More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Each neuron can have many synapses because it can have many branches, or dendrites. New dendrites grow when there’s a lot of electrical stimulation. As dendrites grow toward hot spots of electrical activation, they may get close enough for electricity to jump the gap. Thus a new synapse is born. When this happens, you have a connection between two ideas.
Whatever connections you have, you don’t experience them as tentacles grown by well-used neurons. You experience them as “the truth.”
5. Emotion Receptors Grow or Atrophy
For electricity to cross a synapse, the dendrite on one side must release a chemical that arrives at a receptor on the other side. Each of our brain chemicals has a complex shape that fits its own special receptors the way a key fits a lock. When you feel flooded by emo...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
FIVE WAYS EXPERIENCE CHANGES YOUR BRAIN Experience insulates young neurons with myelin, so they’re superfast conductors of electricity. Experienced synapses are better at sending electricity to neighboring neurons, so you’re better at lighting up a path you’ve lit up before. Neurons atrophy if they’re not used, so you rely more heavily on the neurons you’ve used. New synapses grow between neurons you use, so you make connections. Receptors grow and atrophy, so it’s easier to process the feelings you experience repeatedly.
Happy chemicals float around seeking receptors they fit into. That’s how you “know” what you’re happy about. A neuron fires because a happy-chemical key has opened a receptor lock, and that firing develops the neurons that tell you where to expect happiness in the future.
Electricity flows through your neural pathways, but you always have the power to redirect the flow. This is the core of your free will.
The brain often generates conflicting impulses. You want to eat pizza and you don’t want to. You want to write your opus and you don’t want to. You want to call your mother and you don’t want to. You are always deciding which impulse to act on and which to inhibit.
We feel bad when we fall short of a goal we consciously pursue. Without our knowing it, the quest to feel good builds circuits that prepare us to meet our needs.
Social skills are essential to reproductive success. Though reproduction is not your definition of success, it’s what mattered in the world our brains evolved in. The skills involved in reproductive success vary for males and females:
A female can only birth a limited number of offspring, and in the past many of those perished before puberty. The survival of a female’s genes depends on her ability to keep her children alive. Social skills can help a female get protection, nutrition, and better paternal genes. A male mammal can promote his genes by creating more offspring and investing less in each one. The quantity strategy rewards males skilled at attracting females and competing with other males.
Anything that works gets wired in, even behaviors that could be counterproductive in the long run. If a bad behavior gets a reward, a young brain tags that behavior as useful for survival. If a child gets support when he is aggressive, and the support disappears when he’s cooperative, a brain can easily learn that aggression is a good survival strategy.
EXERCISE: WHAT ARE YOUR EARLY PATTERNS? List early experiences of happiness and unhappiness, and notice the circuits they paved: Before age eight In adolescence List early experiences that were repeated often and notice the circuits they paved: Before age eight In adolescence
Emotion is a Catch-22. Anything that feels good now will have side effects later. Good feelings exist because of their side effects, thanks to natural selection. So the quest to feel good does not always lead to survival improvements. It can lead to weight gain when you quit smoking, or a new phobia when you conquer an old phobia. Emotion works fast, but it brings trouble.
Repetition works slowly, but it can build behaviors with fewer side effects. If you expose yourself to something over and over, it can “grow on you.” You can come to like things that are good for you even though you don’t like them instantly.
New Dopamine Habits
Celebrate Small Victories You have some success every day, so commit to finding it and say, “I did it!”
Celebrating small steps triggers more dopamine than saving it up for one big achievement. Big accomplishments don’t make you happy forever, so if you always tie happiness to a far-off goal, you may end up frustrated. Instead, learn to be happy with your progress.
NO SUCCESS IS TOO SMALL Do not undermine your good feeling by apologizing to yourself for the triviality of the accomplishment. Just enjoy the split second of triumph and move on. It’s just a spark, but if you ignite it every day, you will be your own best spark plug.
Celebrating small accomplishments is a valuable skill, because big things come from many small steps. You won’t take those steps if you are just running on the fumes of the last big thing.
It doesn’t take much time or money to step toward a goal. Just commit ten minutes a day and you will feel momentum instead of feeling stuck. Ten minutes is not enough to move mountains, but it’s enough to approach the mountain and see it accurately.
TAKE ACTION, DON’T JUST DAYDREAM Spend your time on concrete action. Don’t spend it fantasizing about quitting your day job or pressuring others to help you. It’s not their goal. Dig into practical realities instead. Do this faithfully for forty-five days and you will have the habit of moving forward.
