Neuroplasticity
We hear the word neuroplasticity on a regular basis these days and people generally understand it to mean that the brain is able to adapt and learn beyond childhood - that the brain is still mouldable like plastic and will be changed by what we do with it.
The Feldenkrais Method harnesses this innate capacity for life-long continued learning to create new neural pathways for movement and action. I’ll come to how this works in practice, within an Awareness Through Movement lesson, but first let’s delve a little deeper into how the learning takes place.
As babies we are born with a limited number of essential reflexes, but our brain and nervous system gets to work straightaway with acquiring a multitude of new functions like rolling, reaching, touching, crawling and walking. For most babies, thankfully, this all this takes place within a safe environment, encouraged by loving caregivers, at the pace set by the baby, and is largely learnt in an organic way - trial, error, rest - approximations of the function, which are repeated until there’s success. And ‘success’ is determined from within. The baby knows innately when the learning of a new function is mastered because it feels easy.
This organic learning is driven by play and curiosity - wanting to see something or reach for a toy. You may recall seeing the joy on a baby’s face when they find they have mastered rolling or crawling. Learning in this organic way is largely overtaken by traditional pedagogical teaching methods (in the family and in schools) very early on. This is clearly essential within a formalised educational system for society to function. But it’s interesting that so many historical figures, notable for their genius, like Einstein and Mozart, retained aspects of this childlike approach to their learning - curiosity, creativity, courage to fail, playfulness and rest.
It’s this type of organic learning we do in the Feldenkrais Method - as a teacher I am helping you re-learn how to learn like a baby - in an organic way. By sensing and feeling what you are doing, going at your own pace, remaining curious and playful, making approximations of the movement so you can adapt and refine small elements of the movement, seeking out ease and pleasure from movement and taking regular rests.
There is a slight hitch in this approach though - you are no longer a baby! Time constraints, injuries, attitude and long-held habits anyone? Your adult brain is also quite different from a baby’s. As a baby this learning was happening quite passively. It’s not quite as easy now as it was then. Now you’ll need to engage in some top-down processing, meaning that your prefrontal cortex is involved. But it’s not as hard as you might think. Let’s dive a little deeper into the neuroscience.
Neuroscientists consider the adult brain to be established by approximately the age of 26. Up until 26 your brain is still very adaptable and receptive to learning new skills - motor, language, maths, music etc. It will be a slower process with the adult brain, but there are many studies that provide us with the tools to make the learning process in adulthood as efficient and effective as possible. I’ll introduce a few here.
Individual brain cells, called neurons, process and transmit information through electrical and chemical signals. There are small gaps between neurons called synapses, over which the information is transferred. The connections of many neurons together make up neural pathways. These pathways connect parts of the brain and nervous system, which relate to an action, function or particular behaviour.
In a hugely simplified description of a highly complex organ, let me set the scene briefly for how these pathways develop and adapt by borrowing an analogy from neuroscientist, Lisa Feldman-Barrett. *
Think of all these neural pathways in the brain as like a worldwide aviation network - there are routes going all over the brain with airports in every corner. Some routes are from major hub airports and with many flights and very well established routes - these are your habits and daily functions. Some flights operate just locally but are still vitally important - perhaps to access the hub (part of a complex function) or just for a specific discrete journey (a local cluster of neurons). Some routes from smaller airports that are not used may be discontinued. New routes can be created if there’s a need for it. The aviation analogy can assist in understanding how we relearn function after losing it - the major route may have been lost due to injury or illness but we can learn to take a different route - a new pathway is created via a different part of the brain.
Getting right down to the nitty gritty, for learning to take place - i.e. for the creation of a new or altered neural pathway - there needs to be the release of the neurotransmitters, epinephrine and acetylcholine, and the neuromodulator, dopamine. Without their presence learning - adaptation - will not take place.
Let’s take each in turn and consider how we can encourage its release and therefore create the best state for plasticity and learning in the adult brain. And how a Feldenkrais practice is a great tool for priming your brain for ‘adult’ learning of any kind, as well as learning to move more efficiently.
Epinephrine - this is probably better known to you as adrenaline. It creates alertness. We feel it when we are trying to learn something that’s not already automatic or reflexive (ie. learning a new action/skill/language/instrument etc). We feel it as agitation - this is because we are overriding an existing behaviour or way of functioning (i.e. an existing neural pathway). This is why it’s important to make errors, get a little frustrated, welcome that sense of neural friction or agitation. If you aren’t making errors and getting agitated then you are probably just in a flow state, doing what you already know - so no epinephrine, no new neural pathways and no learning. In an Awareness Through Movement class we follow a sequence of movement instructions. The teacher does not demonstrate. You have to interpret the wording, which can sometimes be intentionally opaque (cue frustration!) but may also require you to try out various options - to make a series of approximations, to discover which works for you (you are not spoon-fed or corrected - trial and error is required). We sometimes intentionally move in a way that ‘feels’ wrong to your nervous system. In this way, we can distinguish from that, with more clarity, the movement that ‘feels’ right. Purposefully moving in a less harmonious way can bring up a sense of friction or agitation - there’s your epinephrine, the perfect recipe for priming the brain and nervous system to learn a new, optimal movement pattern.
