Random thoughts on neuroplasiticity and improved speech with healthy lifestyle, practice and mental health.

Random thoughts on neuroplasiticity and improved speech with healthy lifestyle, practice and mental health. Just a bunch of random thoughts and observations I had on these 4 things. I'm straight shotgunning these so there is no real sequence or rhythm to this and I'm just rambling. I don't personally believe that all or maybe even most mild to moderate stuttering is due to just a brain defect. But let's assume 100% it is. Even with that the potential of rewiring your brain is quite amazing. There have been people who have learnt to write with their opposite hands, enhanced cognitive abilities, enhanced senses, Killed off maladaptive pathways like addiction in their brains or have managed clinical mental illnesses etc. My point is we as people who stutter underestimate the power of neuroplasticity. So even if it is a set in stone brain defect we have massive ability to work around or even change our set neurology as demonstrated by above examples. I think mental health, healthy lifestyle and practice all play a major role in helping with that. Mental health. This is a big one in my opinion and I think anxiety, stress and negativity play a major role in neuroplasticity. One of the best desicions I made was getting therapy as it showed me how I viewed myself and the negativity traps I often led myself towards. I learnt how to deal with negative situations alot better and this includes stuttering. For example, If someone doesn't take me seriously or ignores me my automatic response my natural instinct from birth was to hate myself, think I'm worthless etc. Now I mostly just brush it off and forget about it as I can see where the thought patterns leads to and I can break that cycle. I also found placing less of an emphasis on both stuttering and the external reaction of people and having good self esteem is extremly helpful. If you dont care about what people think about you and you dont care about stuttering and you have a good opinion of yourself it just becomes less meaningful. Its like if random persom called Tom cruise short. Yeah he's but, the persons opinion has no weight so he doesn't care and Tom Cruise probably has a pretty high opinion of himself anyways. As a result of this i find i stutter way less as im alot more relaxed and not stressed under most circumstances that used to bother me alot. Healthy lifestyle. I gotta say sleep, being in shape and working out are important too. Good cardiovascular health and a low heart rate can make a noticeable difference for me at least. I feel in control, relaxed and overall just better with speech. I block less frequently and I feel less out of breath. I think this may have alot to do with the release of oxytocin and other positive hormones causeing less stress would improve stuttering. I'm always looking to improve so if someone can recommend something else that helped them that'd be great as well. Lastly the pandemic showed me practice matters alot too. Now that I barely talk to people my stutter got worse then my baseline. When I was doing improv it was better then the baseline. Maybe by practicing you subconsciously develop strategies to cope with stuttering and sort of work over moments you stutter. I also think when you talk hundreds of times a day you just cant think about it and as a result you won't have the mental capacity to conciosuly block. Its like how with some people stutter when they get phone calls and that triggers the panic that can cause a stutter. But now imagine a scenario where your forced to communicating 12 hours a day with hundreds of phone calls every day. Initially it'll be tough but at some point I do think you'll stutter way less per phone call as you get practice and that panic when you pick up the phone would probably reduce as well. But yeah, just some rambling thoughts I had about all this stuff that helped me ojt. I think all these contribute to somehow rewiring your brain to not stutter and I have myself seen a substabtial improvement of my stutter by 60-70% over the course of 7ish years (I'm 25). I think the biggest one was stress management and improving mental health to reduce that nervousness. Would love to read comments and please feel free to add anything else that you have found helpful. Thanks. Tldr: Brain and stuttering can be improved with neuroplasiticity. Good mental health, healthy lifestyle and practice have been very helpful for me personally.