Building Your Future Self: Practical Exercises for Rewiring Your Brain
Brain-Wise Practices for Transforming your Life and your Leadership
to change something on the outside? Go inwards first.
Conscious, purpose-driven leadership really starts from the inside out. There are good neurobiological reasons for this.
Your brain isn't just thinking about your future—it's actively creating it. (See my last post How to Create the Future you Want)
This means that when you are intentional about what you think and learn to be aware of and manage your thoughts, your brain rewires itself through your efforts. This new circuitry creates new thoughts, actions, emotions in the direction of where you want to go. A new reality starts taking shape outside of you. But it begins inside you.
This is profound. You can use your mind to change your brain, which in turn changes you mind positively.
Psychiatrist Dr. Rick Hanson calls this “self-directed neuroplasticity.”
Today, I share some evidence-based tips to help you maximise self-directed neuroplasticity. And a 7:44 min. meditation I have recorded for you to practice it.
To get you going on some solid practice I will be holding a 30-day Mindfulness Challenge in January 2025. Change your brain, change your leadership and your life.
Your Brain's Natural Daily Rhythms: Peak Times for Growth
Just as your body has natural rhythms, your brain has optimal windows for change and growth. Research reveals two distinct daily opportunities for rewiring your brain. It won’t be surprising to you, early morning and just before bed.
Why is this so?
And how can we make the most of brain plasticity?
Morning Window: Peak Learning & Change
In the first hour after waking your brain experiences the several factors that make it prime for a mindfulness practice:
A natural surge in cortisol (your morning hormone) which primes your brain for learning. Think of this like your brain's natural "update" time, when it's most ready to write new code.
Your brain transitions from deep sleep states (delta wave frequencies) to the more alert state you will be in most of the day (beta waves). Just as you awake, your brain waves quicken and pass through alpha frequencies, a prime state for creative integration and neural rewiring.
Your prefrontal cortex (your brain's CEO) is most active and your executive functioning is at its peak. This is like having your wisest self in charge, ready to make good decisions, see connections, get new ideas. (Of course, provided you had a restful, long-enough night sleep… yes, we need to go there, under-sleeping diminishes your executive functioning).
Your brain is highly "plastic" or changeable before daily information overload. Imagine your brain like fresh snow before any footprints - ready to create new paths.
So, this makes your morning wake-up time ideal for meditation and consciously choosing new thinking patterns. Before emails, news, social media, before daily demands start competing for your attention, your brain is in a peaceful state of clarity and receptivity. Use those precious moments.
Research shows that morning meditation can enhance this natural window or receptivity. Some studies found a 40% increase in neural pattern formation when combining meditation with this morning cortisol peak. Let’s take advantage of this to help us change in the ways we want!
Evening Window: Processing & Strengthening
In the hours before sleep, your brain transitions to:
A natural integration phase, connecting today's experiences with existing knowledge. It’s like your brain's daily "filing time," organising what you've learned i light of past experiences.
A quieter state with less external input, allowing deeper reflection. This is a peaceful time for deeper thinking and integrating, before sleep continues this process in deeper theta and delta wave patterns.
Preparation for sleep's memory strengthening process. Research shows that contemplative practices during the time before sleep directly enhance the quality of sleep-dependent memory consolidation. Your brain consolidates memories during sleep, saving your day's mental work to your brain's “hard drive.”
This evening window just before bedtime offers a unique opportunity for deep reflection and integration. Your traverses the opposite wave patterns than the morning, and again, you will have a receptive window. We have all heard that screens are not ideal before sleep. Why not take up a reflective practice instead just before you go to sleep?
Your Daily Practice Guide
Here are some simple and powerful practices for
the morning
during the day
at night
1. Morning Mental Hygiene (first 20-30 min after waking)
3-Minute Morning Reset
*** Before reaching for your phone…
60-Second Body Scan
Lie still for one minute
Notice sensations in your body without judgment
Stay in the present, stay with your body
60-Second Conscious Choice
Notice your mental state, what thoughts are there?
Choose your first thought deliberately- what would you like to think instead?
Set one clear intention for the day
60-Second Future Self
Envision one aspect of your future self that you’d like to embody more of
Feel it in your body- what will it feel like to be that way, to do those things?
Keep coming back to that state of feeling of your future self
Morning Time Meditation (10-15 min)
After the 3-minute reset, I suggest you get into the habit of a short meditation. Take advantage of your brain's peak clarity to examine the limiting thoughts you might have just caught and become aware of.
I have recorded one for you to help you with the mental hygene I talk about.
