Bitesized Strategies: Update the Brain's Prediction

Julie Legg explores how many of our emotional reactions (especially anxiety and hesitation) are not about the present moment at all, but are driven by old predictions the brain learned in the past.

Drawing on insights from Brian DesRoches, the episode introduces the concept of memory reconsolidation, the brain’s ability to update outdated emotional patterns when it experiences something different from what it expects.

Rather than trying to force change through willpower or positive thinking, this approach invites curiosity. By noticing when the brain is predicting a negative outcome and gently creating new, contradictory experiences, we can begin to rewrite those internal patterns.

It’s a simple but profound shift: you are not your reactions — you are witnessing your brain’s predictions. And those predictions can change.

 Key Points from the Episode

•  Anxiety is often based on past predictions, not present reality
•  The brain is constantly scanning and predicting outcomes 
•  Many predictions are formed in childhood or repeated experiences
•  These predictions show up as feelings, not just thoughts
•  The “foot on the gas, foot on the brake” feeling is a prediction conflict 
•  Change happens through memory reconsolidation (updating emotional learning) 
•  A mismatch between expectation and reality is what rewires the brain 
•  You don’t need willpower — you need new experiences
•  Small, safe contradictions to predictions are enough to create change 
•  Repetition strengthens new neural pathways 
•  ADHDers often carry predictions like “I’m too much” or “I’m not enough” 
•  These patterns are learned and therefore can be overridden with updated data

Links

BRIAN DESROCHES S2E47: https://adhdifference.nz/s2e47-the-hidden-neuroscience-behind-self-sabotage-guest-brian-desroches/

Thanks for listening. 

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Transcript

What if the anxiety you feel isn't actually about any particular moment at all? Your brain might be reacting to something that's not even happening anymore. What if the patterns you've been calling you are actually just predictions your brain has learned years ago?

Welcome to ADHDifference Strategies. I'm Julie Legg, your host, author of The Missing Piece, and an ADHD advocate. Over the years, I've had the privilege of speaking with incredible guests, unpacking real life strategies, mindsets, and tools for navigating ADHD. This bite-size series brings those insights together. Short, practical, and ready to use.

There's something really important to understand about how your brain works, especially if you live with ADHD. And this is something that came up in conversation with Brian DesRoches in season 2. I'm calling this strategy literally Update the Brain's Prediction, and it's one of those ideas that can quietly change how you see yourself and your reactions. Before we get into it, I'm going to let Brian explain part of this in his own words. 

"If I introduce to the brain information that contradicts what it predicts is going to happen because of what I learned will happen in the past and the brain is predicting it creates anxiety and I introduce a prediction correction to the brain. The brain recognizes the difference, the mismatch. And because it is an updating process, it learns, adapts, and it predicts. It will then unlock or unwire that neural network. Quite literally unwire it. It stays open for 5 hours during which time I can feed it the truth." 

Your brain is always predicting constantly. It's scanning situations, people, conversations, opportunities, and quietly asking what's going to happen here. And based on past experiences, it makes a call. The thing is, a lot of those predictions were formed a long time ago, often in childhood, often through repetition, and often through experiences that weren't exactly kind or understanding. So over time, your brain may have learned things like speaking up leads to embarrassment, making mistakes leads to shame, or being yourself leads to rejection. Not consciously, but implicitly. These hidden memories have knotted themselves into some kind of truth. And those predictions don't just sit there as thoughts. They show up as feelings. anxiety, hesitation, that strange push-pull feeling where parts of you wants to go forward and another part hits the brakes. That one foot on the gas, one foot on the brake feeling. 

For a long time, psychology believed those emotional patterns were fixed, that once they were formed, you could only manage them. But neuroscience tells us something very different. The brain can update its emotional learning through a process called memory reconsolidation. The brain can actually revise old prediction when it experiences something that doesn't match what it expected. So if your brain predicts rejection and instead you're accepted, that creates a mismatch. And that mismatch is where change happens because your brain goes, "Wait, that's not what I thought would happen." And in that moment, it unlocks this neural network and it's ready for an update. So the first step is simply noticing. Notice those moments when you feel stuck, where you want to speak but don't, where you want to try but hesitate. When something feels bigger or scarier than it logically should, and that's your brain running an old prediction, then ask yourself, what does my brain think is going to happen here? You might hear something like, I'll look stupid. They won't like me. I'll mess this up. And when you hear it, instead of treating it like truth, treat it like a prediction. 

And the next step is where the shift happens. Look for opportunities to gently contradict that prediction. Not in a forced or overwhelming way, but in small, manageable ways. You speak up and someone listens. You share an idea and it's welcomed. You try something and nothing bad happens. Even something simple as accepting a compliment without deflecting it. Each of these moments gives your brain new data. And your brain is incredibly responsive to experience. When it sees that the mismatch between what it expected and what actually happened, it starts to update. And the key is you don't have to force the change. You don't have to override the feeling and you don't have to think your way out of it. You just need to create the conditions for your brain to learn something new and then repeat it because repetition strengthens the update and over time that old prediction starts to weaken. the break starts to lift and the thing that once felt hard starts to feel neutral or even easy. 

I think this is one of the most powerful shifts for ADHD adults because so many of us have grown up believing there's something wrong with us that we're too much, we're not enough, we're too loud, too scattered, too emotional. But often what we're actually seeing is a brain that's learned certain predictions based on past experiences and has simply been running them ever since. So the question becomes, what if those patterns aren't who you are, but just what your brain learns? And if your brain learn them, it can learn something new. So the next time you feel hesitation, that anxiety that doesn't quite match the situation, pause, get curious, ask, "What is my brain predicting will happen?" And then gently give it the chance to be wrong because in that moment, you're not just pushing through the discomfort, you're updating the story. 

A big thanks again to Brian DesRoches for sharing the strategy and for being part of the broader ADHDifference conversation. If you'd like to hear more from that episode, head over to our main series. You'll be looking for season 2, episode 47 to hear more of his ADHD insights on neuroscience. Links are in the show notes. Thank you for tuning in. And for more practical tools for beautifully different brains, hit the subscribe button.