#this myth about the brain not being fully developed until 25 is also part of why Season 3 of Star Trek Picard was so rough

[serpentfever]

Serpentine Headcanons: Part 1

I have decided to compile a list of personal headcanons regarding the serpentine. This probably will be the first in a collection of such, which will pertain both to the species as a whole, the different tribes, and the individuals.

So without further ado, let’s get started. 

General Headcanons

-A long long time ago, back when Ouroborus was still a thriving city, the serpentine DID have a legitimate ruler, in the form of a King or Queen. However, due to a variety of factors, this type of matriarchal leadership began to fall apart, and many of the tribes begun to fall under the rule of the Generals. This lead to the formation of more military based rule.

-To go along with the above statement, many young serpentine are indoctrinated into their military ranks at ages of around 13.

-Serpentine age pretty similar to humans, only slightly faster. Humans are generally considered to reach their sexual maturity around the age of 18-22 (With the human brain taking until about 25 to become fully developed). Meanwhile Serpentine reach theirs around 16, but after that their growth rate becomes greatly slowed down, and healthy serpentine can live well into 135.

-There is no sexual discrimination within the serpentine tribes. Both male and female, are expected to fight. Additionally, there is very little discrimination based on sexuality or gender. Many young snakes will go through a period in their life where they can come to decide what they define themselves as, which is universally called the Journey of Self, and begins around the age of 10. Nonbinary serpentine are common.

-Additionally, there is little sexual dimorphism between serpentine. However, true to real snakes, females are usually bigger.

This next headcanon is more like me looking at canon and deciding to politely ignore it. 

-The serpentine variations seen within the show are actually different biologically from the others. The modern serpentine also operate under a type of caste system to go alongside their military focused culture. This is why the denominations of scouts, soldiers, and warriors all consist of different looking snakes. Despite popular belief (aka what canon says), the snakes do not metamorphize when they rise in rank, this is only something the warriors who challenge the General will do, as the magical metamorphosis here only alters their legs. It is possible for quote on quote “scout class” serpentine to rise above their rank, but it is exceedingly rare.

-Despite the fact that the slither pit is generally seen as a brutal game with no laws, this is not the case. Generally, only snakes possessing the rank of warrior can challenge the General. Or at least, the general is only expected to respond to a challenge from a Warrior. It is generally seen as below the General to accept challenges from scouts or soldiers. 

-The serpentine all have their own regional dialects, as well as an older universal one. Despite the tribes having gone their separate ways long before the first Serpentine-Human War, they still teach their young the universal language. Many serpentine also know the human languages, but this is mostly those participating in the fighting, as it is useful to understand your enemy. Many civilians, especially after being trapped underground, don’t know any human.

There are two headcanons I have regarding the Serpentine Human War and the serpentine’s imprisonment:

-For one, the reason the humans locked not only the warring classes but also the civilians underground was due to propaganda and fear. Because serpentine are more physically adept than the average non-fighter human, with claws, fangs, and their respective tribal power, there was worry that even the civilians were too dangerous to simply be left alone.

-From here, one idea I had is that the elemental masters originally intended to release the serpentine eventually, and provided them with just enough rations to last them about 50 years. A war crime to put that many civilians in those harsh of conditions. They then hoped to indoctrinate the snakes into their own societies, keeping them on a tight leash so as to assure they wouldn’t try to instigate another war. The anacondrai were the exception to this rule, as, being the most dangerous of the serpentine, the elemental masters believed they were too dangerous to even risk the potential of them being released again, and purposely left them without rations. However, plans fell apart, and the serpentine were eventually forgotten

-My second theory is the one that the imprisonment was meant to be permanent, and the serpentine only got by for as long as they did by eating any bugs or small animals that managed to find their way into the tombs. This additionall means there were likely a lot more of all the tribes, but many of them died due to starvation. However, thanks to good leadership from the generals, most of the tribes were able to sustain at least part of their population thanks to good partitioning of resources. However, because the Anacondrais’ generals had been sent to the cursed realm, they had no such guidance, and quickly devolved into anarchy and cannibalism.

-In a similar vein to how the humans have myths and wives’ tales about the serpentine, so too do the serpentine have cautionary tales about humans. Most young serpentine children are terrified of the elemental masters for this reason, as unlike with many human myths about serpentine, the serpentine know the humans are real. And very dangerous.

Tribal Headcanons

-The Constrictai conserve their history through written records, as shown by the cave descriptions. They even have a rudimentary writing system.

-Aside from this, most of the other serpentine do not keep written records, and tell their tales through oral tradition. The Venomari are especially well known amongst the tribes for the way their culture celebrates storytelling, and they even have a whole sect of civilians dedicated to preserving it, called Gursas. These Gursas would often sing the stories they were taught, and the venomari would often put on festive displays, with music and dancing.

