toxic patterns of thinking and replace them with healthy thoughts…It all starts with the realm of the mind.”[i] We can wire out toxic patterns of thinking and replace them with healthy thoughts.

Leaf has been doing neuroscience research for over 20 years and the science in this field has taken off in the past decade, proving what researchers have known to be true with brain imaging—we really are what we think. “We can see and measure the activity of the mind through the firing of neurons,” she writes. “We can even prejudice the seeming elusiveness of the main functions of the mind—that of thinking and choosing—through quantum mechanics.” She goes on to list how this thought pattern manifests in schools, with senior citizens, with accident victims, with trauma, and the list goes on. Science is hovering on a precipice as we recognize the responsibility and impact of our thinking…right down to how the genes of our bodies express themselves.”

Dr. Leaf has authored many books and podcasts. Read more here.

[i] Leaf, Dr. Caroline (2013). Switch on Your Brain: The Key to Peak Happiness, Thinking, and Health. Baker Books, p. 20.