Rewiring Your Brain Through Play

Rewire Your Brain with Play: The Scientific Shortcut to Faster Personal Growth! (Living Lucky® Podcast)

Ever wondered why kids learn so quickly while adults struggle with change? On this groundbreaking Living Lucky® Podcast episode, Jason and Jana Banana reveal a powerful scientific secret: play is your ultimate brain hack for rapid personal development! Discover how engaging in playful activities can create new neural pathways 20 times faster than traditional methods – requiring just 10-20 repetitions instead of 400!

This isn't just about fun; it's about transforming your mindset and accelerating self-help. We explore how embracing a playful mindset shifts you from rigid "achievement mode" to a liberating "what if" mentality. Learn how "happy accidents" (like a sewing mishap or a breakthrough in skiing) become unexpected portals to creativity and genius when approached with joy, rather than the fear of making a mistake.

Many adults lose this natural ability to play, getting stuck in limiting beliefs and "playing not to lose" instead of exploring possibilities. This episode provides actionable insights into reclaiming your innate playfulness to overcome those deeply ingrained negative thought patterns like "I'm not enough."

Ready to shed expectations, embrace curiosity, and rewire your brain for a more joyful and efficient path to change? Tune in to discover why prioritizing play is the simplest, most powerful hack to accelerate your personal growth, cultivate positive thinking, and truly start Living Lucky® by making joy and curiosity your superpowers!

• How to rewire your brain faster.
• The science of play and learning.
• Benefits of play for adult personal growth.
• Overcoming limiting beliefs through play.
• How to cultivate a playful mindset.
• Accelerating self-help with joy.
• Why adults stop playing and how to restart.
• Transforming mistakes into breakthroughs.
• Play therapy for adults.
• Boosting creativity through play.
• "How does play affect the brain?"
• "How many repetitions to create new neural pathways?"
• "What is the power of a playful mindset?"
• "Can play help overcome limiting beliefs?"
• "How to incorporate more play into adult life?"
• "What are the benefits of adult play?"
• "How does play accelerate personal growth?"

For mind-blowing inspirational content that we implement ourselves, join us by subscribing and connecting to our private community.

Thanks for joining us.
CONNECT with us in our PRIVATE COMMUNITY

*** The Living Lucky Community is experiencing what it feels like to create a life of inspiration where dreams come true. Check it out HERE *** or at https://www.startlivinglucky.com/sendusyourdreams

!!! SEND US A MESSAGE: Are you ready to unlock your path to a more inspired life where you're Living Lucky®? Email me directly and let's chart your course toward realizing your dreams and creating a life that fills you with daily inspiration.
Email Jason Shelfer HERE

The 4 pillars of Living Lucky
Believe in yourself
Believe in the people around you
Believe in your circumstances and
Believe that God is working through you, for you, and always conspiring in your favor.

*Previously Recorded

Chapters

• 0:00 Creating a Life You Crave
• 2:35 Learning Through Creative Play
• 6:19 The Science of Play
• 8:55 Play Changes How We Think
• 11:10 Embracing Happy Accidents

Transcript

Jana Shelfer: 0:00

Are you ready to create a life you crave? Let's spin that doom loop of negativity into an upward success cycle and start Living Lucky®. Good morning. I'm Jana, I'm Jason and we are Living Lucky® you are too.

Jana Shelfer: 0:20

Play. I'm constantly talking about play. You are too.

Jason Shelfer: 0:24

Yes.

Jana Shelfer: 0:24

However, after spending a, week with four-year-olds. I've realized how important play is.

Jason Shelfer: 0:33

Yes, and when you're not playing, you will be as exhausted, or more, than if you just had fun and played. I don't know if that made sense.

