What Is Neuroplasticity and How Does a Mental Health Treatment Center Use It?

When you are struggling with your mental health or recovering from trauma, it is common to feel stuck. You might feel like you are struggling to make different choices or stuck in certain emotional states that are negatively impacting your life. Fortunately, treatment options at a mental health treatment center that utilizes neuroplasticity can help. With these treatment modalities, you can make changes to your brain that impact how you heal. Mental health treatments at Corner Canyon Health Centers utilize the fundamentals of neuroplasticity. These help you to form different patterns and create long-term solutions to regain health and happiness in your life. 

What Is Neuroplasticity?

Neuroplasticity is the ability of your nervous system to change its response to different stimuli, internal and external, by changing structure, function, and/or connections. Essentially, neuroplasticity means that the way that your brain functions today does not have to be permanent. These changes can be negative, neutral, or positive for you. 

There are two main methods of neuroplasticity. One is creating new patterns. The other is to reorganize or restructure parts of the brain. When creating new patterns, over time, these patterns become easy. Imagine practicing a new habit. At first, it takes effort to exercise, eat healthy, or improve your sleep. However, over time it becomes a piece of your normal routine. In the reorganization, parts of your brain adjust in order to improve functioning. 

Neuroplasticity at a Mental Health Treatment Center

In mental health treatment at a mental health treatment center, neuroplasticity can and does play an important role in healing. This is because making long-term changes means adjusting how you think and feel. Neuroplasticity at a mental health treatment center can occur in a variety of treatment modalities, including neurofeedback, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy, and accelerated resolution therapy (ART). 

Neurofeedback

As a cutting-edge type of trauma treatment, neurofeedback is a method that helps create new patterns in the brain. Through video games or movies, you can train the brain to regulate itself more effectively. It works by technology being used to monitor your brain waves. The findings are compared to a healthy brain, and neurofeedback helps you to regain healthy functioning in these pathways. 

Neurofeedback relies highly on neuroplasticity. When you are rewarded for a healthy pattern in the brain, your brain is making changes by adapting its structure and function. You can learn new patterns and adjust current patterns based on your specific needs. However, if the brain could not change and learn new patterns, neurofeedback would not be effective. 

EMDR

A mental health treatment center, such as Corner Canyon Health Centers, uses EMDR as a method to heal from trauma and other mental health disorders. With a combination of eye movements and other stimuli, you work with a counselor to reprocess memories that are causing mental health challenges in your life. 

EMDR relies on your brain’s ability to reprocess and make changes in the brain. It maximizes your brain’s ability to change and build new pathways. In doing so, you can take steps to heal from past traumas by reprocessing the memories and building new connections that help you have fewer mental health symptoms. 

ART

Similar to EMDR, ART utilizes eye movement to help you heal from trauma. However, ART also uses a combination of visualization and exposure that focuses on adjusting the storage of your trauma memories. Through ART, you can change your stored memory of trauma and integrate new information. 

ART relies on the fact that your brain can change and learn. By accessing your memory of trauma and integrating new information, you will feel a significant difference. However, it would not be possible if your nervous system, including your brain, did not have the ability to rewire and restructure itself to make these changes. 

Benefits of Neuroplasticity at a Mental Health Treatment Center

Healing from trauma and/or mental health challenges is hard. It is common to feel like you are stuck in certain emotions, thoughts, or actions. However, treatments that utilize neuroplasticity can help you to build patterns and skills to make long-term changes. 

Many mental health disorders like anxiety or depression are based on feeling a certain way consistently. With depression, these feelings are often low energy, lack of motivation, and persistent sadness. Alternatively, if you are struggling with anxiety, you may struggle with consistently feeling on edge. However, the sensation of persistent emotions that are negative is a trend. 

At mental health treatment centers, treatments that utilize neuroplasticity concepts as a foundation help to acknowledge these patterns and make changes. These treatments take time and repetition to be effective. However, when you go through the necessary repetitions, you will leave with a new or improved pattern that can help relieve your symptoms long-term. 

When a person is struggling with their mental health or recovering from trauma, they often feel stuck. However, healing can be improved with neuroplasticity. At Corner Canyon Health Centers, we understand that how your brain functions impact how you feel. We offer treatments that utilize this information and help you build patterns that you can rely on long-term. Our treatment programs treat you as a unique individual, assessing your history of trauma, mental health disorders, and associated substance abuse. Through treatment, you can make changes that will help you build a happier and healthy life moving forward. If you or someone you love is struggling with mental health symptoms, call us today at (877) 717-6237 to learn more.