Neuroplasticity: How to Manipulate Reality

The Remarkable Capacity for Change in the Human Brain

Most people go through their entire lives without truly understanding the astonishing potential for change that exists within the human brain.

It is commonly believed that our capacity for learning diminishes over time, with the assumption that we can only learn effectively during our childhood years. While this may be true for the majority, I argue that by following specific protocols, not only can we sustain learning throughout our lives, but we can also enhance it.

The primary reason why most individuals experience cognitive decline as they age is not due to irreversible neurological degeneration (which is a real phenomenon but can be slowed and even reversed), but rather because they cease to create new mental models.

As we navigate through life, we gradually learn what strategies work and what don’t in achieving our goals. Consequently, we naturally develop specific patterns of thinking and behavior, which cause other seemingly less important mental processes to decline.

“neurons that fire together, wire together.”

In other words, the more frequently we engage in a particular thought pattern or habit, the more likely it is to occur again in the future when faced with similar stimuli. I propose that it is possible to deliberately cultivate a sense of “voluntary addiction” to habits and thought patterns we wish to develop.

In this blog post, I aim to explore how we can improve learning and habit formation, introducing a novel protocol that I call “mental agency generation.”

Neuroplasticity and Learning

When we consciously and deliberately engage in a thought pattern through focused effort and external stimuli, the likelihood of that pattern recurring in the future significantly increases.

For instance, let’s consider my experience learning Russian. Even though I am only 17 years old and possess a high degree of neuroplasticity, I have discovered that engaging all five senses greatly accelerates the learning process. Here are the senses and strategies I employ:

• Visual: I study the Cyrillic alphabet and observe how the letters interact in words.
• Auditory: While learning, I listen to Russian music or audio accompanied by subtitles, allowing my mind to associate auditory and visual cues.
• Kinesthetic: I practice writing by copying text from the screen onto paper, reinforcing the visual representation of letters within my motor system.
• Verbal: I vocalize the exact pronunciation as a native speaker, developing the ability to speak the language fluently.
• Bonus: Olfactory/Gustatory: This may be more unconventional, but still valuable. Before each study session, I introduce a specific scent or flavor, such as wearing a particular perfume or chewing a specific gum, to stimulate areas of the brain associated with language acquisition.

By engaging multiple senses in the learning process, I have noticed a significant improvement in my ability to learn and retain information. This approach can be applied to various areas of learning and habit building, maximizing our brain’s remarkable capacity for change and adaptation.

Neuroplasticity and Habit Development

I hold an extremely strong, almost dogmatic belief that humans have absolute control over our choices (unless you have a mental illness that disallows rationality/damaged prefrontal cortex). I believe even the worst addictions can be cured (not saying it’ll be easy, but conscious effort/redirection of cues makes it a distinct possibility). I believe that depression in people with functional dopamine reward networks can be cured. Anxiety, drug addictions, and compulsiveness can be mitigated.

Andrew Tate famously evoked the heretical and discordant phrase “Depression is not real,” which I partially believe. Yes, depression is a chemical imbalance in the brain, but it’s possible to regain balance by attempting to manipulate our levels of neurotransmitter presence. If you have anxiety, you’d try to find ways to decrease cortisol. In the case of insomnia, you’d try to increase serotonin in the hours following dusk. For dopaminergic addictions, you’d try to first resensitize the reward circuitry through abstinence, followed by attempting to increase baseline dopamine levels by natural and healthy methods such as achievement, delayed gratification, and loving relationships. In the case of ADHD, you’d try to stimulate the increase of acetylcholine for focus and the mediation of adrenaline.

This idea is more psychological than neurological, but you must start to make extremely conscious decisions. You must become a future fortune teller. You do this by gradually increasing your ability to follow through with promises you make to yourself. You agree to fully complete the tasks that you set out to do, without procrastination or deviation. You start small, by making minuscule promises to yourself such as “I will fold my clothes the night before wearing them, and I’ll make my bed as soon as I wake up.” But the more you do this, the easier it becomes. Gradually, it becomes easier to make promises like “I will work 10 hours per day on my business and go to the gym 6 days per week.” It’s a slow process, so take it easy!

Also, it’s very important to note that most of our generation has an unhealthy relationship with our neurotransmitters. Every habit we do throughout our day is inextricably attached to a compulsion.

“I NEED a caffeine hit before I can start working.”

“I CAN’T eat food without scrolling TikTok.”

Our generation can’t idle for a single moment without scrolling on their phone, and sex for many has become an act of “masturbating with another person’s body.”

No, this cannot happen if you want to reach the zenith of human performance. You must let go of distractions in favor of what you truly want in life, lest what you want becomes the sacrifice.

Mental Agency Generation

This is a form of thinking that I’m proud to have come up with (at least, I assume no one else has come up with it before me, but they probably have). It’s possible to create mental models that interrupt and manipulate trains of thoughts. The easiest way to visualize this I’ve found is to think of government task forces.

Agencies in the government are given very specific tasks and monitor different systems and institutions in society to carry out specific goals.

For example, in the United States, the Department of Defense deals with warfare, and the IRS deals with tax collection/government revenue.

Similarly, we can mentally imagine “agencies” within our brains to carry out specific tasks/checklists to improve our lives. There are two steps to this:

Thought Monitoring

The first and most essential step is to know when and how thoughts originate, and what chain of events led up to them. The best way to do this is by meditating and journaling. These habits allow you to “put your mind on debug mode” and consciously figure out if a thought originates in response to a sensation, impulse, desire, or stimulation.

Now, you can classify thoughts and determine which ones you want to retain and which ones to terminate. Habits occur from chains of thoughts that translate into action. Therefore, intervening at the thought level makes it much easier to course correct.

Imagine you have a smoking addiction. You would now record every impulse to smoke, either mentally or in your journal. You would ponder the origin of the thought and the different choices you could make. Here, you would realize that you might have the urge due to nicotine withdrawal or stimuli (such as seeing someone else smoking). With this awareness, you visualize the different choices you can make, which are: a) Smoke b) Not smoke

Thought Intervention

Let’s continue with this example. You know you have a smoking addiction, so now you set up a mental agency to stop smoking completely. The aim of this agency is to completely atrophy the neural programming and propensity for smoking. Now, you establish rules on how to deal with your cues. You make it so that whenever you feel the urge to smoke, you would take 30 deep breaths or do 20 pushups. By learning to keep promises to yourself, as discussed earlier, you will eventually train yourself to follow these rules.

Thought Analysis

You must be your own scientist. Experiment with multiple stimuli, schedules, and routines, and decide what works. Use the agency to generate a report on what kinds of behaviors led to different trains of thought.

By repeating these steps over a long enough time frame, you will have successfully rewired your mind. Congratulations!