Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School (Book & DVD)

I believe personal productivity and performance as a leader are directly correlated. Just like we have to lead a team, we have to lead ourselves to a higher level of a productivity and effectiveness. In all of the leadership classes I teach, emphasis is placed on knowing yourself. When you know yourself it provides you the ability to adapt to weaknesses and leverage your strengths (increase your personal productivity and effectiveness).

Knowing how your brain functions is part of knowing yourself.

This book is so insightful and valuable that I sent copies to my clients. The value of the book hinges on the understanding of the brain and how it works which allows me to leverage that knowledge for increased personal productivity and in my interactions and relationships with others.

Myth Busters for the brain!

The book is a fairly easy read because the author uses stories to illustrate the functionality of the brain. This book is not a "leadership-lite" book filled with cute and truthful antidotes, but a book with hard science communicated in an interesting way. Dr. John J. Medina is a developmental molecular biologist. He also shares what scientists don't know about how the brain works!

This book gave me many, many take-aways and here are just six ...

I. Some parts of the brain are just like a baby's and can grow new connections and strengthen existing connections. We have the ability to learn new things our entire life. Medina states this was "not the prevailing notion until 5 or 6 years ago." So much for the "you can't teach and old dog new tricks excuse." The old dog line is exposed for what it really is...an excuse.

II. Humans can only pay attention for about ten minutes and then need some kind of reset.

III. The brain can only focus on one thing at a time. This is further rationale on the futility of multi-tasking.

IV. Exercise increases brain power and aerobic exercise twice a week reduces the risk of general dementia by 50% and Alzheimer's by 60%.

V. There is a biological need for an afternoon nap.

VI. The brain is very active during sleep and loss of sleep hurts cognitive and physical ability.

Buy and read Brain Rules. It will benefit you.

One of the reasons I read leadership books is to learn new things but also to get old truths hammered into my thick skull so they result in action. Action! So you may know or have heard of some of the truths in "Brain Rules" but I guarantee the author brings them to you in a unique an interesting way with solid depth that will allow you to easier implement those truths into how you handle yourself and others on a daily basis.

Dr. James T. Brown PMP PE CSP
Author, The Handbook of Program Management

In Brain Rules, Mr. Medina proves incessantly that he has a talent for stating the obvious:

Rule #4: We don't pay attention to boring things
Rule #5: Repeat to remember
Rule #6: Remember to repeat
Rule #7: Sleep well, think well

Mr. Medina explains in every chapter what is currently known about a particular brain function and its deficiencies, and offers "transformative" ideas-solutions to aid people at work, home and school. In the latter, Mr. Medina's efforts leave a lot to be desired. Many of his ideas are impractical and borderline juvenile. Any entity or individual handing out grants for serious scientific work should pause for a moment before funding ideas such as putting a treadmill in every classroom and cubicle. "What if, during a lesson, the children were not sitting at desks, but walking on treadmills?... Until brain scientists and education scientists get together to show real-world benefit, the answer is: Nobody knows," asserts Mr. Medina in the chapter about "Rule #1: Exercise boosts brain power". There are a plethora of more pressing and immediate problems such as acquiring the ability to speak, read and write standard English, and teen pregnancy that can put to better use the $500-$1,000 per treadmill per pupil it would cost to implement Mr. Medina's idea of getting more oxygen to the brain during class lectures. And as for his idea of putting treadmills in boardrooms for use during board meetings, well, while we're at it, why not have all board members wear adult diapers to cut down on bathroom breaks to increase productivity while walking on the treadmill at 1.8 miles per hour?

Mr. Medina seems, rightfully so, to be very fond of Google's practice of allocating 20% of its employees' work hours to the exploration of new ideas. "Fully 50% of new products, including Gmail and Google News" were a result of these exploratory sessions. The problem is, instead of discussing successful and proven ideas not yet adopted in business, home or the classroom, Mr. Medina dabbles mostly in the 20% brainstorming territory in what he himself calls "fantasy" sometimes.

Brain rules, despite these quirks still offers the reader value, particularly in chapters 10 (Vision trumps all other senses), and 11 (Male and female brains are different).

In the last chapter, "Exploration", Mr. Medina mentions "Mirror Neurons" in the brain. Human mirror neurons are scattered across the brain, prompting imitative behavior. Stick your tongue out at a newborn, as Mr. Medina did to his 30 minute old son, and he will do the same. The impact of mirror neurons, however, is still speculative - something not mentioned by the author. I've begun an experiment to test its validity, and I plan on updating my review as soon as my 3 month old daughter sticks her tongue out after I do. So far, after one day of experimenting, I've gotten a few smiles out of her, but no tongue. Stay tuned...

