The hippocampus, remember, is the part of your brain that is in charge of memory, space and navigation, and what we call "executive function"--planning, reflection, and inhibition/thinking about the consequences of your actions ahead of time.
In other words, it's pretty darn important.
In the last posts, we learned that stress, anxiety, depression, and pain all causes the destruction of neurons and the shrinking of the hippocampus, and that certain anti-depression meds can stop the shrinkage and cause its growth.
One of my professors, Len Matheson, who specializes in clients with brain injuries, developed the following exercise called the Happy Hippocampus. It's something YOU CAN DO daily to promote the healthy grow of your brain and help yourself grow in an area of weakness at the same time.
I've shortened this from a blog post on his website.
Check out his website for a full explanation of this and other exercises you can use to promote healthy brain function!
"The Happy Hippocampus Exercise is deceptively simple and is much more influential than you will first appreciate. It works gradually to write an autobiography that conforms to how you want to be. It has these simple steps:
Every day for the next month, pick three episodes[1] that demonstrate a behavior you want to develop, in this case ways in which you were more courageous today than you were yesterday. Use a note pad to help keep track of this during the day.
Write a few words on the note pad that will be episode cues, reminding you what you did to demonstrate the behavior you want to develop, in this case, courage.
As you get ready for bed each night, review the note pad to refresh your memory about the three episodes.
After you go to bed and just before you drop off to sleep, pray a gratitude prayer, thanking God for your family and your other blessings.
After your gratitude prayer, recall the episodes and allow them to be the last information that you process before you fall off to sleep. If you have to keep thinking through these episodes, that’s fine, just stick with it until you drop off to sleep.
If you awake during the night, use your episode cues again to help get you back to sleep. Recall these thoughts in place of any thoughts that awakened you, especially if they were troubling thoughts.
Several important things are accomplished by the Happy Hippocampus Exercise. Let’s review what is accomplished by using courage as our example, helping you to develop more courage as a personal resource.
Remember that earlier information in the Hippocampus gets pushed out by later information. Since the most recent information in your Hippocampus is the three examples of how you were more courageous during the day, this information will hang out in the Hippocampus longer.
The longer the information about you being more courageous sits in your Hippocampus, the more likely it will be to be distributed to other parts of your brain. This helps to make the information into memories. Memories are chunks of information that are resistant to loss and help to influence how you think about yourself. So, by giving your Hippocampus three thoughts about how you were courageous during the day, you are developing new memories that have to do with courage.
As the information about you being more courageous sits in your Hippocampus, it distracts your brain’s attention from how you didn’t act courageous during the day. This is an extremely important point. None of us is perfect and we all have some things each day that we do well and some things that we don’t do well. If you select episodes that describe your courage, another part of your brain can stay silent, the amygdala. This is important because the amygdala is responsible for processing information about threats and shortcomings to get you ready to defend yourself. If you go to bed and your last thought is about how you weren’t courageous, it will trigger your amygdala, causing your body to go on alert. Although you may still go to sleep because you’re exhausted, your sleep won’t be as restful.
When you wake up in the middle of the night worried about a problem, the discomfort you feel is your amygdala getting you ready to defend yourself. Unfortunately, the amygdala doesn’t fully appreciate that you need a good night sleep and that there is nothing to be done about that traffic ticket or unpaid bill until the next day. Fortunately, the neurochemicals that your amygdala has triggered only last for about 90 seconds. As long as you don’t keep thinking about what is worrying you, after 90 seconds, you will be ready to go back to sleep. So, as an alternative to thinking about your worries, use those 90 seconds to get up and go to the bathroom and go back to bed and choose to think about your three Happy Hippocampus episodes from the prior day. You might have to throw in another gratitude prayer, but this will definitely be more helpful in getting you back to sleep than lying in bed obsessing about that traffic ticket or unpaid bill and feeding your amygdala threatening thoughts. We’ll talk later about how to get along better with your amygdala.
Recent research has shown that the brain actually grows new neurons in two locations. Guess what? The Hippocampus is one of the areas! Right now, reading this blog and learning about the Hippocampus is actually causing stem cells in the Hippocampus to start growing new neurons. In about 3 weeks, the neurons that are being born right now will be fully mature and ready to go to work for you. So, if you stimulate new neurons and every night for 3 weeks keep working on courage, guess what happens? Right! Those new neurons are going to work to preserve your more-courageous self-image. We could call these your “courage neurons” because if you keep processing information about how each day you act more courageously, those neurons become part of your God-wired brain, with you as the co-author. Pretty neat!
The final and very important point I’d like to make is that you are not only thinking about being more courageous in the Happy Hippocampus Exercise; you are gradually changing your behavior. It’s probably going to be difficult to find three episodes from your day in which you were more courageous than the day before, at least at first. Without these episodes, the exercise won’t work. Don’t try and fool yourself by pretending to be more courageous. Being courageous takes practice and requires skill. You develop the skill to be courageous gradually, learning how to better handle people and situations that used to baffle you or intimidate you. You can’t just think it and do it. You actually need to take opportunities each day as they come along and practice being more courageous in ways that are likely to be successful, but feel risky. Research has shown that “fake it till you make it” is not only ineffective, but can also cause problems. We’ll talk about this more in another blog entry that is titled, “White Lies and the Devil”.
So, that’s the Happy Hippocampus Exercise. It requires that you be thoughtfully intentional, looking for opportunities each day to develop an aspect of yourself that you value. The opportunities have always been there, now that you are looking for them, they will become more obvious. Once you recognize an opportunity, you can choose to use it or not. There will be plenty of opportunities, so choose with thoughtful intentionality.
1 comment:
Am I really the first post in this list of posts about the brain? Hard to believe. They really are fascinating.
Keep 'em coming!
Love, J
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