Why Neuroplasticity Matters in Withdrawal

As a trauma-informed neuroplasticity-based recovery coach, I have a unique perspective on withdrawal and recovery. I’ve spent twenty years studying psychology, the nervous system, and ways to treat mental illness. Naturally, there have been many profound insights along the way. Still, one thing continued to reveal itself as a trustworthy, powerful agent of change and growth, no matter what modality, therapy, or orientation I explored: neuroplasticity.

It was my own time suffering and navigating withdrawal that I found myself in the unenviable position of exploring and testing some old hypotheses in psychology. Some things proved ineffective, while others were highly effective. Neuroplasticity, specifically somatic mindfulness and graded exposure-based neuroplasticity, truly saved my life. Not only did it save my life, but it reshaped it.

For the past decade, I’ve been working hard to promote fundamental, rational tools that can help us better ,navigate our tapers, mitigate risk of developing other conditions while vulnerable, rebuild, regrow, and heal from psych med injury. In this new space, The Science of Healing, I want to put my years of research to work and provide you all with some of the hard data and science behind the tools we used in school, and how they can be transformative to you.

Let’s begin at the very base of it all: Why Neuroplasticity Matters in Withdrawal.

My friends, benzodiazepine withdrawal can feel like the brain is damaged or deteriorating, or that we may never heal, but this is not what the science shows. Decades of research demonstrate that the nervous system is highly adaptive, constantly reorganizing, recalibrating, and healing through a process known as neuroplasticity.

Neuroplasticity is the brain’s ability to change its structure, connectivity, and function in response to experience.

This means the brain is fully capable of repairing disrupted circuits, building new pathways, weakening fear loops, and strengthening safety networks. Nothing in withdrawal is static. Everything is in motion, continually reshaping itself toward healing even as you read this.

Withdrawal temporarily disrupts GABAergic and glutamatergic communication, increases limbic reactivity, and reduces prefrontal regulation, but these states are reversible. Neuroplasticity is not an abstract idea. It is a measurable biological reality, and it is the engine of recovery from benzodiazepines.

Withdrawal Symptoms = Reversible Neuroplastic Dysregulation

During withdrawal, the brain moves through a period of functional turbulence:

• GABA-A receptor downregulation

• Glutamate hyperactivity

• Limbic overactivation (fear centers)

• Prefrontal-limbic decoupling

• Sensitization

• Dysregulation

• Trauma responses

These shifts generate the symptoms you know very well: panic, sensory amplification, derealization/dissociation, intrusive fear, insomnia, emotional swings, internal vibration and restlessness, and overwhelming fight-or-flight activation.

But the critical truth is:

These changes are functional, not structural.

They represent temporary miscommunication, not permanent injury.

There is no scientific evidence that benzo withdrawal causes irreversible brain damage.

Animal and human research show that GABA receptor density, synaptic strength, and stress circuits normalize over time, especially with environmental enrichment, learning, movement, and emotional regulation practices.

Withdrawal is best understood as a plastic opportunity, one where the brain is recalibrating, and plasticity-based practices accelerate stabilization.

You might be thinking, “But I’ve seen many people online talking about how long it took for them to heal, and some that still didn’t heal…”

The short answer to this highly complex observation is that they got stuck in their recovery for various reasons, or that other factors were at play. But permanent damage was not the explanation.

This reminds me of the era where everyone with anxiety or depression claimed they had a “chemical imbalance.” For years, this was regarded as hard science. Of course, we now know this isn’t true. Someday, the benzo community will come to realize the same thing about withdrawal and recovery.

But just because we have a better explanation doesn’t mean it reduces the seriousness or severity of the situation. This isn’t about neglecting validation, but framing things scientifically that also cracks the window open for hope.

Neuroplasticity Thrives on Repetition, Safety, and Experience

Neuroplasticity is not random. It follows reliable, well-studied rules. Let’s examine some of them below, as they’re helpful for us to remember.

Hebb’s Law

“Neurons that fire together wire together.”

• Fearful thinking strengthens fear circuits.

• Calm presence strengthens safety circuits.

