How To Use Your Brain’s “Delete” Button Neurons that fire together, wire together. Back in 1949, Canadian Neuropsychologist Daniel Hebb first used this phrase to describe how pathways in the brain are formed and reinforced through repetition. This means that every experience, thought, feeling, and physical sensation triggers thousands of neurons, which form a neural network. When you repeat an experience over and over, the brain learns to trigger the same neurons each time. Our brain cells communicate with one another via synaptic transmission; one brain cell releases a chemical (neurotransmitter) that the next brain cell absorbs. This communication process is known as ‘neuronal firing’. When brain cells communicate frequently, the connection between them strengthens. Messages that travel the same pathway in the brain over and over begin to transmit faster and faster. With enough repetition, they become automatic. You’ve heard the saying that ‘practice makes perfect’; this is the scientific explanation of why it does. This is essentially how we create those unconscious programs that run who we are; the way we think, the perception we see, the experiences that form the beliefs we hold, and the habits that we do. Of course, this can be used in a…
