You Are Not Your Brain

Today we will talk about a book in which, by adopting the lessons taught in your life, you can replace bad habits with good habits and change unhealthy thinking into positive and better thinking. And in this way, we can take control of our life.

The name of the book we will talk about is “You Are Not Your Brain”, written by Jeffrey M. Schwartz & Rebecca Gladding.

Introduction

The author Jeffery is a famous neuropsychologist who has researched hundreds of people and found four such ways to change your bad habits and take control of your life by adopting positive thinking. Your brain is your best friend -Jeffery Quartz.

To understand the book better, we are going to discuss this book in 10 essential parts.

So let’s get started.

Part 1. Use Self Directed Neuro Plasticity to Change

Self Directed Neuroplasticity means focusing on your mind and running it accordingly. Neuro means the part of the brain from which thoughts and feelings are controlled. And plasticity implies that even though this part is quite solid, you can change it like plastic according to you by doing some process or some work on it.

If you understand in easy language, paying attention to that part of your mind from where thoughts and feelings are controlled can replace your evil thoughts with good and positive thoughts by thinking of your desired feelings and good thoughts from there. And in the same way, by doing it continuously for 21 to 90 days, you can replace bad habits with good ones.

Part 2. Hebb’s Law & Quantum Zeno Effect

You can take advantage of NeuroPlasticity by learning and adopting these two concepts in your life. Meaning you can control your mind. Number one is “Hebb’s law”.

According to this rule, the Neurons of our mind, or, in simple language, the thoughts that affect our life, work together. Meaning the part of your brain that you use more and more, that part becomes more and more robust.

We understand this in easy words with an example. You take up a new job where you must catch a bus every morning at 8:00 to arrive on time. In the first week, everything went well, but on Tuesday of the next week, you reached the bus stand at 8:10 am, so you missed your bus and were embarrassed because of running to the office late. Because of what it might be that you do not feel well and start getting upset.

But after being like this for two or three times continuously, when you feel upset and tense repeatedly, many people resort to smoking cigarettes to overcome it. By smoking cigarettes, the brain gets nicotine; nicotine is a hormone that releases happiness and reduces stress.

And after doing this for some time, it gradually becomes your habit, and after a few weeks arriving late at the office or bus stand, causing trouble or stress, becomes an opportunity to get nicotine or pleasure by smoking a cigarette.

And from that, a bad habit can spoil your personal and professional life somewhere. And once you get into such a bad habit, not smoking cigarettes becomes a cause of trouble and stress, whether you reach the office on time or not. In this way, the work we do again and again that gives us pleasure becomes our habit, whether the results obtained from it are in our favor or in our loss.

After getting stuck in such a condition, some people say that they cannot control themselves, so it is essential for them to smoke cigarettes. But if we look carefully at this situation, a person gets pleasure from smoking a cigarette; he himself told his mind many times before, and then by practicing it continuously, also showed that he is getting pleasure from smoking a cigarette.

And because of his activity, the mind accepted that doing this work gives pleasure.

In this way, first, we have control over our minds; if we control our thoughts properly in our favor, it can help us get all we want. Therefore, in such a condition, you should feel happy to reach the office on time. Firstly you will bring happiness.

Secondly, you will be healthy because of not smoking cigarettes, and thirdly, your personal and professional life will also become better. So the lesson of this rule is to adopt those habits which will give you happiness and benefit from them in real life.

This second concept is Quantum Zeno Effect, a rule by Greek Philosophers. If we take it easy, If understood in the language, it means that, By Practicing, a fool can become intelligent. Similarly, a person whose habits are not good can also improve his life by adopting good habits while practicing good habits and constantly being conscious.

The lesson of this rule is that if you want to think positively instead of negatively thinking, then always think actively and positively; similarly, if you want to be successful, then always think about success; how can you become successful? How are you going to live the best life after becoming successful? And in the same way, continuously thinking like this for 21 days will become your habit.

Part 3. Follow these four steps to give up bad habits.

This part is the essential part of this book because, in this, we will discuss the steps you can use to eliminate bad habits and adopt good practices. Will help.

Step 1. Be aware of your thoughts, of those that are taking you towards negativity, and also know about those thoughts that make you happy and beneficial. You can become an expert in this art by practicing meditation for 5 minutes every morning.

Step 2. Another way is to label the thoughts, that is, dividing the ideas that come to your mind every day into two parts, in one aspect the thoughts necessary for you and the other which are not required.

Step 3. The third way is to pay attention to positive activity; it is a natural law that the things we focus more on keep increasing whether we do it positively or negatively. Therefore, to remove negative thoughts and increase positive thoughts, do more activities that increase Positivity—like reading books, reading a biography of positive people, listening to knowledgeable, inspirational, and motivating people on YouTube, book summary videos of Readers Books Club, and spending more time with such positive people. Through these methods, you can increase Positivity to a great extent.

Step 4. The fourth way is to take action confidently and believe in yourself by continuously making good habits, thinking good thoughts, and taking necessary measures; soon, your bad habit will turn into a good one.

