Brain Rules

One lone tree on my walk to work on the weekend still has its leaves. This is part of my save time working out - walk to work program.

I recently read a book by John Medina called, "Brain Rules -- 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School".

The book started very interestingly with the first rule being exercise to boost brain power where he gave lots of examples of how exercise helps brain function. He also dumped all over our school and workplace set up which encourages no activity so low brain function. Since I am a health guy and believe in exercise, I really resonated with that idea.




The book included a DVD that was about 40 minutes long. Since I had been inspired about the exercise I watched the DVD while I was on my treadmill while trying to read the rest of the book. Of course, one of Medina's rules is that multitasking does not work so I stopped reading the book and just watched the DVD while I was walking on the treadmill (not running). I have blogged on the myth of multi-tasking before. I don't think walking counts as multi-tasking because the one task (walking) is an automatic task.

Since I want to know how to learn faster and better and more easily, I enjoyed the book. Two of the 12 rules related to memory. For short or long term memory we need to repeat things a few times to ourselves -- repetition helps.

Of course, no book on the brain would be complete without a rule on sleep. The obvious gist is to sleep well -- think well.

He also talked about the negative impact of stress which is largely an inappropriate reaction to things. When you can understand that it is just simply a inappropriate reaction, you can deal with it so that it does not become stressful.

He talked about remembering more by stimulating more senses and how we remember more when things are emotionally charged and vision has the strongest sense.

His finally rule was exploration -- we are powerful and natural explorers. Curiosity is good. I like that rule since I am naturally curious and naturally a learner (although perhaps too focused on self-development and business).

I recommend the book. Its a good read.

And business quote for the day:

"Tough times never last but tough people do" (Robert H. Schuller)