Status Updates From The Teenage Brain: A Neuros...

Melatonin, a hormone critical to inducing sleep, is released two hours later at night in a teenager’s brain than it is in an adult’s. It also stays in the teenager’s system longer, and this is why it’s so hard to wake your high schooler up in the morning. Adults, on the other hand, have almost no melatonin in their system when they wake up and therefore don’t have the same groggy feeling.

Bedtime isn’t simply a way 4 the body to relax & recoup after a hard day of working, studying, or playing. It’s the glue that allows us not only 2 recollect our experiences but also to remember everything we’ve learned that day. Sleep isn’t a luxury. Memory & learning are thought 2b consolidated during sleep, so it’s a requirement 4 adolescents and as vital to their health as the air they breathe & the food they eat

The good news about brain plasticity is that it may peak in childhood and adolescence but it never entirely stops—at least not until we do. The more you learn, the easier it is to learn the next thing.

Adults also have less glutamate and dopamine and fewer receptors available; therefore they are less cognitively flexible.

adolescents have less ability to process negative information than adults do, and so they are less inclined not to do something risky, and less likely to learn from the ensuing mistake or misadventure, than adults are.

adolescents have less ability to process negative information than adults do, and so they are less inclined not to do something risky, and less likely to learn from the ensuing mistake or misadventure, than adults are.

Your teenagers are knowledgeable and self-aware enough to know that they are not automatons, and this means they have the capacity to modify and the responsibility for modifying their own behavior. This is what you must remind them—and then remind them again and again and again

"And if your teenager fails to comply, take away the phone or the iPod, or limit computer use to homework. Also, insist on knowing the user names and passwords for all their accounts."

Hmm this sounds a bit intrusive. Probably having a bit of trust or going with the temperament of your individual child is the key. My 12 yo, for example won't take any threat to his autonomy lightly 😀

There is solid data to show that your IQ can change during your teen years, more than anyone had ever expected. Between thirteen and seventeen years of age, one-third of people stay the same, one-third of people decrease their IQ, and a remarkable one-third of people actually significantly raise their IQ.

Only minutes after you learn a new thing, your synapses start to grow bigger. In a few hours they are virtually cemented into a stronger form.

the more frequently and the more recently we learn something and then recall it or use it again, the more entrenched the knowledge, whether it’s remembering the route between home and work or how to add a contact to your smartphone’s directory.

Changes associated with experience and stimulation, including brain size, gray matter volume, neuron size, dendritic branching, and the number of synapses per neuron. The more stimulation and experience, they concluded, the larger the neurons, the bushier the dendrites, the higher the number of synapses, and the thicker the gray matter.