Switch on Your Brain: The Key to Peak Happiness, Thinking, and Health (22 page)

and this in turn increases attention by activating the nucleus

basalis. And when the nucleus basalis is turned on, the brain

becomes extremely plastic and ready to change, build, and

rewire—and therefore, renew.6

The Work Doesn’t End at 21 Days

At the end of the 21-day cycle, the toxic thought is gone

and the new healthy thought is like a “tiny new plant” that

will need nurturing to grow. Our
thinking
is that nurturing.

This means that if you don’t practice using it, it will not be

properly automatized (see chap. 8), and it is very possible that

your mind will shift back to regrowing that toxic thought.

To avoid this you make a conscious effort to practice using

the new thought as much as you can until you reach automati-

zation. Automatization means that particular way of thinking

or reacting embedded in the new thought tree has become an

automatic part of you; you do it driven by the nonconscious

mind, not the conscious mind. So, to make sure that you have

automatized the new healthy memory, research shows you

will need to consciously practice using it daily for at least

two more 21-day cycles, or 63 days total.7 Please continue to

consciously keep practicing using the new habit until you

feel comfortable—which can even sometimes take between

84–154 days of consciously using the new healthy thought.

The point is that the duration or automatization of the habit

formation is likely to differ based on what you are trying to

do and, of course, the uniqueness of who you are as a per-

son. As long as you continue
doing
—which I call an “active

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How and Why the 21-Day Brain Detox Plan Works

reach,” the fifth step that you do each day—consistently in a

given situation, the healthy new way of thinking, the healthy

“habit,” will form.

Bumps, Lollipops, and Mushrooms

In the brain, automatization physically looks like lots more

tree branches that are thick and well established, with many

branches interconnecting with other thought networks. And

if you could zoom in closely to the connections the branches

grow from, you would see little things called
spines
. These

spines change shape, from a bump at around 7 days, to a

lollipop shape at around 14 days, to a mushroom shape at

around 21 days as the thought becomes stronger. This is be-

cause the proteins change progressively by day 21, with peak

changes being at 7 and 14 days, to become self-sustaining

proteins, which are like a long-term memory. This applies

in both the negative and positive direction—this is the con-

cept of the plastic paradox I spoke of earlier. And even a

long-term memory can be broken down. If, after wiring out

a toxic thought, you have stopped using the healthy new

thought and revert back to the toxic thought, you reverse the

process you went through in the first place, breaking down

the healthy thought and rebuilding the toxic thought. This

is why we need to make a choice to be alert, practicing the

presence of God by sharpening our conscience and listening

to our intuition. This is what creates a lifestyle of renewing

the mind.

So at the end of the 21 days, you integrate the new healthy

thought into your lifestyle, into your repertoire of reactions

to life so that you keep strengthening that reaction. It can

take anywhere from three to four 21-day cycles to automatize

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THE 21-DAY BRAIN DETOX PLAN

A Neuron with Dendrites, Showing Bumps,

Lollipops, and Umbrellas

Dendrites

Lollipops

Bumps

Umbrellas

Cytoplasm

Cell Body

Nucleus

Nucleolus

Mitochondrion

Ribosomes

Myelin Sheath

Rough endoplasmic reticulim

the new healthy thought pattern and to make sure the toxic

thought doesn’t grow back.
8
A lot also depends on the indi-

vidual, the thought pattern you are detoxing, and the healthy

replacement pattern you are building. So for some thoughts it

might take one 21-day cycle, and for other thoughts it might

take more, as I explained earlier.

The 21-Day Brain Detox Plan Is a Deliberate Practice

The best way to change, learn, and build memory mean-

ingfully is through deliberate and disciplined practice. This

is not mindless repetition. The five steps of the Switch On

Your Brain technique in the 21-Day Brain Detox Plan include

deliberate, conscious setting of goals, obtaining immediate

feedback, and concentrating as much on the process as on the

outcome. The 21-Day Brain Detox Plan will work best when

you set the challenge just beyond the edge of your comfort

zone; a challenge is good for you.9 We are designed as deeply

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How and Why the 21-Day Brain Detox Plan Works

intelligent beings and our minds and brains respond to and

rise up to challenge. In fact, they get better.

