Our brains are wired by early experience. We can build new wiring later on, but it's hard. When you know why it's hard, you know why we revert to old patterns, and what it takes to change them. Our brain learns from rewards, so you need to find healthy rewards to build healthy new pathways.

1. Neuroplasticity
Loretta G. Breuning Ph
D
Inner Mammal Institute
Make it Fun, Keep it Simple

2. Your clients can
fi
nd their power
over their own neuroplasticity

3. Here are
some tools
to mak
e
it easier
and even
fun

4. You’ve surely heard tha
t
“You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”

5. But we also hear tha
t
new neurons grow throughout life
.
How to reconcile these two views?

6. New neurons are not connected in useful ways. We fall
back on old “tricks” because the old neural pathways
are so well-developed. How to build new pathways?

7. Any old dog can do it when they
know how their brain works

8. • Repetitio
n
• Emotion
• Youth
Neural pathways build from:

9. 1. How YOUTH builds neural pathway
s
Neural pathways build easily whe
n
you’re young because you have a lot o
f
myelin- the substance that coats neuron
s
so they conduct electricity 100 times faster
.
Myelin is most abundant before age 8 and during puberty
,
so we build neural pathway easily during those years. We rely on
our myelinated pathways for life because they’re so ef
fi
cient
.
Alas, pathways built from the experiences of youth are never a
perfect guide to healthy choices, so we all need to update our
old pathways. Building new pathways is your superpower!

10. 2. How EMOTION builds neural pathways
Neurons connect when your brain is releasing cortisol,
dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, or endorphin. These
emotions are your brain’s signa
l
that the information is important.
The connections cause yo
u
to turn on that chemical faste
r
in similar future situations
.
A monkey
fi
nds food and avoids predators without abstract
cognition because past reward and threat chemicals wired
it to repeat behaviors that got rewards or relieved threats
before. Monkeys rarely update these responses.

11. 3. How REPETITION builds neural pathway
s
Synapses grow ef
fi
cien
t
with repeated activation
.
But it’s hard to repeat an activit
y
when it’s not supported b
y
myelinization or reward chemicals
.
Repetition is UN - FUN
.
How can you get yourself to do it?

12. • Repetitio
n
• Emotion
• Youth
Neural pathways build from:

13. Emotion = reward chemicals
They’re like paving on your neural pathways

14. It’s how an old dogs learns new tricks
The brain is always learning
from rewards

15. to replace an old happy habit
When you understand this, you can
use it to build a new happy habit

16. BUT………
The word “reward” has
become “problematic”

17. “Behaviorism
”
is taboo to some

18. What if it’s just semantics?

19. Semantics of “reward
”
#
1
I use it to refer not to what society de
fi
nes as a reward or what genetics
de
fi
nes as a reward, but to the reward chemicals actually released in
your unique brain as wired by your unique experience, which includes
the social rewards you experienced in youth
Examples:
It’s only a reward if it has a positive
association is your unique brain
:
the beach? the park? cooking?
guitar? yoga? a novel? a movie?
“a cookie”

20. Semantics of “reward
”
#
2
The biggest reward from you
r
brain’s perspective is
relief from perceived threat
— We de
fi
ne threat with neural pathways
paved by past cortisol (your unique past)
— Distraction relieves threat in the human cortex
— Whatever distracted you from cortisol in
your youth triggers a rewarding feeling today

21. Examples
:
- When a gazelle smells a lion,
it
fi
nds an escape path
and then goes back to
enjoying the grass
.
- When a human gets a whiff of a threat,
we augment it with our huge cortex, and
then rush to the happy habit we learned
in youth without conscious intent.

22. Distraction triggers the great
feeling o
f
relief from threat
,
which wires in
a
positive associatio
n
for whateve
r
distracted you.

23. You can wire in a new happy
habit by using reward learning

24. 1. Break the target behavior
into small chunk
s
2. Reward each chun
k
3. Repeat
Rewire Yourself in 3 Steps

25. 1. Break the target behavior
into small chunks
Skinner’s pigeons
learned to spin in a circle
without knowing what a
circle is. They were
rewarded for turning
their head to the right
,
so they kept turning!

