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Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School |  | Author: John Medina
Publisher: Pear Press
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $19.95
as of 11/7/2009 23:15 CST details
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Seller: wolfcreek_books
Rating:  84 reviews
Sales Rank: 1493461
Format: Large Print
Media: Paperback
Pages: 460
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 6 x 1.3
ISBN: 0979777720
EAN: 9780979777721
ASIN: 0979777720
Publication Date: March 7, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| • | Hardcover - Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School (Book & DVD) | | • | Audio CD - Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School | | • | Audio Download - Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School (Unabridged) | | • | Kindle Edition - Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School | | • | Paperback - Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School |
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Product Description
Most of us have no idea what's really going on inside our heads. Yet brain scientists have uncovered details every business leader, parent, and teacher should know--such as the brain's need for physical activity to work at its best. How do we learn? What exactly do sleep and stress do to our brains? Why is multi-tasking a myth? Why is it so easy to forget--and so important to repeat new information? Is it true that men and women have different brains? In Brain Rules, molecular biologist Dr. John Medina shares his lifelong interest in how the brain sciences might influence the way we teach our children and the way we work. In each chapter, he describes a brain rule--what scientists know for sure about how our brains work--and then offers transformative ideas for our daily lives. Medina's fascinating stories and sense of humor breathe life into brain science. You'll learn why Michael Jordan was no good at baseball. You'll peer over a surgeon's shoulder as he finds, to his surprise, that we have a Jennifer Aniston neuron. You'll meet a boy who has an amazing memory for music but can't tie his own shoes. You will discover how:
- Every brain is wired differently
- Exercise improves cognition
- We are designed to never stop learning and exploring
- Memories are volatile
- Sleep is powerfully linked with the ability to learn
- Vision trumps all of the other senses
- Stress changes the way we learn
In the end, you'll understand how your brain really works--and how to get the most out of it.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 84
 Welcome to the jungle! November 5, 2009
Viriya Taecharungroj (Bangkok, Thailand)
"Though we have been stuffing them into classrooms and cubicles for decades, our brains actually were built to survive in jungles and grasslands. We have not outgrown this."
In the recent years, there are many new books on brain science and social science. There are far too many. Brain Rules by John Medina is one of them. However, while most other brain science (neuroscience or however you call it) books always tell us amazing mysteries of our brains, "Brain Rules" by John Medina tells us amazing mysteries and it will also sometimes tell you... "well, we don't really know about that yet!". If you are looking for a secret of the universe book (which no one knows it yet), this might not be a book for you. But if you want to know about your brain, how it works, and how can you improve your life, this book is a safe bet.
Contents (The Rules)
1.Exercise: Exercise boosts brain power
Our evolutionary history can be summed up into two words: "We moved" (Yes, We Moved!...). We moved from Africa to all over the world. We didn't take the low-cost flight. Human development was in jungles and grasslands. David Medina told us how exercise improve the performance of your brain, and it is astoundingly significant in terms of thinking as well as aging.
2.Survival: The human brain evolved, too.
"We learned to grow fangs not in our mouth but in the head", in this chapter, the author wrote about "symbolic reasoning" and described our brain for those (like me) who are not familiar with the science of brain.
3.Wiring: Every brain is wired differently
In the beginning, John Medina familiarises us with the metaphors of DNA and neurons. There was a story about "Jennifer Aniston neuron" which is interesting and funny in a way. The chapter also tells us that verious regions of the brain develop at different rates in different people and what we do in life literally changes the way it looks like.
4.Attention: We don't pay attention to boring things
The title says it all, this chapter is about attention and how we are aware of things. Dr. David Medina then elaborate the better way of teaching to improve the education of our children.
5.Short-term memory: Repeat to remember
This chapter is about memory, where it goes to and where it is processed. This is quite complicated to conventional thought (like me, duh) because memory (and our brain) is not like computer, it has no hard drive to store data. There are many other interesting findings. The author also suggest a better way for school and business to improve memory and learning.