Part 4. You do not define it with your mind; instead, you define it yourself.

Sometimes our mind starts wandering; such thoughts come into our mind that we do not want to think, thoughts with which we do not want to go ahead. But despite all this, many of us feel helpless in getting that fast train of thought under our control again. This happens to everyone. Is it not better for us to know how to control our minds by controlling our thoughts?

The author believes that we can control our thoughts before they spread negativity, or because of them, we are upset. To illustrate this point, he tells the story of a patient he once helped. This is the story of a young American boy who started his career in acting.

Although initially, he got outstanding success on trim levels, he was inspired and thought of giving his audition a better story. And similarly, while providing an audition in a State Level Acting Competition, when the judge did not like his performance, he started getting demotivated when the judge did not like him.

He started feeling that he could not act reasonably, and from that day onwards, his acting career started declining.

To fix this problem, he met Accounting Schwartz, who, after examining him, told him that all this was happening because of his thinking. This was happening with the youth because while one of his minds was saying, no problem, we can improve this deficiency and become a better actor, on the other hand, his mind was saying you are good at acting.

Can’t, in such a situation, the youth listen to the negative reason which was defining them? Due to listening to and focusing on him, the negativity kept increasing, which was not in the hands of the youth to control.

But after meeting the author Schwartz and taking good guidance, when the young man started focusing on positive thoughts, after a few months, he became a better actor, and he also got a chance to give many new auditions. And in many, he also performed well.

In this way, whatever we are, we define ourselves, not our minds. We should pay attention to our positive and such thoughts, which are beneficial, and entertain them only, ignoring the negative.

Part 5. We can re-train our minds.

As we discussed in the last parts, what we think about more, on which we focus more, the same thing starts growing. Be it Positivity, success, happiness, or sadness.

Be it bad habits or good habits. It depends on the focus, whether it is a terrible financial condition or good financial status. Therefore, after knowing this, we can re-train our minds by focusing on those thoughts which bring happiness and positivity.

You can adopt some such methods to think better:

• Start thinking about the things that you value.
• Think more about things and conditions that make you happy and generate happy feelings in you.
• Think more time about your success
• Think more time about your good financial condition.
• Do positive things with yourself.
• In every situation, how can I convert a lousy condition into a good one? Instead of thinking that I can’t do it.
• Do daily meditation to become aware of evil thoughts and focus more on good thoughts by knowing good ones.
• Ultimately, take every necessary action to change good habits from bad ones.

Part 6. Re-framing

Labeling is perfect for getting rid of bad habits or evil thoughts and adopting good thoughts, but it is a little tricky to do good only by labeling and dividing it into good or bad. It is also necessary to change the attitude.

This is necessary because many times, when negative thoughts come, many of us think that this thought is also essential and either accept them directly or reject them now instead of pondering over them.

Because contemplating such negative thoughts can be stressful. But we must do this because everything gets its result; if we handle it well, we get a good result, and if we do not take it properly, then according to it. Therefore, in such a situation, we need Reframing.

Reframing means changing one’s point of view. To understand this easily, let us discuss this through the story of a patient helped by the author. The patient’s level is such that when he was thinking or talking about important topics, other unnecessary thoughts started coming into his mind, which he did not want to go.

And while telling the author, he accepted that if this continues for a few more days, I may start getting mentally ill; if it is not corrected for some time, something wrong can happen to me. This continued for a few days, after which, according to the author’s advice, those patients gave the unnecessary thoughts a name or the label “foreign invader”.

Because there is a kind of hostility in this name from which every human wants to stay away, and ultimately, because of giving such a label or name to unnecessary thoughts, the patient felt that within a few days, such thoughts had reduced. Because there is such a sound in such words, which only a fighter or an alien would like to hear.

A decent person might not want to listen. In this way, after labeling, he got an opportunity to take the second step, in which he could say something like, I am not the one who listens to all kinds of thoughts, but he is only my mind. And I hear and accept what I am, so I listen to whatever but take what I do that benefits me, contributes to my happiness, and contributes to my success.

Doing such an activity helped him to know that the negative thoughts that were coming did not have any existence in reality.

By considering them and managing them properly, they could be eliminated immediately. In this way, the lesson of this part is that instead of rejecting any negative thought out of fear, take time for it with a calm mind, think about it, and follow the ways to get away from it with a quiet mind.

By doing this, in a few days, you will see that negative thoughts and bad habits slowly disappear, and positive and good habits come into life.

Part 7. Re-focus

The next is an important step that helps us a lot to re-train our attention. This is important, especially when you, like many people, struggle to focus on your essential tasks.

Because sometimes, such an idea is not beneficial for a person, but due to being attractive, he cannot concentrate on his important work or struggle to focus on it. Therefore, along with adopting labeling and reframing techniques, it is also essential to know and use this method when needed.

