I thought “Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School” by John Medina was a pretty good book. The three key takeaways that I got from this book were the following:

1. While most people view food as the body and brain’s most critical resource (wrong – the body/brain can survive a few weeks without food) and water as the second most common response (wrong again – the body/brain can survive about a few days without water), the most critical resource is oxygen (the body/brain can survive only a few minutes without oxygen). As such, the best way to improve cognitive performance is to enhance the amount of oxygen delivered through the bloodstream. The corollary is also true – anything which reduces the amount of oxygen delivered through the bloodstream will degrade cognitive performance over the near and long term. There are several implications related to this that are worthy of strong consideration:

Will stress improve or reduce blood flow and cognitive performance? Well, over the near term, stress constricts blood vessels resulting in decreased blood flow. Chronic, long term stress results in the scarring of blood vessels and the build-up of plaque due to sticky substances adhering to and hardening the blood vessels – reducing blood flow permanently and raising the risk of strokes and heart attacks (as a side note: stress also depletes the immune system resulting in greater and lengthier illnesses). As such, anything we do to manage stress is very helpful over both the short and long term. Related to the implications of stress, one can imagine several other things which might produce similar effects. For example:

Stimulants such as drugs and even natural stimulants can cause some of the same effects. So, it would probably be wise to minimize these to the extent possible or eliminate them completely.

Depressants tend to slow down the heart and in turn would decrease the flow of oxygen delivered through the bloodstream. So, it would probably be wise to minimize these to the extent possible or eliminate them completely.

Unhealthy foods tend to promote the scarring of blood vessels and the build-up of plaque due to sticky substances adhering to and hardening the blood vessels – reducing blood flow permanently and raising the risk of strokes and heart attacks. So, it would probably be wise to minimize these to the extent possible or eliminate them completely.

There is no shortage of other scenarios we can imagine which could reduce the amount of oxygen delivered through the bloodstream and degrade cognitive performance. So, it’s worthwhile to contemplate these so that we can make healthier choices.

In sharp contrast to the above:

Physical exercise elevates the heart rate and creates new blood vessels deeper into the brain and body tissues resulting in substantial increases of oxygen delivered through the bloodstream. So, it would be wise to exercise regularly.

Doing things to keep yourself in a relaxed state does the opposite of stress in that it improves blood flow and cognitive performance and results in less scarring of blood vessels and the build-up of plaque. As such, anything we do which helps us manage stress and relax more can be very helpful over both the short and long term.

2. From other readings I’ve done, another factor which can come into play involves taking breaks from time to time when you feel mentally depleted and are craving unhealthy foods. The brain tends to chew up a lot of metabolic fuel (glucose and oxygen) but can become depleted over time. When this happens, people tend to get a strong craving for sugar and often give in to that craving. However, what people don’t realize is that even substituting healthier snacks, taking a short break, going for a short walk, performing much easier, low-stress activities (simple tasks, phone calls, etc.) or doing something to relax or uplift your mood would be enough to sustain you during those periods and allow you to get back to the complex tasks at hand. So, give this a try instead of attempting to push through it and giving into unhealthy temptations. You’ll get more done, do them better, and complete things sooner.

3. Sleep is very important. The brain remains active while we sleep. It processes, reviews, and organizes information, strengthens new learning, and performs problem solving activities. If sleep is interrupted, then we lose the benefit of these processes. So, the brain performs offline processing during the sleep cycle. It helps us to learn better, to retain information, and create solutions.

Related to the above, as a life coach, the following is the first step I usually give to people which can really help a lot: https://brighterdayslifecoaching.com/how-to-defeat-any-distress-without-dope-drinks-drugs-debt-or-doctors/

Here are the more complete set of the notes I took which might be helpful to some of you out there:

Of the 12 Brain Rules discussed, I thought the following were the most helpful and enlightening: Rule #1 (Exercise): Exercise boosts brain power, Rule #4 (Attention): We don’t pay attention to boring things, Rule #5 (Short-Term Memory): Repeat to remember, Rule #6 (Long-Term Memory): Remember to repeat, Rule #7 (Sleep): Sleep well, think well.