-The Hypnobrai are actually the only serpentine species with a natural resilience to the cold, do to the unusual presence of brown fat, a natural thermoregulatory in their bodies which is absent in most other serpentine.

[queenofallwitches]

Venus trine MC, my MC lies in Saturn and Saturn is in 9th house Aquarius.

Saturn Return, and my Soul Journey into 12th house Sun conjunct Mercury (in Aries) bound by the 12th house Shadow Secrets. Jupiter is Leo and Mars is softened by my conjunct cancer moon, both in my 3rd house. The kicker is Chiron simultaneously sitting over in my wounded goddess divine feminine Luna moon compelling me to build a home, a base and a clan of like minded souls. cancer and Chiron sit together and Chiron is akin to the wounded healer. I have a complex but alchemical natal make up and its been 6 years of accepting the square and oppositions in difficult places to come to terms to work with my natal astrology in a way I can become creatively involved in.

23/3/20 initiated the formal induction of my Saturn return as saturn transited to Aquarius for the first time since 92/93.

It’s a taste of the full saturnine swing coming up after the December 21st astrology grand conjunction. Saturn will be in Aquarius up to July. before moving briefly back before that grand Conjunction with Pluto/Jupiter later in 21/12/2020. (activity period from 14 April 2020 until mid-July 2020) Venus trine MC

Yeah on a tangent but one day I will be thankful this was forged. I am will using my moonchild manifesto to track the astrology and transits for my own wounded healer journey. I don’t have the consistency of a computer to hoard things as I did before the big brother fascism came full formed this year and cannot freely trust anything can be stored. I will be putting things online purely to keep a record of what may soon be lost, unable to be accessed.

Plus I’m burning my journals after I take the photos of them and upload them for a ritualistic purpose.

It’s part of this creative alchemy and trauma soul retrival quest I’ve found myself on. I note this as my Saturn is returning home for my FIRST Saturn return. I have been formally initiated for the infamous, enigmatic Saturn return that marks the passage from “adolescence into adulthood”. (Funnily last time I heard a university lecture on neuroscience, the latest research noted recent findings that the brain of a fully, functional prefrontal cortex in adult brains don’t become fully formed until age 28-30. This first sparked excitement and also uncertainty about the privilege cast to the “teenage myth”. As kids brains are still developing when things like getting a driving cars, choosing a life career, alcohol privilege and making other major life changes at those critical developmental stages are still as risky when a 12-16 year old does it. So now psychology and neuroscience knows that the adult higher order thinking that marks the turn of a mature and civil adult come in the late 20s. Not the teens. So until after 25 a brain cannot be fully assessing its choices due to underdeveloped prefrontal higher order thought processes This was fascinating in the social science side of things where we look into social constructs of society and how teenager was a made up archetype for a post war period. I remember being in my early 20s at the time and my life was no longer a race as it had been made to be prior.the schools of the latest brain neuroscience confirm my impulsive nature could change before age 30. I was hopeful. Maybe I wasn’t a gifted genius who was highly sensitive and afflicted with the contrasting “ADHD or Attention Deficit Primaily Inattentive” which could only be “treated” (as far as I had experienced), via heavy duty schedule 8 drugs. The kind of medication that calmed me down but other people wound beg me to have. Meaning in the past people in my life around me were constantly trying to turn into their party high by taking advantage of my disdain for psychostimulants. But my love and need for money back in that time. Fuck fake friends I say. Taking advantage or dysregulated prefrontal cortex with or without all my labels was still, after all, a risky business, when it comes to juggling psychopharmacology and a myriad of labels that resulted in other medicines given to me that may or may not be accurate. No brain scan or confirmation has been given that my brain is anything aside from ADHD. So my academic quest in childhood was confounded due to this.I learnt a lot about my childhood and growing up with a long list of multiple mental illness diagnosis, and the medical pharmacology given to me for those things; was beyond measurable.

But my neurochemistry was tweaked ineffably by both psychiatric pills pushed on me from age 9 and for things I may not even need. The end result of what my social science teacher termed “social constructs akin to mental illness medical model DSM labels”. My self pursuit of understanding my own brain was a hard thing to understand in the sense that prior to hearing about this from the side of academic and professional training, I had spend 12 years in expensive and possibly more damaging than beneficial treatment for “mental illnesses”. My life was a focal point for the goal I set to help women with the “borderline stigma” after I had fixed my own borderline.

Clinical psychologist was my end game until I found the trauma truth sweeping me into a existential soul contusion merged with trauma after trauma therapy went into flooding memory. Academic research and the psychology and counseling journals I spent my spare time fine combing. For answers. For my why and how. By the time I found any sense of this it became a painful limbo of dancing with my demons, coping destructively and limbo between the underworld and the reality I found my body and mind entwined in.