In this method of re-focusing, it is advisable to adopt practices that bring attention to Productivity and Positivity. For this, make a list of those positive thoughts you want to think about, make a list of those good habits you want to adopt, and a list of good people with whom you want to spend more time.

And whenever a negative thought of any kind comes to mind, do not think of any immediate way to remove it, then ultimately focus on your list of positive thoughts and start thinking about it.

Or, for this, you can talk to a friend who will help you stay positive. In addition, think about the desired results you will get from your work and work with complete focus.

By doing this, you will see that by engaging your mind in the things you want, you are controlling it and taking advantage of it instead of holding and taking advantage of you.

However, it is essential to remember here that this method is not to stop or reject negative thoughts but to deal with them positively after they come, in which you can only do your positive and desires after negative thoughts. Think about thoughts and habits. And after thinking like this for some time, negative thoughts automatically start getting removed from the mind, and you start feeling good.

Part 8. Re-evaluation

The most important rule is to meet and regain ourselves because if we cannot do this, we cannot know which thoughts are necessary and beneficial. But as long as we are associated with bad habits or evil thoughts, our distance from ourselves increases. Whereas in this method of re-evaluation, you teach to connect with yourself, love, and give importance to your health, beauty, and thoughts.

In simple language, this method of Revolution is a way to see and treat yourself with a kind Mentality. It means loving yourself, adopting those thoughts, those habits that benefit you. Not those who are attractive for some time and not harmful.

Although this will not happen overnight, by continuously using methods like Labeling, Reframing, and Re Focus, the power to stay positive and productive develops in mind. This approach helps you see and connect with yourself rather than surrendering negative thoughts.

This method helps you to be able to make the best and safest decision for yourself. So if you want to leave bad habits and adopt good practices, improve yourself, and love yourself, adopt these Labeling, Framing, etc. methods.

Take some time out for this and see whether you are adopting these methods or are focusing only on negative thoughts. If you are adopting, then adopt them in a more and better way. And if not, then start adopting them so that you can control your mind and not your mind.

Part 9. Use Organic Methods to Change Habits

Do you know why people smoke? While they know it’s harmful to them, the answer is nicotine; why do people tend to eat more ice cream when they know it will make them fat and unhealthy, obviously for sweets?

We always do it because we try to overcome them through nicotine and sweet methods to overcome the problems and stress due to ups and downs in our day-to-day life for some time. But by doing this repeatedly, many people become so accustomed to it that then without it, they start feeling stress.

Many people use dangerous things like drugs to overcome this stress for some time on the ups and downs of life. Also, consume. Although he can deal with his mind properly and overcome those stress by thinking positively, due to the craving for instant relief, he becomes so addicted to things like smoking and drugs that a time comes that without it; They start feeling stressed.

Author Schwartz has also written this book intending to solve similar problems. That’s why we should handle the issues of our life in a positive way by paying attention to our thoughts in an organic way.

By thinking positively about it and adopting positive ways to fix it, deal with that problem so that it is also set, and you, too, will eventually get some more benefit in life by learning that way. Not by methods like smoking or drugs, which provide relief from stress for some time but can ultimately harm you in many ways.

Part 10. 3 Key Lessons From You Are Not Your Brain

1st lesson: Adopt what is beneficial to you.

Many times, while scrolling on social media, an ad or short video attracts you a lot, in the same way you like someone on TV. But the thing to understand carefully here is that in such a situation when things feel good to you, they do not like you but want your mind.

Because as we discussed earlier, seeing such things, many happy hormones like nicotine are released in our brain, which makes our brain feel good. Many such people adopt it directly without thinking as good for themselves.

Still, according to the advice given by psychologist Schwartz in this book, we should analyze in such a condition that whatever is good for our mind. Is it beneficial for us, our real happiness, success, health, beauty, etc.? Adopt it only if practical; otherwise, focus on Positivity by rejecting it. And there are many ways of denying that we have discussed; you can adopt any of them.

2nd lesson: Control your thoughts through 4 steps

If we discuss the four steps in short, then the first step is to be aware of the studies for which you can do meditation. The second step is to label which ideas are good for you and which are not. The third is to focus on Positive Activity. And the fourth is to take necessary actions with confidence.

3rd lesson: Make a notebook of good habits and write it down

The good habits you want to adopt, the good ideas you want to think of, the good people you want to be with, and the kind of sound financial condition you want to live in and implement. Keep taking necessary actions from time to time with action planning.

Conclusion

So, friends, this is how to leave bad habits and adopt good ones. I hope you have learned many new things and methods to adopt in your life, and adopting good habits attracts Positivity, happiness, and success.

You Are Not Your Brain Book Review

You Are Not Your Brain challenges the idea of being controlled by thoughts.

Authors Jeffrey Schwartz and Rebecca Gladding present practical insights from neuroscience and mindfulness, guiding readers to recognize and break free from destructive thought patterns.

The book empowers readers to reshape their thinking, promoting self-awareness and emotional control. Through relatable examples and exercises, it offers a fresh perspective on taking charge of one’s mind, fostering personal growth and well-being.

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