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John Medina

John Medina Books

Molecular Biologist

Brain Rules

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“Why is it important to forget? Forgetting plays a vital role in our ability to function for a deceptively simple reason. Forgetting allows us to prioritise. Anything irrelevant to our survival will take up wasteful cognitive space if we assign it the same priority as events critical to our survival.”

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Book:Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School
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“A reminder to exercise and drink plenty of water: Cellular chemicals greedily tear the molecular structure of glucose apart to extract its sugary energy. This energy extraction is so violent that atoms are literally ripped asunder in the process. As in any manufacturing process, such fierce activity generates a fair amount of toxic waste. In the case of food, this waste consists of a nasty pile of excess electrons shredded from the atoms in the glucose molecules. Left alone, these electrons slam into other molecules within the cell transforming them into one of the most toxic substances known to humankind. They are called free radicals. If not quickly corralled, they will wreck havoc on the innards...causing mutations in your very DNA. The reason you don't die of electron overdose is that the atmosphere is full of breathable oxygen. The main function of oxygen is to act like an efficient electron absorbing sponge. At the same time the blood is delivering foodstuffs to your tissues, it is also carrying those oxygen sponges. Any excess electrons are absorbed by the sponges, and after a bit of molecular alchemy, are transformed into equally hazardous but now fully transportable CO2. The blood is carried back to your lungs where the CO2 leaves the blood and you breathe it out... keeping the food you eat from killing you. This is why blood has to be everywhere inside you serving as both wait staff and hazmat team. Any tissue without blood is going to starve to death, your brain included.”

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Book:Brain Rules
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“Are you a lark, an owl or a hummingbird? Lark, also called early chronotype, is someone who does usually wake up very early. They are most active during morning around 6:00 am. Approximately 10% of people are larks. Owl, also called late chronotype, is someome who does usually wake up very late. They are most active in the evening around 6:00 pm. They usually drink a lot of coffee and accumulate a massive sleep debt as they go through life. Approximately 10% of people are owls. The rest, around 80% of people, are hummingbirds. Some hummingbirds are more larkish, some more owlish and some are in between.”

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Book:Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School
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“Is there something to the notion "Let me sleep on it."? Mountains of data says there is. For example, Mendeleyev - the creator of the Periodic Table of Elements - says that he came up with this idea in his sleep. Contemplating the nature of the universe while playing Solitaire one evening, he nodded off. When he awoke, he knew how all the atoms in the universe were organised, and he promptly created his famous table. Interestingly, he organised the atoms in repeating groups of seven, just the way you play Solitaire.”

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Book:Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School
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“Lark, also called early chronotype, is someone who does usually wake up very early. They are most active during morning around 6:00 am. Approximately 10% of people are larks. Owl, also called late chronotype, is someome who does usually wake up very late. They are most active in the evening around 6:00 pm. They usually drink a lot of coffee and accumulate a massive sleep debt as they go through life. Approximately 10% of people are owls. The rest, around 80% of people, are hummingbirds. Some hummingbirds are more larkish, some more owlish and some are in between.”

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Book:Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School
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“The brain processes meaning before detail. Providing the gist, the core concept, first was like giving a thirsty person a tall glass of water. And the brain likes hierarchy. Starting with general concepts naturally leads to explaining information in a hierarchical fashion. You have to do the general idea first. And then you will see that 40 percent improvement in understanding.”

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Author:John Medina
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“Our ability to adapt came from our East African birthplace, a meteorologically unstable place. If you couldn't adapt, you'd be dead. But once you've found a solution, there is no need to continue the adaptive behavioral parrying, which is bioenergetically very expensive to maintain. We are built to find answers, then hang on to them as long as we can.”

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“Historically, very few discoveries were made out of thin air. Most of the greatest insights depended upon the intellectual ecology in which the scientists lived. A certain critical mass of "new findings" occurred, and bright people all over the world found out about it, and several read the tea leaves the same way.”

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“There are estimates that we daily walked for 10 - 20 kilometers for hundreds of thousands of years. The world's best problem solving machinery grew up under conditions of consistent, strenuous physical activity. It makes sense that when we don't recreate the environments in which the organ was forged, we get a loss of function. And that when we do restore those environments, we get that function back. The effects of aerobic exercise on executive function skills is a powerful empirical example of this idea.”

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“The ability to double our biomass - not by waiting several million years and growing to be the size of an elephant - but waiting a few hundred thousand years for neurons to sprout into our brains - ones capable of having us create emotional relationships with other members of our species. We thereby double our biomass not by getting bigger, but by creating an ally.”

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“There is a neuron in your brain that will respond only to pictures of Jennifer Aniston - provided you have had prior visual exposure to the actress. That neuron does not respond to pictures of Bill Clinton or Halle Berry. Only Jennifer. I used the story to explain the almost ridiculous plasticity of the organ. There is no such thing as Jennifer Aniston in our evolutionary history - she was born in 1969, for heaven's sake - but we are flexible enough to devote an entire cell to her if we have previously encountered her in some fashion.”

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Author:John Medina
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“Years of research show us that the less control a person feels over an aversive stimuli coming at them, the more likely they are to disengage. Complete loss of control over a sustained period of time can actually lead to depression. It then follows that giving the person a level of control over the situation reduce the stress - and perhaps restore the disengagement.”

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“Most brain scientists have not taught 4th grade, and don't know very much about the classroom, even though they might study learning in some detail. Most education professionals, who often know a tremendous amount about the classroom, don't know much about the brain. That is one of the reasons why I am so skeptical about applying brain findings to the classroom.”

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“One of the greatest predictors of academic success that exist is the emotional stability of the home. So if parents are interested in education reform, they should also be interested in how they conduct themselves in front of their children. If they are homeschooling their kids, they are even more exposed, so the idea is even more important.”

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