Hello there and welcome back to my latest blog post! Unfortunately I wasn’t able to write something in a while, as I started with my new apprenticeship and I haven’t found a way yet, on how to manage my time the most optimal for me. But this blog isn’t about posting or writing daily, it’s about posting something when I feel the desire to write something and share it with you guys. My mind is going wild sometimes and defining a topic and writing my thoughts on it, isn’t always that easy, lol. – Whatever, I hope you had a relaxing and good summer break! 🙂
Let’s describe behavior patterns as your behavior in certain situations that are (always) similar to others. I also think, that you can connect this topic with the “comfort zone” – even tho, I don’t like this word that much anymore, because I’ve seen too much “Influencers” using it, to describe how shitty your life is, how shitty you are, how shitty your decisions, that everything’s just really your fault and that you should buy this particular thing to achieve the perfect & healthy life they are living, lol….
Whatever, so, let’s say you notice behavior patterns (negative) in you, let’s do this example: after lots of drinking and fun you decide to do some sports again, hitting the gym like never before, you’re planing it in your head like; “I will hit that f*ckn gym tomorrow, mate” and tomorrow arrives and sure enough you didn’t go, because eventually, let’s say lack of motivation? Also being motivated and motivating yourself to do different, TOMORROW but not going again? – and this situation happens over and over again? You just can’t get your ass up to do the things you’re planing…
Now, why is this like that?
The human being is a habitual creature he interacts with his outer world and certain life situations like he always did and learned, because he feels safe about it. He learned reacting & interacting this way, because he knows it shouldn’t affect him in a bad way.
Example:
Okey let’s say you are joining a new class, everbody’s new, nobody knows each other. So what does the human most likely do? Exactly; he interacts with those that share similarities with himself, why? Because he knows, and he learned that talking to new people with similarities to him, will make it easier to interact, communicate and in general getting to know each other.
Now, what could be potentially bad about this?
You could miss a lot of great experiences, great moments, great conversations, great people, by (always) interacting in certain situation through your behavior patterns, because you end up, reacting and feeling the same or similar experience over and over again. Things won’t change with your (bad) behavior patterns, as you feel identified by them and your life is guided by your patterns, mostly maybe also subconsciously. This could give you the feeling that you’re stuck in life, everything in life moves, constantly, but your life just repeats itself, over and over again…
So maybe a great thing you can do is: analyzing yourself, especially the situations you tend to behave the same because of comfort.
Now, why is it so important to understand and be aware of your behavior patterns? it’s actually quite simple; you won’t change or improve your life the way you’d like wanting it to be. Everything around us flows and moves with or without us. Always relating to the same patterns will make you feel comfortable with the life you are living even tho, you don’t like it the way it is, just because you learned it’s the safest and easiest way to deal with life.
These patterns became a part of you, you have evolved them in many years, subconsciously. – but you are able to change this and step out of your “comfort zone”… with the phenomenon, which is called neuroplasticity.
What the heck is that, you might think?…
Neuroplasticity describes one of the many ways the human brain functions. Today, it’s understood that the brain possesses the remarkable capacity to reorganize pathways, create new connections and, in some cases, even create new neurons. -a concept called neuroplasticity, or brain plasticity.
Good to know: Our brain consists of up to 100 billion neurons, which are connected to each other with over a trillion synapses. A neuron is networked with up to 30,000 other neurons.
One of the greatest benefits we have with neuroplasticity is: to adapt and change the brain, which helps promote:
•The ability to learn new things
•The ability to enhance your existing cognitive capabilities
•Recovery from strokes and traumatic brain injuries
•Strengthening areas if some functions are lost or decline
We already use medications and chemicals to change the way our brain works, and psychology has certainly put tons of effort to learn how to change the way the brain works through modifying our patterns. What if we really can make permanent, significant changes to our brain structure and function through simple activities that we often do in daily life?
Here is where the relation between neuroplasticity and learning is; when we learn, we form new pathways in the brain. Each new lesson has the potential to connect new neurons and change our brain’s default mode of operation, our behavior patterns.
So now, I also want to connect all these things with mental health issues. – Facing it! Let’s say you do suffer from panic attacks. You might avoid situations, where you know that that’s a trigger for an attack. So you need to face it! Avoiding it, will not make it better, it only helps in a short period of time… But by facing it and learning that those triggers which leads to an attack aren’t terrible, you brain willl learn that it’s not a situation to feel anxious… – Do it step by step.
“One could speculate that this process opens up the possibility to reinvent yourself and move away from the status quo or to overcome past traumatic events that evoke anxiety and stress. Hardwired fear-based memories often lead to avoidance behaviors that can hold you back from living your life to the fullest.” – Christopher Bergland, 2017
Cheers 🙂