A lifetime of exercise results in large improvements in cognitive performance. Exercisers outperform sedentary people by a large degree. Couch potatoes can start aerobic exercise programs and improve their cognitive performance within a few months. If they stop the exercise program, then their cognitive performance will revert back to the previous levels. Just walking several times a week is enough to improve cognitive performance. 30 min of aerobic exercise three times a week is sufficient but a much greater cognitive benefit results if a strengthening program is added.

Your lifetime risk of dementia is cut in half (and risk of Alzheimer’s cut by 60%) if you perform aerobic exercise twice a week. If you do a 20 min walk each day you can cut your risk of having a stroke by 57%.

Physical exercise also helps in treating anxiety and depression – both immediately and over the long term.

Exercise provides your body and brain with greater access to oxygen and food. When we exercise, we increase blood flow which makes new blood vessels which penetrate deeper and deeper into the tissues of the body. This allows more access to the bloodstream’s goods and services including food distribution and waste disposal. The more you exercise, the more tissues you can feed and the more toxic waste you can remove. Likewise, exercise increases blood volume in the brain likely through new capillaries which allows more brain cells greater access to the blood’s food and haz-mat teams.

Exercise provides a steady increase in the oxygen supply to the brain which greatly improves cognitive performance. The improved cognitive performance will rapidly decline if the exercise program is stopped. Studies show that providing supplemental oxygen to people without exercise provides a similar cognitive improvement.

Consider incorporating exercise even during work by taking walks, using treadmills, and such.

In summary, exercise boosts brain power. So, to improve thinking performance, move.

The more attention brain pays to a given stimulus, the stronger the information will be encoded. Better attention always equals better learning and retention. It improves accuracy, retention, and clarity in writing, math, and such.

Attentional ability is not capable of multi-tasking. We simply cannot process attention-rich inputs simultaneously.

Studies show that a person who is interrupted takes 50% longer to accomplish a task and up to 50% more errors are made. If a person is familiar with the tasks, the completion time and errors are much less than if the tasks are unfamiliar.

One study showed that simply reaching for an object while driving a car multiplies the risk of a crash or near-crash by 9 times.

The ideal single topic presentation or module of instruction would only last 10 minutes (each of which would only cover a single core concept – always large, always general, always filled with “gist,” and always explainable in one minute – the remaining 9 minutes would provide a detailed description of that single general concept (each detail could be easily traced back to the general concept with minimal intellectual efforts)) So, five topics would take 50 minutes.

The brain processes meaning before detail. So provide the gist or the general ideal first. If you do, you will see a 40% improvement in understanding.

The 10-minute limit is important because audience attention will plummet to near zero right around the 10-minute mark.

The brain doesn’t pay attention to boring things.

Retrieval may best be improved by replicating the conditions surrounding the initial coding. This also goes for mood. Learn something while you are sad and you will recall it better if, at retrieval, you are somehow suddenly made sad.

The quality of the encoding stage – those earliest moments of learning – is one of the single greatest predictors of later learning success. The more handles (associations, etc.) one creates at the moment of learning, the more likely the information is to be accessed at a later date.

The more a learner understands the meaning of the presented information, the stronger the encoding process. So, make sure you understand exactly what that information means and if you are trying to drive information into someone else’s brain, make sure they know what it means. This has a negative corollary. If you don’t know what the information means, don’t try to memorize and pray the meaning will somehow magically reveal itself to you in the future.

A great way to communicate meaning in such a fashion that it improves learning and understanding is to use relevant real-world examples such that main learning points are accompanied with meaningful experiences.

Studies show that the greater the number of examples used, the more likely the information is to be remembered. And the more personal an example, the more richly it becomes encoded and the more readily it is remembered. Why do examples work? They take advantage of the brain’s natural employment of pattern matching. Information is more readily processed if it can be immediately associated with information already present in the learner’s brain. Providing examples is the cognitive equivalent of adding more handles. Providing examples makes the information better encoded and better learned and retrieved.

The events that happen the first time you are exposed to a given information stream play a disproportionately greater role in your ability to accurately retrieve it at a later date.

If you are trying to get information across to someone, your ability to create a compelling introduction may be the more important single factor. You can lose your audience in the first 30 seconds of a presentation if you do not make it compelling and hold their attention.

Memories are not stored as video replications of events. They are stored as fragments. Once one fragment is retrieved then based on inference and the partial evidence available, a reconstruction of what actually experienced is created. So, the accuracy of memories is questionable. Because the mind tends to fill in missing gaps – relying on partial fragments, inferences, outright guesswork, and often (most disturbingly) incorporates other memories not related to the actual event. It is truly reconstructive in nature and done all in the service of creating a coherent story. Frequently, the brain inserts false information to make a coherent story.

