You Can Change Your Brain | Mosaic Infusions

The Science of Neuroplasticity and 7 Everyday Ways to Support Lasting Change

What if your brain isn’t as fixed as you think?

The way you respond to stress. The habits you fall into. The thoughts that seem to run on repeat. Even some of the patterns you’ve carried for years.

They may feel deeply ingrained, but your brain is capable of change.

This doesn’t mean we can simply “think positive” and make depression, anxiety, trauma, or other mental health conditions disappear. Mental health is far more complex than that.

But neuroscience has given us something genuinely hopeful: the human brain remains capable of adapting throughout our lives.

This ability is called neuroplasticity.

And while you can’t control everything happening in your brain, you can influence some of the experiences you repeatedly give it.

How you move.

How you sleep.

What you eat.

Who you spend time with.

What you learn.

How you respond to stress.

And, perhaps most importantly, what you practice again and again.

As we head into fall, when shorter days and changing routines can affect sleep, energy, and mood, it’s a great time to look at what the science actually tells us about caring for our brains.

Because supporting your mental health isn’t only about what happens in a doctor’s office or therapy session.

Some of the work happens in the ordinary moments between them.

First, What Is Neuroplasticity?

For many years, scientists believed that the adult brain was relatively fixed. We now know that isn’t true.

Your brain continually changes in response to what you experience, learn, practice, and repeat. Connections between brain cells can become stronger or weaker, and the brain can change how different networks communicate.

This ability to adapt is called neuroplasticity.

One helpful way to picture it is to imagine walking through a field of tall grass.

The first time you walk a particular route, there may barely be a path. Walk that same route repeatedly, and eventually the grass becomes flattened and the path becomes easier to follow.

Our brains work somewhat similarly.

Thought patterns, behaviors, coping strategies, emotional responses, and skills can become easier to access when they are repeatedly practiced.

Importantly, neuroplasticity isn’t automatically positive.

The brain can strengthen helpful patterns, but it can also reinforce patterns of avoidance, rumination, fear, or chronic stress.

The goal isn’t simply to make the brain “more plastic.” It’s to give the brain healthy experiences and then practice those experiences enough that healthier pathways have opportunities to strengthen.

A Little Brain Science: Meet BDNF

One molecule you may hear about when discussing neuroplasticity is BDNF, or brain-derived neurotrophic factor.

Think of BDNF somewhat like fertilizer for the brain.

BDNF helps neurons survive, communicate, form connections, and adapt. Researchers studying depression increasingly believe that changes in synapses, the tiny connection points through which brain cells communicate, may play an important role in both depression and recovery.

Ketamine is particularly interesting in this area.

Unlike traditional antidepressants that primarily target serotonin or norepinephrine, ketamine acts mainly on the brain’s glutamate system. This appears to trigger a cascade involving AMPA receptors, BDNF, and a signaling pathway called mTOR. These processes are involved in synaptic plasticity and the formation and strengthening of neural connections.

Researchers continue to study exactly how these biological changes translate into symptom improvement in humans. But neuroplasticity has become an important area of research in understanding ketamine’s rapid antidepressant effects.

The takeaway: Treatment may help create biological conditions that support change. What we repeatedly do, experience, learn, and practice matters, too.

So how can we support our brains in everyday life?

1. Move Your Body

If you could choose one habit that benefits both your body and your brain, movement would be near the top of the list.

Exercise increases blood flow to the brain, influences stress and inflammatory pathways, and appears to affect BDNF and other processes involved in neuroplasticity.

And the mental health evidence is substantial.

A large 2024 review published in The BMJ analyzed 218 randomized studies involving more than 14,000 people with depression. Walking or jogging, yoga, strength training, mixed aerobic exercise, and tai chi or qigong were all associated with reductions in depressive symptoms.

Other research has specifically looked at BDNF. A meta-analysis of 36 randomized trials involving more than 2,500 people with depression found that exercise interventions increased BDNF levels.

In other words, movement isn’t only changing your muscles and cardiovascular system.

It’s doing something in your brain, too.

You don’t need an elaborate exercise program to begin.

Try:

Taking a brisk walk outside
Strength training
Hiking
Yoga
Cycling
Dancing
Playing actively with your children
Taking the stairs
Breaking up long periods of sitting

The best exercise is usually one you’ll continue doing.

And when motivation is low, remember that action can sometimes come before motivation.

You don’t necessarily need to feel like taking the walk before you take it.

Start small.

Ten minutes still counts.

2. Treat Sleep Like Brain Care

We sometimes talk about sleep as though the brain simply turns off for eight hours.

It doesn’t.

Sleep is an extraordinarily active period for your brain.

While you sleep, your brain is involved in processing information, regulating emotion, consolidating memories, and reorganizing neural connections.

In other words, some of the learning you do during the day is actually strengthened while you sleep.

Sleep and mental health also influence each other.

A meta-analysis of 65 randomized trials involving more than 8,600 participants found that interventions that successfully improved sleep also improved overall mental health, including symptoms of depression, anxiety, stress, and rumination.