You will start to expect that dopamine feeling and look forward to it. You will learn to feel that it’s possible to transform a dream into reality with steady effort. When your ten minutes is over, go back to living in the present. Do not make a habit of focusing constantly on the future.
Commit to spending ten minutes a day on your dreaded task.
Your dreaded task may miraculously resolve itself in less than forty-five days! If so, don’t stop. Find another painful mess so you keep going for forty-five more days.
For forty-five days, experiment with lowering the bar in areas where you have set yourself impossible goals and raising the bar in places where you’ve set it so low that you feel no reward.
EXERCISE: WHAT ARE YOUR NEW DOPAMINE STRATEGIES? Make a list of remodeling projects that can work for you in each of the following categories: Celebrate small victories Take steps toward a new goal Divide an unpleasant task into small parts Keep adjusting the bar
New Endorphin Habits
Laugh Laughing stimulates endorphin as it spontaneously convulses your innards. Find out what makes you laugh, and make time for it.
Cry on Occasion Crying releases endorphin because of the physical exertion. I do not suggest making a habit of crying—it comes with a lot of cortisol too.
Exercise Differently Varying your exercise routine is a good way to trigger endorphin. It takes strain to trigger endorphin, and if you keep straining the same place, you risk injury. If you work new places with new exercise, moderate exertion can stimulate endorphin.
Stretch Endorphin is also stimulated when you stretch. Everyone can add stretching to their daily routine, because you can do it while you’re watching TV, waiting in line, or talking on the phone. Mild stretching brings circulation into constricted areas.
The point is not to push harder on the usual spots but to stretch spots you didn’t know you had, such as the muscles between your ribs. Don’t forget to stretch your toes, fingers, and even ears.
Make Exercise Fun Consider switching to a fun exercise for forty-five days. An exercise that triggers your happy chemicals helps motivate you toward more vigorous exertion.
EXERCISE: WHAT ARE YOUR NEW ENDORPHIN STRATEGIES? Make a list of remodeling projects that can work for you in each of the following categories: Laugh Cry Exercise differently Stretch Make exercise fun
Building New Oxytocin Circuits
Build on “Proxy” Trust Social trust is hard to create, so people often use proxies. Animals, crowds, and digital friends are proxies that can stimulate good feelings of social trust without the complications of human bonds. The oxytocin is less than with live personal contact, of course. But proxies can expand the foundation for future trust.
forty-five days, and you will build a foundation that can ignite more.
Maybe there’s someone you want to trust, but you can’t bridge the divide. It’s good to know you can build trust with a long series of very small interactions.
The stepping stones can be placed so close together that neither party risks a big betrayal. Each step need only create positive expectations about the next step rather than resolve the whole problem. Each small experience of trust stimulates the good feeling of oxytocin, which connects neurons that help trigger more.
Initiate a very small interaction, and if that proceeds without disaster, do it again. The goal is not to trust blindly and get disappointed. The goal is to build positive expectations.
For forty-five days, craft reciprocal exchanges that build stepping stones toward trust with difficult people. You can’t predict the results since you can’t control others. But you will expand your sense of control over the trust bonds in your life.
other people trust you, it feels good whether or not you trust them. You can enjoy more oxytocin by creating opportunities for people to trust you.
Simply honor your commitments, and then pause to enjoy being a person who honors her commitments. It may sound self-important, but the circuit it builds is the foundation of future trust. So plan to honor your commitments scrupulously for forty-five days.
you have to interact with people whose trustworthiness is unknown. By trusting and verifying, new trust can grow. If you do it for forty-five days, you can’t predict what others will do, but you can build confidence in your ability to extend your trust circle. Instead of being confined to the niche where you can trust everyone, you have a tool for taking controlled risks.
Massage stimulates oxytocin. You don’t have to spend a lot of money to have a daily massage. Here are some other options:
EXERCISE: WHAT ARE YOUR NEW OXYTOCIN STRATEGIES? Make a list of remodeling projects that can work for you in each of the following categories: Build on “proxy” trust Place stepping stones Be trustworthy Build a trust verification system Get a massage
Building New Serotonin Circuits
Express Pride in What You’ve Done Pride is complicated. Applause-seeking can have bad side effects, but when you get no recognition from others, something feels wrong. You could applaud yourself, but the brain is not easily tricked by hollow self-respect. It wants respect from others because that has survival value.
