If you think about how our minds work it is simply amazing. All of the neural connections that make up our brains are of such a number that it is practically unfathomable. Trillions of connections! Every single day we create many more connections by learning new things and carrying out new tasks. Of course, as we create more connections we also tend to loose some that our brains deem unimportant. Generally, this is how our brains "forget things". Those childhood memories that we do not think about for years at a time are typically first to go. When you do not recall a particular memory or thought for quite some time, the neural connections begin to fade, and over time the connection is lost all together. If something were to remind us of a certain event of our childhood, the recall of that memory would strengthen that neural connection making that memory stay put for a longer time. If it were then not recalled for several more months or years it would begin to fade again.
This system allows our brains to sort the needed information from the unimportant. If something is of particular interest to a person, and they think about it more often, then those connections strengthen more so than others making it more memorable to you. If you think about work often, like making an employee schedule or placing a business order, then the connections that allow your brain to perform those functions will be stronger, therefore of more use to you. This is why practice really does make perfect. When you practice something, anything, the connections which are of use in that action are strengthened over and over again. Eventually that task becomes "second nature" to you because that connection is super strong. Interestingly enough, this is why the people who learn the fastest are not the people who stop and plan out how to complete a task, but are the ones who do not plan but just jump in and do it. They don't stop to think about it, they just hop in and do it.
The best why to learn, by not planning; just doing, is lucky for us considering we cannot really plan ahead for anything. We are "fly by the seat of your pants" kind of people. Hell, we do not know how we are going to be feeling hour-to-hour, or even minute-to-minute, so how can we plan anyways? Even when we do plan things out we tend to advert our plans based on how we are feeling. We can make plans, but who knows if we can actually carry them out or not until the time to do it gets here. It makes it hard, but it also makes us "doers" rather than "stop and think about it-ers". It is good to know that this makes us learn faster and more efficiently. Hey ya'll, we do have something going for us!
The way neural connections "remember" and "forget" things is rather fascinating. For people with chronic pain, this system of memory recalling and fading is of particular interest even beside the fact that it most likely makes us faster learners. Because our bodies feel pain on a nearly constant basis, the neural connections associated with feeling pain are almost always being strengthened. This is the downside folks. Our brains are constantly "remembering" that we are in a substantial amount of pain. Those connections are like the HULK (think bulging biceps) because they are unable to forget they are sensing pain. They are constantly being activated, pulsing with recurrent electrical stimulation they cannot seem to calm down. So, even when our bodies are not sending pain messages, the connections in our brains are so strengthened that they continually think that we are feeling pain when we shouldn't be. They have gone haywire.
So, are we in pain because our neural connections have gone haywire, or has the pain made them go haywire? So far, scientists do not have the answer to this conundrum. My own opinion is that the pain was what caused the connections to go haywire. Something started the pain long before the neural connections had a chance to go bonkers. Personally, I think they are looking in the wrong place for the cause of the disease, but any kind of research on chronic pain/Fibromyalgia is good!
What do you think of this chicken-or-the-egg scenario? Did the pain cause the problem in the first place or did the problem begin with the neural connections within the brain? Are your pain connections like the Hulk? I know mine are!
Give me your opinion, I would sure like to hear it! Until next time, May The Spoons Be Ever In Your Favor.
-Aimee
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