J F Vernon Blog

Neurobiologically

Memory Reactivation and Reconsolidation

Revisiting past experiences—especially emotionally charged ones like hospital stays or school memories—reactivates the neural pathways in the hippocampus (for episodic memory) and amygdala (for emotional tagging). When memories are reactivated, they become malleable, meaning you’re not just recalling them but re-editing them as they return to storage. This process is known as reconsolidation.

Default Mode Network (DMN) Activity

Reflecting on your life—who you were, how things felt, what things meant—engages your DMN, a network of brain regions involved in autobiographical memory, self-reflection, and imagination. This model is also engaged in storytelling and daydreaming, and it plays a significant role in your sense of identity over time.

Dopamine and Reward Pathways

Creative tasks- such as writing, image-making, and reinterpreting the past- stimulate dopaminergic systems, particularly in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and nucleus accumbens. This is why revisiting and reshaping the past can be emotionally rewarding, even addictive.

Neuroplasticity and Emotional Regulation

As you reinterpret memories and build a coherent narrative, you are reshaping your brain’s wiring—a process known as neuroplasticity. Additionally, you are likely engaging your prefrontal cortex, which helps regulate the emotional impact of painful or formative memories and reduces stress through narrative control.

Psychologically

Meaning-Making and Narrative Identity

You’re engaging in narrative therapy, constructing a coherent story from your past to better understand yourself in the present. This process helps integrate disparate life events into a meaningful whole, which in turn strengthens psychological resilience.

Time Perspective and Self-Continuity

This work connects your present self to your past self. Psychologists refer to this as temporal self-continuity, a strong predictor of well-being. You reinforce your identity by demonstrating how you have evolved, survived, or remained constant.

Processing Trauma or Disruption

Revisiting events like a skiing accident or being away from school might allow you to reframe the “cracks in the narrative”—turning raw memory into storied memory, which is easier to live with. This can be psychologically healing, like a slow-motion EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing).

Creative Flow and Catharsis

When you lose yourself in writing or visual creation, you may enter flow states—deep focus and immersion—that can be meditative and highly satisfying. Simultaneously, you experience catharsis, releasing pent-up emotional energy in a structured and safe manner.

Here are some of the potential downsides, both psychologically and neurobiologically:

Obsessive or Addictive Patterns

When memory and creativity become a constant loop — always editing, remembering, reframing — it can develop into a compulsive pattern. You might experience:

Dopamine overdrive: That creative buzz can mimic the reward patterns seen in addictive behaviours, especially when tied to device use.

Rumination: Replaying events over and over without resolution

Addiction to narrative control: Wanting to keep reworking the past until it feels just right, which is a moving target.

2. Device Attachment

Let’s be real: when work lives on your phone, laptop, or tablet, your body and nervous system suffer. 

That can look like:

• Blue light exposure and disrupted sleep, primarily if you work late.
• Eye strain and cognitive fatigue, particularly during prolonged image editing or writing sessions.
• Dopamine loops from multitasking, where you flip between writing, reference photos, chat, and notes, fragmenting attention and burning out focus.

3. Disengagement from the Present

Deep immersion in past events can feel more vivid than in real life. 

That’s when you might notice:

• Emotional distancing from current relationships or daily rhythms.
• Neglect of the body — hunger, movement, and rest might get overridden.
• Escapism: The past becomes a refuge. It’s compelling because it’s already known, and you control the story, unlike the unpredictability of real life.

4. Identity Fixation

There’s a danger in getting over-identified with a former version of yourself, especially one shaped by trauma, nostalgia, or loss. It can limit your ability to imagine new futures. 

You might feel:

• Stuck in the loop of a particular age or moment (e.g., 1975 or 1978).

• Struggling to update your self-concept in the present because the past has become too narratively dominant.

5. Social Withdrawal or Emotional Blunting

Being “in the archive” for too long can blunt your responsiveness to others:

• You may feel irritable or distracted when pulled away from work.
• You may become less emotionally available to people in the present moment.
• Conversation and spontaneity can feel like interruptions rather than nourishment.

The Double-Edged Sword

Interestingly, many of the risks come from the exact mechanisms that make the work powerful:

Mechanism

Benefit

Risk

Memory reconsolidation

Healing + integration

Rumination + distortion

Narrative crafting

Meaning + agency

Control + perfectionism

Device-enabled creativity

Access + flow

Overstimulation + burnout

Immersion

Insight + catharsis

Disconnection + time loss

1. Healthy Eating

Feeds your brain — literally. Nutrients like:

• Omega-3s (in oily fish and walnuts) support memory, emotional regulation, and neuroplasticity.
• B vitamins (in leafy greens and whole grains) support neurotransmitter production and energy levels.
• Stable blood sugar keeps mood and focus from crashing, preventing anxiety spirals that often sneak into creative ruts.

Also, cooking and eating well pulls you back into the sensory now — texture, smell, heat, satisfaction. It’s a form of mindfulness.

2. Exercise

Moves you out of your head and into your body, which resets your entire neurochemical system:

• Aerobic activities, such as walking, swimming, and cycling, increase blood flow to the brain and stimulate BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor), which supports learning and memory.
• Strength or balance work (yoga, pilates, climbing) enhances focus and body-mind integration, which is critical if you’ve been hunched over a screen.

And crucially, movement metabolises emotion. It helps process the unspoken or unreleased energy that storytelling can stir up.

3. Plenty of Sleep

This is your memory consolidator and emotional detox system. While you sleep:

• Your brain sorts through emotional material, especially during REM.
• The glymphatic system clears out neurotoxic waste — think of it as deep-cleaning the creative machinery.
• Sleep deprivation, on the other hand, mimics anxiety and depression, distorts memory, and worsens obsessive thinking.

If you’re doing deep emotional or narrative work, you may need more sleep than usual, not less.

4. Time in the Countryside

This is the most potent antidote of all. Nature:

• It downregulates the sympathetic nervous system (fight/flight) and activates the parasympathetic system (rest/digest/repair).
• Increases alpha brain waves, associated with calm focus and creativity.
• It offers non-linear time, like the creative process. The tides, trees, and hills don’t rush or demand answers. They hold space for thought without pressure.

Time in the woods, by the sea, or on the hills reconnects you to the larger cycles of life — seasons, weather, wildness — which can dissolve the claustrophobia of intense introspection.

Think of it as a kind of Creative Metronome:

Mode

Anchor

Outcome

Head (memory/story)

Writing, reflecting

Meaning, insight

Body (movement/nourishment)

Exercise, food

Energy, grounding

Heart (relationships/sensation)

Connection, music, touch

Warmth, spontaneity

Soul (nature/rest)

Sleep, sea, stillness

Integration, renewal