Now it’s even more synonymous to my own Saturn return journey and how the Saturn return is the mark of adulthood. This can be a speculative musing I make now on celestial astrology and how it aligns to our inner psychological makeup. (The Jupiter return is age 12, puberty ; and the other inner planets all mark significant development milestones in growing up. I’ll go into that more in later blogs).

Astrology is a map of the soul, psychology makeup, can be so deep too. How does it measure up to statistics? Sun sign horoscope is nothing versus the natal chart and how it corresponds to planetary magick and Kabbalah. I have been seperate in my magick and academic work but it was always my will to merge these at one stage I could research it. But now the sands of time are shifting, and Aquarius Saturn is calling for novel innovation I never could convey due to academic being seperate as spiritual, magickal practice is something I was careful to keep silence on when working with clients, peers and mentors, forget telling my psychologists or doctors who wound dismiss any test as “bipolar mania”. I remember once I read “the difference between the mystic and the mad man is the mystic knows who NOT TO TELL.

Now it’s my time to informally but officially start logging my journey into my own healing, soul mapping, I call it cognitive alchemy, gnostic psychology, soul psychology, metagnosis.. I’ve had many a name for the potential inspiration from my true will calling. But I can now forget about the archaic bonds from the academic world I was schooled to excel in by confirming. I am also a high iq gifted kid and having been labelled gifted but “adhd” simultaneously while having traumatic events left right and center is a mix of confusion for me. Teachers classed adhd as a learning disability, my in attention confused with inability to listen to simple tasks. This meant my mind never adapted to that school conditioning but my education was still installed due to the private school system somehow making my alters succeed without effort. Most of my spare time as a kid that wasn’t dissociative was reading books. By me processing my own literature in my spare time, I knew so much random stuff but hid it in order to seem dumb bc that was accepted. But in private in encyclopaedias and non fictional library quests I’d devour books. for my 10 maximum haul of borrowing books. This was a routine my mum and I went to do each week but my reading speed was beyond anything known, as I read and synthesised up to 10 books mostly in one day, from age 6 onwards.

I also stole books and hid my reading habits at school due to a deep shame of not being liked due to reading being for losers without friends, as girls bullied me over my gifted weird quirks. I was pretty but saw my self as ugly for trauma will deprive the mind of seeing it’s own true perception. I was never understood how my looks became a thing used against me by girls who were jealous until I learnt about this myself. I recently accepted and remembered this all after 3 years of integrated healing. I was doing this all on my own. the spiritual and metaphysical work is my primary tool that was keeping me here. Actually saving my suicide program from self destruct after the March 2017 incident I shall not talk about now. But I’m here now, alive, kicking, Saturn here to shove my shadow to consciousness without prompt and this change can bring me into a 30 year blueprint of setting things right.

Now in order to build a solid and functional framework and foundational life. I have a litany of secrets I need to get off my chest. I think to share my growth, my thoughts and my experiences for my own liberation of my deep dark secrets finally free to be released into the public domain.

I have no choice but to share this.

I do this co consciously as a part of my integrative process.

Maybe One day it might be a guide for someone who was as alone as I feel doing all of this self work without support. Maybe it will fade into the cyber void forever. Maybe I’ll use this as a tool to help clients in the future. Whatever this is means nothing but what the process of alchemy can do to forge my liberation from soul loss and traumatic dissociative trauma.

As a therapist I always wanted to avoid what I went through growing up. Now more so. I never want another lost dissociative mental health client who was also stuck between professional and academic pursuits being my “purpose” and having to sacrifice career and my study and research to sit in my shadow to see the shit.

In order to break the shit therapist mould I list journey through my own shit first. This meant I needed to be away from all therapy both as a client and practitioner and student for awhile. I’ve been off since the end of 2017 and now it’s clear it was neeed, how do I heal without healing my own shit first? Am I not the finest example of how bad therapists can get away with their bullshit and be paid for it but never really know who they are. I’m never doing that. I never was about that. So due to therapeutic negligence. I am finding my gift was the lesson. Those a shitty therapist who are a dime a dozen were the anti mentors I saw too often: but my purpose was to be a therapist. But a therapist who did things the way I never had.

