Brain Rules

At work, I sit at a desk for most of the day.  Meetings, meetings, and more meetings.  There is an importance to how we function day to day.  As humankind, we haven't always been this way.  The latest book I am reading is called Brain Rules.  It does a marvelous job in simplifying the best ways to get the most out of our brains. The book is split into twelve sections seen below in this sketch note I made in OneNote:

1. Survival: How our brain is a product of our evolution, and some traits it has adopted as a result
2. Exercise: How exercise improves our cognitive abilities and staves off dementia
3. Sleep: What the brain does during sleep, how people are biologically predisposed to various sleep patterns, and how to use naps to improve performance
4. Stress: The various biochemicals involved with stress and how to have less stressful relationships and life
5. Wiring: How neurons interact, develop, and function
6. Attention: How multitasking works (or doesn't work), the relationship between emotion and attention, and the need for relaxation to enhance focus
7. Memory: How memory formation works and the optimal way to remember things
8. Sensory Integration: How all of the senses work together to provide a cohesive experience, and how multiple senses can be utilized to improve learning
9. Vision: How vision trumps all of the other senses and can be used to create more effective presentations
10. Music: How music can cause improvements in cognition, be therapeutic, and how music training can improve cognition
11. Gender: Differences between the genders in physiology, socialization, emotional reactions, and memory.
12. Exploration: How the brain is constantly exploring and looking for novel things

I stated it does a marvelous job in simplifying how we can best get the most of our brains, but not through tips.  It is through principles, and these principles, allow you to apply these strategies flexibly to your situations. For example, I love all kinds of music.  I listen to music throughout the day.  But I am not a musician.  John Medina outlines what capabilities musicians have that help them identify emotions below:

My Perspective

Attention

The first section that resounds to me is attention.   I hadn’t made the connection to multi-tasking, and the ability to only pay attention to one thing at a time.  Makes me plan differently knowing that.  Add to this the layer of multi-charged events within a 10 minute timeframe, a dash of emotion, and you have a great recipe for something to remember.

Stress

This section intrigues me.  I love stress – the challenge of it.  I feel like I am at the height of what stress can do for me to perform.  There are times when I might spill over, but for the most part, I can deal with it. Some of it I think comes from a joy of problem solving.  

• "If the stress is not too severe, your brain performs better when it is stressed than when it is not stressed."
• "The perfect storm of occupational stress appears to be a combination of two factors: (1) a great deal is expected of you, and (2) you have no control over whether you will perform well.

These two excerpts from the book put into perspective what I love and also feel somewhat challenged in here at Omaha Public Schools.  There is great transformation happening, but not without some pain along the way.  It is important to understand the level of stress by which you can grow, but don't take on too much that you are hindered in the bandwidth of thoughts. 

Much of my stress comes from getting things done. By the way, getting things done is not really about getting things done. It’s about appropriate engagement. Many times I say to myself in moments of stress “I need more time.” Well guess what Einstein and Steve Jobs didn’t have more time. It’s not about time. It’s about space. Psychic bandwidth. Room to think. Room to get it simple. How much time does it take to have a good idea, make a good decision? ZERO.

If you have room in your mind, you can take three minutes for a powerful conversation. But if you don’t have the bandwidth in your mind, you can spend two hours playing games on your smart phone or engaging in social media. And if you don’t have the bandwidth, you take time fixing stuff. And that drains your creativity and you become stressed out.

Exercise

The third section that grabbed my attention was exercise.  I love to exercise.  I confess - I am addicted to it.  John Medina states that physical activity is cognitive candy.  The impact of exercise is system wide.  For me personally, it is about procedures and routines.  I get up at the same time and I work out - focusing on different routines every day.  

This particular section makes me wonder how do we incorporate more activity for our students during the day?  Is it looking at learning spaces differently like in #LT8Keys? Is it incorporating more transitions into the instructional hour?  I am not sure.  I just know for students to have the best chance at learning, they need to move more. 

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Brief Reflection

I really enjoyed this book.  There are several items I plan on incorporating daily to get the most out of my ability to remember, control stress, and perform at my best ability.  Here are some of the image creations that Eileen Heller and I created during this read: