lifedoodling sketching between the lines of life

Brain Rules — A Must Read

Rea­ding and dis­co­ve­ring how the Human brain func­tions to me is one of my favo­rite things to do. Not long ago I saw a refe­rence to the book Brain Rules: 12 Prin­ci­ples for Sur­vi­ving and Thri­ving at Work, Home, and School
by John Medina. I imme­dia­tely went online to see what this was about. After rea­ding the reviews on Ama­zon I was eager to get my hands on it but was going to be lea­ving the next day for a 18 hour road trip. Audio books are great for long trips as they make the miles seem to disappear(I lear­ned why in chap­ter 4). iTu­nes had it so onto the iPhone it went and I was set.

I drove 8 1/2 hours one way lis­te­ning to the audio ver­sion the whole way. The list of things that he spoke about that I kept saying “yeah I know that, that’s not new but now I know WHY, and I unders­tand THIS”, etc. It was like all of the con­nec­tions were firing as John read the book and everything I thought I unders­tood star­ted to make more and more sense. The trip back was just as enlightening.

Need­less to say I bought the book shortly after retur­ning home and read through it in less than a day. I’m on my second read through it and I find it just as ama­zing. It’s writ­ten so that it’s actually enjo­ya­ble, with per­so­nal antic-dotes that nearly ever­yone can relate to. With these per­so­nal notes, it sud­denly beco­mes com­mit­ted to memory. Even with having lis­te­ned to it and read it, on this my second read, I’m taking notes. Making com­ments in the bor­ders. High­ligh­ting whole sections.

Not since I read Dri­ven To Dis­trac­tion : Recog­ni­zing and Coping with Atten­tion Defi­cit Disor­der from Childhood Through Adulthood and Deli­ve­red from Dis­trac­tion: Get­ting the Most out of Life with Atten­tion Defi­cit Disor­der by Ned Hallo­well and John Ratey have I been this engros­sed in a book and felt like I was unders­tan­ding what was hap­pe­ning clearly for the first time.

So what are my favo­rite sec­tions? All of them! The effects of sleep on your brain and what it does during sleep. How stress impacts your abi­lity to think and learn. The impor­tance of exer­cise and how a little can go a long way. Do you unders­tand why todd­lers go through the terri­ble two’s? I thought I did, but now I know. Did you know that tee­na­gers go through the exact same thing? It’s a phy­sio­lo­gi­cal change in the their brain that is hap­pe­ning. How about the fact that humans are meant to move and that cubic­les and class­rooms are evil! All of those with ADD/ADHD will appre­ciate this.

In sum­mary, Brain Rules is a fan­tas­ti­cally writ­ten book with facts, refe­ren­ces, per­so­nal expe­rience, and well thought out con­tent for unders­tan­ding what is going on in our brains. It will change the way you think about and unders­tand the human brain, how it got to where it is today and what we can do to take care of it bet­ter now.

To purchase the book please see the links above. To learn more about this spe­ci­fic book or the other books men­tio­ned please refe­rence the follo­wing links: