07 Sep The Brain Requires Repetition to Change
Blog Series:
Renew Your Mind ~ Transform Your Life
As we continue in our series on the renewal of our mind to transform our life, today we’re going to look at the importance of repetition. We saw last week that we must guard what we allow into our minds. But to change and grow in the right direction, we must take it up a notch from there.
The brain requires repetition to change
One reason our brain requires repetition is because we would live on overload if we remembered absolutely everything we saw, heard, and did. Can you imagine remembering every license plate you ever saw, every commercial you ever viewed, every inane conversation you ever had? Your mind would be awash in mental floating garbage, like so many plastic bags washed up on the shore of your mind.
Repetition is a way for the brain to identify what is important and needs to be remembered and what is not important and does not need to be remembered.
Repetition builds neural paths in our brain along which thoughts travel. Because of how the brain is constructed and functions, with axons, dendrites and synapses, the more we repeat something, the deeper the path is and the stronger the memory is.
Then, there is the related idea of the power of “spaced repetition,” which involves repeating what you are trying to retain over a period of time with gaps in between. For example, research has shown that repeating something 20 times over the course of one day is less effective than repeating something 10 times over the course of the week.
This is because the brain needs time to form the new connections in the brain, including the dendrites (Greek word for “tree”) and synapses, which are the highways on which thought travels. Because memory depends on actual physical changes in the brain, time is required between repetition to build the strongest memories.
Once a memory is ingrained in our long-term memory bank, our brain will start to consolidate the information into separate pieces which makes it easier to connect dots and see the bigger picture of things.
All this to say… the brain requires repetition to learn. And we can use that information to guide and accelerate our spiritual growth
Scientific explanation of rewiring our brain through repetition
Neuroscientists have a common expression: neurons that fire together wire together. This means, as a new thought is repeated over and over, the neural components in your brain literally wire themselves together, strengthening the thought and memory.
Research shows that it takes about 30 days of repetition for our brain to rewire itself and begin to give us a new capacity.
Every time you think a thought, it is like walking across the lawn. If you walk across it once, it makes no permanent impact. But if you repeat the thought, it creates a path. If you continue to think the thought over and over even more, it’s like pouring a sidewalk. If you continue further to think that thought, it’s like paving the road. And eventually, you may have a four-lane highway in your mind determining the attitudes, values and behavior that govern your life.
A National Geographic article, “The New Science of the Brain” (February 14, 2014), reveals that the electrical activity in the brain includes 100,000 miles of nerve fibers that connect the various parts of the brain, giving rise to what we think, feel and perceive.
Every time we think a thought, it takes the same route along those hundred thousand miles of nerve fibers. So that if we think a thought over and over again, it takes the same route over and over again, and it becomes easier and easier for the thought to go through the brain.
If we decide that we don’t like that old thought, and we want to counter it with a new thought, we have to consciously force the new thought down a new pathway. Whenever a circumstance comes up that might typically spark a thought to go down the old pathway, at first, we must catch that thought, kick it out, and force a new thought down a new pathway. However, as we do this over and over again, the new pathway becomes deeper and deeper, and it becomes easier and easier to have the new, preferred thought.
In addition, as the old pathway gets less use, like the jungle overtaking ancient Mayan ruins, the pathway begins to fall into disrepair. And eventually, we come to a tipping point, at which it is easier for us to think the new thought than the old. At that point we experience noticeable and seemingly rapid change in our lives.
But it isn’t rapid change. It took time to build up to it. It just seems rapid when it happens.
Biblical indications for rewiring our brain through repetition
The Bible indirectly speaks to the “rewiring” of the brain through repetition. In a previous blog, we saw that Scripture speaks clearly about the importance of taking care of our mind:
- We are to love the Lord our God with our mind (Luke 10:27)
- We are to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ( 1 Corinthians 10:5)
- We are not to sin in our thoughts as well as our actions (Matthew 5:5:27 – 28)
- We are to fix our minds on what is good (Philippians 4:8)
- We are to fix our mind on eternal things, and live in this world according to the values and truth of the next (Colossians 3:1–3)
- We are to keep our thoughts pleasing to God (Revelation 2:23)
- We are to adequately guard our heart, as everything else will flow from it (Proverbs 4:23)
- We can be living proof of the fact that God’s will is good and acceptable and perfect, but only if we are transformed. And we will only be transformed as our mind is renewed (Romans 12:2)
- We will prosper spiritually if we nurture our minds carefully (Psalm 1:1 – 3)
As we follow these principles, the process automatically sends new information through our brain over and over, rewiring it, creating new pathways, and changing us slowly from the inside out.
Conclusion
Christian neuroscientist Dr. Caroline Leaf has written, “When you understand the power of your thought life… you truly begin to get a glimpse of how important it is to take responsibility for what you are thinking. God was so serious about us capturing our thoughts and renewing our minds that he gave us science as an encouragement” (Switch On Your Brain, p. 124).
And it does help me to know this. It encourages me to cooperate with the process. It gives me patience to hang in there when I don’t see the progress I want. The bible has always commanded us to care for our minds and thoughts, and has even told us why. Science has now shown us the intricacies of how that works. And because now I know, from scientific evidence, that the Scriptural process is actually working, even if I don’t perceive that it’s working, my faith is strengthened that if I simply hang in there, I will experience the transformation I long for.
I hope this is encouraging to you as well, and we will unpack still more helpful information along this line next week. I hope to see you then.
In case you’re new here
This blog post is part of a series titled “Renew Your Mind, Transform Your Life”, introduced on January 5, 2021. As the series continues, each succeeding post will be added to and available in the blog archives at www.maxanders.com.
If you know anyone who you think might enjoy joining us in this study, please forward this blog to them and encourage them to go to my web site (www.maxanders.com) and sign up for the free video, “Master the Bible So Well That the Bible Masters You”, available there on the home page. This will put them on my regular mailing list and they’ll receive my weekly blogs on this subject.
In addition, I am creating a new online membership site, The Change Zone, that will provide information, strategies and resources to help motivated Christians renew their mind and transform their lives. If you would like to learn more about this and get updates to know when The Change Zone will be available, click here.
I look forward to going through this life-changing journey with you.
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