Neurons that fire together, wire together
A Canadian neuropsychologist named Donald Hebb was responsible for the Hebbian Theory in the middle of the 20th century which states that the connection between two brain cells strengthens when they activate at the same time repeatedly. The phrase attributed to Hebb’s theory, “Neurons that fire together, wire together,” was later coined by neuroscientist and Stanford professor Carla Schatz in the 1990s.
In a simplistic description of Hebbian Theory, if one cell repeatedly activated another cell – that connection strengthened and learning took place. The strength of the learning indicated REPEATED firing of that network of cells, and/or strong emotional association to an experience. This happens with your thoughts as well as your physical experiences.
Your body reacts in small and big ways to every thought you think and every picture you form in your mind.
It’s easy to relate to the example of thinking the thought, “I’m going to screw up this presentation,” and having feelings of increased heart rate, sweating, tightened muscles immediately show up in your body. Or, conversely, how picturing your toddler’s belly laugh from the morning immediately causes you to smile and feel your heart relax and expand. These are not reactions to actual events, but the THOUGHTS of events. And it doesn’t matter if the thoughts relate to real or imagined experiences.
If we repeatedly think stressful thoughts and visualize stressful events, we are keeping our bodies reacting as though we are in that stress, even if the original event happened twenty years ago, or is just us imagining the worst case scenario that COULD happen.
Your body doesn’t differentiate between future and past in reaction to your thoughts, it is just in the now.
Therefore if we repeatedly allow ourselves to live in this stressful mindset, we are strengthening the cellular connections that keep us there. And the side effects of that mindset have been proven to be highly detrimental to our health in myriad ways such as depression of the immune system, weakened digestive function and slower wound repair.
The converse can be true if our repeated thoughts and visualizations are positive and provoke happy reactions in the body. These elevated, positive emotions are associated with increased immune function, body healing and heart health.
Again – it doesn’t matter if the thoughts are real or imagined, your mind and body will let them in.
So the next time you find yourself repeating that worn out thought, “I always screw things up.” I want you to pause and reject it. Change it right in that moment. “I am learning and I get so many things right.” Or if you find yourself imagining the worst possible outcome of an event. Pause, and change the images in your mind to imagine the best possible outcome. See how it changes your body.
It will take a little bit of practice, but in no time it will become easier and easier because your practice is strengthening those new neural connections with each repetition. And it will be SO WORTH IT!
(Paraphrased from Your Mind / Your Rules by Marisa Peer, and Hebbian learning and predictive mirror neurons for actions, sensations and emotions by Christian Keysers and Valeria Gazzola.)