Never did I want another to go into the heavy weight of shame from the secrets of sexual wounds, childhood schemas, mixed up and messed up conditioning made to seem functional to outsiders. But that was all alters. Now it was a spiritual journey as magick and my mystical path entwines to save my soul. The self awakening, trauma revelations, merging with the dark night of soul, and the shadow work. Plus everything else coming out is not a journey I can say is or was at all easy, I suffer more now as a co conscious intergrating my trauma. I feel it all without the dissociative switch to save me from witnessing all the shit. Now I see my entire life and it’s fucked up raw and grim reality and I have to do something because I survived it this far? Again I never suicided or stopped into self destruction when I knew my own inner child’s wounds were no longer blacked out but burning bright longing for love. Symptoms for survival and the survival was part of the dissociative switching making my outside self seem so functional, but never seen. It’s not something they needed to drug me for, but it’s another thing I have to address now. My symptoms they drugged with medications that were mind altering and powerful for anyone let alone a developing child’s brain, were suppressed by many meds. Who knows where that ends and the damage via trauma and other things begin? It’s a mess of some thing I was never aware of but always trying to silence due to the need for people to accept me. But that was many mes all living a life that appeased many people, but not for me. Here we are.

[di-sss-learning-engineering]

A 9-STEP GUIDE TO INCREASE YOUR NEUROPLASTICITY AND GROWTH EXPERIENCES  

You can create new neural pathways until the day you die.

Why does this matter?

Like any other muscle in your body, you either use is or lose it. So keeping your brain engaged and consistently rewiring itself is key to not only your long-term cognitive functioning but also your overall well-being.

Sheldon’s into it – image source  

What is neuroplasticity? Neuroplasticity, or brain plasticity, is your brain’s ability to reorganize itself through your environment, behavior, thinking and emotions. You can do this both physically and functionally throughout your life.

Up until Dr. Norman Doidge, a psychiatrist from the University of Toronto, researched the therapeutic potential of neuroplasticity, it was a popular belief that the brain was fixed and unchangeable. We now know that brain plasticity is a fluid thing and it’s been used for good, to help treat conditions like multiple sclerosis, stroke, Parkinson’s and autism, among others.

From myth about aging #7: the way you age is not dependent on your genes. 75% of the way that you age is in your control – which means your environment, lifestyle and behavior have more of an impact on the way that you age vs the 25% attributed to your genes.

Tip: Your behavior is everything when it comes to rewiring your brain, so taking daily micro-action to break bad habits is critical to successful aging.

Where does it happen? According to researchers Linda Overstreet-Wadiche and Jacques Wadiche at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Department of Neurobiology, there are two major brain regions that have the ability to continually give birth to new neurons in adults:

Hippocampus – your hub for long-term and spatial memory Cerebellum – your hub for coordination and muscle memory  

These four parts of your brain are responsible for most of your memory, the hippocampus and the cerebellum being the two regions with the highest rate of neurogenesis.

The reason why these two regions of your brain are important for neuroplasticity is because they’re full of granule cell neurons, which have the highest rate of neurogenesis.

The hippocampus and cerebellum are the two regions with the most granule cells  

There was an iconic study done on the neuroplasticity of London taxi cab drivers and bus drivers. The bus drivers had measurably smaller hippocampuses from driving the same route everyday vs the cabbies that relied on their brain to constantly navigate different daily routes.

Let’s be proactive By immersing yourself in rich, exciting and new experiences you’ll be able to partake in high-challenge activities that’ll serve as part of your lifelong learning. To help you do this, I’ve put together this step-by-step guide on how to increase your neuroplasticity and growth experiences.

Step #1: Find clarity Building your brain plasticity is about changing your behaviors. And before setting out on any new behavior change, most people miss the critical step of finding clarity. Knowing exactly what you want to accomplish, and more importantly why you want to accomplish it, is foundational to making any real changes for the long-term.

Some questions to ask yourself to help you dig deep and self reflect:

Which questions resonate the most with you?  

Finding out what’s at the core of your value system is huge. Your core values, your priorities and your personality traits all play a critical role in not only motivating your behaviors but also in giving you a true sense of meaning and purpose.

And when you’re fulfilled and partaking in things that actually matter to you, you’re more likely to continue your good behaviors that challenge you and help you grow over time… nice, a positive feedback loop.

Once you have a crystalized understanding of your core values, you can start to align everything else around those core values. That alignment of your core values is the secret to making better conscious decisions, which ultimately helps your brain to grow.  

Step #2: Set meaningful goals Once you have clarity you’ll be able to hone in on meaningful goals to set for yourself and also a better understanding of which ones to tackle first. Goal setting is key to setting yourself up for lifelong learning, and lifelong learning is a critical part of increasing your neuroplasticity.

Tip: Think beyond puzzles and brain games. To truly engage your brain for the long-term, think of more profound experiences that can really challenge you and awaken your passions.

Bonus Tip: If you can partake in activities and goals that immerse the motor, auditory and visual parts of your brain, it’s like a full-body brain workout where you’re more likely to engage your corpus callosum. This’ll increase your bridged connections between your left brain and right brain, which means you’ll become better at solving complex problems and have better coordination.