This works both ways: for good connections and bad. You can even associate or wire together two abstract or unrelated things, such as the smell of sulfur and a rose. One just needs to stimulate both enough.

I’m reminded of an old client of mine who fell wildly in love with a woman who smoked cigarettes. He, himself, hated cigarettes. Nonetheless, because he loved her so much, he eventually grew to love the taste of cigarettes and the smell of ashtrays. Even he found it absolutely absurd and couldn’t understand it. Of course, the simple science here is that his brain positively linked the two things.

It’s a strange example, but there are many like this. Maybe you can think of some?

Use-Dependent Plasticity

(Circuits used → strengthen. Circuits ignored → weaken.)

This explains why avoidance reinforces symptoms, and why gentle exposure weakens them. In the field of neuroplasticity, you will often hear the phrase, “Use it or lose it.”

You might think of nerves like muscle fibers. The more you fire them, the stronger they get. The less you fire them, the weaker they become.

This is why spiralling in fear is so toxic to our recovery, because it only further wires together and strengthens symptom circuitry. It is also why we need to put ourselves in a positive healing bubble, focus on success, winning, and strategy, and reach for pleasurable stimuli.

The more we show leadership, the stronger those muscles become, and the weaker the Bear.

Experience-Dependent Plasticity

Daily emotional, cognitive, and sensory experiences continuously shape the brain. You will also hear a term in neuroplasticity called “self-directed plasticity.” As the name suggests, here we are actually driving plasticity willingly, with conscious, meaningful effort. It’s the intelligent art of gradually reshaping and growing the brain over time.

This is why our program begins with Morning Cognitive Reframing, deep-breathing mindfulness, and the Four Anchors of Love upon waking in the morning. It’s our first act of leadership and neuroplasticity. It combines emotional, cognitive, and sensory experiences all in one meaningful way.

It’s our way of first reaching and attempting to shift out of amygdala (bear) survival mode, into prefrontal cortex executive functioning mode. Many students fail to see the value in this and instead skip it. That’s a mistake. These exercises take about 2 or 3 minutes and can and should be done before we even get out of bed.

State-Dependent Learning

Simply put, calm moments encode differently from anxious moments.

Even five seconds of grounded breathing teaches the nervous system a new pattern.

This is why our program practices techniques such as breathwork, mindfulness, somatic grounding, movement, cognitive reframing, and graded exposure. These are not just coping tools. They are direct inputs into the brain’s rewiring system.

Every repetition is a vote for the nervous system you are building.

Anxiety Circuits Are Plastic & Can Be Rewired

The circuits disrupted by withdrawal are the same circuits that respond to plasticity-based interventions. They are also essentially the same circuits that very well may have led you to take the benzos in the first place. That matters immensely.

Research shows:

• Amygdala hyperactivity decreases with breathwork, mindfulness, and exposure (Goldin et al., 2012).

• Prefrontal cortex regulation improves with cognitive reframing and emotional labeling (Ochsner & Gross, 2005).

• Insula hypersensitivity decreases with interoceptive and somatic training (Paulus & Stein, 2010).

This means:

Your exercises aren’t random. They directly target the brain systems disrupted during withdrawal. And they directly rewire the circuits through daily, repetitive work.

Neuroplasticity Requires One Ingredient: Repetition in the Right Direction

Healing is not about intensity, force, or white-knuckling it.
It’s about consistency. Daily, steady, focused, consistency!

Small, repeated actions create long-term change.

Research shows:

• 5–20 minutes of daily practice can produce measurable neural restructuring (Tang et al., 2015; Lazar et al., 2005).

• Frequent, low-stress exposure to sensations reduces limbic overactivation.

• Repetition of safety signals gradually overrides fear circuits.

This is why Stage II (The New Foundation) and Stage III (The Montage) work so reliably.

You are teaching the brain new patterns through repetition, one moment at a time. It’s a delicate and nurturing approach toward helping the nervous system rebalance and regrow. And we need both, lulling and pushing.

In the early stages, lulling is the only way to begin and is of the utmost importance. In the later stages, without pushing, it is entirely possible to find yourself stuck at a certain place in your recovery.

