Words Into Works #072 | The 5-Step Neurocycle

In her book, Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess, Dr. Caroline Leaf discusses a five-step process called Neurocycling that empowers people to use their minds and brains effectively, directing neuroplasticity toward their advantage.

Based on extensive research, the five steps aid in building and detoxifying thoughts, effectively changing the brain’s structure, and can help harness the power of the mind and enhance the brain.

Let’s delve into the science behind the five-step Neurocycle and provide insights on how to use this process to master our minds-in-action and empower ourselves to become the boss of our brains.

1. Gather

Gathering involves paying attention to our actions and increasing our conscious awareness to direct the brain on how to respond on a chemical, energy, and genetic level.

Moreover, it forces us to tune in to the prompts from our nonconscious mind and embrace the physical, emotional, and informational memories intertwined within our thoughts.

By gathering awareness of the physical warning signals emerging from our body, the information in our thoughts, and the feelings attached to each thought, we can start “pulling up” the branches, leaves, tree trunks, and roots of the thought tree into the conscious mind.

Leaf explains that we can change only by being conscious of something, as the nonconscious mind tries to catch our attention by sending us emotional and physical warning signals. The goal, writes Leaf, is to pay attention and focus on our behaviors in terms of the signals coming from our nonconscious mind.

2. Reflect

Reflecting involves asking ourselves questions to understand our behaviors and communication and how they relate to our thoughts and feelings.

Here, we must aim to find the root cause of our experiences and shift our focus from our behaviors to the thoughts that triggered them. By doing this, we challenge our brains to move into a higher gear and make the thought susceptible to change by weakening its connections in the mind.

One technique for this step is the “5 Whys” technique, where we ask ourselves “Why?” five times to drill down to the root issue. In her research, Leaf also found that questioning the thought or emotion by asking if it’s based on a fact or assumption can help loosen up thoughts in the brain, making it easier to reconceptualize.

3. Write

Writing down our thoughts helps consolidate memory and clarifies our thoughts. It also allows us to visualize our thoughts, bringing suppressed thoughts out of the nonconscious to be reconceptualized.

Leaf explains that writing can bring order out of chaos and put our brains on paper. If we don’t express our suppressed thoughts, writes Leaf, they stay rooted in our minds, causing mental and physical damage.

Writing can be done on paper, on our phone, or using a process called a Metacog, which is an effective way to get into the nonconscious mind and find the root issue.

4. Recheck

Rechecking involves reading what you wrote above and checking for accuracy and patterns in your thinking. The goal here is to shift your focus from “why and what” to “how and when” questions, allowing you to reconceptualize toxic thoughts and turn them into new, healthy thought habits.

To follow this step successfully, you must evaluate what you wrote in step 3, think about the new healthy thought you want to build, and rethink your reaction to the information. As you do this, you need to ask yourself several questions, such as:

What physical experiences am I having, and how are they linked to my thoughts and feelings
What patterns do I see in my thoughts?
How can I reconceptualize this information and these feelings?

By doing this step, you can slowly and gradually change your toxic thought patterns into new, healthy ones in the spirit of the kintsugi philosophy. [1]

5. Active Reach

The Active Reach is the final step involving practicing, applying, and teaching the reconceptualized thoughts and feelings identified in the previous steps.

Here, you need to take action and consciously apply the insights you gained from the previous four steps. While intimidating at first, Active Reach is intended to be a simple, quick, and easy-to-apply action that can be practiced daily, such as doing a breathing exercise, practicing a mantra, or simply reading a statement that reminds you of what you learned from the previous steps.

Practicing and applying the reconceptualized thoughts and feelings you wrote down is essential for personal growth and development. Therefore, the Active Reach step ensures lasting change and progress. The key to this step is consistency and repetition to help embed new behavior and thought patterns.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Dr. Caroline Leaf’s 5-Step Neurocycle is a powerful tool to help us improve our mental and physical health. By following these simple steps, we can become more aware of our thoughts, shift our focus from our behaviors to those that trigger them, and challenge our brains to reconceptualize toxic thoughts into new, healthy ones.

Footnotes

[1] “Kintsugi” translates to “golden joinery” and describes a traditional Japanese technique for fixing damaged pottery. The method involves using lacquer mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum to mend the broken pieces, highlighting the repaired areas instead of trying to conceal them. This approach sees breakage and repair as integral parts of an object’s history rather than something to be hidden away.