Jana Shelfer: 0:43

So let me just explain to you. My sister was here, and she brought her sewing machine, so we started playing. We started literally playing like when we were little, and we were like we're going to create a bag, and, of course, we had a somewhat of a pattern to follow. However, when we started playing, where I would pin and glue and then I would hand the project to my sister, jeanette, she would start sewing, and then, next thing you know, we were just having fun together, we were laughing, and it was almost like we were little again. Does that make sense? Yeah, and you weren't so worried about mistakes, and that's exactly what happened. Though, though, is we started making all sorts of mistakes, but we didn't call them right mistakes, because this is we were having fun.

Jana Shelfer: 1:34

So they literally like I remember she handed it to me and I was turning the bag inside out and I pulled the zipper completely off and we both went oh like like we both had like an oh poo moment.

Jason Shelfer: 1:49

And I think that's one of the beautiful things about playing is that things happen Like you expect. To fall down and scrape your knee. You expect for things to happen and they don't turn catastrophic they. That's like part of it. So it's like recognizing that the fall down is part of playing no.

Jana Shelfer: 2:07

So we we pull the zipper off and then literally the next bag we make, we realize that we put the zipper in totally cattywampus, and I was like you know what we learned from the last one? That if we pull the zipper off we can actually straighten it out and we can cut part of the zipper to equal out our goof. So our mistake actually became our genius.

Jason Shelfer: 2:32

Yeah, it's where you learned and you didn't attach to all this negativity to it of I'm a failure, I can't do things. All the things that a lot of times we'll tell ourselves when we're in achievement mode as opposed to play mode.

Jana Shelfer: 2:47

So Jason came across some scientific research. Read it to me.

Jason Shelfer: 2:52

Well, it says. Scientists have discovered that it takes approximately 400 repetitions to create new synapses in the brain, unless it's done in play, in which case it only takes 10 to 20 repetitions it's done in play, in which case it only takes 10 to 20 repetitions.

Jana Shelfer: 3:09

That is so intriguing to me because I will say when I am doing something that for me time just flows and that is sewing or art or music, or even speaking. Sometimes, when I'm doing those types of things, it feels like those little oopsie mistakes do become learning moments. Yeah, they become ahas.

Jason Shelfer: 3:30

They really do so you get these aha moments.

Jana Shelfer: 3:33

Without even thinking about it.

Jason Shelfer: 3:34

And I'm no brain surgeon or rocket scientist or whatever. Oh, yes, you are Right, I am. I printed out my own Photoshop degree. But you recognize these aha moments and I think those are those true moments where you're like, oh my gosh, I didn't know it could be this way. And we find that I think a lot more often when we're in that play mode.

Jana Shelfer: 3:59

Yeah.

Jason Shelfer: 4:00

Because we're open to the experience instead of the achievement, kind of. It's a weird thing and if you played you'd recognize this. If you stopped playing, you probably feel this in your core right now going wow, I remember having those aha moments building a fort when I was a kid, like all these little things about engineering that you may have learned that you've never taken an engineering course but you learn by failure, and then you laughed when all the boxes fell down right, yes.

Jason Shelfer: 4:31

Instead of going oh I'm a failure, I can't do things Like you, just laughed and then put it back together in a better way.

Jana Shelfer: 4:37

I think it's because we don't have expectations.

Jason Shelfer: 4:39

Oh, that's good.

Jana Shelfer: 4:41

Are you with me there? Yeah who we truly authentically are, and allow the creativity to just come.

Jason Shelfer: 4:56

Like I love it when we go skiing. And like you'll, you'll. You're a pusher, so like in your achiever, so you try, like you're like I'm going to get it. I'm going to get it. And every time I'll get very, very frustrated and you'll say take me back to the dog, this isn't my day and I'll say okay, I will go back, but why don't you just go out there and have some fun, so we make sure that we are enjoying the time on the water?

Jana Shelfer: 5:18

And then that's when it happens.

Jason Shelfer: 5:19

That's when it happens, you're like, oh my gosh, it just I got in. Whether you knew how to do it or not, it just happened, which proves it can be, which also changes this new dynamic in your brain of I, I want to do it, I'm going to do it, I don't know how. And then when it just happens because you're playing and having fun, you're like okay, now I can start repeating that because I know it's. I'm not telling myself subconsciously it's not possible.

