Brain Rules - Dr. K

Braden Osman

Professor Dr. Kirkconnell

Biology 3054

29 August 29, 2016

Brain Rules

Dr. Ginger Campbell MD interviewed Dr. John Medina who wrote the book Brain Rules: 12 Principles of Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School. The interview explained ways ideas to make your brain function at a higher capacity. These 12 Brain Rules are very advantageous rules for everyone, particularly those in the education environment.

In order to be a better person, Medina explains, you need to regularly exercise. Exercising can improve executive function anywhere from 80% to 120%. I am an avid exerciser so I tend to follow this rule very well. I work out every week day for about an hour and a half in between my courses.

The second rule is survival, which are the things we pay attention to. As humans, we are hardwired to survive so anytime something is aimed toward our survival or someone else’s survival we pay attention. This is hard for me to control. This rule is more for my teachers to introduce certain survival stories that correlate with their lecture. The third rule is wiring, which means that no two people have the same experience and the information stored in the brain might be different from person to person.

The fourth rule is attention, which means human usually prioritize death, food, sex, and patterns. If someone watches a commercial about sex or death they will be more likely to pay attention. I could relate my own stories or research stories over the topics I am studying to help follow this rule.

The fifth rule is short term memory, and this is to repeat information because the capacity of our memory is about 30 seconds in bundles of 7 pieces of information. If repeated once you will remember it for your short term memory of about 30 min to 120 min. If repeated a third time the information will go into your long term memory. To follow this rule, I could study my book before class. Then pay attention in lecture and then go over my notes and the...