Wired for What’s New
With the new year about to launch, if you find yourself anticipating a fresh start, a time to create new goals and new vision, you’re not alone. There’s just something about the way God designed us that is invigorated and intrigued by something new. Whether it’s a new song on the radio, a new travel spot on the vacation list, or a change-up in your routine, we get a boost of fresh energy.
“Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?”
Isaiah 43:19 (ESV)
As you wrap up the last days of 2025 and turn the calendar to 2026, you might just want to make it a goal to really bring in the new when it comes to your brain health.
🧠 Your Brain on New
The human brain is considered the most complex thing in the known universe. 1 The way this organ works, from our senses to our innermost thoughts and feelings, is a miracle researchers and scientists are still working to better understand. Part of what makes the brain so fascinating is its wiring, the things the brain is ‘programmed’ to pay attention to. When something new comes across our path, whatever that ‘new’ might be, our brain quickly tries to match it with something known in our memories. If it doesn’t match up to something we’ve experienced before, within nanoseconds, the brain flags it as something new and something to give extra attention to. In particular, you experience a fast rise in dopamine, the brain chemical that not only is the way the brain experiences rewards and pleasure, it also enhances how we learn. In the face of something new, your brain essentially ‘highlights’ this new experience.
This might also help explain why you can be so enthusiastic as you set new resolutions for the new year…and why those best-laid plans often get set aside by mid-February. Because of the newness of, say, your workout routine, the new gym you join, the new workout clothes, for the first few times you engage in this goal, you’re getting an extra dopamine hit. But as time goes on, the routine becomes, well, routine. The workout clothes are familiar. The grind at the gym feels the same.
That gives us a great clue as to how to better achieve some of our fitness and nutrition goals; make it new. The habit can be consistent, but the elements around the habits can be infused with some brain highlighting excitement. Switch up which machines you’re working out on, or try a new running route each week. Create a new playlist for the month. When you keep a level of novelty, even in the midst of consistency, you’re helping your brain help you.
🤓 Better Memory
Because of the brain’s attention to new information or anything that is a novelty, the newness of something actually helps with memory. Now, of course, we’ve all had those times when someone introduced themselves and we forgot their names two seconds later. However, you likely remember their face, where you met them, and a host of other details, simply because this was the first time you met them, that they were new to you.
But here’s a side effect of experiencing something new that might just surprise you. When you encounter something new, it actually increases your memory of what happened right before and what happened after. Researchers have doubled down on this and have conducted studies in which they measured someone’s ability for learning in settings in which they encountered a novelty. They found that someone’s recall is increased in these situations.
How can you make that work for you? As you’re learning new material in a coaching session, as you’re working on your next certification for your job, insert something a little fresh. Maybe it’s a new song or scent you’ve been wanting to try, unrelated to what you’re working on learning, but novel all the same. Your brain may just reward you with greater recall. 3
🤸 Flexible Mind
In recent years, scientists have dedicated more research than ever before to what is known as the plasticity of the brain. Plasticity refers to the brain’s ability to adapt, grow, and create new neural connections. It was often assumed that the brain became somewhat fixed with age or an injury. The prevailing thought was that a child’s brain was rather supple in the early stages of development, but then after that window, it would be increasingly difficult to learn or to make changes to the brain.
While children do show an exceptional ability to learn and adapt in early stages of life, the idea that one’s brain becomes rigid or fixed simply isn’t true, according to the latest research. Patients are able to recover function after injury. The mind continues to grow and expand throughout life. Intentionally engaging with new material, new experiences, new senses, is a powerful way to leverage the brain’s capacity for plasticity. When you make it a practice to expose your brain to new things, you’re helping your brain stay in tiptop shape. There is even evidence to suggest that when you engage your brain this way, it reduces cognitive impairment by 31%. 4
Does all this mean that you need to ditch anything predictable or old or uninteresting to keep your brain healthy? Not at all. Another component of the human experience is the security and peace that comes from familiarity. If everything changes, our brains can be overwhelmed to the point of stress with too much that is unknown or strange.
That’s where the balance is in the way God created us. There are healthy, good things for us in the ‘faith of our fathers,’ in the things that remain the same throughout time and life. And, there are also good things for us when God places a new opportunity, relationship, or experience in our lives. It is good for our brains, and it’s good for our souls, keeping our reliance and trust in Him, rather than in our routines and traditions.
As 2026 launches, what are the ways in which you can both embrace the familiar and intentionally experience the new? You were made for both, and both can increase the vibrancy of your life. Remaining consistent in healthy habits, while adding new foods, workouts, prayer approaches, and conversations to your life can keep your brain firing on all cylinders. Make 2026 your year for appreciating the old while bringing in the new!
⛪ Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.
Romans 12:2 (NLT)
1 https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/consciousness-and-beyond/202309/the-staggering-complexity-of-the-human-brain
2 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15924857/
3 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0896627306004752
4 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9087407/