You are made from God’s perfectness, but it is up to you

to create your expertise in life. God gives us the blueprint,

but we need to choose to make it happen.

The point is that you are playing to win and you don’t give

up. “I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which

God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:14

NIV). As you go through this process, you will be fulfilling

what God calls us to do in Romans 12:2, “renewing” the

mind, and in Matthew 5:48, “Be perfect, just as your Father

in heaven is perfect.” In the next five chapters I will explain

each of the five steps of my Switch On Your Brain technique.

It is necessary to get a deep understanding of each of these

steps so you use them properly on a daily basis. If you skip a

step or only sort of use the step, the changes you create will

also be “sort of” and not effective.

You will see questions interspersed in the text—please

stop to take a moment to answer the questions because they

will help you experience and understand the Switch On Your

Brain process much more deeply, and it will make it easier to

apply the 21-Day Brain Detox Plan. The questions help you

start understanding how to get into the mindset that will

increase your chance of success.

1. The 21-Day Brain Detox Plan is a deliberate, disci-

plined, and rigorous renewing of the mind lifestyle,

not a one-time activity.

2. Your daily routine will take seven to ten minutes mini-

mum, although some like to go longer.

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THE 21-DAY BRAIN DETOX PLAN

3. You will be doing approximately seventeen 21-Day

Brain Detox Plan cycles per year.

4. Each day you do my 5-Step Switch On Your Brain Learn-

ing Process for the seven to ten minutes.

5. Over the 21 days, you are breaking down the toxic thought

and building up the healthy replacement memory.

6. It takes 21 days for certain protein changes to happen in

the brain for the new memory to become self-sustaining

and for the old memory to be broken down.

7. By approximately day 7 the protein connection holding

the memory in place is a bump shape; by approximately

day 14 it is a lollipop shape; and by approximately day

21 it is a mushroom shape.

8. You need to repeat the 21-day cycle for up to three more

times for it to become automatized.

9.
Automatization
means it is in your nonconscious con-

trolling the conscious thinking that precedes what you

do.

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11

Gather

Step 1

You have to develop disciplined thought lives, and part

of that is increasing your awareness of what you are

allowing into your mind. The
gather
step is, therefore,

all about becoming aware of all the signals that are coming

into your mind from the external environment through the

five senses and understanding the internal environment of

your mind. So as you answer the questions in this section,

you are focusing on developing
awareness
, which means you

are starting the process of bringing those rogue thoughts

into captivity.

The Signals Come from Two Sources

These signals come from two sources: (1) the external en-

vironment that comes in through the five senses, electro-

magnetic and quantum signals, and (2) the thoughts deep

in the nonconscious metacognitive part of your mind (your

memories).

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THE 21-DAY BRAIN DETOX PLAN

Let me explain what I mean. Perhaps, as you read this, you

have some of your favorite music playing in the background.

You might be sitting in a comfortable chair, smelling a scented

candle while savoring a piece of fruit. If you are in this idyllic

setting, all five of your senses—sight, sound, smell, touch,

and taste—will be your link between the external world and

the internal world of your mind.

QUESTION: What are you experiencing through

your five senses as you are reading this? Try to de-

scribe this in as much detail as possible. This is a sim-

ple exercise just to help you become aware of what

is coming into your mind. This simple awareness

can be developed to the point where you learn not

to let any thought go through your mind unchecked.

As we move on with this section, there is a lot of brain

information. Take your time and just enjoy how intricately

God has made you. And please remember, you are brilliant

and intelligent and totally capable of understanding because

you are made in his image (Gen. 1:26).

The Signals Enter the Brain

This incoming information then travels through some aston-

ishing brain structures (some of which include the thalamus,

insula, and basal ganglia) that flavor, enrich, and distribute

the information all along the way. You think with groups

of brain areas (circuits and columns), not with single brain

areas. So once the information enters the brain, it is a signal

that creates major cascading, intrinsic (inside your brain)

activity. The circuits and columns around the basal ganglia

(deep down inside the middle of the brain), for example, get

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