How I Learned Brain Exercises Can Help With Any New Year's Resolution

At the end of 2005, I swore off all resolutions for the rest of my life. Faced with my 40th birthday, my daughter's announcement that I was SURPRISE going to be a grandmother, the last semesters of school and the somewhat daunting task of pulling off a wedding with 200 guests within a little over six weeks (we don't use the word "shotgun" but....) - I not only scoffed at the idea of trying to lose any bad habits - I picked up a nasty one I'd dropped for years.

I started smoking again.

So here I am, at the beginning of a new year.  School, the wedding, and that 4 decade mark are well behind me.  I'm only a little worse for wear.  I also have an album full of wedding photos, a great son-in-law, and an adorable grandson thanks to the events of 2006.  

Oh yes, that and the filthy habit that seems to only have grown over the past 12 months.

Time to break my resolution not to have New Years Resolutions.

I've quit successfully in the past, and know the best route for me is a nicotine patch and solitary confinement for about 7 weeks. (Nicotine gum upsets my stomach, and my one attempt at using Wellbutrin left me a discombobulated mess.)  

I bookmarked the usual stop smoking sites on my laptop, announced to my friends and colleagues my intent before Christmas (only a few have left town) and then bought the jumbo pack of Clear Nicoderm CQ's at Costco on New Year's Eve.  

The Australian who rang up my order said, "Good on you girl."

I deadpanned,"Hope you don't see my name in the paper."

The first half of today went fine.  Then around lunch time, the urge to  wander into the backyard, pull up my favorite deck chair and stare at the now freezing water of our pool while savoring a Marlboro Light hit me like a Union Pacific Freight Train with double locomotives.

I retreated to my favorite armchair and whipped out an Oprah Magazine.

I completely ignored the "O's Smoking Challenge: The Update" article and started flipping pages in search of the book reviews. Quite by accident I stumbled on an absolutely fascinating article by Rebecca Skloot, "Why Is It So Damn Hard to Change?" (It was the opening line, "Nora Volkow wants my chocolate," which hooked me. I also have a serious chocolate addiction.)

Skloot's article is about her search to identify a way to program her body to crave exercise, but it can be applied to aiding in any physical change, including dieting and smoking cessation.  

She begins by explaining how dopamine, a chemical produced by the brain when the body experiences pleasure drives us to repeat that experience over and over again.  It was no doubt designed to motivate human beings to do basic things such as eating and procreating.  If we didn't like those things humanity would be toast.

Unfortunately for me, I "hit the dopamine jackpot" every time I light up.

I was somewhat comforted when I read putting one's body through a drastic change that deprived dopamine deposits was essentially "fighting one of the most fundamental neurological systems in the brain."

So, at least it wasn't lack of character that was making this process so difficult for me.

Her article went on to suggest that the best way to get through a dopamine depriving change was to reward one's self with another dopamine producing experience.

So....if I replaced my smoldering habit with writing in my journal, knitting a sweater or reading on Gather, I'd be set, right? No weeks of irritability, whacky dreams while wearing the patch, oh yes, and the oh so interesting red square marks the adhesive leaves behind.

Not so fast. While tests have proven that finding alternate dopamine producing rewards can happen, there are many variables when it comes to determining how long those new treats will need before they take hold.

"The biggest one is stress.  It turns out that the hormones released by the body in response to stress are our worst enemy when it comes to changing.  They actually inhibit the frontal lobe which makes the brain revert to behaviors that don't require conscious decisions (eating our familiar foods, drinking, smoking).  Not only do stress hormones impair the areas of our brains that need to be active to change, they also stimulate our emotional centers, which send out signals telling us to decrease the stress.  And what decreases stress?  Food (because it triggers the release of natural opiates), alcohol, and cigarettes," Skloot quotes Michael Schlund, PhD.

Great.  I just started a really intense, must-be-on-my-toes-at-all-times job.  A stress factory of a new career.

