Trippy Report #1: Mother Nature’s Clever Trick

TLDR

In this inaugural Trippy Report, we'll answer these questions:

• WTF is a neuron and why should you care about neuroplasticity?

• Why were your helpless infantile years actually a blessing and a clever trick by Mother Nature?

• Does the outer world dictate the function and physical form of your inner world (e.g., your brain)?

• Just how fast can your brain—and your life—truly change?

• Does the universe have your back?

🚦If you are shamelessly lazy and can't spare 7.5 minutes to read below, then skim over the bold text below and read the Summary at the bottom.

Neurons & neurons

As you may have seen, I’ve been creating short-ish form content called Neurons.

Neurons are bite-size teachings with practical wisdom, personal development frameworks, and mind-blowing science to help you stop drifting and to start making the small, consistent changes that result in big transformations.

(Henceforth, Neuron with a capital “N” refers to my content and neurons with a lowercase “n” refer to the neurons inside of your body).

My intention is for my Neurons to gradually connect with each other to form “courses” and “books”. This is analogous to how neurons in your brain create networks, and how your brain physically changes in size and shape.

And the brain is precisely what we’ll be tripping out about today.

Now, let’s tap into the two of the world’s most fascinating minds: David Eagleman (international bestselling author, neuroscientist) and Dr. Dawson Church (bestselling author, neuroscientist, meditation expert).

What Is A Neuron?

Have you ever genuinely craved to understand what a neuron is?

Probably not, even though you possess 86 billion neurons inside of your skull.

Isn’t it odd how you are more fascinated with the opinions of others than with what you are made of? I digress.

Per David Eagleman—neuroscientist and bestselling author—neurons are “cells that shuttle information rapidly in the form of traveling voltage spikes”.

And, similar to the Neurons I’ve been writing, neurons inside our bodies do NOT exist in isolation. Rather, a single neuron can densely connect with thousands of other neurons to form “intricate, forest-like networks”. Per David, we have approximately 0.2 QUADRILLION neuronal connections. Wow…

Forming these intricate networks is the purpose of my Neuron content. Eventually, just as your brain’s neurons form networks and generate 23 watts of power (enough to light up a room), these Neurons might powerfully light up your life.

In the photo below, you can see within the white circle that two neurons are starting to move toward each other, make a connection, and form a network.

This process of forming neural networks is known as neuroplasticity, but scientists used to deny that the brain could change!

Who could deny that? Perhaps the better question is, who proved that our brains can change?

We’ll find our answer back in the 1960s.

Neuroplasticity: A Controversial Scientific History

In a groundbreaking experiment in 1964, neuroscientist Marian Diamond (1926–2017) was the first scientist to demonstrate brain neuroplasticity.

Side note: Marian Diamond also studied the preserved slices of Albert Einstein's brain after he passed away!

The term neuroplasticity was coined by American psychologist William James, who observed how a plastic object, such as a cup, can be shaped and hold its shape. And thus, a similar phenomenon takes place in the brain—but as we will discover, the brain is ever-dynamic, not static or plastic.

Today, we peacefully agree that lifting weights in the gym produces larger physical muscles, but scientists in the 1960s ferociously denied that the brain functioned similarly to our muscles.

In fact, scientists believed that the brain only deteriorated with age, rather than growing and changing based on our experiences!

However, Marian Diamond created two groups of rats in her study: rats in an “enriched” environment (i.e., with cage mates, toys, running wheels) versus rats in an “impoverished” environment (i.e., solitary and empty cage).

Then, she discovered that the enriched environment altered the rats’ brain structure correlated with learning and memory—the cerebral cortex of the enriched rats became 6% thicker than that of the impoverished rats.

Additionally, the enriched rats “performed better at tasks. And at autopsy, the enriched rats were found to have long, lush dendrites (the treelike branches growing from the cell body). In contrast, “rats from the deprived environments were poor learners and had abnormally shrunken neurons,” notes David Eagleman in his exceptional book Livewired: The Inside Story of the Ever-changing Brain.

