When we think of managing our mental health, visions of processing things on our therapist’s couch may come to mind. And while talk therapy certainly has a foothold in the mental health space, it’s the body’s role in emotional regulation that’s been front and center as of late.
“Every human has to deal with a nervous system, and if it’s regulated, then we are positioned for health,” explains Lisa Wimberger, the founder of Neurosculpting and a DailyOM course creator. “A dysregulated nervous system impacts our daily lives by creating inflammation, tension, brain fog, heart and lung problems, and blood sugar issues.” And for Wimberger herself, it was the catalyst for decades of life-threatening seizures.
According to Wimberger, it’s neuroplasticity, or our innate ability to build new neural pathways in the brain, that can help us optimize our nervous system — aka our means of emotional regulation. While it might sound complicated to rewire the brain and override old patterns, it turns out some simple neuroplasticity exercises can go a long way in helping that process.
Interested in learning more? Check out Neuroplasticity Exercises for Emotional Regulation.
Meet Your Teacher: Lisa Wimberger
Lisa Wimberger is the founder of the Neurosculpting Institute and co-founder of the NeuroPraxis app. At the age of 15, she was hit by lightning and consequently suffered through years of life-threatening grand mal seizures. She tried everything from conventional medicine to meditation to get her life back, but nothing seemed to work — until she learned about the nervous system and took a deep dive into neuroplasticity.
Eventually, she created the protocol that helped her rewire her seizure pattern and heal. For nearly two decades, Wimberger has been teaching her lifesaving Neurosculpting methodology — a fusion of brain science and mindfulness that can overwrite mental beliefs and support emotional regulation — to people all around the globe. She has written seven books on neuroplasticity and stress management and continues to use her past experiences as a conduit for transformation for countless others.
What Are Neuroplasticity Exercises?
Neuroplasticity training is a fancy term for brain exercise, Wimberger tells us. “[These types of exercises] are anything that is going to challenge your focused attention for short, intense bursts of time, like finger choreography exercises, dance choreography, puzzles, learning a new language, and so forth.”
She adds that there are exercises you can do on the regular — such as fun, silly puzzles or games — and more focused practices, too. Either way, the end goal is the same: to create new neural pathways in the brain in order to change how we respond to life’s circumstances and situations.
Key Things to Know About Neuroplasticity Exercises
- They’re easy to learn and execute — and beneficial at every age. “They’re usually silly and fun, and you only need to spend a couple minutes a day on them,” Wimberger says. “The effects are cumulative.”
- They’re challenging, but not overly so. “These exercises should have a level of complexity, because without challenge, there’s no ‘brain stretch’ happening,” she says.
- They’re meant to evolve over time. “Once you see improvement, you’re no longer stretching, so you should choose another neuroplasticity exercise that creates a little bit more of a challenge,” Wimberger points out.
- They can be goal-oriented. “There are different exercises for different situations. If you want to boost neuroplasticity for mobility — for example, if you’re learning a new sport — then you can choose more somatic kinds of exercises, or balance exercises using your eyes and vestibular neuroplastic engagement,” she says.
Why Are Neuroplasticity Exercises Important?
When we engage in neuroplasticity exercises on a consistent basis, we are taking control over our emotional well-being, Wimberger says. “Anything we can do to stimulate neuroplasticity, and then focus it toward learning new patterns, helps us choose the patterns we are learning — instead of repeating the old self-protection stress patterns that we’ve previously learned,” she explains.
According to research, we have the power to change the structure of our brain using simple neuroplasticity exercises. We can override deeply ingrained beliefs and patterns of behavior that no longer serve us and replace them with more positive patterning.
How Neuroplasticity Exercises Support Emotional Health and Regulation
In just 15 minutes a day or less, a neuroplasticity practice can help you optimize your brain and rewire your nervous system to support emotional health and resilience, Wimberger says.
Read on for five ways in which neuroplasticity exercises can improve your mood and change how you show up emotionally — which has a ripple effect on every aspect of your life.
1. They interrupt pre-existing stress patterns that aren’t serving you.
Engaging in neuroplasticity exercises can help interrupt stress patterns for three reasons, Wimberger says. “One is that you are diverting attention away from the existing pattern. Two, by putting your focus on a new pattern, you are reorienting toward something new. And three, stress patterns keep their strength by way of repetition, so if you interrupt that repetition with something else — like a neuroplasticity exercise — you break the old strength of the stress pattern,” she explains.
The simple act of doing regular neuroplasticity exercises paves the way for rewiring healthier responses to stress in the brain.
2. They help you manage and regulate stress in your life.
The reason neuroplasticity exercises are so effective for stress reduction: “They give your body a break from the adrenaline and cortisol spike,” Wimberger explains, referring to the hormones our bodies release in response to perceived stress. “When a stress pattern is chronic, we stay chronically spiked in those areas, and when we interrupt it, there’s a little bit of a down regulation.” And this is vital, given that too much cortisol and adrenaline in the body is linked with poor immunity, high blood pressure, weight gain, and other health risks.
Recent research attests to the positive effects of neuroplasticity exercises on stress: A pilot study found that brain training decreased psychological distress — including stress, anxiety, and depression — and enhanced cognitive function in stroke survivors. Another study reported that a brain training protocol reduced burnout in the workplace.
3. They increase your capacity for focused attention and help you break the cycle of reactivity.
Per Wimberger, “By way of increasing the use of the front of your brain, neuroplasticity exercises give you the kind of agency you need in your brain function to balance out very strong reactive patterns.” So instead of lashing out — or shutting down — in response to stress, you’d be able to take a beat and consciously respond to the situation at hand.
And according to a research review, physical neuroplasticity exercises led to an increase in white and gray matter in various brain areas, improving cognitive function such as learning and memory — both of which require a good deal of focused attention.
4. They support you in interrupting patterns of anxiety.
Similar to how brain training can interrupt stress patterns, it can also help you mitigate and undo patterns of chronic anxiety, per Wimberger.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers found that subjects who participated in an online cognitive training program over the course of 12 weeks experienced improvements in perceived anxiety levels (as well as decreased stress and depression).
5. They encourage a more productive, solutions-oriented mindset.
Another benefit of the cognitive edge — and the ability to sharpen your focus — that neuroplasticity exercises provide? You’re more likely to have a solutions-oriented mindset.
“If you can have agency over your focused attention, then you can choose to focus on solutions versus reactions,” explains Wimberger. “Increasing focused attention strengthens the prefrontal cortex, and the prefrontal cortex is what’s necessary to keep your midbrain (your emotionally reactive self) in check.”
And aligning with the solution instead of the problem is beneficial in every area of life, from career to relationships and everything in between.
The Bottom Line
Regulating our nervous system is key to feeling more emotionally balanced and in control of our behaviors and decisions. Neuroplasticity exercises are a simple, effective, and fun way of getting to the core of nervous system dysregulation.
In minutes a day, you can be rewiring your brain to respond in healthier ways to stress, which has the power to enhance every aspect of your life.