Doctor Schlund goes on to say that not only is it necessary to replace the dopamine experience one is trying to overcome, it must also be "unlearned."  This requires a "re-wiring" of "neural circuitry."

At this point, I really had to fight the urge not to throw the magazine across the room, and RUN not WALK to the nearest quickie mart for a fresh pack and lighter. Neural health is something I know a smidget about, due to a history of Alzheimer's disease in the family. I had a feeling it would be necessary to replace my daily Nintendo Brain Age session with the equivalent of brain-bench-pressing 400 pounds to pull this off.  Quantum Physics anyone?

I forced myself to keep reading.

Skloot went on to interview Bruce Wexler, MD a neuroscientist and author of BRAIN AND CULTURE, who specializes in studying the plasticity of the human brain.  He uses the results of his research to assist schizophrenic patients to improve their recall and hearing processing.

"Successful change requires abnormally intense, uninterupted concentraion and repetition.  Why?  Because we're working against evolution:  Our brains are designed to conserve energy for really important things, like breathing and coordinated motion, even though sometimes, altering behavior is just as important as breathing.  Our brains revert to habits when given the change because they require less energy than change."

Doctor Wexler went on to say," There are a hundred billion neurons in your brain.  Each one is connected to thousands of others.  Everything you're talking about - behaviours and learning and memory - involves the integrated actions of hundreds of thousands of cells in intricate systems throughout the brain."

"By the time we hit our 20's, our brains have lost most of their plasticity."

Luckily - we haven't lost ALL of it.

"The more drastically you restructure your habits," Wexler says, "The more the established pathway that you're trying to change is weakened."

Skloot continues by identifying that "....disabling the old pathway isn't everything.  Searching your brain for an existing healthy pathway - even a tiny weak one - and then strengthening it can make things much easier."

Okay, so maybe I could just do some 10 pound brain curls to help kick my half a pack a day habit.  There was still hope!

The last doctor Skloot interviewed was Monika Flashner, PhD, a neuroimmunophysiologist at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

"Fleschner is very clear:  It's not like you find your (replacement) dopamine jackpot and your brain immeditely says, NOW WE EXERCISE EVERY DAY."  Or in my case, NOW YOU WANT TO KNIT/READ/WRITE INSTEAD OF PUFF.

"Then she (Fleschner) tells me something wonderful:  All I have to do is force myself to exercise regularly for about two weeks, maybe three, and my brain will start producing a protein called brain-derived-neurotrophic factor (BDNF) which she calls Miracle-Gro for the brain.  It increases brain plasticity, so you can think clearly and focus for longer peiords of time.  It also increases dopamine neurotransmission, which means the more I exercise, the more reward I get and the more my dopamine system is activated to make exercising a habit I'll soon crave."

And no, it isn't just physical exercise that produces more BDNF.  

After I finished Skloot's Oprah Magazine article, I decided to look up a few more things about BDNF.  I was curious to see if it was only produced through exercise, or if other stimulai could have the same effect.  I already walk my dog a couple of miles each morning.  I wasn't thrilled at the prospect that I'd have to "way up the ante" on physical exercise to assist my brain with re-programming.  There are only so many hours in my day, and Cookie the wonder dog would probably disown me if I abandoned her for an early morning aerobics class.

According to Wikipedia "voluntary exercise, caloric restriction, intellectual stimulation, and various treatments for depression (such as antidepressants and electroconvulsive therapy) strongly increase expression of BDNF in the brain."  That's probably why mild anti-depressants work so well for certain individuals during the smoking cessation process.

Sooooo....if I exercise my brain AND my body, the chances of opening up new neural pathways and in turn alternate sources for my cigarette habit dopamine needs will increase dramatically.

I'm feeling a lot more in control of this whole quitting thing now. I can do more than slap on the patch and grit my teeth.  I have the ability to help my brain help my body, and that knowledge is empowering.


References: Why Is It So Damn Hard to Change?, Rebecca Skloot, January 2007 Oprah Magazine

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BDNF

National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=8106000&query_hl=36

Brain MRI image courtesy of www.growabrain.com