Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School

by John Medina

Exercise does not provide the oxygen and the food. It provides your body greater access to the oxygen and the food.

Stressed people don’t do math very well.

The perfect storm of occupational stress appears to be a combination of two factors: (1) a great deal is expected of you, and (2) you have no control over whether you will perform well.

If you want people to be able to pay attention, don’t start with details. Start with the key ideas and, in a hierarchical fashion, form the details around these larger notions. Meaning before details.

Multitasking, when it comes to paying attention, is a myth.

Divide presentations into 10-minute segments

Each segment would cover a single core concept—always large, always general, and always explainable in one minute.

The brain processes meaning before detail, and the brain likes hierarchy.

Give the general idea first, before diving into details, and you will see a 40 percent improvement in understanding.

This prevents the audience from trying to multitask. If the instructor presents a concept without telling the audience where that concept fits into the rest of the presentation, the audience is forced to simultaneously listen to the instructor and attempt to divine where it fits into the rest of what the instructor is saying. This is the pedagogical equivalent of trying to drive while talking on a cell phone. Because it is impossible to pay attention to ANY two things at once, this will cause listeners a series of millisecond delays throughout the presentation.

Fear, laughter, happiness, nostalgia, incredulity—the entire emotional palette can be stimulated, and all work well. I employ survival issues here, describing a threatening event, a reproductive event (tastefully), or something triggering pattern matching. Narratives can be especially strong, especially if they are crisp and to the point.

The trick for business professionals, and for educators, is to present information so compelling that the audience provides this meaning on their own, spontaneously engaging in deep and elaborate encoding.