That doesn’t mean everyone needs a perfect eight hours every night.

Instead, think about giving your brain a predictable rhythm.

Helpful habits include:

Keeping your wake time relatively consistent
Getting light exposure in the morning
Creating a short wind-down routine
Reducing bright light and stimulating activities late at night
Limiting caffeine later in the day
Keeping your bedroom cool, dark, and quiet

Sleep isn’t wasted time.

Sleep is part of the work your brain is doing to recover, learn, and adapt.

3. Feed Your Brain

There is no single “antidepressant food,” and nutrition should never be presented as a replacement for appropriate mental health treatment.

But your brain is an organ.

And like every other organ in your body, it needs adequate nutrition to function.

Instead of focusing on one supplement or “superfood,” researchers are increasingly interested in overall dietary patterns.

One of the most studied is the Mediterranean-style diet, which generally emphasizes:

Vegetables and fruit
Beans and legumes
Whole grains
Nuts and seeds
Olive oil
Fish and other omega-3 sources
Adequate protein
Fewer highly processed foods

A recent systematic review and meta-analysis examined randomized trials involving more than 1,500 adults experiencing depression or depressive symptoms. Overall, Mediterranean-style dietary interventions were associated with improvements in depressive symptoms.

However, researchers rated the certainty of the evidence as low.

That’s important. Nutrition research is difficult, and we shouldn’t turn food into another promise of a “cure” for depression.

A more reasonable conclusion is:

Food isn’t a cure for depression, but good nutrition helps create an environment in which your brain and body have what they need to function well.

Instead of trying to completely overhaul your diet, ask yourself:

What could I add?

Add berries to breakfast.

Add vegetables to dinner.

Add nuts or seeds to a snack.

Eat fish once or twice a week.

Add protein to a meal that usually doesn’t have much.

Drink another glass of water.

Small changes repeated consistently matter more than a “perfect” diet you follow for four days.

4. Stay Connected, Especially When You Feel Like Withdrawing

When people become depressed, one of the first instincts is often to pull away.

Unfortunately, isolation can sometimes reinforce the very symptoms that caused us to withdraw.

Human brains are deeply social.

A large umbrella review bringing together 47 previous meta-analyses found important relationships between social connection, including social support, engagement, loneliness, and isolation, and depression.

That doesn’t mean socializing is a treatment for every mental health condition.

And telling someone who is depressed to simply “get out more” misses the complexity of depression.

But it does mean that connection is one component of brain and mental health worth protecting.

Connection doesn’t have to mean attending a crowded party.

It could mean:

Having coffee with one trusted friend
Eating dinner with your family without phones
Attending church or another community group
Joining a class
Calling someone instead of texting
Walking with a neighbor
Volunteering
Attending a support group
Meeting regularly with a therapist

Sometimes the most important time to intentionally maintain connection is precisely when your brain is telling you to disappear.

5. Give Your Brain Something to Learn

Remember that path through the tall grass?

One of the fundamental principles of neuroplasticity is that experience matters.

Learning and practicing something new asks the brain to form and strengthen connections.

That doesn’t mean you need to learn another language or start playing the violin tomorrow.

Try something small.

Learn a new recipe.

Read a book.

Try a new workout.

Take a class.

Learn a few chords on a guitar.

Do a puzzle.

Practice a new breathing technique.

Try a new hobby.

Walk a different route.

Learn something you’ve always been curious about.

The combination of attention, novelty, and repetition gives your brain something new to work with.

And repetition matters.

One meditation session probably won’t change your life.

One therapy session won’t erase a decades-old thinking pattern.

One walk won’t permanently transform your mood.

But each repetition is another trip down the path.

6. Be Intentional About What You Practice

This may be one of the most important lessons of neuroplasticity:

Your brain learns through repetition.

So occasionally ask yourself:

What am I repeatedly teaching my brain?

Imagine that anxiety makes you avoid something every time you feel uncomfortable.

You feel anxious.

You escape the situation.

You immediately feel better.

Your brain may learn:

“I escaped. That situation must have been dangerous.”

The pathway gets another repetition.

But if you gradually learn to tolerate discomfort in a safe environment, perhaps with the help of a therapist, your brain receives different information.

“I felt anxious, and I was still okay.”

That’s new information for the brain.

The same principle can apply to therapy skills, mindfulness, healthy boundaries, emotional regulation, relationships, and thought patterns.

What About Ketamine?

Ketamine is especially interesting when we talk about neuroplasticity because researchers believe part of its antidepressant effect involves the brain’s ability to form and strengthen connections.

Unlike traditional antidepressants that primarily affect serotonin or norepinephrine, ketamine acts largely through the brain’s glutamate system. This sets off a series of changes involving AMPA receptors, BDNF, and other signaling pathways associated with synaptic plasticity, the brain’s ability to change the strength and organization of connections between neurons.

Research suggests that ketamine can rapidly influence these pathways, which may help explain why it can produce antidepressant effects much more quickly than traditional antidepressants for some patients.

So What Do You Do With That?

