Trying to get back on track with your brain health can feel overwhelming at first, especially when trying to regain lost skills or improve your cognitive function. But, there is good news! Our brains are more adaptable than we might think, thanks to a process called neuroplasticity.
Neuroplasticity is the brain’s ability to reshape, rewire, and heal itself throughout life, giving us the power to rebuild after injury, manage stress, or simply boost mental agility. And, there is hope for this! Together, let’s take a closer look at the 10 principles of neuroplasticity for the health of your brain.
With these principles in mind, you will be able to pick up unique ways to understand and support your brain’s healing journey. Maybe you are trying to recover specific functions, sharpen your mind or just keep your mind active; these principles can help you take that first step.
Neuroplasticity Principle 1: Engage It or Lose It
Think of your brain circuits as pathways that need regular use to stay active. Just as muscles weaken without exercise, brain pathways fade if they’re not used regularly.
For instance, if someone stops eating orally and relies on a feeding tube, the neural circuits tied to swallowing may become less efficient. When they’re ready to eat again, they may need extra time and practice to reactivate those connections, as the pathways have become a bit “rusty” from lack of use.
This principle reminds us that staying engaged in activities is necessary for keeping our brain functions sharp.
Neuroplasticity Principle 2: Use It and Improve It
The more you practice a skill, the stronger the brain circuits connected to that skill become. Repeating specific actions reinforces these pathways, making them more robust and responsive over time. The saying practice makes perfect, can apply to neuroplasticity, and relates alot to this principle.
In recovery, constraint-induced movement therapy (CIMT) encourages people to use a weakened limb by restricting movement in the stronger one.
This approach forces the brain to actively work on strengthening the affected side. Repeated limb use helps reactivate and strengthen the related neural connections, which gradually restores function.
Neuroplasticity Principle 3: Targeted Practice Matters
Different exercises engage different parts of the brain, and tailoring activities to target specific skills is key for meaningful progress. For example, if you’re regaining your speech, your therapy will focus on exercises that stimulate the language and speech centers in the brain.
On the other hand, physical exercises like balance training target separate neural circuits. This principle emphasizes the importance of doing the right activities for your specific goals. Therapists use a targeted approach to ensure you’re strengthening the pathways that will directly impact your recovery.
Neuroplasticity Principle 4: The Power of Meaningful Activities
Engagement is strongest when activities feel meaningful to you. If an exercise connects to something important in your life, you’re more motivated to practice it, encouraging neuroplastic change.
For example, if regaining the ability to walk unaided will help you return to a beloved hobby, this emotional connection can boost your effort and enthusiasm. This is why it’s important to adapt exercises to match what you care about most—personal investment makes the brain more responsive to learning and retaining skills.
Neuroplasticity Principle 5: Carrying Skills into Daily Life
The goal of neuroplasticity-focused therapy is to help you use the skills you’ve learned in real-life situations. For instance, practicing hand movements in therapy may translate into greater ease when holding utensils at home. This is known as transference, where what you learn in a controlled setting begins to impact everyday life.
Therapists and specific programs Primal Trust™ work on exercises that build real-world skills, helping you regain independence and confidence. When these skills transfer to daily life, they become part of your routine, reinforcing those pathways even more.Which in turn, can improve overall healing.
Neuroplasticity Principle 6: Unlearning Old Habits to Make Room for New Skills
Old habits and familiar patterns can sometimes hold us back from embracing new, more effective ways of functioning. This rings especially true when it comes to healing from trauma or injury, where “compensatory behaviors” often develop to adapt to physical or emotional limitations. Trauma deeply affects the brain’s wiring, making it challenging to break free from well-worn patterns—even when they no longer serve us.
For instance, if you’ve adopted a certain way of moving or walking to compensate for a weaker leg, recovery will likely require unlearning this adaptation. Retraining your brain and body to adopt a more balanced gait involves intentionally breaking the habit that once helped you cope.
Similarly, trauma survivors might rely on protective behaviors, like avoiding social interactions or overreacting to perceived threats, which the brain has established as safety mechanisms. Part of healing involves unlearning these patterns and creating space for healthier responses.
The process can be challenging, as it requires confronting both the physical and emotional roots of these habits. However, dedicating time to reprogram your brain’s pathways—whether for improved movement or emotional resilience—lays the foundation for a fuller recovery
Neuroplasticity Principle 7: Consistency is Key
For neuroplasticity to take hold, the brain requires frequent repetition. Just as lifting weights consistently builds muscle, regular practice strengthens neural connections.
Research shows that high repetition—sometimes even thousands of times—is often needed to solidify new skills.
In specific healing programs, group work or therapy, this might mean doing similar movements or exercises repeatedly throughout the day. It’s common to combine activities or suggest integrating small exercises into daily routines to make it easier to achieve the repetition needed for lasting change.
Neuroplasticity Principle 8: Push Yourself Within Limits
The level of intensity in therapy impacts neuroplasticity. Just as lifting heavier weights can lead to faster muscle growth, engaging in more challenging tasks strengthens neural pathways more quickly. However, intensity doesn’t mean overdoing it. It involves striking a balance between pushing yourself to make progress while respecting your limits.
For example, a therapy session may involve gradually increasing difficulty or adding depth to exercises. Therapists often adjust the intensity to keep activities engaging and effective, helping your brain build resilience.
Neuroplasticity Principle 9: Age Can Influence Adaptability
While neuroplasticity enables brains of all ages to learn, adapt, and grow, it’s often easier for younger brains to pick up new skills or adapt to change. In children, neural pathways are naturally more flexible, allowing them to learn with fewer repetitions.
Adults, however, can still experience the benefits of neuroplasticity—they just need more patience and consistent effort. The process of forming new pathways or breaking old habits might take longer, but meaningful change is still very achievable.
There’s also a psychological factor that comes into play as adults: resistance to change. This resistance often stems from deeply embedded patterns, particularly if trauma or painful experiences have shaped those patterns.
When trauma has played a role in shaping someone’s responses or behaviors, the brain creates protective mechanisms that can make letting go of these “safety” habits challenging. For older adults, there may be decades of ingrained behaviors that create barriers to adopting new, healthier ways of being. This resistance isn’t a failure—it’s simply a sign of the brain’s adaptability and strength in holding onto familiar patterns.
In older adults, neuroplasticity remains powerful but often requires even more repetition, consistency, and time. Therapists and programs like Primal Trust™ tailor exercises and tools to suit the needs of each age group, recognizing that different stages of life call for unique approaches.
Primal Trust, for example, provides methods that honor this process, helping people of any age shift their mindsets and build resilience.
Neuroplasticity Principle 10: Timing is Important
The timing of neuroplastic changes varies during recovery, and the brain is often most responsive in the early stages. The sooner rehabilitation begins, the better, as early intervention can prevent unwanted compensations and speed up recovery. This early start helps “prime” the brain to learn healthier patterns before maladaptive habits set in.
However, even if therapy starts later, the brain can still adapt—it just might require more time and effort. Therapists work to optimize the timing of exercises to take advantage of this window of heightened brain flexibility.
How Can You Move Forward with Neuroplasticity in Brain Rehabilitation?
Using these neuroplasticity principles in your rehabilitation journey can make a meaningful difference in recovery. By consistently applying these principles, you engage the brain’s natural capacity to rewire and rebuild, step by step.
Keep in mind that neuroplasticity is a gradual process. With patience and dedication, each small action creates pathways to greater resilience, improved functionality, and long-term wellness.
For a more supportive and structured approach, at Primal Trust™ we offer programs that integrate neuroplasticity techniques directly into its programs, guiding you through brain retraining exercises designed to create real, lasting change.