Clearly, the external environment influences the precious space inside of our skulls.

So, at the annual meeting of the American Association for Anatomy, Marian proudly presented her groundbreaking findings, as any giddy scientist would. Demonstrative of the times, a man stood up in the back of the room and loudly denied Marian’s findings, “Young lady, that brain cannot change!”

Thus, the “enrichment paradigm” was not collectively accepted by scientists for another 20 years.

Later, in the 1980s, Marian demonstrated that after just 6 months in a stimulating environment, the cortex grew thicker in older rats (the rat equivalent of a 75-year-old human). This proved neuroplasticity in older mammals too, in addition to her first study with younger rats, which made her findings more widely acceptable.

Imagine discovering that your 75-year old grandmother’s brain was actually re-shaping itself based on her new experiences, such as expertly learning to play bingo with her nursing home mates.

In essence, this is what Marian’s studies proved. Of course, because that is actually what happens inside of the human brain.

Now, as we discussed above, neurons are “cells that shuttle information rapidly in the form of traveling voltage spikes”.

When neighboring neurons immediately react to the electrical activity of each other, those neurons strengthen their connection. Hence, Hebb’s Law, which states, “neurons that fire together wire together.”

In practice, every second of your life, there is electrical activity in your brain. And that activity is uniquely generated by what you are doing, saying, thinking, feeling, eating, touching, hearing, etc.

So, the more you repeat something and generate that specific brain activity, the more certain groups of cells “spike” at the same time.

This strengthens those aforementioned “intricate, forest-like” neural networks.

This process is called neuroplasticity: the brain’s ability to be shaped through experience AND to retain the changes in shape from such experiences, ad infinitum.

So, why did Mother Nature design us to be able to change from before we are born to the moment we die?

For that answer, we need to turn back the clock to our infancy and understand why a human would never want to be a Komodo dragon.

Mother Nature’s Clever Trick

Komodo dragons arrive on this planet with a brain that is generally hardwired to execute the few skills on their resume: eat, move, mate.

Similar to Komodo dragons, many other creatures are born “mature”—such as the guinea pig, sheep, and giraffe—all of whom come out of the womb with teeth, fur, and open eyes. Immediately, these creatures are able to walk, eat solid food, and regulate their body temperatures.

They arrive equipped to survive.

However, if you relocated an innocent Komodo dragon from tropical Indonesia to the snowy mountains of Canada, this poor dragon would quickly perish, as it would not be able to adapt to its new environment.

Meanwhile, you—as a human baby—were born far more immature than a Komodo dragon.

You did not possess the ability to walk, hunt for food, understand language, regulate your body temperature, or defend yourself. You only excelled at crapping your pants.

However, after your caretakers carry you through your helpless infantile years, you have an innate adaptive power in your biology to not only survive, but thrive, in diverse environments (and perhaps on diverse planets in the future such as Mars and beyond).

Our trick isn’t that we are bigger or stronger than the creatures around us—an angry territorial hippo would quickly end a human life.

Rather, counterintuitively, the trick is that “at birth, the brain is remarkably unfinished, and interaction with the world is necessary to complete it,” as David Eagleman notes.

From the moment of birth, the world teaches us how to live and it shapes our brains, accordingly.

This has proven to be a winning strategy for humans.

This is how our brains mature to be able to calculate flight dynamics to the Moon, ponder quantum physics, and build skyscrapers.

Although none of these achievements were specifically predestined, the capability to achieve that was pre-designed by Mother Nature.

As David Eagleman says, “We represent the highest expression of a trick that Mother Nature discovered: don’t entirely pre-script the brain; instead, just set it up with the basic building blocks and get it into the world.”

Now, this dynamic blessing also comes with a curse. For better or worse, what we experience becomes physically etched into our neural fabric.

To illustrate this point, what if we looked inside of the brain of a London taxi driver in the year 2000?

How The World Dictates The Form & Function of Your Neural Fabric

Right now, your brain is a symbol of who you are and what you do. 

