Keeping a New Year's Resolution?

Need help keeping your New Year’s resolutions? An increased understanding of the plasticity of the brain may help. As you may know, dendritic branching (connections conveying signals between neurons) come into being or are pruned in an ongoing fashion. Important for resolvers to consider are the following: environment through experience is encoded in the brain, changing brain chemistry and anatomy; and procedural (such as behavior/habits) change is better effected in the context of a safe and supportive relationship. What this means for those who have vowed to lose weight, quit smoking, be kinder, etc is that your goals may be more easily met if you seek to change your behavior with a buddy, friends, a personal trainer or life coach, or a group, something many an attendee at AA may know better than we.  Likewise, if you want to be a better therapist, participate in a training program or Study Group. (TBIPS offers both…see next post for Spring courses which begin Jan 30, 2012).