TOP 14 facts about brain function

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Molecular biologist John Medina studies genes that influence brain development and our psyche. His talent is to talk about complex things in a simple way. Here are some interesting thoughts from the scientist's book "The Rules of the Brain", published by the publishing house "Mann, Ivanov and Ferber".

1) The existing educational system is based on the expectation that learning outcomes should be achieved by a certain age. Needless to say, the brain is completely indifferent to this, I think. Students of the same age have different intellectual abilities.

2) If a person does not feel safe around a teacher or leader, he will not be able to work well. Business success depends, in part, on the boss-employee relationship.

3) Memory is characterized by four stages: memorization (or coding), preservation, reproduction and forgetting. The information that enters the head is instantly divided into fragments, which are transmitted for storage in various areas of the cerebral cortex. Most of the data disappears from memory within a minute after perception, but the one that survives this period will become fixed over time. You can increase the chances of remembering by simulating the conditions under which information first came to a person.

4) The brain is constantly in a state of war between cells and chemicals that try to send you to sleep, and cells and chemicals that keep you awake. The activity of neurons during sleep is extremely high and rhythmic - possibly due to the reproduction of information received during the day. The need for rest varies from person to person, but the need for midday sleep is common to everyone. Lack of sleep negatively affects attention, purposefulness, working memory, mood, logical thinking, and even motor skills.

5) The body's defense system - the release of adrenaline and cortisone - is designed to trigger an immediate response to a serious, but short-term threat to life. Chronic stress, such as an unfavorable home environment, has a devastating effect on this system.

In addition, under constant stress, adrenaline scarring blood vessels, which can cause heart attack or stroke, and cortisone destroys cells in the hippocampus (the region of the brain responsible for memory), impairing the ability to learn and memorize. The greatest stress is caused by a feeling of lack of control over the situation, that is, a feeling of helplessness.

6) The centers of attention in the brain can only focus on one object at a time. No multitasking! The brain is a sequential processor that cannot do two things at once. Business and the education system extol multitasking, but research provides strong evidence that this approach decreases productivity and increases errors. Try dividing your day into time slots so that you don't get in the way (turn off your email, phone, and messaging software) and see how much more you've done.

7) If listeners start yawning after ten minutes of a lecture or presentation, then they certainly do not need additional information about the same subject. Otherwise, they will become like geese that choke on food, unable to digest it. You can bring them back to their attention with emotional clues, such as a pertinent anecdote or case study.

8) According to research results, if a person is distracted, then he will need one and a half times more time to complete the task. And the number of his mistakes will increase by the same amount.

9) Stress at work is caused by a combination of two factors: the expectation of good results and the inability to control what you do.

10) Our brains were made to walk 19 kilometers a day! To improve your mental capacity - move. Exercise provides blood to the brain, delivering glucose for energy consumption and oxygen to cleanse toxic particles. It also stimulates the production of a protein that helps build neural connections. Aerobic exercise twice a week cuts your risk of mental impairment in half and reduces your chance of developing Alzheimer's disease by 60%.

11) Although the brain makes up only 2% of the mass of the human body, it uses about 20% of the energy consumed by the entire body - ten times more than one would think. When the brain is working at full strength, it consumes more energy per unit weight of all tissues than the quadriceps muscle during training.

12) One company has had amazing results when researching the effect of odors on their workflow. The aroma of chocolate emanating from the vending machine increased its sales by 60%. This is motivation! The company also installed a waffle aroma generator near the ice cream shop (it was located inside a large hotel and was hard to find).

Sales were up 50% and the term “scent ad” was coined to describe the technique. Welcome to the world of sensory branding! “You can't just use a pleasant scent in the hope that it will work,” says scientist Eric Spangenberg, who works in the field. "It has to be right." Starbucks employees, for example, are not even allowed to wear perfume during business hours because the scent mixes with the coffee aroma, which is supposed to attract potential customers.

13) Vision is more important than other senses, a good half of the brain's resources is spent on it. What we see is what the brain commands us to see, and the accuracy of the reproduced picture is far from 100%. Visual information is better remembered and reproduced than printed text or spoken language.