Change your brain

You can change your brain and this is not one of those Erap jokes where you would want his because it was hardly used. In fact, after you read this column and even the book I read which inspired this column, you will realize that you have a million times more chances of changing the shape of your own brain than improving politics in this country.

Barbara came to this world in a different shape. Her right leg was longer than her left. In fact, her whole right side was larger than her left and even her left eye was a bit slow. She also had scoliosis that twisted her body. Her brain was also of a different “shape.” She had superb memory and auditory skills but could not make sense of connections, understand symbols or maneuver her own body in a given space. She kept on having accidents as a kid until it reached a point that she chose to suffer her mishaps silently since she was already embarrassed to tell her parents yet again of her latest episode. She had every right to ask for help but in 1951, when she was born, there was not much help in this area. But guess what, she herself figured out how to heal her own “misshapen” brain and excel in the skills that she lacked.

A good friend gave me this supremely engaging book entitled The Brain that Changes Itself. Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science (Penguin Books, NY 2007) by Dr. Norman Doidge. Barbara’s story above is only one of the stories in the book. It was the most inspiring story that should be read by everyone, especially those who have been told that nature just gave them a bunch of noodles that has parts that do not work well. This book is filled with such deep stories about how we can change our own brains without a need for a transplant. They feature neuroscientists who have figured out how we can engage in this change so that we can deliberately participate in the process of becoming the persons we want to be. The work involved is so deep and so life-changing that I feel compelled to write some of the neuroscientists involved just to thank them for doing what they do. This is in stark contrast to the feeling I have every day I drive by the footbridges that taxpayers like me paid for, sporting banners thanking the President for them.

The whole collection of stories all involved stories that Dr. Doidge followed with research and interviews in pursuit of the idea that the brain can change itself. It is only in the last decade that it has become widely accepted that you can change the wiring in your brain by training it. This means that if you are very slow on certain things, there are ways of retraining your brain to make it work much better. And this is exactly what Barbara Arrowsmith did.

Barbara was also severely dyslexic that she could only recognize a few letters on a page. She had to read something at least twenty times more in order to memorize it, in order to level with others. But that brain part of Barbara that recognizes that she has a defect was alert and Barbara just had the spirit to do something about it. She read scientific papers and books involving experiments on the brain. One of them was by a pioneer named Aleksandr Luria (born 1902) who wrote a book about a Russian soldier whose experience sounded so much like Barbara’s. Then she read other papers including scientific papers on rats getting so much better at something they initially lacked by training (imagine how many times she had to read them to makes sense of them).

In summary, she was able to develop for herself exercises which did not follow what education specialists believed then about “compensatory” exercises. Compensatory exercises are ways to get around “brain problems.” An example is substituting audiotapes for those who have trouble reading. Barbara did not get around her problems. She attacked them head on. She could never tell the time from a clock with hands because she did not understand the relationship of the small with the big hand. Instead of going digital, she developed a clock with even more hands — as many as ten — to represent days, months, years, etc. She forced her brain to work even harder and not only did it work, it worked magnificently!

Now, Barbara has her own school called the Arrowsmith School where applicants of all ages (including professionals!) are assessed as to which parts of their brain are weak. And for each of these cases, Barbara has a module. In this school, students who were severely disabled in interpreting symbols could not just read symbols, but relate many of them so much faster than “normal” people.

One of the most shocking things I learned growing up was that the universe is expanding (and accelerates at that!). Even more shocking is that it does not expand into a space but creates the space as it expands. In a sense, such is the universe inside our own skull. We shape and reshape it as we use it. Barbara reshaped her universe, forging the stars in her own brain to form constellations and patterns that now shine through to illuminate her own understanding. Each of us has that much universe inside all of us. I am sure we can think of better ways to use it than making self-congratulatory banners hanging from footbridges.

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