Can You Rewire Your Brain?

Too much of a push-over? A wee bit narcissistic? If you’re not too chuffed with the personality you’ve been lumped with so far, fear not. Odds are you’re in the prime to switch things up and set yourself a new psyche. How? Read on...

- Mel Evans

Would it be wrong to guess you’re a couple of decades into life? You’re switched on. You know what’s up. Childhood: done. Puberty: tick. You’ve entered that crazy zone called ‘being a grown-up’, right? The only thing is, you’ve still got a few li’l quirks you want to give the ol‘ heave-ho as proper, scary adulthood kicks in (or has already). Maybe you’re deathly shy? A compulsive liar? A smoker? Whatever it is, you’ll be glad to know that moulding your brain into something more representative of the person you’ve always wanted to be is possible...with a little, er, mindpower. Ha! Good one, brain. That witty thinking can stay.

So, what do we know about the adult brain? “We know that the brain caps off its second and last growth spurt in your 20s as it rewires itself for adulthood, which means that whatever it is you want to change about yourself, now is the time to change it,” says USbased clinical psychologist Meg Jay in her famous 2013 TED Talk, Why 30 Is Not The New 20. “Personality changes more during your 20s than at any other time in life,” she explains.

Our 20s are what the psychs call a ‘developmental sweet spot’ — the ‘defining decade’, if you will. If you believed the old adage, ‘You can’t teach an old dog new tricks’ was the be-all and end-all of our brains, so you might as well switch off and cruise through life on autopilot, think again. You know, while you’re already mulling over new thinking patterns. This is by no means a new phenomenon, but there was a time when it was considered a little bit trickier to upend ingrained patterns. Harvard psychologist William James wrote in 1890’s The Principles of Psychology that, “In most of us, by the age of 30, the character has set like plaster, and will never soften again.” Bit dramatic, William.