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The reading time for Brain Rules varies depending on the reader's speed. However, the Blinkist summary can be read in just 15 minutes.

Is Brain Rules a good book? Is it worth reading?

Brain Rules offers valuable insights and practical tips to enhance your brain's potential. A must-read for anyone interested in cognitive science.

Who is the author of Brain Rules?

John Medina is the author of Brain Rules.

Personal Development

Brain Rules Book Summary - Brain Rules Book explained in key points

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Brain Rules summary

Name: Brain Rules
Rating: 4.3 (222 reviews)
Author: John Medina

John Medina

12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home and School

4.3 (222 ratings)

19 mins

Brief summary

Brain Rules by John Medina is a scientific guide to how our brains work, including how we learn, remember, and stay focused. It incorporates practical advice on how to optimize brain function through exercise, sleep, and stress management.

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The Brain

Table of Contents

Brain Rules
Summary of 8 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 8

What’s in it for me? Learn how to make your brain work better.

Can we improve the way our brains work? Perhaps you’ve already tried, by studying while listening to classical music, or by keeping a diary of daily events to jog your memory.

These blinks will help you better understand exactly how your brain works so you can find new and exciting ways to make it function better.

These “brain rules” give you insight into how exercise makes our minds healthier and happier, how sleeping is important for more than just beauty, and how learning information with all our senses is the best way to absorb and retain things. All in all, the more you know, the smarter your brain will be!

In these blinks, you’ll discover

how an amputee could feel his missing limb by looking in a mirror;
why one Russian journalist could recall random numbers 15 years later; and
why you should probably hit the sack early tonight.

Regular exercise stimulates the body to renew itself and generates hormones to help the brain work.

Have you ever wondered what a day in the life of a Homo sapiens looked like? How our ancestors spent their time directly affected how our own brains have developed.

Consider that the average Homo sapiens may have walked or ran from 10 to 20 kilometers per day. This means that our brains didn’t develop while we were lazing about, but as we exercised.

Exercise allows your body to get more energy out of the food you eat. When you exercise, you increase blood flow to all your body’s tissues. And as your blood flow increases, your body also starts to produce new blood vessels, making it even easier for your blood to do its job, such as move vitamins and minerals around and get rid of waste.

So when you move your body, not only do you feel better but you think more effectively, too!

To better understand what’s happening in this process, think about a system of roads. In the early 1800s, an English engineer noticed that traders had a tough time moving supplies over uneven dirt roads. He developed a method to coat roads with layers of rock and gravel to make them more even and thus more reliable.

The engineer’s idea quickly spread as people realized better roads meant better access to goods in general. You make the same improvements to your body when you exercise, as your blood vessels are essentially your body's roads.

Exercise also makes your body’s tissues healthier by stimulating the production of certain hormones such as brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF).

One of the brain's most powerful growth hormones, BDNF keeps your neurons refreshed and healthy and increases the connections between neurons. It also stimulates the creation of new cells.

So the more you exercise, the healthier and more robust your brain and body will be!

You have a natural sleep cycle that is individual to you. Follow it and you’ll feel and think better.

From an evolutionary standpoint, sleeping is dangerous, as it makes us vulnerable to predators. If we’ve evolved to take such a serious risk on a daily basis, it stands to reason that sleep is important.

But what exactly does sleeping do? Simply put, sleeping regenerates our mind and body.

Chronic stress is debilitating, making you think poorly and lose memory. Reduce stress where you can.

You probably have heard of the “fight or flight” response. We experience this in reaction to a stressful situation, and ideally this response helps us stay away from danger.

Thus stress motivates us to protect ourselves; it can even save our lives. Yet chronic stress is harmful.

Your brain pays attention to stimuli it considers the most important. The rest is just noise.

As you're reading these blinks, millions of sensory neurons are firing simultaneously in your brain. Each is trying to grab your attention, but only a few break through to your consciousness. You won't actually notice the rest.

Can you feel where your feet are right now? You probably didn’t until you read that sentence. Thinking about your feet before that wasn’t a detail that was important for your brain.

Every brain is wired differently. What you experience in life helps carve your neural pathways.

Michael Jordan, one of the top basketball players in history, quit basketball in 1994 and took up baseball. Surprisingly, he failed miserably.

You might think that someone as athletic as Jordan could dominate in any sport, but baseball proved too challenging. So he went back to what his brain and muscles were used to, that is basketball.

Our brains store information if it's meaningful and doesn't interfere with other information.

Solomon Shereshevskii was a Russian journalist born in 1886, who was once given a formula of 30 letters and numbers and could still recall the formula some 15 years later.

Shereshevskii's mighty memory came at a price. He could memorize random information, but he couldn't organize that information into meaningful patterns. He could understand all the words in a book individually, but he couldn't figure out what they meant when put together.

Our senses have evolved to work together. Multisensory environments can help you learn better.

Can you listen to music while you study? If you can, it’s probably because your brain has evolved to be able to do so!

Again, think about the lives of our ancestors. Our Homo sapiens forefathers didn’t spend their days quietly painting in caves without distraction. Instead, their brains had to handle multiple stimuli at once, whether visual, aural, olfactory or tactile.

To better remember facts, combine visuals with information. Our visual sense is the strongest.

Vision is a powerful sense, one that can trick our other senses into interpreting stimuli differently. A group of researchers learned this by pulling the wool over some wine experts’ eyes!

The researchers wanted to see whether wine tasters could tell the difference between red wines and white wines that had been dyed red. It turns out they couldn’t; when the tasters drank the dyed whites, they thought they were red wines. Vision trumped smell!

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What is Brain Rules about?

Brain Rules (2008) gives you insight into how our brains function and explains how you can take advantage of such knowledge to push your brain to work better. From gaining more productivity at work to absorbing more at school, mastering the “brain rules” will help make learning with all your senses become second nature.

Brain Rules Review

Brain Rules (2008) by John Medina explores the fascinating workings of our brains and provides practical tips to improve our everyday lives. Here's why this book is worth diving into:

With engaging anecdotes and scientific evidence, it offers a unique understanding of how our brains function and how to apply this knowledge to enhance our work, relationships, and health.
Not just a theoretical exploration, this book provides concrete strategies to optimize our brains, helping us improve our memory, attention, and creativity.
Written in a down-to-earth and accessible style, Brain Rules ensures that complex ideas are easy to grasp, making the journey through neuroscience both enjoyable and eye-opening.

Best quote from Brain Rules

The most common communication mistakes? Relating too much information, with not enough time devoted to connecting the dots.

—John Medina

Who should read Brain Rules?

Psychologists and neuroscientists researching how the brain works
Students looking for ways to learn more effectively
People wanting to improve their memory

About the Author

John Medina is a professor, research consultant and expert in molecular biology. He founded the Brain Center for Applied Learning Research and the Talaris Research Institute.

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