Your Brain is Plastic: A 5-Minute Guide to Installing Joy

We explore how to shift from survival mode to thriving by retraining our brain to scan for happiness instead of danger. Our brain's natural tendency is to focus on worries and problems, but we can manually install the skill of noticing pleasure and joy.

• Understanding the difference between surviving (having just enough gas to get to the store) and thriving (having a full tank)
• Introducing the concept of neuroplasticity - our brain is malleable like plastic and can be reshaped
• Step-by-step technique for installing happiness: notice positive events, create mental scenes, and focus on bodily sensations
• Practicing recognition of small daily pleasures to build resilience against stress
• Training the brain to focus intentionally on joy instead of taking it for granted

Take time today to notice the small moments of happiness in your life. Focus on them with greater intention so your brain can benefit from them more.

Opening Music by Jeremiah Alves from Pixabay

Closing Music by Aleksandr Karabanov from Pixabay

Chapters

• 0:42 Welcome and Deep Breath Reminder
• 1:07 Our Brain's Survival Instinct
• 1:49 Becoming Boss of Your Brain
• 2:33 Practicing Pleasure Recognition
• 4:39 Building Resilience Against Stress

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:24

Hello, welcome to another episode of Wellness Minutes. This is just a friendly reminder to pause and take a deep breath. Have you ever noticed, if you count the number of thoughts that go through your mind every day? Many of those thoughts are either worries, attempts to solve a problem or imagining what-if scenarios. Our brain is trained to scan for signs of danger in order to keep you safe, so we're likely to keep scanning for problems and trying to figure out their solutions. This is just typical, and it helps our survival. You know, this is how we've survived as a species.

Speaker 1: 1:04

The only challenge to constant worrying is that you can end up just being in survival mode instead of thriving mode. By thriving, I'm referring to your ability to live up to your full potential. Surviving is like having enough petrol in your gas tank to make a trip to the grocery store enough petrol in your gas tank to make a trip to the grocery store, while thriving is like having a full gas tank so you can keep driving as far as you possibly can. So what do we do if our brain is trained to scan for survival? Great question, and I'm going to give you the answer for free. I say become the boss of your brain and train it to scan for signs of happiness and pleasure. It may not come naturally to the brain, but you get to manually install that skill because you're the boss of you. Our brain is quite malleable. Read the concept of neuroplasticity if you want to know more. But to put it simply, our brain is like plastic. It can be shaped to fit our needs.

Speaker 1: 2:05

Right now, thanks to the stress in our life, our brain has a lot of practice with worrying. I suggest you give it a chance to practice with pleasure and joy. So here's how. Start by noticing something in your surroundings, or maybe even an event in your life that's making you feel happy, relieved, excited, just overall, helping you feel great. Create a scene about that event using your mind and body. So begin by summarizing that event in a few words you know like. Think of what the good news is. What do you think about when you think about this great news? For example, notice what your eyes see. Is it a picture, a symbol, a color? Notice how you feel throughout your body. Is there relief in your muscles, a change in how you're breathing? Keep coming back to the reality of the current moment. How does thinking about this event feel in your mind and body. Your brain will try to come up with fantastic scenarios, and I encourage you to come back to the reality of the current moment. How does this feel right now? What are the concrete images in your mind right now? How does it feel in your body right now? What are the concrete images in your mind right now? How does it feel in your body right now? And now ask yourself how would you like to remember this event and store this memory under that name, how you'll remember this event could be stored at Under that name. How you'll remember this event could be stored at. Good news about XYZ.

Speaker 1: 3:53

But how do you install happiness or the capacity for pleasure if you don't get happy news? Practice noticing things that do give you happiness or pleasure, even if it's really small. Things happen every day throughout the day that make us feel good, even for a minute, maybe even five times a day. Practice tuning into those things that give you happiness, joy, pleasure, even for a minute, just so your brain gets into the habit of noticing good things. Doing this can actually help us build our resilience against stress. It's a bit like having extra gas in your gas tank.

Speaker 1: 4:29

Noticing pleasurable events creates an extra layer of insulation against the impact of stress, because the brain experiences rewards and not just chronic stress. Install these events in your life, perhaps by listening to music, looking at something that makes you smile. You might already be doing things like these. What I'm just suggesting you do is focus on them when you notice them. Sometimes it's just fleeting, we don't even realize something gave us joy. So I'm saying focus on it with greater intention so that your brain can benefit from it more. Our brain naturally focuses on stress and it takes pleasure for granted. By doing things with greater intention, we are training the brain to focus on the pleasure and benefit from it.