If we knew how to properly interpret it, we would be able to slice open your brain and—without knowing anything about your life—determine if you have two arms or one, if you are blind or deaf, or even if you drive taxis for a living.

How is that possible?

In an often-cited scientific study, it was discovered that the hippocampus—a region of the brain involved in spatial memory—was significantly larger in experienced London taxi drivers than in non–taxi drivers.

Why?

The drivers stored a spatial map in their hippocampus and relied upon it to navigate around the city, rather than a relying on map app on their phones (keep in mind, this study was conducted in 2000 before the prevalence of mobile map apps).

In the same way, your brain reflects the world around you and how you spend your time in it.

If you are a mathematician, musician, or a carpenter, the structure and networks in your brain will be uniquely designed by your environment and your experiences within your environment.

As James Clear notes in his bestselling book Atomic Habits, musicians have a larger cerebellum—the brain region correlated to physical movements like plucking a guitar string—and mathematicians have increased gray matter in the inferior parietal lobule, which brain region plays a key role in computation and calculation.

As you can see, when you improve your skills at a given task, your brain will physically change to reflect that.

But does it take a lifetime to change? Or can we transform overnight?

Let’s trip out about just how fast change can happen.

The Mindblowing Speed of Change

Contrary to common thought, your brain regions are not forever dedicated to a specific function.

If you were to lose your sight, for example, that cerebral real estate could be taken over by another function of your body, such as touch.

Let’s look in the pudding for the proof.

In a fascinating study, sighted participants (people with functioning vision) were blindfolded for five days and put through an intensive training on Braille—the system of touch reading and writing for blind persons in which raised dots represent the letters of the alphabet.

Meanwhile, a separate control group of sighted participants who were NOT blindfolded were put through the same Braille training.

The results?

The blindfolded participants became significantly better at reading Braille, as compared to their non-blindfolded counterparts.

But the brain scanner used in the study discovered something more remarkable: rapid neural reorganization in the blindfolded subjects!

David Eagleman explains the scene, “Within five days, the blindfolded participants had recruited their occipital cortex when they were touching objects. Control subjects (non-blindfolded), not surprisingly, used only their somatosensory cortex. The blindfolded subjects also showed occipital responses to sounds and words… When the blindfold was removed, the response of the occipital cortex to touch or sound disappeared within a day. At that point, the (blindfolded) participants’ brains returned to looking indistinguishable from every other sighted (non-blindfolded) brain out there.”

What is this saying? Let me break it down for you.

As expected, the participants who were NOT blindfolded (and still had the capability to see during the study) only used their somatosensory cortex—the brain region normally responsible for processing touch—when touching Braille.

Conversely, when the blindfolded participants WITHOUT sight touched the raised dots of Braille, they rapidly started processing touch, sounds, and words in their occipital cortexes—the brain region that was formerly responsible for sight but became “vacant” after the blindfold eliminated their vision.

Simply said, their brains had changed—the region formerly devoted to vision was now being used to process touch!

Below, you can see actual brain scan images that demonstrate this "neural reorganization". Black indicates neural activity.

Then, within 24 hours of gaining their vision back by removing the blindfold, the blindfolded participants’ brains reverted back to normal.

The rapid changes rapidly disappeared!

Furthermore, a later study with more powerful neuro-imaging techniques discovered similar brain changes as rapidly as 40 to 60 minutes, as compared to the original five-day study.

And, powerful brain imaging techniques from other studies have proven that neurons can connect with each other in as little as 12 seconds!

This demonstrates the innate wisdom of your body.

Clearly, the brain knows when the outer world inputs are changing (i.e., no visual input due to the blindfold), so it rapidly begins to re-design your inner world—your neural real estate—to strengthen your other inputs (i.e., sense of touch, hearing).

In other words, if you lost your sight, your brain would make an announcement to itself like this, "Neurons! Listen up! We have lost our sense of sight! Thus, we have already begun to dismantle the neural networks for sight. Start making new connections with other brain regions! Immediately! Instead of sight, we will use this part of the brain for a different sense, task, or skill. Now, get back to work! This human's life depends on it!" 

