STEP 1: Do a new behavior and embrace errors So, if we know our brains are malleable, how can we open up the pathway for plasticity? Let’s break this down into 3 steps! Great news for you if you don’t already know - we have neuroplasticity! Our brain is malleable, new neural pathways can be formed and intelligence can be altered.Īs a matter of fact, it was reported in the journal Child Development in 2007 (Dwek, Blackwell and Trzesniewski) that both morale and grade point averages increased when students simply understood that intelligence is malleable. Now - this is significant because in order to retrain our muscles, we need to actually focus on the brain. Instead, your brain has neural pathways that remember what to tell the muscles to do. Truth bomb for ya: It is the neurons that control those muscles and their firing patterns in which all the information for motor patterns are stored. I don’t think I’m the only one that may follow that logic… ! And in order for a muscle to remember something, repetition sounds like a good idea. When I hear the words muscle memory, my brain immediately goes to an idea that I need to train my muscles to do something so they remember movement - like for a technical passage.
It’s one of those mysterious things that floats around and out of our mouths, but, what is really at the root of what we’re saying? Is what we’re saying even true? I don’t know about you, but I’ve heard (and still hear) the words “muscle memory” a lot.
I had to use that little “15 second backwards” button on my podcast app and relisten to Andrew Huberman say that a few times just so I could be sure I heard him correctly.