Neuroplasticity: Your Brain Can Change at Any Age

For most of the last century, scientists believed the adult brain was essentially fixed — wired in childhood and set for life. We now know that's false. The brain reshapes itself continuously in response to experience, a property called neuroplasticity. Your habits and thoughts are quite literally physical, and physical things can be rebuilt.

How it works

The principle is often summarized as: neurons that fire together, wire together. Repeat a thought or action and the neural pathway behind it strengthens, like a trail worn smoother with use. Neglect a pathway and it fades. Every repetition is a small vote for the brain you're becoming.

Neurons that fire together wire together.

— Donald Hebb

Directing the change

Two things steer plasticity most powerfully: repetition and focused attention. That's why deliberate practice changes us — and why vivid mental rehearsal can too, since the brain encodes imagined experience along similar pathways to lived experience. It's the neuroscience behind why hypnotherapy and visualization work: rehearse the new response with full attention, and the wiring follows.