If you find yourself stressed, unable to give up bad habits, stuck in a cycle of negative thinking, then take comfort — it’s not you, it’s your brain trying to be efficient and protective. This is the message from a new book by Nicole Vignola, a neuroscientist who believes that we are all subconsciously programmed to repeat certain habits — but equally capable of undoing them.
In her book, Rewire: Break the Cycle, Alter Your Thoughts and Create Lasting Change, Vignola shares her “non-negotiables” — the healthy, stress-busting habits she performs herself as a matter of routine, no excuses. From switching off her phone at 9pm to getting eight hours of sleep and swimming in the sea at least twice a week, it’s an inspirational list.
Vignola, 31, is on a mission to explain how understanding the way our brains work can improve all our lives. After completing her neuroscience studies, she obtained a master’s in organisational psychology, focusing on how to improve workplace performance. She has consulted for corporations from Lloyds bank to PwC, is neuroscientist in residence at Reveri (a self-hypnosis app co-founded by Dr David Spiegel, a Stanford psychiatrist) and has built up an Instagram following of more than 453,000 while working with an international client base.
Do, say or think the same thing over and over and it becomes ingrained in our neural pathways, she explains, but the adult brain can reorganise itself and form new connections — and new habits. Change, she says, can take anything from 18 to 254 days — depending on how often you repeat the new habit, what it is and how deeply ingrained existing habits are. Here Vignola shares neuroscience-based strategies that will help you to reduce your stress levels and boost your mood.
Your brain treats stressful thoughts as reality. Do something to distract it
The brain can find it hard to distinguish between thoughts and reality. So, if you fret all evening about that cortisol-raising row with a colleague earlier, as far as your body is concerned you’re still rowing. “Thoughts can keep us in a stressful state,” Vignola says. But engaging in a joyful, absorbing activity will help. “It can help you lower your cortisol levels, those inflammatory biomarkers associated with stress.” Then, should you wish, “you can come back to the problem with a more logical mind state”.
Advertisement
Engaging in enjoyable pastimes also releases brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a protein that helps to maintain synapse integrity, Vignola says. “BDNF also can help raise mood, so it can help you recover from acute or chronic stress.” Effective activities include painting, yoga or Pilates, a group workout, drawing, reading a good novel, martial arts (she loves Brazilian jujitsu), tennis or other sport, or even a cinema trip (fully absorbing, unlike slumping in front of the TV, where you might also be on a second screen).
Talk positively to yourself — it gives the brain a dopamine boost
When we’re chronically stressed, our brain switches to “low power mode” as its priority is to get you through the day. So it’s especially hard to find calm, form new neural pathways and create healthier habits. Don’t berate yourself. “If we learnt from negative reinforcement we wouldn’t have any bad habits,” Vignola says. Instead, tell yourself: “I’m so proud of myself that I cooked tonight/smoked less.” (Not “I still ate all that junk/puffed away.”) “By focusing on the positive we release dopamine, which makes us feel good.” This is reward-based learning. “You want to do it again, because the brain wants more dopamine.” Whereas, when you beat yourself up, you don’t release dopamine so it keeps you stuck.
How you start the day is key — don’t touch your phone straight away
On waking, your brainwaves are low frequency and you are relaxed — in the ideal state to plan your day. But grabbing your phone first thing boots your brainwaves into high frequency and whacks up your dopamine — already naturally high when we wake — and can overstimulate us, Vignola says. As dopamine hits are easy to get from scrolling, they’re also volatile, spiking high and dropping fast.
• Why are we all so stressed out? The 12 ways to really switch off
“When it drops there’s a rebound effect,” Vignola says. “You then need more to feel as good, and more, and more, so you find yourself reward-seeking for the rest of the day.” (That jumpy, “let me just check my phone” feeling.) Her dopamine rule: “There should be effort for the reward.” Slower dopamine-raising activities — exercise, working on your goals — allow levels to ebb and flow more slowly. Vignola is careful not to check her phone first thing and switches it off at 9pm — which, she says, also helps her to achieve her goal of getting eight hours’ sleep a night.
For instant calm, try this breath trick
Advertisement
There’s a good reason your spouse telling you to “calm down” doesn’t work. “When you’re in a state of stress — fight, flight, freeze — the body is designed to run from the situation, not to make sense of it,” Vignola says. “So if you try to analyse your thoughts, you can end up catastrophising or ruminating.” Fortunately, our body has innate ways to calm itself — and it’s why some of us huff and puff or sigh constantly when stressed. “That’s a good thing — it’s a mechanism ingrained in the primitive part of the brain that regulates your breathing response. It’s trying to reset the carbon dioxide oxygen ratio,” she says.
We can fast-track this by performing what Vignola calls “the physiological sigh”. “This is really helpful in helping us regulate the central nervous system because it is a quick way to tell your body the threat is no longer there,” she says. So, if you’re about to give a speech, or take a meeting, “double inhale through your nose, hold at the top, then exhale long through the mouth.”
Change your perspective — literally
When we’re stressed the amygdala, the area of the brain that regulates our emotional and behavioural responses, hijacks the frontal cortex, responsible for more logical thinking, Vignola says. In this state of fight or flight, we focus on the negative, because as an evolutionary species we need to be alert to threats. We also gain tunnel vision (mentally and physically) as stress induces our pupils to dilate. “Widening our visual field by taking in a panoramic view or stepping into the light constricts the pupils, which can then help lower levels of norepinephrine, which are associated with stress,” she says. Seeing the bigger picture “recruits your frontal cortex back online”.
Writing your troubles down rewires your frontal cortex
Journalling may sound like a woolly wellness endeavour but, just like talking to someone, writing down your thoughts regularly, such as in a daily journal entry, really can help to give clarity and relieve stress. This is because speaking or writing words requires the frontal cortex. “Thinking of words and generating words occur in two separate parts of the brain,” Vignola says. The former happens in the default mode network — the brain areas activated when you let your mind wander, and therefore home to any negative self-talk or rumination. However, “When you have to generate words you have to recruit logical parts of the brain.” This allows you to give those cycling thoughts and whirling stress a coherent narrative: “A beginning and an end to the situation you’re in, which can then help you analyse how you’re feeling and shed the emotional load attached to the thoughts.”
Visualising yourself exercising makes you more likely to do it
Vignola exercises every day from Monday to Friday, even if it’s just a stretch or a dog walk, though she tries to swim in the sea twice a week. “The intensity can vary,” she says, “but I’ll always carve out some time to move my body.” Exercise, of course, is a powerful antidote to stress, but when you’re under constant pressure, it’s harder to make healthy habits stick. Visualisation can help, Vignola says. “If you visualise yourself getting out of bed, putting on your running clothes, stepping outside the door, not snoozing the alarm, you’re more likely to enact that the next morning.”
Advertisement
Research shows that athletes who perform a motor activity mentally before they perform it physically have improved performance, she explains. “Mental imagery and mental rehearsal can prime the brain and the synapses to create pathways that can then be reinforced through action.”
Rewire by Nicole Vignola (Penguin £18.99). To order a copy go to timesbookshop.co.uk. Free UK standard P&P on orders over £25. Special discount available for Times+ members.