A Thought Inquiry type of meditation can help reset you for the day in a positive way, helping you connect with possibility and away from your usual limiting ways of thinking.
Meditation to Break free of your Thought patterns. Inspired but The Work of Byron Katie.
2. Throughout Your Day: Pattern-Breaking Moments
Catch moments when you revert back to the old thoughts or ways of being or acting, and simply do this:
The "Pause & Pivot" or “Stop & Shift” Practice
When you notice that you are in the old way of thinking or acting:
Pause: Say "Pause" or “Stop” and imagine pressing a “pause” button.
Take 1-3 conscious breaths
Pivot: Choose a new response, remember that other way or thinking. Pivot. Shift.
Note: Choose the word duo that best works for you:
PAUSE & PIVOT
STOP & SHIFT
Science Notes:
Novel experiences increase BDNF (Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor), which helps create new neural connections.
Pausing imposes a time delay before acting and this actually gives rise to new neural possibilities and more choice.
To acquire a new habit, it is really key to disrupt the old patterns as well as choosing a new action or thought.
3. Evening Integration Practice
Essential Evening Practice (5-10 minutes):
60-second Gentle Body Scan (as in the morning)
Review the Day's Insights
Journal if you enjoy it
Stick with positive insights, or the benefit of difficult realisations (i.e. prime your brain positively before sleep)
60- second Gratitude Practice (naming 3 specific moments from today that you are grateful for, even in difficult situations). Take your time, but
Science Note: Research shows that practicing gratitude before sleep enhances both sleep quality and positive neural pattern formation during rest. Gratitude is a really powerful way to reshape your mind and thinking.
The Science of Small Steps: Why Consistency Matters
You might wonder if these brief practices – 60-second resets, moment-to-moment pattern breaks, short evening reflections – can really make any difference. You might be tempted to not do anything at all, unless it feels big.
Research emphatically says yes.
Studies show that even brief daily practices (3-5 minutes) can create measurable changes in brain structure within 30 days.
(Sign up to my 30-day Mindfulness challenge for accountability and inspiration).
Consistency matters more than duration: regular short practices outperform irregular longer ones in creating lasting neural change
Each time you pause for a conscious breath or moment of gratitude, you're strengthening neural pathways. Like compound interest, these micro-moments accumulate. If you don’t do them, nothing accumulates, you are stuck with the old.
Research from Stanford shows that "habit stacking" (adding small practices to existing routines) has a 80% higher success rate for creating lasting change.
A 2023 study using brain imaging showed that participants practicing 3-minute morning resets for 30 days had:
Increased gray matter in regions associated with self-awareness
Enhanced connectivity in emotional regulation networks
Improved stress response patterns
Pretty cool stuff, I think… so I am offering a bit of support to have you start the year on a good footing…
Rewire Your Brain: 30-Day Neuroscience- Mindfulness Challenge for Conscious Leadership
Transform your brain's patterns this January with me! Join a guided journey to rewire your neural pathways through consistent, neuroscience-backed mindfulness practices.
What You'll Get:
Daily guided meditations
Inspiration and Pattern-break reminders
Community support
Weekly virtual live calls for accountability
Progress and results tracking tools
✨ ✨✨ ✨✨ ✨✨ ✨✨ ✨✨ ✨✨ ✨✨ ✨✨ ✨✨ ✨✨ ✨✨ ✨ ✨
Upcoming…
Leadership executive coaching packages and custom trainings for your organisation and teams. Information at natibeltran.com/what
Dec 1st we start on Inspiring Leadership. A yearly course with Mindfulness, NVC and positive psychology. Transform your leadership
Register here. £235.
THE EMPATHIC LEADER SANDBOX- Drop-in, informal one-hour practice sessions with other leaders. Bring your relational/ communication problems and let’s work on them together. Dec 10th 2024, 15:00-16:00 BST (London). Information and Registration to get the link here.
The 12-week The Empathic Leader Intensive Training
will start early next year for your new year’s resolutions. Write me if you are interested.
About me
If you are new to this newsletter, welcome. I am a neuroscientist and certified Nonviolent Communication trainer and executive coach by the ICF (amongst other things).
I run a leadership development company committed to building a more sustainable and compassionate world. Our mission is to help leaders, managers and organisations develop the empathic leadership skills necessary to fulfil the promise of the Global Goals.
Check out my new book blending Montessori and neuroscience for parents and educators— for now, in Spanish. Purchase online or in libraries in Spain, Latin America and the US. To be updated on events, go here.
Thanks for reading and for supporting my work. It means a lot to me.
Thanks for sharing this. I love the recorded guided meditation! 🙏