Adolescent Brains and Mental Fitness

Everything that a person experiences; thoughts, sounds, sights or feelings, it all requires underlying neural activity in the brain.

Neural activity means activity in the brain between the neurons that are there. The more the neurons fire together and join up, the more patterns begin to develop and take shape. These patterns then become the ‘norm’ for the brain, in terms of what that brain routinely does.

Brains and the reality of the world created within a person’s brain takes its form from whatever perspective the brain routinely rests upon.

If a young person wakes in the morning and rests upon an idea such as ‘I am alive and so glad I have this day to live,’  or an idea such as ‘I like myself and know I am a good person,’ then this will impact the structure or pattern that that particular young person’s brain develops. Because young people are at such a crucial stage of development, it is important for young people to know how their patterns are becoming set, the more their minds rest upon ideas. And what their brain routinely rests upon can only become a choice for the young person if that young person knows that this choice is theirs to make. Otherwise, young people can become a slave to the brain and as a muscle; it can become weak and more out of their control. They then become more likely to need external feedback in order to feel good as the brain inside their own head is not necessarily working in their favor.

Young people can train their brains to work in ways that make them resilient and strong.

This will help them to better protect their own mental health but in order to do this successfully; they need to be encouraged to think about what ideas they are routinely allowing their brains to rest upon.

So much growth and change happens during adolescence.

It is a prime time to gain awareness of how to train the brain so that mental fitness becomes something the young person feels is within their control, just as taking steps towards physical fitness is within their control also. Young people need to approach the brain as they would any other muscle in the body. They cannot control the muscle completely but they can certainly work to make it strong. Step one in making the brain strong is to become conscious of how experiences are being interpreted. If they make a good choice about how to interpret events, a choice that allows them to see their developing self in a positive way, then their internal strength of mind will increase. Minding mental health matters and young people need to be developing skills to mind their mental health.