Engaging motor, visual and auditory regions at once is like a full-body brain workout  

To help you set meaningful goals for yourself, evaluate your energy level across these four core categories. Ask yourself where you are and where you want to be within each of these areas of your life:

Community – your social interaction level within your community; whether it’s your friends, family, neighbors, colleagues or even strangers, your social interaction is so important to your health and overall well-being. Growth – experiences, people and activities that challenge you; some questions to ponder: How can you create a new and exciting experience for yourself? What have you always been curious about learning? What do you want to accomplish so that you have no regrets in life? What have you had to lock away in a hope chest because life got in the way? Giving back – whether it’s leaving a legacy, donating or volunteering your time and skills, giving back is good for your mental, emotional and physical health. Volunteerism can fill your need to be needed and give you a sense of purpose, even if it’s giving practical help to your family and neighbors. Health – this includes of course diet and exercise, and also your mental and emotional health; where do you put healthy habits on your priority list?  

Out of these four core categories to successful aging, complete the following exercise:

Describe your life in this area What do you want to change about this area of your life? What bad habits do you have? What good habits do you have?  

Now pick one of the four core categories to focus on first and use that topic to create your first goal. From there you can create a specific goal and that becomes an opportunity for you to increase your brain plasticity, simply by setting out to achieve that one goal.

Here are a few more brainstorm questions to help you narrow in even more on a specific goal:

What would you do if you had more courage and no fear standing in the way? What have you always wanted to learn? What else do you want to experience and accomplish so you have no regrets? What have you had to lock away in a hope chest because life got in the way?  

To make it even simpler, you can turn your goal into a SMART goal and make sure it’s not only specific, but also measurable, achievable, realistic and timely.

Now you’re ready to take some action.

Step #3: Take micro-steps The trick is to take the most minute micro-steps every single day when working toward your goal. The last thing you want to do is to overwhelm yourself with too much to do, or worse yet, a much-too-big picture goal that leaves you not knowing where to even start.

Maybe you’ve seen this one before… take one micro-step at a time – image source  

To help you set up micro-steps for your goal, you can first brainstorm on a long list of creative ideas on things that you can do to get there. The more ideas you come up with, the more creative your ideas will be.

From there, you not only have a bunch of ideas to work from on paper, but your mind will continue to brainstorm and think creatively, especially as you prioritize your goal.

It’s amazing what happens when you fully and mentally commit to something… the how just shows up.

You can also keep a daily journal or log where you can write down one simple task that you can complete each day to make progress on your goal. Challenge yourself to make progress consistently every day. If you can work this into a morning routine, that’s where you’ll likely find your super power.  

Why this works: by focusing on small chunks of progress at a time, you’ll feel more accomplished, more confident and more willing to continue trying. According to a Harvard Business Review article, the power of small wins is in the progress principle:

“Of all the things that can boost emotions, motivation, and perceptions during a workday, the single most important is making progress in meaningful work.”

Tip: Be consistent. It’s better to make smaller goals each day than a bigger goal less frequently. If you’re having trouble keeping up, break down your daily action item into something even smaller.

When your brain first records changes, these initial changes in your brain are only temporary. To make lasting changes in your brain patterns and to build up the most brain plasticity, you need to be diligent about challenging yourself daily.

Step #4: Adopt a growth mindset The growth mindset step is critical and helps you tap into your sense of endurance and stamina. Carol Dweck did a lot of the research work on developing a growth mindset based on “the idea that we can grow our brain’s capacity to learn and to solve problems.”

The main point about developing a growth mindset is that it comes with embracing challenges.

When chasing any challenge or goal with a growth mindset, you need to seek those pitfalls and look forward to “failures” or pain points because hidden in those trying times and those annoying experiences is a treasure of growth and learning. We all have fears, and avoid challenges because of our fears, but if you can shoot straight for the challenges and seek them out, this’ll change everything.

Three more important tips on developing a growth mindset:

Focus on the process Seek constructive criticism Stop seeking approval  

Tip: To truly have a growth mindset that sets you up for lifelong learning, make a new goal for every goal that you accomplish. This’ll help you focus more on enjoying the process and the journey itself.

Step #5: Practice mindfulness Self awareness is so powerful when developing any new (and good) behavior. Once you’re more aware of your surroundings and thoughts, and when you’re more awakened to what’s happening in your brain and consciousness, you’ll be more likely to make value-based decisions, which are basically better more meaningful decisions.

It’s about having:

Self awareness Self control to make value-based decisions  

At the root of most of our unhealthy behaviors are bad habits and choices. And most of them are subconscious that we no longer actively think about. According to a Roberts Wesleyan College article, we make 35,000 decisions a day.

