Training Your Brain

The brain you were born with is not the brain you die with!

Not only are you programming it from the moment you were born, but you can also change and rewire it at any point in life - this is called neuroplasticity, the brain's remarkable ability to change, rewire, and adapt throughout your life. Contrary to old beliefs that the brain stops developing after childhood, modern neuroscience has shown that our brains remain flexible and responsive to experience well into adulthood.

Every thought, emotion and action you think activates neural pathways in the brain. When repeated often enough, these pathways become stronger - just like muscles being trained. Over time, this rewiring process can change how you think, feel, behave, and even how your body responds to stress. This ability means healing, learning, and personal transformation are always possible. Whether you want to overcome anxiety, shift limiting beliefs, build confidence, or become more present, the brain can support that change - if given consistent input.

This is the foundation for many modern therapeutic, coaching, and mindfulness practices. When we consciously engage with our thoughts and behaviours, we are not just creating change - we are rewiring our brains to sustain it.

So what we think - really matters!

We have 60,000 to 80,000 thoughts per day, with researchers estimating that about 80% to 90% of those are the same thoughts you had yesterday! And they will be 80-90% of the thoughts you have tomorrow unless you make a conscious effort to make a change.

These thoughts evoke approximately 400 distinct emotional experiences per day - positive or negative - some lasting only a few seconds, but some lasting hours, weeks, or even months. Many of these emotions release chemicals in the body, which can have a positive or negative effect. So, if you do not make a change, you can end up in a loop not only of thoughts but also of feelings and chemical releases in the body.

So what you think is very important.

This kind of loop is super common - the reward satisfies the craving for stimulation or escape, so your brain keeps reinforcing it. But not all habit loops are negative.

Daily Practices to Rewire the Brain Using Neuroplasticity

Here are a few simple, science-backed practices that use neuroplasticity to help shift your mindset and emotional patterns over time:

Gratitude Journaling (5 Minutes Daily) Write down three things you are grateful for every day. The act of noticing what's good trains your brain to focus on the positive and builds new pathways associated with appreciation and joy.

Why it works: Repeated focus on gratitude rewires the brain for optimism and emotional resilience.

Visualisation and Emotion (5–10 Minutes Daily) Close your eyes and imagine a future version of yourself already living your desired life. Feel the emotions you would feel - confidence, peace, excitement, etc. Let those feelings fill your body.

Why it works: The brain doesn't distinguish well between real and vividly imagined experiences. This primes your neural pathways for success and builds emotional familiarity with your goals.

Affirmations (2–3 Minutes Daily) Repeat empowering statements that align with your goals (e.g., "I am grounded and confident," "I trust myself"). Say them slowly and with conviction, feeling the words in your body.

Why it works: Repeated statements, especially when felt emotionally, help replace old beliefs with new ones over time.

Catch and Redirect (All Day Practice) Notice negative self-talk or limiting thoughts when they arise. Pause, name the pattern ("That's the old belief"), and choose a more supportive thought.

Why it works: Each time you interrupt an old thought loop and choose a new one, you weaken the old pathway and strengthen the new one.

"Neuroplasticity reminds us that we are not fixed. With small, intentional actions, you can literally rewire your brain to support who you are becoming. Consistency matters more than intensity - because every repetition is a vote for the future you." Teanna

From the moment you were born, you have been programming your brain through every experience you have had. Even if you cannot remember the actual event, the emotional responses are stored for future use, regardless of whether the experience was real or not.

The sad thing is that research has shown that we embellish memory and that only 50% of what we remember from the past is true - so many people can be stuck in a negative habit loop based on memories that have not actually happened! The brain also cannot always distinguish between real and imagined, nor can it, at first, easily tell the difference between what is safe and what is a threat.

Take the fear of spiders - a common phobia in the UK. Realistically, there are no deadly spiders in the UK, and spider bites are extremely rare. Yet many people are terrified of them.

Why? This is likely because, at some point, they saw a parent or peer react fearfully to a spider. That reaction created an emotional imprint, and they have adopted the same fear - even though a spider has never harmed them. This is a classic case of learned behaviour and an irrational fear that has now been stored in the brain.

Furthermore, the chemical Adrenaline (fight-or-flight) is released whenever they see a spider and every time this happens; it reinforces the experience in the brain repeatedly - until the pattern is intentionally broken.

Many of our irrational imprints are formed before the age of six, as during that time, the brain operates primarily in theta waves - a deeply receptive state ideal for unconscious learning and programming.

This is when we form core beliefs about ourselves and the world - like "I am not good enough" or "I am only loved when I perform". These beliefs can stick into adulthood as 'irrational imprints' or 'emotional triggers', even if we are unaware of them.

Around the age of seven, the brain shifts out of the dominant theta wave state and starts operating more in alpha and beta brainwaves. This transition marks a move from subconscious absorption to more conscious thinking, logic, and reasoning. We begin to develop a stronger sense of self-awareness, critical thinking, and the ability to analyse information rather than absorb it. This is also when the conscious mind becomes more active, and learning becomes more intentional rather than purely experiential. In short, the brain starts functioning more like an adult's - still growing, but now with more conscious control and mental structure.

As the brain develops into adulthood, it moves into a more stable pattern of beta wave dominance, which supports focused attention, problem-solving, decision-making, and goal-oriented thinking. During adolescence, the prefrontal cortex - the part responsible for reasoning, impulse control, and planning - continues to mature. This process is not fully complete until the mid-20s, which is why teens often act on emotion or impulse.

Over time, repeated thoughts, emotional responses, and behaviours become deeply wired into the brain, forming automatic patterns the mind relies on for efficiency.

By age 35, most people live primarily from their subconscious programming, meaning their thoughts, behaviours, emotional reactions, and habits have become deeply automatic. As a result, around 90–95% of daily actions and reactions occur on autopilot, often without conscious thought.

People tend to wake up, think the same thoughts, feel the same emotions, and repeat the same routines-essentially reliving their past each day. While the brain is still capable of change, transformation requires intentional effort by this age.

Rewiring these ingrained patterns involves conscious awareness, new habits, and consistent practice, but the good news is that lasting change is entirely possible with effort. We can rewire habits, change beliefs, and reshape our emotional responses at any age.

This is essentially what Manifestation is - making changes to your life by reprogramming your brain.

The first step to change is deciding to do so and creating meaningful intentions.

The second step is evoking emotions related to those intentions. When you do this, you are programming the Reticular Activating System (RAS) to start noticing related opportunities, synchronises, co-incidences, and patterns. The RAS is a network of neurons in the brain stem. The brain's filter decides what gets your attention and what fades into the background, and you can program it to work for you. For example, if you focus on abundance, you will see more opportunities for success. If you focus on limitations, the RAS will highlight obstacles instead.

For example, whenever you have bought a new car, You will have gone through a process of looking for one logical process, probably weighing up the pros and cons. But at some point, you made a decision and attached emotion to it. You may even compromise on one of your desired feature lists. But at this point that you attached emotion, your RAS understood that these thoughts you were having were important - and guess what - you started to see lots of the make and model of the car you had chosen on the road around you!

This is exactly how the emotional part of manifesting works. Those cars have always been there - the natural flow of energy puts them there every day; you just do not see them. But once you had set a meaningful intention to buy a new car AND attached emotion to it, the RAS started to point them out to you.

"Manifestation is not just about wishful thinking. It is deeply connected to how the brain processes thoughts, beliefs, and emotions to shape reality. The brain plays a key role in visualisation, focus, belief systems, and action-taking, all of which influence manifestation." Teanna

Learn the steps and tools to reprogramme your brain in - 'Unlock Your Cosmic Flow'