Myelination

Have you ever set out to try and change something about yourself? Perhaps a way you behave, feel about certain things, or think? When engaging in a journey of change, many people are very motivated in the beginning, do not notice a change as quickly as they would like, start to lose motivation, and eventually fall fully back into their old patterns.

A system in the brain that can help explain this process is myelination. Myelination is a covering that surrounds axons, it acts like insulation. Axons connect neurons and allow them to communicate and pass along information. The more myelination around an axon creates quicker communication between neurons. So, when you are doing something and you notice your first instinct, that instinct is likely a well-myelinated pathway. One way of increasing myelination is to do things repeatedly.

So, let’s say you are a perfectionist and want to work on changing your critical self-talk. Initially, you need to understand that there are neural pathways in your brain that are likely well myelinated that communicate that your self-talk needs to be full of criticism and belittlement when something needs to get done well. When you take the initial steps to combat this by engaging in more self-compassionate self-talk, new pathways will get created, but they will not be as well fortified as the initial, self-critical pathways are. But, the more you practice self-compassion, the more myelinated those pathways will become.

I don’t have a magic number to share with you on how long you have to engage with your new way of doing things before it starts to beat out your old way. But, through understanding myelination, I can tell you that by engaging in your new way as often as you can, you are creating new pathways in your brain and by continuing to engage you will continue to add myelinated pathways that will continue to communicate quicker and quicker. The old pathways will still be there, but the less frequently you engage in them, the less myelinated they will be.

So, when it feels like you’ve been working hard and change isn’t happening, just know that it is taking place, just in ways you aren’t aware of!