Jana Shelfer: 5:48

Oh my gosh. I mean, of course we're coming off of a week We've been on vacation here in my childhood home. And we've been here with my nieces and nephews, who are literally four and five years old, fair's been going on. And the fair's been going on. We've been playing.

Jason Shelfer: 6:05

All kinds of games We've been playing games.

Jana Shelfer: 6:07

We've been playing arts and crafts.

Jason Shelfer: 6:09

Telling stories.

Jana Shelfer: 6:11

We've been playing telling stories, We've been playing talent show.

Jana Shelfer: 6:15

We literally get out the microphone and start singing to each other.

Jana Shelfer: 6:19

We've been playing dance, we've been playing all these little games. In fact, we have a little playhouse that we've literally been playing. Neighbor, yes, hi, neighbor.

Jason Shelfer: 6:31

Do you need some cookies Right? Lots of play there.

Jana Shelfer: 6:35

And it gets you thinking differently.

Jason Shelfer: 6:39

I think that's the key is we get so caught up in thinking the way things are, or the way things have to be, that there's a straight line somewhere?

Jana Shelfer: 6:47

We start thinking in the way things should be, ought to be supposed to be, have to be supposed to be, have to be. Those are words that we use, whereas when we play, we're thinking in what if?

Jason Shelfer: 7:01

yeah, how things could be like let my imagination go. What if?

Jana Shelfer: 7:05

we pretend to be the nosy neighbor. What? If we pretend to be the postal person you know, know like it's, we start thinking in what if?

Jason Shelfer: 7:16

Yeah, it changes the dynamic to a much more creative, much more expressive and really a growth track, because it doesn't have to be one way or not, like it doesn't have to be this way only. There's so many ways and now I get to just get curious and explore how many different ways I can do whatever it is I want to do.

Jana Shelfer: 7:39

I'm telling you this, this bag that my sister, jeanette, and I made, we, we were laughing, we were having fun, we made so many mistakes, but again those mistakes ended up being almost us taking it to the next level, like a mistake in the zipper ended up being, oh my gosh, this is a better way of doing it. Not only a better way, it looks more professional and wow.

Jason Shelfer: 8:09

And that's it.

Jana Shelfer: 8:10

I mean we got to one point where she said we're going to have to rip out everything.

Jason Shelfer: 8:15

We're going to have to start from scratch.

Jana Shelfer: 8:17

We've been working on this thing for I don't know how long. She was like we're going to have to rip everything out and I'm like, wait a minute. Remember yesterday when we accidentally did it this way, which we thought was a disappointment to the teacher, Right?

Jason Shelfer: 8:33

We're not doing it. We're not following the directions right.

Jana Shelfer: 8:35

Let's do that again.

Jason Shelfer: 8:36

We read it wrong.

Jana Shelfer: 8:37

Yes, isn't that crazy? It is crazy. Okay, so read the quote again, because this is some research that Jason found.

Jason Shelfer: 8:45

It takes 400 repetitions to create a new synapse in the brain, unless it's done in play. So we all have neural pathways in our brain. Yes.

Jana Shelfer: 8:55

We all think a certain way and we all have emotions that we prioritize yeah, or we prefer.

Jason Shelfer: 9:07

And we create these through the stories that we tell ourselves through the evidence that we build for ourselves. We do, and then it's so it takes 400 repetitions to create a new pathway, unless it's done during play, in which case it only takes 10 to 20 repetitions.

Jana Shelfer: 9:22

Now the numbers might not be the exact, but so when we start living in an imaginary world and playing, all of a sudden it's almost like we let go of societal expectations. You definitely let go of the supposed. It's almost like we let go of societal expectations you definitely let go of the supposed to be's. And even expectations for ourself, of who we think we are, and we, just we get into the right brain, which, when I say the right brain, that's our-.

