Neuroplasticity and confidence.

Brain

I was reading this morning some research on brain neuroplasticity related to confidence from Mount Sanai Hospital School of Medicine. They call confidence ‘life’s enabler’ or the quality that turns thoughts into action. Taking small steps in daily life adds up, they say in other words. Also, viewing failure as new information to be accepted as part of learning, versus sense of failing.

Good posture, too, plays a part in how confident we feel. This is innately known with practices like Tai Chi or yoga; feeling confident physically imports into feeling confident emotionally and mentally.

The Neuroscience of Choking: Thinking too much…

This is an interesting article because it demonstrates what happens when the pressure is on and we enter a fight or flight state and cannot bring ourselves back to a calm, relaxed presence.  In the Oriental Martial Arts, it has been known for a very long time that our worst enemy is ourself and our automatic and mechanical reactions to a current challenge.
Enjoy the article and think about NeurOPTIMAL Brain Training because we can train your brain to recognize that it is producing these negative states that will only work against you since ‘calm’ is our most effective state.  And we can train the brain to not only recognize its spending way too much energy and then DROP the negative reactions and remain present, here, right now.
Enjoy!
June 5, 2012

THE NEW NEUROSCIENCE OF CHOKING

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Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/frontal-cortex/2012/06/the-new-neuroscience-of-choking.html#ixzz22sPdm1Bz

Your Complicated Amygdala: Why Brain-Imaging Work Is Misleading

Brain Imaging seems to be an up and coming diagnostic tool; seems is the key word here.  Thus article talks about how these imaging techniques paint an over simplistic picture of how your brain works.  Modern physics has helped us let go of simplistic, reductionistic point of view that wants to ascribe certain functions to certain brains structures.  But our brain is much more like the world wide web, and of course, much more complex and sophisticated.  We are more taking a holistic or ‘holonomic’ view of brain function where the entire brain in involved as a unity in all functions rather than the ‘parts’ point of view of the past.

What exactly is flight-or-flight?

by David Delaney, MA, CAR, LPC                 david@boulderneurofeedback.com

Fight-or-flight is the collection of physiological (body) and psychological (mind & emotions) changes that occur when you face a perceived threat–when you face situations where you feel the demands on you outweigh your resources to effectively cope.

When some event in your life triggers the state of fight or flight, a series of changes occur within your body and mind, often without our awareness. They include:

•A quickening of the pulse

•A burst of adrenaline (can mean shaking, feeling queasy, or hyper-alert)