Studies show that memories later in life bear very little resemblance to the ones remembered earlier in life. For example, in one study only a third of adults recalled any physical punishment such as spanking – however, 90% of their adolescent selves answered in the affirmative.

The brain tries to make sense of the world by connecting new information to previously encountered information. As such, new information can become intertwined with past memories as if they were encountered together.

Re-exposure strengthens encoding, storage, and retrieval. So, talking about something you witnessed with friends and family and such strengthens memory. Research indicates that thinking about or talking about an event immediately after it happens enhances memory for that event. It is one of the reasons it is important for witnesses to recall information as soon as possible after an event occurred.

It is important to regularly re-expose yourself to information you want to retrieve later. Thus, the way to make long-term memory more reliable is to incorporate new information gradually and repeat it in timed intervals.

Our brains only give us an approximate view of reality, because they mix new information with past memories and store them together as one.

Studies show that 26-45 min naps improve performance by 34% or more lasting more than 6 hours.

Studies indicate that sleep can boost learning substantially. For example, taking a 12 hour break has shown to produce 20% better results. That increases to 60% if it happens after an 8+ hour sleep. And no matter how many times the experiment is run, the sleep group consistently outperforms the non-sleep group about 3 to 1.

Studies show that if healthy 30-year olds are sleep-deprived for six days (averaging about 4 hours of sleep per night) parts of their body chemistry soon revert to that of a 60-year old. And if they are allowed to recover, it will take them about a week to get back to their 30-year old systems.

The bottom line is that sleep loss means mind loss. Sleep loss hurts attention, memory, mood, quantitative skills, logical reasoning ability, and general math knowledge. Eventually, sleep loss affects manual dexterity including motor control.

The brain remains active while we sleep. It processes and reviews and organizes information and new learning. If sleep is interrupted then we lose the benefit of the mental review and organizing processes. So, the mind is performing offline processing during the sleep cycle. It helps us to learn better, to retain information, and create solutions. The brain shows rigorous rhythmic activity when we sleep – perhaps replaying what was learned that day or seeking solutions for problems.

Stress can boost cardiovascular performance in the short term but over the long term, too much adrenaline stops regulating surges in blood pressure which creates sandpaper-like rough spots on the insides of blood vessels. The spots turn into scars which allow sticky substances in the blood to build up – clogging the arteries. If it happens in the blood vessels of your heart, you experience a heart attack. If it happens in your brain, you get a stroke. As such, people who experience chronic stress have an elevated risk of heart attacks and strokes. Chronic stress also affects our immune system which cripples the ability to fight off infections and illness. Studies show that stressed individuals were three times as likely to suffer from the common cold.

Chronic stress hurts our ability to learn. One study showed that adults with high stress levels performed 50% worse on certain cognitive tests (such as problem solving) than adults with low stress.

Stress hormones affect our brain. One of the effects of prolonged stress is depression – the debilitating kind. The kind of depression that causes 800k people a year to attempt suicide. Many people who feel depressed feel there is no way out of their depression and that life’s shocks are permanent and things will never get better. Even when there is a known way out – there is no perception of it.

At some point stress becomes toxic (the allostatic load).

Your home life greatly impacts your abilities and performance outside of the home whether work or school. Because it greatly affects the ability to concentrate and focus as well as physical health. Absenteeism and truancy often results. Those who live in hostile environments (especially children) are at much greater risk of experiencing severe mental health issues such as depression and anxiety. Such mental health problems can wreak havoc on cognitive processes. More stress in the family cause more stress at work which in turn gets brought home again. As such, stability of the home is essential – especially for children.

Under chronic stress, adrenaline creates scars in your blood vessels that can cause a heart attack or stroke, and cortisol damages some of the brain cells, crippling abilities to learn and remember. The worst kind of stress is the feeling of having no control over the problem – you feel helpless.

If information is presented orally, people remember about 10%, tested 72 hours after exposure. That figure goes up to 65% if you add a picture. One reason text is less capable than pictures is the brain sees words as lots of tiny pictures.

Women tend to remember the emotional details. Men typically remember the gist.  

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