For example, it might seem trivial not to be able to grocery shop or drive your car, but there’s a dynamic trickle-down effect.

The Bear never fully relearns safety and therefore remains, to a certain degree, hypervigilant.

That hypervigilance can keep you feeling as though you were stuck in BIND.

Neuroplasticity Counters the Withdrawal Myth of “Permanent Damage”

While fear-based communities often claim that benzo withdrawal causes irreversible harm, the science says otherwise:

• The brain continually forms and regenerates synaptic connections (Holtmaat & Svoboda, 2009).

• GABA receptor density adapts and rebalances over time (Koethe et al., 2005).

• Emotional regulation circuits remain plastic across the lifespan (Roberts et al., 2010).

• Sensory hypersensitivity decreases with exposure and safety learning (Merabet et al., 2008).

Healing is not just possible, but expected when the nervous system receives repeated signals of safety. Of course, people are often more complex, as are their conditions. Today, we are exploring core physiology, but it is also worth noting that we each have unique things we must work on.

For example, many people have things like obsessive rumination, OCD, health anxiety, trauma, depression, and various phobias. These will also need to be addressed, or else we risk sweeping them all under the rug of BIND, and disabling our ability to direct actual, lasting change.

I can tell you all very seriously that in my experience, I’ve never seen someone who couldn’t heal, but I’ve seen many who didn’t believe they could and therefore wouldn’t take the steps needed. They couldn’t get away from fear, and they went on to remain stuck in their Bear Cave. Now, that’s tragic.

Neuroplasticity Makes You the Leader, Not the Passenger

Another important concept to remember is that healing is not something the brain does to you.

It is something the brain does with you! We are not merely waiting for a broken limb to heal in time. We are the facilitators of the process.

Every practice becomes a message:

• “This sensation is safe.”

• “This moment is familiar enough.”

• “This fear can be approached.”

• “This symptom is not dangerous.”

• “This life is worth re-engaging.”

Neuroplasticity means you are not helpless.

You are an active participant in your rewiring.

Our recovery program provides the roadmap.
Your nervous system provides the machinery.
Your heart is the engine.
Your faith is the fuel.

Conclusion: Neuroplasticity Is the Engine of Recovery

Withdrawal feels chaotic because the brain is reshaping its networks, but reshaping is a sign of recovery, not regression. Healing follows consistent principles:

• Repetition rewires.

• Safety rewires.

• Movement rewires.

• Mindfulness rewires.

• Emotion rewires.

• Learning rewires.

• Hope rewires.

• Pleasure rewires.

• Daily rhythm rewires.

• Playfulness rewires.

• Acceptance rewires.

• Purpose rewires.

Every moment of practice, every breath, every reframed thought is helping build a new nervous system, one grounded in stability, resilience, and safety. And while it won’t happen overnight, it will happen because your nervous system follows the same primal functions and abilities as anyone else’s, no matter what your story is, no matter if you were cold-turkeyed off your medication, or if you were on an antidepressant, or if you were old, or young, or had genetic predispositions.

You. Will. Heal.

You. Can. Build. Neuroplasticity.

References

Ashton, H. (1994). Benzodiazepine withdrawal: outcome in 50 patients.

Buonomano, D. & Merzenich, M. (1998). Cortical plasticity and learning.

Goldin, P. et al. (2012). Mindfulness-based stress reduction and emotion regulation.

Holtmaat, A., & Svoboda, K. (2009). Experience-dependent structural synaptic plasticity.

Kleim, J., & Jones, T. (2008). Principles of experience-dependent neural plasticity.

Lader, M., & Morton, S. (1991). Benzodiazepine withdrawal and dependence.

Lazar, S. et al. (2005). Meditation experience increases cortical thickness.

Merabet, L. et al. (2008). Sensory reorganization through experience.

Ochsner, K., & Gross, J. (2005). The cognitive control of emotion.

Paulus, M., & Stein, M. (2010). Interoception in anxiety.

Tang, Y. et al. (2015). The neuroscience of mindfulness meditation.

Vinkers, C. & Olivier, B. (2012). Mechanisms of benzodiazepine tolerance.