Brain Rules (Updated and Expanded). John Medina
BRAIN RULES
BONUS MATERIAL
www.brainrules.net
Film featuring John Medina
Take a lively, 45-minute tour of the 12 original Brain Rules for home, work, and school—from “Exercise boosts brain power” to “Sleep well, think well.”
Videos guide you through parenting concepts
John Medina hosts fun videos on speaking in parentese, the cookie experiment, dealing with temper tantrums, and more. Plus, take our parenting quiz.
JOHN MEDINA is a developmental molecular biologist and research consultant. He is an affiliate professor of bioengineering at the University of Washington School of Medicine. He was the founding director of two brain research institutes: the Brain Center for Applied Learning Research, at Seattle Pacific University, and the Talaris Research Institute, a nonprofit organization originally focused on how infants encode and process information. Medina lives in Seattle, Washington, with his wife and two boys.
BRAIN RULES. Copyright © 2014 by John J. Medina.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. Requests for permission should be addressed to:
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P.O. Box 70525
Seattle, WA 98127-0525
U.S.A.
This book may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use. For information, please visit www.pearpress.com
SECOND EDITION
Edited by Tracy Cutchlow
Designed by Greg Pearson
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN-13: 978-0-99603-260-5
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To Joshua and Noah
Gratitude, my dear boys, for constantly reminding me that age is not something that matters unless you are cheese.
contents
Dumb things we do ~ The grump factor ~ Getting you in the loop ~ A brilliant survival strategy ~ Your amazing brain
Our brains love motion ~ The incredible test-score booster ~ Will you age like Jim or like Frank? ~ How oxygen builds roads for the brain
The brain doesn’t sleep to rest ~ Two armies at war in your head ~ How to improve your performance 34 percent in 26 minutes ~ Which bird are you? ~ Sleep on it!
Stress is good, stress is bad ~ Villains and heroes in the toxic-stress battle ~ Why the home matters to the workplace ~ Marriage intervention for happy couples
Wiring
Neurons slide, slither, and split ~ Experience makes the difference ~ Furious brain development not once, but twice ~ The Jennifer Aniston neuron
Attention
Emotion matters ~ Why there is no such thing as multitasking ~ We pay great attention to threats, sex, and pattern matching ~ The brain needs a break!
Memory
Memories are volatile ~ Details get splattered then pieced back together again ~ If you don’t repeat this within 30 seconds, you’ll forget it ~ Spaced repetition cycles are key to remembering
Sensory integration
Lessons from a nightclub ~ How and why all of our senses work together ~ Multisensory learning means better remembering ~ What’s that smell?
Vision
Playing tricks on wine tasters ~ You see what your brain wants to see, and it likes to make stuff up ~ Throw out your PowerPoint
Music
Bringing a man back to life ~ Listening and language skills ~ Fine-tuning emotion detection and empathy ~ Music as therapy
Gender
Sexing humans ~ The difference between little girl best friends and little boy best friends ~ Men favor gist when stressed; women favor details ~ A forgetting drug
Exploration
Babies are great scientists ~ Exploration is aggressive ~ Monkey see, monkey do ~ Curiosity is everything
Acknowledgments
The human brain evolved, too.
Exercise boosts brain power.
Sleep well, think well.
Stressed brains don’t learn the same way.
Every brain is wired differently.
We don’t pay attention to boring things.
Repeat