Without you even thinking about it, your brain will swiftly change to reflect your environment. Pretty fucking spectacular, don’t you think?

That’s why David Eagleman compares neural networks to “neighboring nations” that are constantly fighting for territory inside your brain. The brain does not respect any borders.

Based on the information it receives from your senses (or lack thereof), it will rapidly engage in a takeover of nearby neural nations.

For example, in the study mentioned above, the metaphorical Nation of Vision suffered from a hostile takeover from the Nation of Touch, after the input of vision was eliminated by a blindfold.

Your brain is no passive creature.

Rather, your brain is constantly assessing how it can help you and competing to engrain that wisdom into your brain.

(Similarly, I intend for my Neurons to stake claim on your cerebral real estate and to help you put wisdom into practice, so that your brain’s neurons create empowering nations of their own.)

But what happens if you stop practicing what you preach? Let’s journey back to London for our answer.

Constant Neural Death & Birth

What was the most fascinating finding of the London Taxi driver study?

The taxi drivers’ brains changed when they retired—the hippocampus decreased in physical size.

In other words, they stopped driving, so the neural networks devoted to driving their taxis ultimately weakened and re-directed their energy to other tasks.

The same cycle of neural connection and disconnection happened in the blindfolded study mentioned above. And this happens with just about any task, sense, skill, or body part that you no longer activate.

According to Dr. Dawson Church, “If you stop using a neural pathway, it begins to shrink. After about three weeks, the brain notices you’re not sending information through that channel anymore and begins to disassemble the cells of which it is composed. As a result, the brain regions you use most grow larger and/or signal faster, while the ones you don’t use atrophy and shrink.” Then, the brain will start to recycle those building blocks for active circuits.

Hence the saying, “Use it or lose it.”

Losing it can be good news, though.

If you stop activating the neural networks related to your disempowering thoughts, feelings, and actions, your brain will take over that real estate and start to re-wire itself anew.

Better yet, the greatest news is even more fundamental.

As Dr. Dawson Church notes in his incredible book Mind to Matter, we replace one neuron in our brains EVERY SECOND via neurogenesis—the process through which you birth new neurons.

So, not only are you always evolving and re-shaping your brain accordingly, but you are ceaselessly birthing the raw materials to evolve in the first place.

Mother Nature designed us so brilliantly—it's nearly unfathomable.

Summary: The Big Takeaways

This very instant, your brain is changing.

It is connecting new neural networks, solidifying habitual networks, and pruning away neglected networks, based on your life experiences.

This is a gift given to you by Mother Nature that allows you to become and do just about anything you want.

So, no matter how good or bad you feel right now, no matter where you are, no matter who you are......remember that you are incessantly sculpting yourself and being sculpted by life.

You are becoming what you are practicing.

You are becoming what you are experiencing.

So, who do you want to practice becoming?

And what experiences do you want to etch into your cells?

Remember, change can happen very fast.

But if you don’t want those networks to disassemble as rapidly as you architected them, you need to keep energizing those neural pathways.

Your brain is paying attention. Always.

So, in your limited time on Planet Earth, who will you commit to being?

Demonstrate your answer to your cells, and they will re-configure themselves to lift you into that reality.

Suffice to say, the universe has your back.

Wishing you the best year ever in 2023.

Join The Compass Program

Join my (free) online group program called Create Your Compass, starting in February. You will:

• Develop self-awareness through deep reflection

• Articulate a vision for the person you've always wanted to be

• Create a self-guided musical meditation track with healing frequencies 

• Learn how to re-create yourself through meditation

• Generate heart-brain coherence—using a biometric device from HeartMath Institute that measures your heartwaves in real-time

• Teach yourself how to live

Reply to this email or schedule an informational call with me here. *Remember, the first 3 people to sign up will receive a free HeartMath meditation device to use during the program!

Dive Into The Trippy Report Rabbit Hole

Who Needs To Hear This?

Click the share button at the top of this article and/or send The Trippy Report to a friend (click here and copy/paste the URL).