Start exercising couch and desk

potatoes and their brains benefit.

Even couch potatoes who fidget
There’s a direct link between
show increased benefit over those
exercise and brain power.
who do not.
Our brains perform at their best
when we are in motion.
Babies are the model of how we Solving problems, maintaining
observation learn—not by passive reaction to attention, and inhibiting emotional
hypothesis the environment but by active impulses.
testing through:
experiment The desire to explore never leaves Exercise improves “executive function” All it takes for your brain to benefit
us despite the classrooms and is aerobic exercise 2-3 times a
conclusion
cubicles we are stuffed into. week.
Babies methodically do
experiments on objects, for For millions of years we walked 12 miles a day.
example, to see what they will do. Exploration - Rule #12: We Today we sit in cars, couches,
Exercise - Rule #1: Exercise Sitting is not “brain friendly.”
are powerful and natural cubicles, and classrooms.
For 20 percent of their time, boosts brain power.
employees may go where their explorers. We think best when we are moving.
mind asks them to go.
Exercise improves cardiovascular
The proof is in the bottom line: fully fitness, which reduces the risk for
50 percent of new products, Google takes to heart the power of exploration. diseases like heart attacks and
including Gmail and Google News, stroke.
came from “20 percent time.” The greatest predictor of
successful aging is the presence It improves your strength and
or absence of a sedentary lifestyle. balance, reduces your risk for
Mental health professionals have many types of cancer, bolsters
known for years about sex-based your immune system, and buffers
differences in the type and severity against toxic effects of stress.
of psychiatric disorders.
Take a call while walking, hold a
Males are more severely afflicted It’s time to integrate exercise into walking meeting, or go for a walk
by schizophrenia than females. our 8 hours at work or school. at lunch.
By more than 2 to 1, women are
more likely to get depressed than
men, a figure that shows up just It is designed to solve problems
after puberty and remains stable What’s different? related to surviving in an unstable
for the next 50 years. outdoor environment and to do so
in nearly constant motion (to keep
Males exhibit more antisocial behavior. you alive long enough to pass your
Females have more anxiety. genes on).
Most alcoholics and drug addicts are male. We were not the strongest on the
The brain is a survival organ. planet but we developed the
Most anorexics are female.
strongest brains, the key to our
When researcher Larry Cahill survival.
showed them slasher films, men
Gender - Rule #11: Male and
fired up the amygdale in their female brains are different. Our ability to solve problems, learn
brain’s right hemisphere, which is from mistakes, and create
responsible for the gist of an event. alliances with other people helps
us survive.
Their left was comparatively silent. The strongest brains survive, not
Survival - Rule #2: The the strongest bodies. We took over the world by learning
Women lit up their left amygdale, Men and women handle acute to cooperate and forming teams
the one responsible for details.
human brain evolved, too.
stress differently. with our neighbors.
Having a team that simultaneously
Relationships helped us survive in
understood the gist and details of a
Our ability to understand each the jungle and are critical to
given stressful situation helped us
other is our chief survival tool. surviving at work and school today.
conquer the world.
Emotions are useful. If a student feels misunderstood
because the teacher cannot
They make the brain pay attention. Men and women process certain If someone does not feel safe with connect with the way the student
These differences are a product of emotions differently. a teacher or boss, he or she may learns, the student may become
complex interactions between not perform as well. isolated.
nature and nurture.
There is no greater anti-brain
environment than the classroom
Hear a piece of information, and and cubicle.
three days later you'll remember
10% of it.
We are incredible at remembering pictures. We used to think there were just 7
Add a picture and you'll remember 65%. categories of intelligence.
What YOU do and learn in life
Our brain sees words as lots of physically changes what your brain But categories of intelligence may
tiny pictures, and we have to looks like – it literally rewires it. number more than 7
identify certain features in the Pictures beat text as well, in part billion—roughly the population of
letters to be able to read them. because reading is so inefficient the world.
for us.
That takes time. Every student’s brain, every
Perhaps because it's how we've employee’s brain, every
always apprehended major No two people have the same customer’s brain is wired
threats, food supplies and brain, not even twins. differently.
Vision - Rule #10: Vision
reproductive opportunity. Why is vision such a big deal to us?
trumps all other senses. The current system of education
It’s text-based (nearly 40 words per ignores it by having grade
slide), with six hierarchical levels of structures based on age.
chapters and subheads—all Businesses such as Amazon are
words. Wiring - Rule #3: Every You can either accede to it or ignore it. catching on to mass customization
Professionals everywhere need to brain is wired differently. (the Amazon homepage and the
know about the incredible products you see are tailored to
Toss your PowerPoint your recent purchases).
inefficiency of text-based
presentations.
information and the incredible The brains of school children are
effects of images. just as unevenly developed as
Burn your current PowerPoint their bodies.
presentations and make new ones. Regions of the brain develop at
Our school system ignores the fact
different rates in different people.
that every brain is wired differently.
Your head crackles with the We wrongly assume every brain is the same.
perceptions of the whole world,
sight, sound, taste, smell, touch, Our senses work together so it is a neuron lurking in your head that
energetic as a frat party. important to stimulate them! Most of us have a “Jennifer is stimulated only when Jennifer
Brain Rules: 12 Aniston” neuron Aniston is in the room.
If you're tested on the details of a Principles for
movie while the smell of popcorn is Surviving and
wafted into the air, you'll remember Smell is unusually effective at Thriving at Work, Our previous experience predicts
10-50% more. evoking memory. where we should pay attention.
Home, and School
Culture matters too.
When you walk into Starbucks, the What we pay attention to is
profoundly influenced by memory. Whether in school or in business,
first thing you smell is coffee. Sensory Integration - Rule these differences can greatly effect
They have done a number of Smell is really important to business. #9: Stimulate more of the how an audience perceives a
things over the years to make sure senses. given presentation.
that’s the case.
Can I eat it?
Those in multisensory Regardless of who you are, the
brain pays a great deal of attention Will it eat me?
environments always do better
than those in unisensory We pay attention to things like to these questions: Can I mate with it?
environments. emotions, threats and sex. Will it mate with me?
They have more recall with better The learning link. Have I seen it before?
resolution that lasts longer, evident
even 20 years later. We can talk and breathe, but when
The brain is not capable of it comes to higher level tasks, we
multi-tasking. just can’t do it.
The brain is not designed for long
term stress when you feel like you Attention - Rule #4: We The brain is a sequential processor
have no control.
don't pay attention to and large fractions of a second are
The saber-toothed tiger ate you or boring things. consumed every time the brain
you ran away but it was all over in switches tasks.
less than a minute. Driving while talking on a cell
phone is like driving drunk. This is why cell-phone talkers are
If you have a bad boss, the a half-second slower to hit the
saber-toothed tiger can be at your Your brain is built to deal with brakes and get in more wrecks.
door for years, and you begin to stress that lasts about 30 seconds.
deregulate. Walk into any office and you’ll see
people sending e-mail, answering
If you are in a bad marriage, the their phones, Instant Messaging,
saber-toothed tiger can be in your and on MySpace—all at the same
bed for years, and the same thing Workplaces and schools actually time.
occurs. encourage this type of
multi-tasking. Research shows your error rate
You can actually watch the brain shrink. goes up 50% and it takes you
It damages memory and executive function. twice as long to do things.

