We all know that life can change in an instant. Maybe this brings to mind surviving a car accident or some other major life event, something that you never forget and leaves you forever changed.  Everyone can likely recall a past personal experience, a single brief moment in time, and how it had a lasting impact on them.  However, what I believe is less appreciated is how this same impact can occur following much simpler and insignificant life events.  It could be an event as simple as an elementary school teacher offering a quick compliment to a student, such as saying “Billy, you are a really smart kid.”  Nobody would be surprised to hear that Billy’s mood, confidence, and life thereafter were quickly and permanently changed by this moment.  As a neuroscientist, I appreciate these phenomena as examples of a very important and impressive feature of our brains.  Whether an event is viewed subjectively as a major or minor event, our brain has the potential to respond to it with profound and lasting change.

In a controlled study that investigated the safety and psychological effects of a single dose of psilocybin, the psychedelic compound contained in certain mushrooms, the subjects reported it to be the most profound positive influence they’ve ever experienced.  Many described it as the most significant experience of their lifetime, even when followed up and asked about the experience a year later.  There are also the famous “mirror box” sessions with subjects suffering from chronic phantom pain in an amputated limb.  Dr. Ramachandran demonstrated that some subjects who placed their intact arm in a mirror box that gave them the perception of seeing their “missing” limb intact and moving, immediately experienced pain relief in their phantom missing limb, pain that had persisted for years prior.  So, single events or experiences can quickly and effectively alter the brain and our mental experience.  In other words, your life and brain can in fact be changed in a moment, and these changes can persist for years to a lifetime.

So why are we not taking greater advantage of this fact?  Don’t we all want the quick fix?  Yet most approaches toward treating our mental health today involve long-term treatments, months of therapy, chronic pill popping, or invasive surgical procedures.  The brain has proven its ability to change significantly in a brief moment, from a minimal event, with enduring lifetime persistence. Yet this fact appears to be ignored by the training and approach of most therapists, doctors, and scientists.