Positive Psychology and Kindness

An example of how, just by thinking, our body will react physically to these impulses is by the idea of moving our right arm. When you physically do so, new connections are created in a part of the brain called the motor cortex. Now, just thinking about moving your right arm, and imagining moving it over and over again can actually make the muscles in this same arm stronger.

Because of thoughts about the arm, cellular changes can happen. This reinforces the belief that no matter what one is thinking about, chemical reactions occur in the brain and can, therefore, lead to structural changes. We can create millions of new connections in our brains just by thinking compassionate thoughts.

The structure of our brains can be formed by our emotions. All your inspirations, motivations, loves, fears, hopes and dreams, and even your typical body language are wired into your brain in the form of connections between cells. These connections become so extensive over time that they even wire into 3-D networks, or circuits, as they are often called.

Acts of kindness, then, find their way into the chemistry and structure of our brain. If kindness becomes a habit, we can significantly alter the wiring of our brain. In fact, as we will examine later the brain is already wired for kindness. But we are always adding to and changing that wiring. Throughout life, as we learn new things, grow, change our minds and even change our habits, new networks of new brain connections are laid down and old networks unravel.

This neuroplasticity occurs right up until the very last seconds of our lives. One of the benefits of it is that it actually allows the brain to get over injury and disease, as healthy brain cells compensate for damaged ones by sprouting new connections to take over some of their communications or pass the information through the brain by a slightly different route. (David Hamilton, Why is Kindness Good for you, Prediction August 10).

Your brain is wired in the form of connections between cells where over time all of your feelings, emotions, and body language is wired extensively into these circuits. Therefore we can change the wiring of our brain through simple acts of kindness becoming a habit in our everyday lives.

Our brains seem to be initially set up for kindness, but we alter and change that wiring by learning, growing, and modifying our minds and habits over time. As this happens, new connections are made and the ones that were already there can be reformed. This actually allows for healthy brain cells to overcome the damaged ones by passing information throughout the brain in different ways when we are injured or fallen ill.