Brain Plasticine

Rahul Jandial is both a brain surgeon and neuroscientist. The ability to deal with both the physical stuff of the brain and the functions of the mind, has led Jandial to write a number of books busting many myths people seem to believe about their own mind. The deep problem is that carrying around such false beliefs means such people feel unable to break free of damaging behaviours. In this interview Jandial answers some key questions regarding his discoveries. Most importantly, these are ideas that desperately need to be extracted from the research literature and articulated to the general public.

Here is a brief intro from near the start of the interview. Edited for clarity.

In the industrial revolution, all the pictures about the brain, you see them as gears. But in modern time we're starting to think about it as wired. "I'm wired for this, I'm wired for that." You're not wired for anything!
It's an ecosystem filled with throbbing 100 billion microscopic jellyfish sparking electricity at each other, trying to approach each other, shaving down, pruning, branching, arborizing. So when I use those words, like arborization and pruning, those are neuroscience words in rigorous neuroscience journals - but it hasn't sort of made it to pop culture. So I think part of what keeps us stuck is that we think "I'm wired this way" or "I have to rewire" and it's too on/off, rather than a flow; it's not a freeway from A to B, it's the way you see a school of fish flow, they roll over each other, like the aurora borealis, that's our thoughts and that's how feelings float through the ether of our minds. When you start to understand it like that then you know every day something new is possible.

Is it easy? No! But it's possible. That's the real way to think of your brain. mind and behavior; that it's completely plastic in the sense that you're never the same person just from a moment ago since we've met.

He likes to describe thoughts as swarms of neural activity, like a school of fish or a flock of birds. He doesn't use the word "electromagnetism" - not sure why - but that is what he is describing. Neurons act and react at multiple levels that include the chemical, electrical and magnetic interactions. Any idea or intention or emotion will create a different flow, so instead of trying to follow the path of a single fish, the thought is in the whole school, it is the sum of thousands of vectors that gives one resultant.

The take-away from a personal perspective is that there is no reason for anybody to feel stuck in a frame of mind that they wish to change. The only warning that Jandial gives is that, "It isn't easy!" And that takes us back to the energetics of psychology. It is those metastable states of mind that feel stuck, because they are both too stable to dislodge easily yet not stable enough to yield true well-being.

Here is a much shorter video that describes some of Jandial's favourite neurofitness techniques. Not surprising, this includes a good diet of real natural food, meditation and conscious breathing, plus many small things that stimulate both analysis and creativity.

The brain is plasticine - play with it.

Because if you don't, someone else will.