Change Your Mind, Change Your Life
Illustration: Alizeh / Adobe Stock
Neuroscience shows that we can leverage the architecture of our brains to create a more peaceful and productive mind.
Nicole Vignola’s Rewire provides an inspiring, practical, and compassionate guide for upgrading our everyday lives. All we have to do, she says, is rewire our brains!
The author has admirably summarized a rapidly expanding and often dense body of literature to create a clearly organized and easy-to-understand toolkit for doing so. A glance at the book’s table of contents reveals her simple and effective game plan:
Phase 1: Ditch the Negative
Phase 2: Shift your Narrative
Phase 3: Boost the Positive
In Phase 1, Vignola introduces us to a “Neuro Toolkit” for combatting our brain’s negativity bias. In Phase 2 she shares her simple formula for rewiring our subconscious: attention, intention, and repetition. The final phase reviews the science behind the mantra: “sound mind, sound body.” In other words, we can boost our mental health by doing the same things that maintain our physical health: proper nutrition, regular exercise, and good sleep.
Vignola employs engaging examples, like how Kobe Bryant engrained the neural pathways for a perfect jump shot through repetitive practices. She also has a knack for identifying the most critical insights for everyday use. While I was aware that we automate routines to save time and energy, the author caught my attention by sharing the eye-opening stat that up to 90% of our decisions tend to be on autopilot. That automaticity comes in handy when you need to sink a buzzer-beater, but not so useful when you are facing a complex decision.
Perhaps the most useful tools in Rewire are easy-to-learn mnemonics that remind us how our brains work, e.g., neurons that fire together wire together; our brains are Velcro for negative experiences; and attention, intention, and repetition are required to rewire less helpful automatic reactions, vestiges of our hunter-gatherer brains.
If you don’t have time to read the whole book, allow me to introduce you to a wonderfully wise podcast series, The Good Life Project. In this episode, Vignola digs deeper into her neural tool kit, generously sharing evidence-based, lifelong practices including: breaking the cycle of self-defeating thoughts, avoiding the pitfall of creeping normality, and increasing your mental resilience.
While there are many excellent books on how one or two aspects of neuroscience can be leveraged to change your life for the better (see Rick Hansen’s Buddha’s Brain), there are few resources that summarize the relevant literature as comprehensively—and enjoyably—as Rewire.
Rewire by Nicole Vignola (HarperOne, 2024)