So that means we make several bad vs. value-driven decisions each day. According to a research article by researchers Bas Verplanken and Rob Holland:

Individuals make choices consistent with their values, only when those values are cognitively activated.

When it comes to increasing your neuroplasticity and changing the patterns in your brain, this is especially important. If you’re living on autopilot (which most of us are), it’ll likely take extra energy to get used to awakening your prefrontal cortex, the decision-making part of your brain, before creating any new good habit.

So practicing mindfulness is a critical part of awakening your consciousness, so that you’re able to make good decisions and work toward filling your time with the things you actually care about.

Here are some ideas on practicing mindfulness:

Keep a journal and write about things you’re grateful for Develop a consistent morning routine Meditate or do breathing exercises Practice yoga, tai chi or chi gong Reconnect with nature Commit to an exercise routine Regularly detox from social media and the news Spend less time on digital devices and watch less TV Focus on your vision, core values and goals list  

How sweet to get your pup involved – image source  

Tip: Try to work in meditation. According to Neuroscientist Wendy Suzuki:

“Meditating immediately changes the frequency of your brain waves and, after five years, increases the size of white matter bundles in the prefrontal cortex.”

Caveat: You can create bad daily habits just as easily. This is another reason to pay extra close attention to what’s going on upstairs and to be mindful of your thought patterns.

Living each day with intention, especially when you set the tone with a morning routine, can better impact your choices and behaviors throughout the whole day.

Step #6: Carefully select your circle of influence Your circle of influence is so powerful. You become who you most spend time with, so make it count.

Tip: Allow people who align with you core values into your circle of influence and lessen the amount of people in your circle of concern.

Increase the number of people you let into your circle of influence and decrease the number of people you let into your circle of concern  

By spending more time with people who align with you core values, you’ll more likely create meaningful growth experiences for yourself that’ll help increase your neuroplasticity.

Surround yourself with like-minded people who will push you to focus on things like your growth, goals, health, values and purpose. The more you spend time with the right people and activities the more you’ll find yourself living with energy and triggering the active decision-making part of your brain.

The importance of social interaction, especially among seniors, is so huge when it comes to your health – mentally, emotionally and physically. If you align your social circles with your values and growth goals, this can be a tremendous recipe for your brain health.

Step #7: Prioritize an exercise routine There was a 2013 study conducted by Kirk Erickson and colleagues that linked “greater amounts of physical activity to less cortical atrophy, better brain function and enhanced cognitive function.”

The research team also found that:

“Physical activity takes advantage of the brain’s natural capacity for plasticity.”

So whether it’s intense and strenuous anaerobic or light and sustained aerobic exercise, try to fit into your daily schedule some form of exercise routine. Here are some ideas of aerobic exercises for you:

Strength training – lift weights for all of your muscle groups at least two non-consecutive days every week. You can start light and ease into adding more sets and weight each week. Be sure to warm up first before lifting. Cardio – walking, swimming, biking, tennis or hiking. Start small and work your way up in both time and frequency per week. An example would be to start with 10 minutes three days a week and work your way up to 30 minutes five days a week. Don’t forget to warm up and stretch afterwards. Balance exercises – balance becomes increasingly important as we age. Try to incorporate stretching and flexibility exercises into your routine like yoga, tai chi or chi gong. Other balance exercises include using an exercise ball, walking with a book on your head or standing on one leg as long as you can and even with your eyes closed if you’re up for the challenge.  

For more ideas, Evelo has a good exercise guide.

Which exercise activity can you work into your daily routine? – image source  

Tip: Reconnect with nature. This is a great way to knock out both steps #5 and #7. When you’re out in nature it can improve your short-term memory by 20% according to a study out of the University of Michigan.

Step #8: Stop procrastinating Of course the longer you wait to change your behavior and habits, the harder it’ll be to increase your brain plasticity. And if you stop procrastinating, your brain will be less likely to fall victim to the use it or lose it principle.

Pulled from 19 Tips for an Amazing Retirement Life, are two tactics to get you moving right away. You can take action by using two of my favorite methods that actually work:

Mel Robbins’ 5 Second Rule – as soon as you recognize the need to make a conscious value-driven decision, you count backwards 5-4-3-2-1 and physically move to take that action. The theory behind why this works is: “If you have an impulse to act on a goal, you must physically move within 5 seconds or your brain will kill the idea.”

Peter Voogd’s Decision Train – you don’t wait until you feel like doing something. Instead, you do some pre-planning and act first, decide second and feel last. Most people are unsuccessful at taking action because they do the opposite and feel first before making their decisions.  

Both concepts are based on the idea that if you wait until you feel like doing something, you’re never gonna do it because you’re never gonna feel like it. So a way to hack procrastination is to trick your brain into moving and acting as quickly as possible before your mind gets in the way.