One useful way to think about neuroplasticity is:

Biology creates opportunity. Experience provides input.

If the brain is capable of forming and strengthening connections, the experiences we repeatedly give it still matter.

That might mean practicing a coping strategy you learned in therapy instead of automatically falling into an old response.

It might mean getting outside and moving your body when your instinct is to stay in bed.

It might mean reconnecting with someone instead of isolating.

It might mean journaling, praying, meditating, creating something, learning something new, or simply noticing an old thought pattern and responding differently.

None of these behaviors needs to be done perfectly, and there isn’t a single prescribed routine patients need to follow after an infusion.

Instead, think of neuroplasticity as an invitation to be intentional.

What patterns do you want your brain to practice?

Then give it opportunities to practice them again and again.

7. Pay Attention to Light as the Days Get Shorter

Fall brings one major environmental change that directly affects our brains:

Less daylight.

Light is one of the strongest signals controlling your circadian rhythm, the internal biological clock that helps regulate sleep, alertness, hormones, appetite, and other processes.

For some people, seasonal changes contribute to seasonal affective disorder (SAD), a form of depression that follows a recurring seasonal pattern.

Even if you don’t have SAD, fall is a good time to become more intentional about daylight.

Try:

Opening your blinds soon after waking
Stepping outside in the morning
Taking a lunchtime walk
Spending part of your workday near a window
Continuing outdoor activities as the weather cools

For people with winter-pattern SAD, bright-light therapy is an established treatment.

The National Institute of Mental Health describes a commonly used protocol as exposure to a 10,000-lux light box for approximately 30 to 45 minutes in the morning during the darker months.

Light therapy isn’t appropriate for everyone, particularly without medical guidance for people with bipolar disorder, certain eye conditions, or medications that increase sensitivity to light.

But there’s an even simpler place for most people to start:

Go outside.

Morning daylight is free.

Don’t Try to Optimize Everything

After reading about brain health, it’s easy to decide that tomorrow morning you’re going to wake up at 5 a.m., exercise, meditate, journal, take seven supplements, drink a green smoothie, get sunlight, practice gratitude, and somehow still get everyone out the door by 8.

You don’t need to.

Neuroplasticity isn’t about creating the perfect wellness routine.

It’s about repetition.

Small behaviors you can repeat are far more valuable than an elaborate routine you abandon after a week.

So this fall, consider a simpler approach.

Your Fall Brain Health Reset

Choose a few of these to practice consistently:

Get morning light. Open the blinds and, when possible, step outside.
Move your body. Even a 10-minute walk counts.
Protect your sleep. Start with a relatively consistent wake time.
Feed your brain. Think about nutritious foods you can add rather than creating another list of foods you can’t eat.
Stay connected. Schedule connection before you feel isolated.
Learn something. Give your brain new experiences.
Practice the patterns you want to strengthen. Use the skills you’re learning in therapy. Journal. Pray. Meditate. Practice gratitude. Set a boundary. Tolerate a little discomfort instead of automatically avoiding it.

And then do it again.

And again.

Your Brain Isn’t Finished

Mental health conditions are complicated.

Depression isn’t caused by a lack of exercise. Anxiety isn’t caused by eating the wrong foods. Trauma cannot be undone by getting enough sleep.

Medication, psychotherapy, ketamine treatment, and other professional interventions can be important, and sometimes essential, parts of treatment.

But treatment doesn’t only happen during the hour you spend with your therapist, prescriber, or infusion nurse.

Some of the work happens in the ordinary moments between appointments.

Every walk.

Every night of sleep.

Every nourishing meal.

Every conversation.

Every therapy skill you practice.

Every time you respond differently to an old trigger.

Every time you learn something new.

None of these moments alone is likely to transform your brain.

But brains learn through experience and repetition.

And perhaps one of the most hopeful discoveries in modern neuroscience is this:

Your brain is not finished changing.

You may have more influence over what comes next than you realize.

References & Further Reading

Exercise and depression. Noetel M, et al. Effect of exercise for depression: systematic review and network meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials. BMJ. 2024;384. bmj.com
Exercise and BDNF. Systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials examining the effects of exercise on brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) in people with depression. PubMed Central
Sleep and mental health. Scott AJ, et al. Improving sleep quality leads to better mental health: A meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials. Sleep Medicine Reviews. 2021;60:101556. doi.org
Nutrition and depression. Bizzozero-Peroni B, et al. The impact of the Mediterranean diet on alleviating depressive symptoms in adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Nutrition Reviews. 2025;83(1):29–39. PubMed
Social connection and depression. Pettorruso M, et al. Staying connected: An umbrella review of meta-analyses on the push-and-pull of social connection in depression. Journal of Affective Disorders. 2024. ScienceDirect
Ketamine and neuroplasticity. Reviews examining ketamine’s effects on glutamate signaling, AMPA receptor activation, BDNF, mTOR signaling, synaptogenesis, and neuroplasticity.
Seasonal affective disorder and light therapy. National Institute of Mental Health. Seasonal Affective Disorder. National Institutes of Health. nimh.nih.gov