How Can I Most Effectively Recharge During the Holidays?
The holidays are coming up, and in this video, we go over the ways you can properly recharge and take advantage of the time off. As it turns out, expanding brain capacity and function requires more than just rest.
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Transcript
Today, I’m going to be delighted to talk to you about how to effectively recharge during the holidays. Recharging is more than resting. I will ask the help of neuroscience to give you a few interesting directions, steps and practices that you could be taking during the next holidays, the of which effects will be lasting your long into the new year.
Neuroscience, Neuroplasticity and Recharging
The concept stemming from neuroscience is called neuroplasticity. The plasticity of the brain, the ability of the brain to cope with new situations and to flexibly and adaptively manage them. So, how do you pump up your neuroplasticity during your holidays while maintaining all of the ingredients of outstanding holidays?
Step 1: Rest Up the Way You Normally Would
The first one is rest. Good news. That’s what holidays are made for and there is no mystery. The brain needs rest. The brain needs time to recharge, get energy, absorb and digest everything that happened and reorganize your memories. That’s happening when you rest, when you sleep. The fact is: rest is an essential component of increasing your neuroplasticity.
Step 2: Have Fun!
The second component is entertainment and fun. Which is also good news as that is what holidays are often made for. And why is that important to neuroplasticity? Because being playful and having fun, as well as physical activity, is also part of the same deal that will help your brain stay in an open state, ready to create learning opportunities with an open mindset.
Step 3: Find Novelty in Your Life
The third key to neuroplasticity that you can apply in your holidays is novelty. To stimulate yourself with novelties and things you haven’t done before. A new exhibit, a new movie, a new trip somewhere, a new culinary experience. Novelty will stimulate your neural connections and certainly help your brain really release an important chemical component, which is a kind of adrenaline called norepinephrine. Norepinephrine is very essential in helping to create and support new neural pathways being forged in your brain. So, novelty is absolutely spot on for increasing your neuroplasticity.
Step 4: Tend to Your Relationships
The final key to neuroplasticity is the relationships you nourish during the holidays, particularly the year-end holidays where we tend to gather with family and friends. We change and learn best in safe conditions with loved ones or caring ones around us. Dear colleagues or dear family members, where we feel safe and socially connected. Being heard and understood increases our creative functions and increases connective neural fibers in our brain. That’s why it is so important to stretch ourselves in safe, socially connected and engaging settings and connections.
What to Do during Your Holidays
In short, you will really have outstanding holidays when not only doing it for the sheer joy of it, but also for the long lasting consequences and effect into the new year. Make sure you have a big amount of rest, a good amount of entertainment and fun in loving, caring relationships, while including plenty of novelty.
Those are the perfect ingredients for boosting your neuroplasticity and getting you ready for a new year to come. With that in mind, I wish you a very happy holidays for you, for your loved ones, and I look forward to seeing you in the next year.
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