Neuroplasticity
Neuroplasticity refers to the brains ability to reorganize and adapt by forming new neural connections. This helps the brain to learn new information and learn from new situations and also how well information in the brain is retained. When we learn something new, we create new connections between the neurons in your brain. Essentially rewiring our brain to adapt to this new information or situation. Much like other muscles the more you train it the stronger it gets. If we think of the neural pathways in the brain like a highway network leading to the city centre, the more you practice something the larger the road gets which in turn allows more cars to reach the city centre along that road. In the same analogy though, the less time you spend practicing previous skills, the smaller that road will become.
This understanding can greatly benefit people in many ways:
- Improved learning ability and retention of information: Research has shown that even just knowing that your brain can change and adapt can be enough to influence behaviour and return an improvement in cognitive functions such as learning, problem solving and retention of information.
- Mental Health: By promoting healthier thought patterns, Neuroplasticity can be a tool to aid in recovery from mental health challenges such as anxiety and depression.
- Increased resilience:People who understand neuroplasticity may be more open to trying new strategies for overcoming obstacles or setbacks, believing that they can always improve their brain's capabilities with the right effort.
Ways to Increase Neuroplasticity:
- Learn New Skills: Learning new skills like languages, musical instruments or other hobbies, will promote the creation of new neural pathways.
- Exercise: Regular physical exercise is proven to stimulate brain activity and brain growth and improve cognitive function.
- Mindfulness and Meditation: Thinking positive thoughts is one of the best ways to enhance focus, reduce stress and promote good cognitive function.
- Try new things often: The more things you try the more things you will find that you like. Once you find these things you like, keep doing them, practice and have fun. This is the only way to form new neural connections.
- Sleep: Getting a good amount of sleep is crucial for the brain to store what you have learnt that day.
- Challenge yourself: Challenges for your brain are great, these can be puzzles, games or tasks that require problem solving. This will stimulate new neural connections.
- Diet: A healthy diet rich in omega-3's and other good nutrients will all help your brain.
Sources
The Growth Mindset
The growth mindset is about praising effort as opposed to praising results but not just this. Outcomes do matter but the growth mindset is about progressing towards that outcome and the effort put in to get there.
In essence it is about having a mindset that you can develop your abilities and attributes.
I feel as though this is always relevant, to me it means being open to learning new things and striving to give things your best no matter the outcome.
This mindset will be essential for my learning journey at Dev Academy. Learning to code is essentially like learning a new language. I'm going to continue to stick at it to learn as best as I can.