Neuroplasticity is a real, scientific term that refers to the brain’s ability to change and adapt as a result of experience. It’s not conjecture—it’s fact!

The five principles of neuroplasticity, which are factors identified as especially important in facilitating neuroplastic changes in the brain, include:

1. Use it or lose it. Failure to use specific neural pathways can lead to a loss of abilities. Conversely, training that consistently stimulates specific neural pathways can lead to improved abilities. That’s why it’s important to stay consistent and persistent in your brain retraining efforts.
2. Specificity. The nature of the training experience dictates the nature of the changes in the brain. That’s why re-origin has created a simple five-step neurocognitive technique that is easy to learn and apply.
3. Repetition matters. Changes in the brain require sufficient repetition. You’ll quickly learn that through re-origin!
4. Time matters. Changes don’t occur overnight. Sufficient time must be allowed for changes to occur. In the re-origin program, we encourage you to give it at least six months.
5. Salience matters. The training experience must be meaningful to the person in order to cause change. In other words, it’s important to really understand and feel what you’re saying and doing, rather than just going through the motions.

The short answer is, yes! Neurologically speaking, depression is the result of neuroplastic changes in the limbic system and structures related to the limbic system. These changes can occur when someone experiences chronic mental and/or physical stress over the course of weeks, months, or years. The constant stream of stress, worry, fear, and despair essentially overwhelms the brain, changing its circuitry and depleting levels of feel-good neurotransmitters, such as serotonin and dopamine.

By consistently applying the neuroplasticity-based exercises taught in re-origin, you’ll be correcting the dysfunctional part of the brain, thereby restoring normal limbic system function. While it may not seem like anything is happening at first, changes are occurring on a neurological level outside of your awareness. Over time, these changes will start to reflect outwardly in a reduction of your symptoms. They’ll keep lessening and lessening until one day you’ll realize you’re free from the conditions that have debilitated you for so long.

Imagine a car driving over a field. It drives the same way every day. As such, deep tire grooves appear in the grass and dirt that the car drives over each day. With neuroplasticity training, you choose to start driving down a new path, instead of the well-worn path you were driving on before. It may take some effort initially to carve out a new road in the field, but as you continue driving the same new path each day, the grooves will become deeper and deeper, allowing for an effortless ride. The same thing happens when it comes to rewiring your brain using neuroplasticity. The original path the car took represents your current neural pathways that are creating your negative symptoms. To rid yourself of these symptoms, you need to start driving down a new path. With practice and repetition, your brain will naturally start driving down the new road. Soon enough, the old road will become overgrown and fade away into nothing, just like your faulty neural pathways.