This month we're going to share the workload; I’m going to try and introduce even more novelty to your practice, and you're going to as well! But why?
On a cellular level, learning something new entails growing new nerve cells as well as growing the connectivity between them. On a whole body level, learning something new involves having experiences that challenges our programming.
Researchers have found the learning process begins when the nervous system, which monitors our inner and outer environment largely below our awareness, senses a contrast. Something we are experiencing has changed, or something is new and unknown.
This novelty wakes up certain parts of the brain, which then focus attention on the new stimuli and gather sensory data about that new thing. Is it safe? We’re not even aware that incoming data is vetted and assessed whether it’s dangerous, and then compared to our historical memory banks. Have we experienced this before? Is it familiar? If it is familiar, our nervous system tends to go down a been there, done that road. And we relax a little, and… stop paying as much attention.
So that's enough for now, I'll write to you again with some more reasons why we're going to have a great month and the benefits of novelty. Click here if you want to join us for class on Wednesday 7.30- 8.45pm.