Our minds are so powerful. Our subconscious mind especially. Your subconscious mind has taken in everything, whether or not you were aware of it. Depending on the situations you’ve experienced, your subconscious mind may be your biggest supporter or your biggest hater. In this article I want to show you how you can change your subconscious mind to better serve you. 

What is your subconscious mind?

Your subconscious mind operates below the layer of your conscious mind. It stores all of our thoughts, memories, and emotions, and it plays a big role in our behaviors and the reactions we have. The subconscious mind is like a net that catches and keeps every single thing we experience. Those experiences that were caught then becomes the reason we have the habits we do, why we look at things the way we do, and how we react to things

What Does It Mean to Reprogram Your Subconscious Mind?

Most of our core beliefs and thoughts have been adopted from ages 0-7, when we are first learning how to act in society. The thoughts and values we have often come from our families’ and societies’ rules. We often grow up with our families’ limiting beliefs.

For example, if your family was unstable financially, you probably have a limiting belief that money is difficult to come by. That’s why reprogramming your subconscious mind to get rid of all of those limiting beliefs is so important. The way you think about yourself and the world impacts your life a lot more than you think.

Before we go deeper into reprogramming your mind, I want you to know that your mind is still susceptible to programming. It does not matter what age you are. We always hear others’ values and thoughts. It’s important to run everything you hear and see through a filter and decide what’s worth keeping. 

What Does Science Say About Reprogramming Your Subconscious Mind?

Neuroplasticity—Our Brains’ Ability to Change

Neuroplasticity, or brain plasticity, is the process of adaptive structural or functional changes to the brain. Neuroplasticity is a physical quality from the nervous system that is caused by changes in consciousness, which themselves can be created by external or internal stimuli. The way that we think is never permanent. Our brain is always changing its shape and function due to all the things we experience. Thank god our brain is so adaptive; otherwise people would be stuck in old, unhelpful ways of thinking, and subconscious reprogramming would have no effect. 

Epigenetics

Epigenetics is a branch of science that studies how the external and environmental factors that turn our genes on or off and, as a result, define how our cells actually read those genes. The goal of epigenetics is to see the potential of the human mind and the cells inside our bodies. The chemistry from the images we hold in our brain is put into our blood, which then creates a physical complement to the image in our mind. In other words, whatever we believe, we become. Therefore, reprogramming your subconscious mind for the better is more than beneficial for our bodies. 

The Brain’s Reaction To Visualization

Much neuroscience research has found that the power of our thoughts and what we visualize directly affects our brains’ plasticity. Mental imagery affects the same neural pathways that would be affected as if you were really performing your visualization in real life. Visualization is essential for reprogramming your subconscious mind, but there is a catch. Trying to visualize a new reality when you are fully conscious isn’t very helpful. The best time to visualize something is when your conscious mind isn’t as active, which brings us to our next section

Brain Waves and Consciousness States

Your subconscious mind is easiest to reprogram right before falling asleep and right after awakening. A theta brainwave state is a powerful state to be in for subconscious reprogramming because your conscious mind is more relaxed and your subconscious mind becomes more susceptible to reprogramming. Theta waves are present during deep meditation, hypnosis, and light sleep. All of which we will discuss later on in this article. 

6 Powerful Techniques For Reprogramming Your Subconscious Mind

Visualization

Visualizing a change you want to occur is a powerful technique for subconscious reprogramming because your mind can’t tell the difference between what you visualize and what you actually do. When you visualize a behavior, you stimulate around 70% of the neural activity that would occur if you were actually performing that task. Visualization strengthens connections between new motor and cognitive pathways that support your desired way of thinking. 

Positive Self-Talk

Positive self-talk, also known as affirmations, is when you use positive present-tense statements to reprogram your subconscious mind for a new way of thinking. Research has shown that positive self-talk creates lasting physical changes in the brain. Positive self-talk also activates the reward system, which releases dopamine. The more dopamine you produce, the more you reinforce the neural pathways connected with your positive self-talk. 

Meditation & Mindfulness

Meditation is very effective when it comes to accessing your subconscious mind for reprogramming. When you meditate, you create an alpha wave state, which reduces the interference of your analytical mind and increases the chance of accessing your subconscious. A neuroscientist named Dr. Rick Hanson did research that found that repetitive meditation reshapes your brain structure. 

Hypnosis

When you are in a state of hypnosis, your subconscious mind is more open to positive suggestions. Hypnosis is amazing for reprogramming your subconscious because while you’re in that state, you are so absorbed you don’t think of anything else. Consistent hypnosis rewires neural pathways over time and helps people replace negative thought patterns, overcome fear, and create beneficial habits. Hypnosis is not just a state of relaxation; it is also an altered state of consciousness that opens up your subconscious mind and creates space for new positive ways of thinking. 

Targeted Memory Reactivation (TMR)

Targeted memory reactivation is when you connect a sound with a new mindset you want to adopt. Maybe you want to start feeling more confident; you could play a certain hertz frequency while also repeating the phrase, “I am confident.” This creates a correlation between the sound and the effect you want the sound to have on your subconscious mind while you sleep. Our subconscious minds operate through implicit memory systems, which run our lives without much conscious thought. TMR strengthens emotional responses and then reinforces that response as an implicit state. This is a great technique to use since it goes directly to the roots of our behaviors. 

Journaling/Writing

Journaling is very simple; it is just a way to communicate with and reprogram your subconscious mind. Journaling affects our brains’ plasticity by nagging neural circuits that are responsible for language, emotion, and memory. When you frequently write about positive events, whether they happened or not, you strengthen neural pathways for positivity. Writing how you feel and putting your mind into words weakens your amygdala, which is the part of your brain that keeps you in survival mode. Putting a name to emotions reduces emotional distress. 

Signs Your Subconscious Mind Is Changing

Some people may feel unsure about whether or not all their progress is actually amounting to something, so here are some signs that your subconscious mind is actually changing:

• You become more self-aware.
• Negative thinking is caught before it causes you to spiral
• Consciously observe your thoughts and how they impact your daily life
• Your confidence increases
• You are more willing to take risks
• You naturally react differently to behaviors that used to trigger you
• New behaviors feel easier and natural and you don’t have to use willpower to force anything
• Sleep patterns get better
• Triggers that effect old habits weaken
• You become more resilient to things that try to set back your progress

Reprogramming your subconscious is no easy task. Expect setbacks, triggers to trigger you even deeper, and hopelessness, but also expect peace, increased positivity within your mind, and so many other unique and amazing things. Growth is not linear. Sometimes old patterns have to come up so that new patterns get ingrained into our heads. Your subconscious mind can become your greatest asset if you stay consistent with the effort needed to change it.

With all that being said, I hope you leave my article feeling inspired to start your journey on reprogramming your subconscious!