6.Long-term memory: Remember to repeat
David Medina wrote about how our brain works; there are more than one ways to retrieve the long-term memory. We also tend to mix new knowledge with the past memories. There is also a compelling story of a Russian journalist Solomon Shereshevskii who has a virtually unlimited memory capacity. He can recall a complex formula of letters and numbers containing about 30 items... after 15 years... (not a typo, 15 years).
7.Sleep: Sleep well, think well
This is one of my favourite chapters. The author wrote about how different people have a need to sleep differently and the benefit of taking a nap during the daytime (my ex-boss won't like that). Insufficient sleep will undermine your brain and the chapter also tells us that sleep might actually be the key to the process of learning.
8.Stress: Stressed brains don't learn the same way
From the opposite view of sleep, stress hurts us. The evolution of the brain defines stress as an immediate circumstance, fighting a polar bear or running away from a jaguar, for example. Our brains are not shaped to cope with long-term stresses such as credit crunch or failed marriage. The chapter tells us how stress can hurt us and the author suggests an excellent way to improve the education system, lowering children's stress by teaching parents, among others.
9.Sensory integration: Stimulate more of the senses
In learning, we always do better in a multi-sensory environments and smells have an unusual power to bring back memories, strange but true.
10.Vision: Vision trumps all other sense
"We do not see with our eyes. We see with our brains." The fist story of this chapter is about wine experts. Wine specialists have a way of describing the taste of white and red wines differently. A cheeky researcher put an odorless red dye into white wine. All 54 expert tasters described it by the vocabularies of the red wine. Vision is the most dominant sense.
11.Gender: Male and female brains are different
The chapter is about the difference between genders. How different our brains are, how different we communicate, develop social relationship and so on.
12.Exploration: We are powerful and natural explorers
This is a conclusion chapter telling us that we learn and evolve. We have learnt and we will continue learning. We moved and we will move on.
...
I'll compare "Brain Rules" to my personal ideal business book; a book that is easy to understand, distinct, practical, credible, insightful, and provides great reading experience
Ease of Understanding: 7/10: I have to divide it in two parts, the structure of the content and the content itself. The structure is very sound, each chapter is devoted to different topics but the content itself, the brain science, is not very easy to understand. If you read the book, you will know that the author tried and did an amazing job to simplify them but still, as a layman in this subject, I find it hard to understand all of it. But if you are a brain scientist or someone who did well in brain anatomy (as opposed to a person who nearly failed biology in a high school like me), it might be a walk in the park.
Distinction: 6/10: I have to be fair to say that there are many books of this kind available. The good thing is that each chapter can be a book of itself but Dr. David Medina did a great job synthesising and writing the brief key findings of each of them.
Practicality: 8/10: One of the best things of "Brain Rules" is towards the end of the most chapters, the author wrote "idea" of how to implement it mostly for the companies and schools. For individuals, we can easy grasp what we read from the book and implement as well.
Credibility: 10/10: A brain scientist writing a brain science book is better than a journalist writing about it, obviously. But the key is that this book is, or at least sounds, sincere and honest. There are many books that claim the new finding of our brain is the secret of the universe (I might exaggerate here but you know what I mean). This book does not. When the author does not know or does not have the evidence on a particular subject that is relevant, he says "we don't know it yet". It is better to not have an information than a false one.
Insight: 8/10: In each chapter, there are many short stories related to the topic. These stories might be researches, personal stories, brain metaphors, brain diseases, and so forth. They are all very interesting and I wish they were longer.
Reading Experience: 9/10: It would be ironic if a writer who wrote a chapter on "Attention: We don't pay attention to boring things", actually wrote boring stuffs. And this book is far from it and it really gets your attention. It is a fun read with a great sense of humour from the author.