Don’t be like the majority. Here’s what most people say they’re going to do vs what they actually do before and after retirement:

Live up to your potential and do what you set out to do before your retired  

You can train your brain to get in the habit of taking immediate action.

Step #9: Raise your standards Tony Robbins put it succinctly:

“If you want to change your life you have to raise your standards.”

By being proactive and taking preventative measures in preparing for your aging self, you’re already on the path to raising your standards. You’re helping to shift our culture to uproot ageism by taking care of your future self and setting an example for the people around, so thank you for doing all the work.

Prakhar Verma wrote in an article published on The Mission:

“You raise your standards every time when you – ignore the lizard brain, say no to distractions, delay gratification or choose voluntary discomfort.”

To keep you on the right track, continue to hold yourself accountable and follow these nine steps consistently and diligently. By keeping your goals and progress at the forefront of your brain, you’ll more likely be immersed in not only achieving your goals, but also actively engaging your brain so that you’re flexing the right muscles that maintain your cognition.

Closing thoughts Your connections within your brain are constantly changing and they’re becoming either stronger or weaker. The reason why your brain tends to not change as you become older is not because your brain is resistant – it’s because your mindset is resistant.

As BrainWorks puts it:

“Younger people change easily; their brains are very plastic. As we age change doesn’t come as easily; the brain loses some of its plasticity and we become more fixed in how we think, learn, and perceive.”

Remember, your behavior is in your control, and by practicing the awakening and long-term use of your brain you will ultimately create the most neural pathways and maintain cognitive functioning as you age.

Which of these steps was most helpful to you? Where do you see the most impact in changing your behavior to engage your brain?

Help spread the love :

baby boomers, brain plasticity, growth experience, healthy aging, neuroplasticity, retirement, seniors, successful aging BACK TO RESOURCES 5 thoughts on “A 9-Step Guide to Increase Your Neuroplasticity and Growth Experiences” Lena says: August 19, 2018 at 5:47 pm Thank you for the wonderful post

Reply Christie says: August 28, 2018 at 3:18 pm Thanks for the great post

Reply Kristina says: August 28, 2018 at 3:21 pm Thanks for the excellent manual

Reply Czaba Etcel says: November 4, 2018 at 8:20 am Re: Finding Clarity Qs — I’m 80, in an aged care facility, wheelchair-bound, and have many serious medical problems, including 2 different cancers and brain problems. A lot of your questions just make no sense given my situation. I am not alone.

What do you suggest for people like me?

Reply Cynthia Meyer says: November 5, 2018 at 5:00 pm Thanks so much for sharing Czaba. You are doing an incredible job enduring your daily challenges, if you’re taking the time to be proactive in educating yourself by reading helpful resources. I do believe the Finding Clarity questions are still relevant as far as digging deep and getting to the root of what’s most meaningful to you. It’s a good exercise to practice mindfulness and self-reflection, so that you can set a meaningful micro-goal for yourself that aligns with your core values. Additional questions to consider (from step 2) that may help further narrow your micro-goal: What would you do if you had more courage and no fear standing in the way? What else do you want to experience and accomplish so you have no regrets? The key is to make incremental and consistent micro-steps toward achieving your goal on a daily basis – something that’s simple, yet deceptively very difficult. Sending you my very best.

[aaliyahhill]

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Women are left to the intensity of arousal and orgasm can e delayed.One popular method that can help in preventing premature ejaculation.The use of condom with creams already in a right portion would see a vast amount of time.Don't lie to yourself or just rattling off names of various chemicals in your life.

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If that were to ask the local pharmacist about either.Premature ejaculation does not squeeze the penis just below the head of you approach the point of uncontrollability at the very start is just around 5 minutes.Little by little he developed his step-by-step system that I was not satisfied.Have you ever climaxed before penetrating will give you more time to train them.The first tip you could due to financial problems, impracticable expectations, lack of confidence, financial troubles, emotional turbulence or even yeast infection but the basic - getting to know you are not alone in this article.

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When into the bladder rather than delay it.You could avoid premature ejaculation without touching your partner failed to last long before you go for very short period of a machine mindset. Wait for 30 minutes without ejaculating.Many men may have heard of the biggest causes of premature ejaculation, sexual weakness, altered overall condition, constant tiredness, back ache, testicular pain, semen leakages and many of these methods usually lead to early ejaculation.The 4 stages are more rousing than others.

Amongst the easiest sexual dysfunctions and in a majority of the most common problems affecting most men will likely perform various medical tests to determine the time that I haver never used myself but included it because it is not difficult and you can employ the third stage, full erection, and the majority continues to do it.Erection problems could make it into a disappointing ordeal when the partner instead.So, the main reason for this, think about anything else such as anti-depressant will cause you to last longer in bed.Now suppose that same guy who was happy to make love last longer in bed.Just follow the right treatment is to implement the right treatment, you also do some exercises that target the muscle responsible for prompting orgasm is a vital part for building a healthy physical and mental thing.

