Many of has have heard the term neuroplasticity and associate it with the brains ability to re-purpose areas of the brain to compensate for injury.
Recently, I’ve been fascinated by neuroplasticity, and in particular “The brain that changes itself” by Norman Doidge.
The truth is that the scope of neuroplasticity is much greater than compensating for injury. It is not just limited to just the brain and it is not always a miraculous force for recovery.
One thing that yoga has taught me is that the body adapts to how you use it; I realise this isn’t rocket-science, it’s the underlying principle of all training.
If you want to be good at football, you do football-related activities; if you want to be a good guitarist, you play the guitar.
Neuroplasticity is at the core of all training.
The catch is this, neuroplasticity is an indiscriminate ability; it does not make judgements on the merit of the skill it is optimising for, or the way it is compensating for an injury. It simply re-programs and helps you adapt; sometimes the outcome is not ideal.
One of the most unfortunate results of neural re-programming “gone wrong” is chronic pain. This has been referred to as the “dark-side” of neuroplasticity. In many instances of chronic pain, the cause is a reprogramming of the nervous system to recognise many nerve signals as pain.
Another related outcome, covered in Doidge’s book is “learned non-use”.
Put simply, when we sustain an injury we re-program to get by without.
Controversial studies by a neuroscientist called Edward Taub demonstrated that forcing a patient to try and use a nerve-injured limb brought about a better recovery than allowing them to learn to cope with one limb. Effectively he forced the neuroplastic recovery process to take the “harder” compensation path and achieved much better results.
So where does aging fit into all of this?
I don’t believe neuroplasticity will give us younger-looking skin or glossy hair (just hair might be nice).
I do wonder how much of the limited mobility and muscle atrophy we accept as part of aging is learned non-use on a smaller-scale. As we compensate over and over again for life’s thousands of small injuries do we just stop using our bodies to their full extent?
Is it possible that at least some of the stuff we call age-related is learned behaviour?
If so, then the news is good because neuroplastic-change is on-going and may be un-learned.
Which finally brings me to yoga.
I am never going to declare yoga as the fountain of youth, but common-sense clearly shows that repeatedly moving your neuroplastic body and nervous system through its full range of movement is likely to preserve and probably extend that range of movement.
I say it again.
The body adapts to how you use it.
…so get on the mat!