Overall: 8.0/10: How much will you understand more about your brain? You will understand much more on how it has been evolved, how it functions, and how it should be treated. How much will it change your life? It depends, it you really value your brain, there are obvious things such as exercise more, sleep well, and less stress and there are things that will enhance your learning. There is no step-by-step instruction to power up your brain but you will know the rules.
Great book! Some great suggestions that are often forgotten October 9, 2009
Lex
This is a great book that reminds people to take care of their bodies and furthermore, their brains in order to maintain a mind that works at its maximum potential. I have always been a strong advocate for exercise on a daily basis and I believe it is oftentimes the best cure to several common ailments.
I recommend this book to anyone looking for self improvement or simply seeking guidelines/rules to strive for in everyday life.
I read it twice and loved it both times. September 14, 2009
Elisa Robyn (Colorado)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Dr. John Medina, a developmental molecular biologist, has written a fun and engaging book about the brain that is based on his research. The rules are applicable to our everyday life, and in some cases, to our work and educational settings. This book sets the bar for the new wave of brain books that have entered the marked.
The rules are simple to understand and backed by solid research. There book starts with the evolutionary history of the brain. The human brain developed as we walked for miles across open savannahs. The human brain is built to adapt to change and focus on survival. Our brain was fed by movement and processing information. This means that we are great at ignoring the boring and focusing on changes in patterns. It also means the brain needs to adapt and learn to stay healthy.
The book discusses 12 different "rules" about the brain and how we can apply them. For example, because our brains were built work while we are walking and moving, exercise boosts brain power. So if we want to improve thinking skills, we need to move and get oxygen and glucose to the brain. Aerobic exercise twice a week halves the risk of general dementia and reduces the risk of Alzheimer's by 60%. On the flip side, there is no greater anti-brain environment than the classroom and the cubicle.
Dr Medina points out that humans do not pay attention to boring things. We are better at seeing patterns and abstracting meaning than recording details. Tapping a person's emotions helps them learn. People start to fade after 10 minutes in any lecture, and especially during a typical power point, so tap their emotions. Since vision trumps all other senses, we learn and remember best through pictures rather than words.
I loved reading that every brain is wired differently, and men and women are wired completely differently. I see this play out in the graduate courses I teach. Students have different learning styles. Men and women learn differently and are comfortable in different settings.
Finally, the book points out that we are powerful and natural explorers; a fact that is not utilized by academic or corporate settings. We design environments that limit exploration and movement. In fact, our lecture halls look exactly like the ones used in during the Renaissance. I would love to design a school that makes use of all of the rules in this book. I bet we would turn education around.
Read this book if you are in a leadership position, an educational setting, a training positions, or want to make your presentations more effective. Read this book if you want to have a "Mike Wallace" aging experience and be mentally vibrant into your 90's.
Elisa Robyn, author of Pirate Wisdom.
Stuff You Need to Know! September 12, 2009
Vincent Harris (Trenton, MO USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
If I were going to write another book on increasing productivity, this would have been the book. Instead, I can simply enjoy reading it again and again;it has already been written.
I think of this book as "fun facts" that just happen to provide you with the ability to take your performance to the next level. When I purchase a book, I'm looking for a single idea that I can use to enhance my life. If I find that one idea, it's a good book. This is a great book. Good stuff!
Vincent Harris
Author of "The Productivity Epiphany"
 Fairly interesting, but scattered September 5, 2009
EugeSchu (WI USA)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Mr. Medina seems like a very smart man. Unfortunately, the focus of the book is a bit hodge-podge and the analysis, while an impressive collection of results and findings, is fairly superficial. The organization of 12 themed chapters and the hop-scotch headings within them is a little too cute. The book is directed to a lay audience but unfortunately this tends to make it rather "self-help" light intellectually. I also wasn't impressed by his ice age and saber-tooth tiger references to human history; it was way too trite. Overall, he throws a lot of info on the table, but really doesn't get to anything interesting or new. It's a bit too Reader's Digest and inconclusive.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 84
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