Brain Rules (Updated and Expanded): 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School

As the title suggests, this is a book of guidance about how to get the most out of one’s mental life. Medina goes a mile wide, looking at twelve areas in which one can improve the performance of one’s brain, including: exercise, attention, memory, sleep, stress management, sensory integration, and visual acuity. It also has chapters that explain how evolution and gender affect the way in which one’s brain operates.After an Introduction that sets up the premise of the book, there are twelve chapters. The first chapter explores the well-documented connection between exercise and mental performance, and offers insight into what type of exercise has been shown to be most helpful to the brain. The second chapter pertains to our brain’s evolutionary history. The conscious mind housed in the cortex is but the top floor of a multi-story enterprise, and understanding this has important ramifications for how one gets the most out of one’s brain. Chapter 3 explores the way brains are wired, which turns out to be flexibly and diversely. By flexibly, I mean that brains can be rewired by way of what is called neuroplasticity on the proviso that neurons that fire together wire together. By diversely, I mean that each individual’s brain is a bit different, and these differences can explain how someone gifted in one domain may be an idiot in other aspects of life. The next chapter deals with attention and explains why humans suck at multi-tasking (despite thinking they are the bomb) and why an extended ability to concentrate is essential to success.The next two chapters both deal with memory, but with different types of memory—each having its own unique considerations. The first, chapter five, describes the peculiarities of short-term memory, that part of the memory that can hold a finite amount of data points at the forefront of our minds for a limited period. Chapter six deals with long-term memory, the part that holds vast stockpiles of information for extended periods (sometimes across a lifetime) but with lower fidelity and accuracy than we generally believe. While the rule offered for both forms of memory is simple—i.e. repetition is key—there is much to consider in the details. For starters, there are many other ways to divide up memory other than with respect to the short-term / long-term dichotomy (e.g. procedural v declarative) and differences in the way these types of memory work affect how they are both optimized.The influence of sleep on mental performance is the subject of chapter seven. There is a vast pile of research on this subject, including a number of famous cases of extreme sleep deprivation—some of which are touched upon herein. It’s true that there is a great deal of variation in how people sleep (e.g. morning v non-morning people, and those who can power nap and those who can’t.) However, one thing remains unambiguous and that’s that we need sleep and must have full cycles of it in order to not suffer mental degradation. Chapter 8 is about how stress can kill mental performance. Of course, not all stress is the same. When one feels in control, short bursts of stress can be just the motivator one needs, but when feeling out of control stress can become crippling.Chapters 9 and 10 are both about the senses. The first, nine, explains how one can obtain synergistic outcomes in a multi-sensory environment, and the second focuses on vision—arguably our most dominant sense. Our sensory experience is much more a product of the brain (and much less a pure representation of the outside world) than we tend to believe.Chapter 11 reports on the gender differences that have been discovered with respect to brains. Before anyone lights a torch or sharpens a pitchfork, this isn’t the old “boys do math and girls do language” line. The differences are more nuanced, and it’s not clear in every case that the differences matter—or how. E.g. Men have bigger amygdala (involved in emotional response) and produce serotonin more quickly. While it’s not clear that these differences make a big difference, it’s know that men and women use their amygdala differently in times of stress, men activate the right amygdala and tend to remember more of the gist of events while women trip the left and remember more emotional details. The last chapter is about our human proclivity to explore, but it focuses heavily on infancy and childhood, during which the world is novel and the impulse to explore is at its height.Each chapter ends with a summary box that both restates the rule and offers a few bullet points of key takeaway lessons, which may either be more specific guidance or summary of relevant research findings. There aren’t many functional graphics—by functional I mean as opposed to the ornamental drawings used throughout. I only remember one brain drawing. However, the reason for the dearth of graphics may be that there is a link to a 45 minute video that one can access, and the publisher probably thought that was a much more useful way to impart graphic information. It should also be noted that in the Kindle edition that I have, the references are also on-line.I found this book to be useful. As I mentioned, it’s a broad overview. One can get books that dive more deeply into all of the topics addressed. But this is a nice mix of popular science and self-help. It’s readable, and the summaries and concise statement of rules help make the content stick more effectively.I’d recommend this book for those who are seeking a book that covers a lot of ground, and which offers practical guidance as to how to put scientific discoveries on the brain into use in one’s own life.

In full disclosure, I chose Brain Rules to read as one of my assignments for my Master’s degree. We are required to post a review of our chosen book. This book is jam-packed with useful and relatable information. While reading, I found myself agreeing with the author in a variety of different ways, relating his explanations to my personal life experiences. Through his explanations, I developed a deeper understanding of how and why a variety of factors affect(ed) my life. All of the author’s explanations are wholly authentic and are research and science-based. For example, on page 77 the author wrote: “I think Gottman’s findings can change the world.” John Gottman, founder of the Gottman Institute, and an incredibly respected marriage researcher due to years of scientific research in the field of marital behaviors. He has since expanded his research by exposing expectant couples to marital interventions, in an effort to see how children born to trained couples are the same or different to children born to couples in the control group. The findings were that children in the intervention group showed all the signs of healthy emotional regulation. I say all this because the author’s Brain Rule #4: Stressed brains don’t learn the same way. If a child can have an emotionally stable foundation, then learning will be less of a struggle for them, and increase their quality of life. This book contains many examples of how your past, lifestyle traits, gender, music, vision, attention, memory, and sleep all affect your brain and its ability to function at its maximum potential. The author is talented at explaining difficult scientific findings into simple, easy to understand, and relatable content. Here’s an example of the author plainly stating how to achieve a certain goal after stating the science behind it: on page 149: “A great deal of research shows that thinking or talking about an event immediately after it has occurred enhances memory for that event, even when accounting for differences in type of memory.” So, even if you didn’t pick up or fully grasp the why, the author provides the results in an easy to apply manner for self use. Towards the end of the book however, I felt the author dragged it out a bit, as I grew tired of the repetitive nature of the final chapters. It’s an easy read and full of useful information.

This book does what it promises to do, i.e. distills a lot of psychological / neurological research relevant to education & training into a digestible form for teachers, trainers, and anyone interested in improving their own brain usage.One of the curious things about it is that although it preaches he value of visuals to get learning across, the book relies on a lot of text and very little else - you have to look at the brain rules website, or related YouTube videos, for anything remotely visual.

Fascinating book. Well written in the "fun" science way of a lot of books. The book is a fun read but still manages to give you great information to understand how the brain works. It has peaked my interest in the subject and i think i will look into more books about the brain. I would definitely recommend this book

Brilliant! I just could not put this book down! Easy to read and understand and with learning objectives summarised at the end of each 'Rule' (chapter). This is my now go-to book when preparing training material and running workshops, live or online. Full of stuff you probably already know but so easily forget or ignore. This book reminds us of the importance of all those things, for your health, work, school, relationships and more. Highly recommend.

Everything great !

As offered