It can hurt your motor skills.
When you are stressed out over a
long period of time it disrupts your
immune response.
You get sicker more often.
It disrupts your ability to sleep.
Stress - Rule #8: Stressed So the always online organization
brains don't learn the same When you’re always online you’re is the always unproductive
Stress damages virtually every always distracted. organization.
way.
kind of cognition that exists.
Which means, your brain can only
handle a 7-digit phone number.

You get depressed a lot. If you want to extend the 30

The human brain can only hold
seconds to a few minutes or even
about seven pieces of information
If you want your kid to get into The emotional stability of the home an hour or two, you will need to
for less than 30 seconds!
Harvard, go home and love your is the single greatest predictor of consistently re-expose yourself to
spouse. academic success. the information.
Memories are so volatile that you
The same brain you have at home have to repeat to remember.
is the same brain you have at work
or school. Many of us have trouble
The stress you are experiencing at remembering names.
You have one brain.
home will affect your performance If at a party you need help
at work, and vice versa. Improve your memory by remembering Mary, it helps to
elaborately encoding it during its repeat internally more information “Mary is wearing a blue dress and
initial moments. about her. my favorite color is blue.”
It is almost unbelievably active!
It’s possible that the reason we It may seem counterintuitive at first
When we’re asleep, the brain is not resting at all. but study after study shows it
need to sleep is so that we can
learn. improves your memory.
Short-Term Memory - Rule In partnership with the University
Loss of sleep hurts attention,
executive function, working #5: Repeat to remember. of Washington and Seattle Pacific
memory, mood, quantitative skills, University, Medina tested this Brain
logical reasoning, and even motor Sleep must be important because Rule in real classrooms of 3rd
dexterity. we spend 1/3 of our lives doing it! graders.
They were asked to repeat their
It changes with age, gender, multiplication tables in the
pregnancy, puberty, and so much afternoons.
more. We still don’t know how much we need!
The classrooms in the study did
Ever feel tired at 3PM? significantly better than the
Brain Rules in the classroom. classrooms that did not have the
That’s because your brain really repetition.
wants to take a nap.
Sleep - Rule #7: Sleep well, think well. If brain scientists get together with
There's a battle raging in your teachers and do research, we may
head between two armies. be able to eliminate need for
Each army is made of legions of homework since learning would
brain cells and biochemicals – one Napping is normal. take place at school, instead of the
desperately trying to keep you home.
awake, the other desperately trying
to force you to sleep. Not minutes, hours, or days but years.
At 3PM, 12 hours after the What you learn in first grade is not
midpoint of your sleep, all your It takes years to consolidate a memory.
completely formed until your
brain wants to do is nap. sophomore year in high school.
In one study, a 26-minute nap Medina’s dream school is one that
improved NASA pilots’ Taking a nap at 3PM might make repeats what was learned, not at
performance by 34 percent. you more productive. home, but during the school day, Our schools are currently designed
90-120 minutes after the initial so that most real learning has to
It just doesn’t make sense. Don’t schedule important meetings at 3pm. Long-Term Memory - Rule learning occurred. occur at home.
#6: Remember to repeat.
Repeated exposure to information
/ in specifically timed intervals /
provides the most powerful way to
How do you remember better? fix memory into the brain.

But if you want to remember,

Forgetting allows us to prioritize events. remember to repeat.

sChVECji_Brain-Rules-12-Principles-for-Surviving-and-Thriving-at-Work-Home-and-School.mmap - 17/08/2011 - Dan Taylor