“Since the 1980’s I’ve pointed out the brain craves novelty. You need to mix things up. If your routine is the same everyday it becomes white noise. It loses signal value. You miss things. Your brain works by ‘use it or lose it.’ Without variety it may contribute to decline.
I encourage people to use the opposite hand, your non-dominant hand for tasks; writing your name, shaving carefully, brushing your teeth, and more. Dress in a different order from what you normally do. Try to wear different styles that ‘aren’t you’. Change it up.
Change your dressing order. Top down or bottom up. Put your other foot or arm into your clothing instead of always doing it the same way. Tie your other shoe first. Change your shower or washing order. Wash top down or bottom up. Switch it all around. Add variety.
Transform Your Thoughts & Create Your Best Life Ever
Take a different way to work, play or school and home. Try different routes because you see and interact with different things. Sleep with your head at foot of the bed or on the other side or across the bed. Switch rooms. Eat your food in a different order. Shake it up. Get it?
Your brain loves it when you do this. You may not at first because it is out of routine, not habit and may seem different and uncomfortable. It will at first. Stick with it and you’ll get used to it. You can train yourself to become ambidextrous if you wanted to. It’s up to you!
You can master anything given correct repetition for long enough. Why make these changes? Because you grow new neural connections and pathways. You sculpt your brain for health and well-being. You determine how and whether you thrive or not.
Transform Your Thoughts & Create Your Best You
There’s the notion, backed by some research, that the brain craves novelty so much, and we are habituated and routined, that we’re on autopilot 95-99% of the time. We react from habit. So the brain may create dis-ease just to give us something novel to deal with.
Life events, how you think, feel and handle them, shape your brain. As a child experiences outside of your control shaped and programmed your brain and brain connections. Good and bad habits got wired in to become unconscious and reliable before age 7 or 8.
Most of us live mostly by default instead of in charge of ourselves and our life. We can take back some control deliberately to re-condition our brains. We got programmed by default early on. Now we must re-condition it consciously and deliberately by intention.
Transform Your Thoughts & Make Everything Better Starting Now
Your brain streamlines everything. That’s why we have habits, and routines that operate by default. We don’t have to think about them but this could be leading to our decline too. This is why challenging yourself, problems, obstacles and novelty is important for us.
You must get out of your routine which IS your comfort zone. You do most of what you do without thinking about it. When things change you may not like it. Even if it’s a good thing you’re likely to return to the old more familiar way because that IS your comfort zone.
For some people even discomfort is preferable to the unknown. From habit they cling to old wounds and past hurts instead of letting them go and feeling better. People tend to choose the familiar because that is what they typically tend to do. It IS habit to do this.
Manage Your Thoughts To Transform Your Life
Get out of your comfort zone. Add in novelty. NOT too much at once but bit by bit and you’ll make your brain happier and healthier AND you will be too. Get it? Here are more ways to externally make use of neuroplasticity to get great and healthy benefits. Do it or lose it.
Learn new things! Take courses and learning programs. Mental personal improvement programs. Try dance classes, language course, singing or music lessons. Try public speaking or stand up comedy. Take a memory course. Read books you don’t usually.
Listen to different music. Watch movie you don’t normally gravitate to. Eat different foods in different restaurants. Try new things. experiment. It takes at least a dozen exposures to develop a taste for a new or unliked for. Enough repetition makes things permanent.
Learn How To Change Your Thoughts & Transform Your Life
I mentioned earlier using your non-dominant hand. Do this as suggested above and by using your computer’s mouse with the opposite hand. Stop relying on GPS. Use maps. Learn new routes. Memorize phone numbers and addresses instead of your phone.
USE your brain and your body to drive changes. Do brain training courses and exercises. Those people who recover from a stroke or a physical injury use their brains and bodies deliberately. They need to repeat new behaviors, consistently for long enough to wire them in.
Travel. Visit museums and galleries and places you don’t usually go. Visit new cities and countries, Go to another city or walk in the woods. Hike in new safe places. When you’re in a new location your brain is alerted. You have to get off automatic to a certain extent.
Change Your Thoughts To Transform Your Life
You have to think or consider things differently when everything is new to you. It helps you wake up. Make new friends. Engage in new and different conversations with new people. Befriend people you might otherwise not. Enjoy different cultures and practices.
Research demonstrates your brain remains healthier longer into advanced age by engaging in more social contact. Not less. You feel better and think better. When appropriate and safe, enjoy more hugs. The better your feel the more you can do. And vice versa.
Train your mind and brain from the inside and from the outside. Practice gratitude, meditation and visualization. Write blessings down. Read what you wrote and update. Create plans for success and work the plans. Make it a habit to change and create new habits.
You Will Transform Your Life When You Change Your Thoughts
Understand you have the ability to evolve yourself in positive and powerful ways to live your best life ever on your terms! Get off of autopilot. Put yourself in the driver’s seat. Take charge. Discover all the ways life is wonderful when you take active control of living happily and successful. Don’t wait for it. Make it happen. Celebrate everything.” Rex Sikes
PS I share so much more in Life On Your Terms and upcoming blogs
“This may be the wisest, more realistic, and most helpful book I’ve come across. I’ve been a self-help book addict for at least five decades, and I’ve read many of the greats. This is up there with the greats and maybe beyond. Besides extraordinary insights, the style is accessible and compelling. I loved LIFE ON YOUR TERMS. Buy it!” Mitzi Perdue, Author, Entrepreneur (Frank Perdue Chicken)
READ LIFE ON YOUR TERMS AND CHANGE YOUR LIFE
Read my book Life On Your Terms: Create The Life You Want for lots more powerful practices and ideas to live happily and successfully. It’s an especially important book during tough times. Read it in advance of difficult times to be prepared or during tough times to know what to do and what not to do to get better results!
Make good things happen. Get it today! Here’s the link:
READ LIFE ON YOUR TERMS AND CHANGE YOUR LIFE
Book and Kindle available at Amazon. Makes great gift!
©2019 Infographic Rex Steven Sikes & Rex Sikes Entertainment, LLC
©2020 Cover Rex Steven Sikes & Rex Sikes Entertainment, LLC
I love this, Rex. I learned it also in the 80’s as part of my life insurance sales training. Coincidentally, I revisited challenging all of my routines and their actions two days ago. From the switching of hands to order preferences, etc., I found it easier to alter many habits once one had been done. Most interesting to me though, was that it was not a conscious thought of mine to initiate the first change. I just found myself getting dressed in a completely different order upon rising. It made me smile as I recognized the gift!
Love and Light, Rex – and to all who visit.
Marvelous!! Absolutely!! Peace love and blessings to you Paul!