Brain Retraining

Questions we get asked most

Short answers about how this blog works, who writes it, and what it is not. If something here still feels unclear, the longer explanations live in the posts themselves.

Who actually writes these posts?

One person, mostly, with a stack of notebooks and a habit of testing things on themselves before writing them up. The experiments you read about were run on ordinary weeks: work, commutes, bad sleep, missed sessions. Reader letters get folded in when they add something the original post left out.

Is this therapy or a replacement for it?

No. It is a blog about self-directed practice, written for people who want plain language and honest notes on what worked. When a routine stops helping, or when sleep and mood do not recover, the right move is a psychologist or counsellor. We say so in the posts rather than burying it in a disclaimer.

How long before a habit like reframing shows anything?

Weeks, not days, and unevenly. Some people notice the pre-meeting drill helping within a fortnight; others need a couple of months before the automatic thought loosens its grip. The tracking posts show the actual timelines, including the stretches where nothing seemed to move.

Do I need any background in psychology or neuroscience?

None. Neuroplasticity basics are explained in ordinary sentences, and clinical jargon gets translated or left out. If a term is unavoidable, it is defined the first time it appears. Readers in South Africa and elsewhere have started from zero without trouble.

Where should a new reader begin?

The beginner series, if you want the reasoning behind the drills first. If you would rather build something usable this week, the habit library is organised by how much time and quiet you actually have. Both routes assume a real schedule, not an ideal one.

Still curious about how the site is run and what it stands for? See the questions page or read the privacy notes.

How this blog grew, one experiment at a time

Nothing here arrived in a straight line. The dates below mark the moments that actually changed how I write, what I test, and who I write for.

  1. Late 2019

    A notebook, a commute, and no plan

    It started as a private log: three lines each morning about what I noticed in my own thinking, written on the train between Centurion and Pretoria. No audience, no method. Just an attempt to catch the same anxious loop repeating and see whether writing it down changed anything.

  2. 2020

    Reading the research properly

    I worked through the neuroplasticity basics that kept coming up in the books I was reading, then went back to the original papers where I could find them. Most of what I had assumed about "rewiring" was looser than the evidence allowed. That year I stopped repeating claims I could not trace to a source.

  3. 2021

    The first six-week focus log

    I tracked my afternoon attention on paper for six weeks, scoring each block and noting sleep, meals and meeting load. The pattern that held up was not willpower but context switching before 2pm. Two other patterns I was sure about fell apart once I looked at the numbers honestly. That log became the template for every experiment since.

  4. 2022

    Writing in public, and getting it wrong

    The first posts went up, mostly reframing drills and journaling prompts. Reader replies quickly showed where I had been vague or too neat. I started publishing the failures alongside the wins, including the drills that did nothing for me, because a method that only works in the telling is not much use to anyone.

  5. 2023

    The habit library and the beginner series

    Readers kept asking where to start, so I built two entry points: a beginner series for the first month and a habit library organised by how much time a routine actually needs in a real week. Both are still edited as I learn what holds up outside my own schedule.

  6. Today

    A monthly mailbag and clearer limits

    The reader mailbag now runs once a month, and I am more direct about where self-directed work stops and professional care begins. The blog stays independent and unpaid by anyone, which is why it can say plainly when a routine flopped or when it is time to talk to a psychologist instead.

Brain Retraining values

Who writes here, and who it is written for

Adjusting Your Brain is one person's working notebook, kept in public. I am not a clinician and this is not a clinic. I am someone who spent years reading about neuroplasticity, trying the drills, abandoning half of them, and eventually keeping the handful that survived a normal week of work, traffic and family. The blog exists because most of what helped me was written down badly or not at all.

The readers I have in mind are in South Africa and further afield: people who want plain language about cognitive reframing, attention and focus habits, sleep and stress, without being sold a programme. If a technique took me six weeks to notice anything, I say six weeks. If it flopped, that goes in the post too.

Plain over clinical

Terms get explained the first time they appear, then used normally. No jargon used as a shortcut for thinking.

Honest about limits

Self-directed work has a ceiling. Posts say where that ceiling sits and when a psychologist or counsellor is the better call.

Built for real weeks

Exercises fit into a commute, a lunch break or the ten minutes before a difficult meeting. Nothing assumes a quiet house.

Independent, and it shows

No sponsor shapes the conclusions. Experiments are tracked over weeks and the notes are published as they were kept.

The tone here is deliberately unhurried. Changing how you respond to stress or distraction is slow work, and writing about it as if it were quick would be dishonest. If you are new, the beginner series is the sensible entry point.

How this blog got here

Adjusting Your Brain did not start as a project. It started as a folder of notes I kept while trying to change how I reacted to ordinary pressure, and it grew slowly into something worth publishing.

  1. Stage one

    Keeping a private log

    For the first year I wrote only for myself: what I tried before a tense conversation, how long a reframing drill actually held, which evenings my attention fell apart. No audience, no editing. The rule was simple, record the attempt and the outcome, even when the outcome was nothing.

  2. Stage two

    Publishing the failures too

    The turning point was deciding that a post about a routine that flopped was more useful than another tidy success story. That decision shaped the tone of everything since: plain language, real timelines, and a clear note when something belongs with a professional rather than a notebook.

  3. Stage three

    Building the habit library

    Readers kept asking for the short exercises in one place, so the scattered drills became a library: attention training, sleep and stress basics, journaling prompts. Each entry lists how long it takes and what kind of week it fits, because a routine that ignores your actual schedule will not survive.

  4. Stage four

    Where it stands now

    Today the site runs on essays, book notes, tracked experiments and a monthly reader mailbag, written for people in South Africa and further afield. The results I am most confident about are modest ones: fewer rehearsed worst-case scenarios, steadier afternoons, and a habit of asking whether a method still earns its place in the week.

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