26. 2. Reward each chunk
• The reward must be
immediate to link up to
the desired behavio
r
• But how can you
reward a dolphin while
it’s in the air
?
• Karen Pryor developed
“clicker training”

27. 3. Repeat
How to motivate those repetitions?

28. First, a bit of theor
y
Then, let’ see how it works for two
clients, Ori & Babo

29. The electricity in your brain
fl
ows like water in a storm,
fi
nding the paths of least resistance

30. Flowing into
an old
pathway
makes you
feel like you’re
on track
even when your behavior has harmfu
l
long-term consequences.

31. • Trying to activate a new pathway is like looking for
a word in a foreign language.
• In your native language, the word comes
effortlessly because you built that pathway in your
myelin years
.
• Your emotions got wired like your native language

32. It’s so hard that you feel like you’re wrong
,
even when you’re right
It takes a lot of energy to send electricity down an
undeveloped neural pathway

33. • Activating a new neural pathway is as hard as
slashing a new trail in the rainforest
.
• After all that work, the trail grows overs
so it’s hard the next time too
.
• You’re’ tempted to just take the old road.

34. But if you slash th
e
same trail every day
,
a new path gets established

35. You can blaze a
new trail
through your
jungle of
neurons if you
repeat a new
thought or
behavior every
day without fail.
It won’t be a
super-highway
but it’s enough.

36. Babo wants to build her
communication skills

37. 1. Break the desired behavior
into small chunks
Babo decides to spend an hour a day listening
to audiobooks on communication skills
Babo decides to spend 5 minutes each morning
and evening designing new ways to express
herself at home and at wor
k
Babo commits to expressing herself
authentically while respecting others once a day

38. Babo lists healthy ways to reward herself
each time she acts on her plan
She decides to give herself 10 min. of
guitar or reading a novel or eat 1/4 of a
brownie each time she meets goa
l
The reward creates a good feeling, which
wires in the expectation of a good feeling
after the goal work is done
2. Reward each chunk

39. Babo knows that the the new behavior will feel
awkward and even dangerous at
fi
rst, because old
wiring is so ef
fi
cien
t
Babo knows that it takes a lot of energy to
activate a new neural pathway, so she saves her
energy for this purpos
e
Babo knows that it will get easier each time
because connections build with repetition
3. Repeat

40. Ori wants to wire in a new
“happy habit” to replace an
unhealthy habit from his past

41. 1. Break the desired behavior
into small chunks
Ori learns to notice his threatened feelings by
stopping to look for them for 1 min., 3 times a da
y
Ori lists healthy feel-good activities that he can
turn to in bad moments to teach his brain to shift
from bad feelings to good feeling
s
Ori commits to 20 min. of a feel-good activity
(to give his cortisol time to metabolize) followed
by 1 min. of effective action, once each day

42. Ori decides to reward himself with 15
min. of chatting with a friend, watching
a movie, or sketching, each time he
accomplishes his daily goa
l
The reward builds positive associations
for the new happy habit, even as the old
happy habit feels more desirable
2. Reward each chunk

43. Ori sets a goal of repeating his new habit
every day for 45 days in a row without fail
Ori is relieved to know that everyone
fi
nds it
hard to activate new neural pathways because
electricity doesn’t
fl
ow there easil
y
Ori experiments with alternative rewards so
they continue to feel rewarding without
harmful consequences
3. Repeat

44. You can wire yourself to feel good
in ways that are good for you

45. You will give your electricit
y
a new place to
fl
ow

46. Small steps are enough if
you repeat them consistently

47. You will build a pathway that
expects to feel good

48. book
s
podcast
s
video
s
infographic
s
training certi
fi
catio
n
slide shows (incl this)
5-day Happy-Chemical Jumpstart
* all are free except the books
InnerMammalInstitute.org
The Inner Mammal Institute
has the resources you need t
o
make peace with your inner mammal:
get the full story at:

49. Habits of
a
Happy Brain
Retrain Your Brain to
Boost Your Serotonin,
Dopamine, Oxytocin,
and Endorphin

50. 14 Days to
Sustainable
Happiness
A Workbook fo
r
Every Brain

51. Tame Your
Anxiet
y
Rewiring Your Brain
for Happiness

52. Status
Games
Why We Pla
y
and How to Stop

53. The Science
of Positivit
y
Stop Negative
Thought Pattern
s
By Changing Your
Brain Chemistry