Imagine your brain is a garden, except instead of growing flowers, fruits, and vegetables, you grow synaptic connections between neurons. When you learn lots of new things, your brain builds connections, but they’re inefficient, impromptu connections. Your brain needs to prune a lot of those connections away and build more streamlined, efficient pathways. It does that when we sleep.
Researchers are just starting to unravel this mystery, but what they do know is the synaptic connections that get used less get a marker, and your brain cleans itself out when you sleep–your brain cells shrinking by up to 60% to creating space for your gardeners to come in take away the waste and prune the synapses. And in fact, you have some control over what your brain decides to delete while you sleep. They say that if you spend a bit of time just before going to sleep, letting the brain know what habits/thoughts, you want gone it helps the weeding process and it’s these synaptic connections that you don’t use that get marked for recycling. However, the ones you do use are the ones that get watered and oxygenated.
So be mindful of how you do what you do when you are practicing, auditioning, performing and presenting your personal brand. It does matter how and what you’re thinking about. Avanti!