The book is great, I haven't finished it yet, but the author explains in a very interesting way how our brain works and make suggestions of how to use this knowledge to improve our work environments and lives.

In the Introduction, John Medina expresses his concern that most people are "out of the loop" in that they are unaware of recent and important revelations in modern neuroscience concerning "how the mind works." His purpose is to explain 12 "brain rules" and devotes a separate chapter to each. "Easily the most sophisticated information-transfer system on Earth, your brain is fully capable of taking little black squiggles on this piece of bleached wood [i.e. ink on paper] and deriving meaning from them. To accomplish this miracle, your brain sends jolts of electricity crackling through hundreds of miles of wires composed of brain cells so small that thousands of them could fit into the period at the end of this sentence. You accomplish all this in less time than it takes you to blink. Indeed, you have just done it. What's equally incredible, given your intimate association with it, is this: Most of us have no idea how our brain works."

At this point, I need to reassure those who are now processing the "little black squiggles" that comprise this review that the key ideas in Medina's book are readily accessible to a layperson such as I who - until reading his book - had little (if any) understanding of "how our brain works." It is amazing but nonetheless true, Medina asserts, that there is a young man who can multiply the number 8,388,628 x 2 in his head in a few seconds "and he gets it right every time," that there is a girl who can correctly determine the exact dimensions of an object 20 feet away, and that there is a child who at age 6 drew "such lifelike and powerful pictures" that she got her own show on Madison Avenue.

Briefly, here are five of 12 principles for surviving and thriving at work, home, and school. Medina's analysis of each responds to two questions "How?" and "Why?":

#5: Repeat to remember.
Excerpt: "We now know that the space between repetitions is the critical component for transforming temporary memories into more persistent forms. Spaced learning is greatly superior to massed learning."

#7: Sleep well, think well.
Excerpt: "The brain is in a constant state of tension between cells and chemicals that try to put you to sleep and cells and chemicals that try to keep you awake."

#9: Nourish the five senses with increased stimulation.
Excerpt: "Our senses evolved to work together - vision influencing hearing, for example - which means that we learn best if we stimulate several senses at once."

#10: Vision trumps all other senses.
Excerpt: "We learn and remember best through pictures, not through written or spoken words."

#12: Our brains are by nature highly inquisitive (i.e. "powerful explorers")
Excerpt: "Babies are a model of how we learn - not by passive reaction to the environment but by active testing through observation, hypothesis, experiment, and conclusion."

To repeat, Medina's explanations of "how" and "why" are presented in layman's terms without "dumbing down" what is obviously complicated information. He succeeds brilliantly, not only when explaining "how our brains work" but also when and why they work best... or when and why they don't. After reading Chapter 4 in which he explains what he calls "the 10-minute rule," I decided to limit my subsequent reading of his book to 10-minute increments, then shifted my attention to another task. After you read Chapter 4, you'll understand that decision.

A DVD is provided with each copy of this book and John Medina suggests (as do I) that it be viewed before processing the "little black squiggles" that comprise his lively narrative.

One final point: I wish this book had been available years ago when I was completing my formal education, beginning a career as an English teacher, and then starting a family. That said, I can at least purchase copies for my three sons and daughter...and will.

The author of this book obviously has a lot of experience in the topic he is writing about, and is aware of a great deal of research. He picks very salient aspects of the brain to include in his book, and interesting examples for each "rule." The book is divided into rules about how the brain works. Some of the rules deal with things like short and long-term memory, stress, attention, sleep, and so forth. The practical aim of the book is to apply these rules to the business world and education. As such, there are many interesting and potentially valuable ideas for doing things differently. There is ample evidence presented in the book that some things we do may actually be quite counterproductive. Anyone who runs an office or makes educational decisions might be interested in trying ideas from this book.

The book is fairly well-written, but there are some instances of incomplete sentences, or clumsy wording that make the reading a little difficult once in a while. It doesn't detract greatly from the book, but here and there you have to stop and re-read a line or two. Still, the book seems like a fairly academic approach to this topic rather than a self-help book. If you have ever been interested in knowing what is known about the brain and how it could be put to practical use, this is a good book to check out.