Is Everything Use it or Lose it?

Categories: Blog Feb 18, 2018

When it comes to our bodies, our muscles, our control, our skills, our knowledge, and our minds everything seems to follow the lose it or use it principle: If you don’t use it, you lose it. Or, if you do use it, you keep it. This principle is easily seen in our nervous system. In fact, everything I mentioned above is due to the state of our nervous system.

Our nervous system is the gate keeper or control center for all the ways we can express ourselves in thought, emotion and action. And, because our nervous system is plastic (plastic means it is capable of change) we play a HUGE role in shaping our nervous system by our thoughts and actions. This means we get to co-create the nervous system we have and therefore we get to co-determine the infinite ways we can or cannot express ourselves.

Anyway, our nervous system is shaped through the use it or lose it principle. It builds super information highways to establish the thoughts and actions we do regularly and it trims away the “fat” from the movements and thoughts we no longer use. I am a great example of this. In college I took almost every Calculus class my university had to offer (or it sure seemed like I did!). I was a “straight A” student. I could do some serious complicated math. I. Could. But now, I. Cannot.

I still remember the words “derivative”  and “integral” but I couldn’t tell you how to find one, or solve for X and Y, much to the disappointment of my children. But they use a new math now anyway, so even if I still knew how to do calculus, I’d be doing it wrong…

The point is, I can no longer easily perform calculus, or statistics, or even algebra. Why? Because I quit using those skills. I removed myself from the environments where I needed those skills and my nervous system said, “Hey, we’ve got all these boxes of math we haven’t touched in years, let’s scrap em and clean this place up.” And now, I am lucky to be able to even spell the word calculus.

So I have a question for you. If the nervous system truly operates on the use it or lose it principle to maintain its efficiency and waste nothing, how does Pressing RESET work? If the RESETs are the childish movements we quit making, if they were the movements we no longer do, how can they still be tapped into? Why aren’t they scrapped and thrown out like my calculus skills?

Like I said above, we are co-creators of our nervous system. We co-create. That means we play a part, but not the whole. The RESETs are hard wired into us.

Imagine oak tree sized neural connections and pathways. They are like the “skeleton” pathways that uphold all the others. They were put in place before we were born. The pathways we create by what we think and do are added pathways.

Imagine sapling tree sized, pliable neural connections and pathways. These pathways add to the “skeleton” pathways that were pre-wried. We can build pathways and we can lose pathways, if we are the co-creators. But we cannot lose the pathways that were given to us or the ones we didn’t build.

Does this make sense?

The RESETs still work because they are pre-wired into us. They can become dusty and rusty through disuse, but with use, they can be shined up and primed up to become super fast and efficient again. Then, with the RESETs being super efficient, any neural connections we establish on top of them, or because of them, will also be strong and efficient - through consistent use.

Anyway, not everything about you is use it or lose it. This means no matter what your life situation is, or how old you are, you can still tap into the connections you were given to create the connections and expressions that you want to make. You can make the most out of what you have inside to get closer to where you want to be. This means do not worry about your past or your current situation, focus on what you have right now. Focus on what you can do, not what you cant do. Take advantage of your current moment because the only thing that is truly use it or lose it is NOW. If you don’t use your now, you’ve lost it. Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can. Now.

---