Jason Shelfer: 9:50

She's not saying the wrong brain.

Jana Shelfer: 9:52

Yeah, the right hemisphere, which Is your imagination. It's where you can tap into creativity.

Jason Shelfer: 10:03

And creativity is created by the word create.

Jana Shelfer: 10:06

Yes.

Jason Shelfer: 10:06

Like create, like what do you want to create? Not what is supposed to be done and all these things, but what is it? It's the whole, what if? And then you just allow.

Jana Shelfer: 10:17

What, if anything's possible, those opportunities or possibilities, or that creativity to almost become a living breathing?

Jason Shelfer: 10:26

thing. Am I right? That feels good? Yeah, that feels filling to me instead of a lot of times what feels draining to me is saying it has to be this way yeah, because sometimes, I mean, it says 400 repetitions.

Jana Shelfer: 10:40

so think, if you have a story in your head like I'm not enough, I'm not enough, and you catch yourself saying that in some situation you're going to have to reverse that thought 400 times before it starts making a new neural pathway, yes. However, if we're just playing and we say, well, what if we try it this way? And then all of a sudden you start living into this new possibility, it just happens.

Jason Shelfer: 11:16

then you have that happy accident like the zipper falling out that recognizes that I am enough, I am plenty.

Jana Shelfer: 11:22

Bob Ross Happy accidents. One of the most creative people.

Jason Shelfer: 11:27

I mean, he was an artist. He was so fun to watch that they had a television show for years.

Jana Shelfer: 11:31

Which his television show wasn't even his true persona, that was his play persona.

Jason Shelfer: 11:37

Yeah.

Jana Shelfer: 11:38

And it was in that play persona where he would actually use words like oh it's a happy little accident happy little accident and that's where you start realizing those. You know those big blotches of paint where you think, oh my god, and if you were? If you were in your left brain, left hemisphere brain, you would get out the paper towel and you'd start trying to wipe it off.

Jason Shelfer: 12:00

The canvas is ruined. Everything is over. Throw it out.

Jana Shelfer: 12:02

I got to start over and then you start playing to not make a mistake. Oh, so good, I shouldn't use the word play, but you start painting you start living life, you start painting, like you don't want to make a mistake and that's how so many people live life.

Jason Shelfer: 12:17

So they will have one instance where they have they just got evidence that something's a failure, or they can't, or I'm not enough, or or I'm different, and they will grab that one piece of evidence and then start playing not to ever see that again, yeah. So they just start playing not to lose. Yes, instead of or not playing, we say playing, but it's like living life.

Jana Shelfer: 12:40

So, in accordance to that, not to make a mistake, not. To make a mistake, yeah, it's like a double negative Not and mistake right Not to make a mistake instead of living into the happy accidents of life. Okay, so let's just recap. Read the sentence again.

Jason Shelfer: 12:59

Scientists have discovered that it takes approximately 400 repetitions to create a new synapse in the brain, unless it's done in play, in which case it only takes 10 to 20 repetitions.

Jana Shelfer: 13:10

So if you want the hack in how to change your life faster, then play.

Jason Shelfer: 13:19

Play more.

Jana Shelfer: 13:20

That is such a simple little tip.

Jason Shelfer: 13:23

And that's one thing that we lose as adults.

Jana Shelfer: 13:25

We do, we stop playing.

Jason Shelfer: 13:26

So many people say, we stop laughing.

Jana Shelfer: 13:27

We stop playing, and those are the secrets we stop having fun.

Jason Shelfer: 13:32

And then we start telling people that life isn't fun. Well, the truth is, life is fun. It's just we're responsible for our own joy and happiness and play like just make it an intention and a priority and you'll cut down those repetitions that's right, you'll get there quicker, or at least time will fly by fine.

Jana Shelfer: 13:51

Keep Living Lucky® bye-bye appeals to you. Visit us at www. LivingLucky. com.