Acetylcholine - this is responsible for harnessing our frustrations into opportunities and stops us from quitting! It’s responsible for our attention and focus on the particular action within the brain, specifically on the particular neurons involved in the action. The awareness that comes from acetylcholine is essential, as our nervous system takes in the tiny incremental changes which reduce the distance between what we are doing and what we want to do. We need to be aware and stay curious. It requires that we rest regularly in order to maintain attention and focus. Improving our kinaesthetic awareness - how we move and how we sense - is what we practise within an Awareness Through Movement lesson. We pay attention to differences, we notice change, we focus on differentiation, and we take regular rests in our attention as we recognise it’s a challenge to maintain active focus.
Dopamine - known as the reward chemical - also stops us from quitting! When the nervous system acknowledges that the 'error margin' is reducing, as approximations get closer to the learning goal, we get rewarded with dopamine. When what we are doing feels good, or feels better than it did, we get the dopamine release and that motivates us to pursue that reward again. There’s more likelihood of dopamine when we maintain a level of playfulness and joy in what we do; when we seek pleasure over pain; when we are interested and curious; when we learn in groups, sharing and enjoying other people’s experience. We need the dopamine to balance out the frustration and agitation from the epinephrine. Within an Awareness Through Movement lesson we are learning individually, at our own pace, but within a community of students experiencing the same lesson - there is opportunity to ask questions, to discuss individual experiences. The lessons are designed to engender curiosity and playfulness while we actively seek out the most pleasurable way to move.
Studies** have shown, and we all know it well enough, that the adult learning process is very slow. But we can improve our learning environment to accelerate the process. Firstly, recent studies*** suggest we should stay with the frustration stage of learning a little longer, but that making a greater number of small errors rather than big errors would be preferable - we don’t have to try to make errors - these errors are the approximations we make to get closer to the action or function. It also found that the adult brain learns better with smaller amounts of information/stimulus over many more 'learning episodes'. My favourite neuroscientist, Dr Andrew Huberman, suggests you should keep trying out different things, make approximations (errors), pay attention to these and seek a pleasure in the frustration stage of learning (in order to enhance the release of dopamine) and make these approximations until your nervous system “likes” what it feels, what feels right. Sounds a lot like an Awareness Through Movement class to me! What I find most exciting is that you have created the optimum state for learning during an Awareness Through Movement class - especially if we have done a class that you find challenges your balance - so your brain and nervous system will be primed for learning for at least another hour. This is when you should pick up your instrument, learn a new language or practise your golf swing!
I do hope I still have your attention because the other essential element for learning is sleep - the neural pathway is not ‘fixed’ until the brain is in a sleep-state or during a non-sleep deep rest. Studies have shown that 20 minutes of deep rest immediately after the 'strain' phase of learning increased neuroplasticity. Have you ever experienced practising your instrument or a golf swing for hours with no success and then returning a day, week or month later only to find it’s near perfect? That learning took place after you finished your practice - sleep is a non-negotiable, all important for everything part of your life. More on sleep to come in future blogs!
So optimal learning, whether it be a movement pattern/function, a new language, a musical instrument or to paint, requires an ability to enhance, but also balance between these two states of focus/agitation (sympathetic system) and rest (parasympathetic system). What governs this balance is your autonomic nervous system. Recognising in yourself when you are in an active learning state - when you are most focused and perhaps feel a little more agitated or engaged - will help you identify the best time to learn something new. Equally, paying attention to when those sensations are diminishing will be when it's beneficial to prioritise rest or sleep. As noted above, the sequence and design of specific lessons are created to enhance the learning state of the nervous system. But the Feldenkrais Method as a whole - experienced as a regular practice - will develop your ability to sense yourself: to recognise and adapt to your natural rhythms for optimal learning.
If you are intrigued and wish to prime your brain and nervous system for improved learning, please get in touch. A beginners' course is starting every 6 weeks. Regular workshops are planned. We also offer a weekly online course once you have completed the beginners' course.
* For a fuller explanation see page 33 of ‘Seven and a half Lessons About the Brain’, 2020, Lisa Feldman Barrett
** For a more detailed scientific explanation and further information regarding neuroplasticity listen to #1 and #7 of the Huberman Lab Podcast. hubermanlab.com
*** Dynamic Brains and the Changing Rules of Neuroplasticity: Implications for Learning and Recovery, Frontiers in Psychology, frontiers.org.
**** If a lesson challenges or disrupts the vestibular system to ‘right’ us - i.e. the position of the head in relationship to gravity feels wrong - the part of the brain that responds to this disruption releases the three essential neurotransmitters: epinephrine, acetylcholine and dopamine. It has to be that we ‘feel’ unbalanced/disorientated - if we are in flow state and find the movement easy - there is no disruption.
