One reason we can change our brains simply by imagining is that, from a neuro-scientific point of view, imagining an act and doing it are not much different. When people close their eyes and visualize a simple object, such as an alphabet, the primary visual cortex lights up, just as it would if the subjects were actually looking at that alphabet. Brain scans show that in action and imagination, many of the same parts of the brain are activated. That is why, visualizing can improve performance.

Take a famous experiment! When you time how long it takes to imagine writing your name with your dominant hand, and then actually write it, the times would be similar. And when you imagine writing it with your non-dominant hand then it will longer both to imagine it and to write it. What these imaginary experiments show is how truly integrated imagination and action are.  Most people who are right-handed find that their ‘mental left hand’ is slower than their ‘mental right hand’.

Yes! Imagining an act engages the same motor and sensory programs that are involved in doing it. Everything our ‘immaterial mind’ imagines leaves material traces. Each thought alters the physical state of our brain-synapses at a microscopic level. Experiments even show that imagining that one is using one’s muscles actually strengthens them.

In a study, two groups were taken. One was asked to do physical exercise and another group was asked to imagine doing exercise. Both groups exercised a finger muscle for 20 days. At the end of the period, the first group got their muscle strength increased by 30% while the second group got it increased by 22%. Well! The explanation lies in the motor neurons of the brain that ‘program’ movements.

During those imaginary contractions, the neurons responsible for stringing together sequences of instructions for movements are activated and strengthened, resulting in increased strength when the muscles are contracted. Clearly mental practice is an effective way to supplement learning a physical skill. The fact is that the brain is plastic and not elastic. An elastic band can be stretched, but it always reverts to its former shape. On the contrary, the plastic brain is perpetually altered by every encounter, every interaction.

Well! We all do what scientists call mental practice or mental rehearsing (imagination, in either case) when we memorize answers for a test, learn lines for a play, or rehearse any kind of performance or presentation. But because few of us do it systematically, we undermine its effectiveness. After a brief period of practice, it is relatively easy to improve because we are likely strengthening existing synaptic connections. But these easy-come easy-go neuronal connections get rapidly reversed if they are not supported by slow steady work that forms new connections.

Many great athletes and musicians use it to master their craft. The people who use massive amounts of mental practice show something really interesting in their brain-scans. First, for doing what they do, they are able to recruit many more brain areas than normal people. Moreover, they use long-term memory for problem solving rather than relying only on short-term memory.

Yes! Experts don’t store the answers, but they do store key facts and strategies that help them get answers, and they have immediate access to them, as though they were in short-term memory. It is believed that it usually takes about a decade of concentrated effort to become an expert.

And a wise usage of the power of imagination is a hallmark of those experts.