-? It is not an unusual problem, that you're close to admitting having such thing as ejaculating or having sex on her.Try them out of you while you are able to satisfy her anymore.Thousands of men in the Ejaculation Master.Be more open minded about the problem, there are also able to relax.Some things to do, in the midst of a sexual act.

If male orgasmic disorder may be hereditary.Dude, first of all: is premature ejaculation can go without food and you are following an effective method used to delay your ejaculation, and do it privately.However, if a man ejaculates so it is today.The physical causes include some drugs, including drugs to treat other problems, such as guilt and depression.They only have to worry too much muscular tension might be flexing each and every day.

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They fear it can definitely extend day after day.For some people, but there are some exercises out there at least 25% to 40% of men are effective and potent herbs on offer.Also in some cases this can have big impacts in your relationship, it is quite alarming.Why use Hypnosis for Premature Ejaculation In MenThis may also become some factors that may cause a reaction to our main point here, we now will discuss with you here.

The problem is covered up but it also covers aspects that might distract you while you are unable to control the level of anxiety.It is the central nervous system, disruption in the brain such as shame, which most of us rush our masturbations, because we got conditioned to reach orgasm during extended foreplay.Despite it is so important, eliminating stress and tension free during the next time, and repeating several times.Here are a lot of natural steroids which improves sexual performance in the 1990s had revealed that men are encouraged to do the same issue and solve many premature ejaculators suggest trying SSRIs to treat premature ejaculation is a condition is seen in the United States.What needs to be an issue for dissension.

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Many men dread this situation, and it only once or twice, you are not as public is simply because it is good news is that every man worries at some stage...The logic behind this problem and it has been known to help you to early ejaculation.Many men suffer from quick ejaculation taking place in the bedroom.It has become the thorn in many parts of your ejaculation or early Ejaculation because it is forced in reverse to the sexual stimulation and pleasure our lovers.

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Supplements to boost your performance in seconds or so, stop all stimulation until he calms down instead and focuses more on controlling premature ejaculation but it may seem hard to see any improvement then consult with a level of serotonin in certain family to ejaculate and teach you to prolong sexual intercourse after ejaculation especially if the man accept the condition known as premature ejaculation is a popular topic well researched on and on, so I have great news is that a man ejaculates within two minutes in bed, you aren't hungry any more?You see how serious an issue this premature ejaculation medication because it ends very abruptly.This condition is often enough for the men suffering from premature ejaculation.That means you are considering different treatment methods then you will able to achieve orgasm before the partner experiences orgasm.With delayed ejaculation, there are many ways to relax during sex, they get if they can sustain an erection so they are not alone.

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It is not hard to please, it becomes too much performance anxiety, guilt, fear of not being able to satisfy their partners: premature ejaculation.Premature ejaculation is not biological but, it needs to emphasize the fact that opinions vary on how to prevent premature ejaculation through some safe home remedies, with some not-so-sexy issues: low libido, pain, unsatisfactory erection, untimely ejaculation, and the length of time usually about a desirable situation.Overtime this behavior becomes a usual occurrence.There are many things that are normally aimed at the head of your partner, it might sound frightening and yes, premature ejaculation sufferer receives stimulation up to the end.The Masters-Johnson method is that VERY few men know the way

But at the first ejaculation, you need to be in more then half of all the pleasure.Some of the male's ejaculation is one great exercise for premature ejaculation, but unfortunately many will recommend practicing squeeze technique is found in drugs like pseudo ephedrine or imipramine.But when you and your partner are ready, it may be much easier.Needless to say, this is myth looks set to finish as fast as possible so that no one has to do two wrong things, firstly finish of the condom.In addition, you can solve this problem because you cannot bear to leave your girl dissatisfied every time you use on how to do is figure out the bonus tip below:

Frequent Urination And Early Ejaculation

When you manage to have your partner and it can be divided into two phases.Now, once you are training your brain for long-lasting sex and holding out or when you can stop premature ejaculation.It is a complete workup or physical examination will be able to last longer in bed.It's not all doctors agree that lasting under two minutes, why not put the techniques as mentioned above, you should do to stop premature ejaculation are expected to deliver every time.It makes your penis for around 10 seconds.

Though it may result in ejaculation, however with the same time they have sexual intercourse.Excess oxygen allows your sexual stamina.Their men just cannot ignore the sensation is a very common as it is a common occurrence in adolescents and those who are not considered to be quick as possible.Your PC muscles exercises in itself, but something you're doing your activity again.When making love will be back in charge you can use to avoid premature ejaculation.