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Training Your Brain to Accomplish Your Goals - Rewiring Your Brain · Doctor Turned Health Coach

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  Welcome to doctor-turned-health-coach. My name is Dr. Ashori,
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  a family medicine physician-turned-health-coach.
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  And in today's podcast episode, I'm going to talk about rewiring the brain.
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  Well, of course, the brain is always rewiring itself, whether we want to or not.
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  But maybe some of the most current research, especially over the past two decades,
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  has shown us that it is something that we have a lot more control over than we thought.
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  In fact, if we take somebody who has grown up in the countryside and we transplant
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  them into a busy, bustling city, we're going to see a lot of changes in their brain.
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  When we take somebody who's always grown up around a lot of family,
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  around a strong social structure, and unfortunately we transplant them into
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  a very busy, structured society, where, you know, work is more prioritized and
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  socializing not as much.
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  We're going to see very, very noticeable changes in their brain.
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  And this is usually done with PET scans and functional MRIs and all sorts of
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  different types of tests.
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  Not worth getting into. But rewiring is definitely something that happens,
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  whether we like it or not,
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  and it is something that we can control, which we
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  can of course use as a great way to improve our
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  overall health now the way rewiring
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  works is you end up putting
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  more energy and focus into certain parts of the brain apparently that's what
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  the science says of course in 10 years from now we're going to completely upend
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  that theory but for now that's what we believe and when we put more emphasis
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  and focus on that the brain is going to actually prioritize those parts of the brain.
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  So you might be asking, but how's that going to help me?
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  Well, in a recent podcast episode, I talked about the three habits or mindsets
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  that a lot of my quote-unquote successful health coaching clients have.
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  These clients have been able to make the transformations they wanted,
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  to make the changes that they wanted, a bit more easily than,
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  say, other health coaching clients of mine.
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  Now, by no means are these traits necessary to achieve your ideal health.
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  It just makes me realize that if I can help somebody, one of my health coaching
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  clients, to change the way they think, change the way their brain fires,
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  it's going to make their decisions much easier.
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  It's going to have a lot, there's going to be a lot less friction, a lot less resistance.
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  So imagine you've been stuck trying to incorporate some sort of movement,
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  activity, exercise, stability, whatever, in your daily routine,
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  but you've just gotten stuck.
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  You just can't seem to get it to happen consistently.
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  It doesn't feel right in your body. So what do you do?
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  One of the things that we know from this kind of functional neurology science
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  is that the way we think about exercise has to sometimes be reimagined in order
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  for this activity, this new activity to stick.
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  A good example is somebody who wakes up in the morning and does 10 minutes,
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  5 minutes of mindfulness or gratitude practice.
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  If we take that person's brain for the rest of the day,
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  the parts that light up and the parts that are actually being used are so different
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  than if we take somebody and have them focus for the first 5 or 10 minutes on
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  all of the negative relationships that they have.
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  Or all of the negative things that happened to them the previous day or have
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  them think about all of the fears that they have coming up.
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  These people are going to have very different mindsets. So in my health coaching
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  practice, one of the things that we do is we try to explore deep down what is
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  it that is holding you back?
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  What is it that you expect from this exercise?
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  What is it that you're hoping this exercise will do to you? What is it that
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  it is doing to you? What is it that you're perceiving?
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  And how can we, you and I, reframe this experience?
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  So it is difficult. It is tough on my joints. It leaves me very groggy.
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  It leaves me very exhausted.
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  Yeah, sometimes I like it when I'm doing it.
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  There's so much resistance right before I do it. So then sometimes it's about
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  tricking the brain into thinking that, oh, this is actually going to be kind of pleasant.
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  Sometimes it's about bringing up all the fears and changes that this is causing us.
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  And sometimes it's just about reimagining the entire relationship we have with exercise and activity.
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  Why is it that I believe I need exercise?
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  Am I doing it because I'm trying to deny the way I am?
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  Is it because I don't like the way I am? Those are not the right motivations.
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  And if I can help someone rewire their brain to believe that this activity,
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  this exercise is actually aligned with their overall health goal,
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  chances are, chances are, that activity is going to become a little bit more fluid.
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  There's going to be less resistance. Sometimes that can be a short meditation
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  on the exercise day in the morning when they wake up.
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  10-minute timer and they're sort of just seeing themselves moving about,
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  seeing their joints move in nature, on a grassy plane, walking,
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  going up the stairs, going down the stairs, swimming, moving through the water.
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  Maybe they're noticing their joints lubricating, they're seeing their tendons stretch and relax.
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  All of that is a sort of mindset of meditation.
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  Some people call it a Hypnosis, of course, for very severe cases in clinical
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  medicine, hypnosis is fantastic, and that's exactly what it does. It rewires that brain.
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  This is the same thing we can do for emotional relationships.
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  This is the same thing that we can do for dietary habits.
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  And it is a fantastic tool that I've used for many of my health coaching clients.
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  Now, if you're interested in finding out more, go to my website.
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  The information is in the show descriptions below. but I wanted to share this
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  with you so that you have yet another tool in your toolbox on your healthy aging
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  journey. Thank you for listening.