12 rules for better brain health

John Medina does weekly lecture series

By WHITNEY GATES, Features Writer

Published: May 7, 2008

Molecular biologist John Medina has had a lifelong interest in how the brain organizes information, and after fathering two boys, he has developed an interest in the way people teach children and the way children might work to become better students, teachers, parents or business leaders.

Medina, the director of SPU's Brain Center for Applied Learning, held a reading and discussion about his book, "Brain Rules," in the library reading room in front of 45 attendees last Thursday.

Medina's reading was part of the weekly series "Thursday Food for Thought (TFFT)," an opportunity for faculty and staff to display their published works.

At the event, Medina, who has taught a summer "brain class" at SPU for the last two years, started off his discussion with "brain rule number four" from his book.

"People don't pay attention to boring things," he said, speaking blazingly fast, which he said was necessary to keep his audience's attention.

"People tend to pay attention to 'meaning' before they pay attention to details. 'Meaning' means: Can it eat me? Can I eat it? Can I mate with it? Will it mate with me? Have I seen it before?"

Medina, who is also a faculty member at the University of Washington School of Medicine, said that he asks this question in every class that he teaches: "Given a class of medium interest, not too boring and not too exciting, when do you start glancing at the clock wondering when it will be over?"

"10 minutes, Dr. Medina," a student from one of his classes said in response.

According to Medina, you have seconds to grab someone's attention and only 10 minutes to keep it.

"Every 10 minutes or so, I give a break and provide my audience with an emotionally competent stimulus," he said.

"Your brain comes up to the surface 20 percent of the time during a class; the rest of the time, you are paying attention to internal things, like your thoughts. If keeping people's attention were a business, it would have an 80 percent failure rate."

According to Medina, the brain appears to be designed to solve problems related to surviving outdoors and to do so in constant motion.

"If you wanted to create a learning environment that was directly opposed to what the brain was good at doing, you would probably design something like a classroom," he said, "and if you wanted to create a business environment that was directly opposed to what the brain was good at doing, you would probably design something like a cubicle."

"Brain rule number seven," Medina said, pertains to something that is on the minds of many college students throughout the day: sleep.

According to Medina, "sleep states" are just as important to the learning process as "awake states."

"So just how much sleep do we need? We don't know," he said.

He said that how much sleep a person needs on a regular basis varies from person to person. "It changes with things such as age, gender, puberty, and pregnancy."

The TFFT director, librarian Bryce Nelson, organized the program with communications specialist Reece Carson, Response magazine's Web editor Hope McPherson, and circulation technician Melody Steiner.

Carson said that he helped Medina put the event together and was pleased to see that the room was packed.

"I loved his style. My brain is spinning. It's exciting, and it inspires me to learn more," he said. "I was fascinated by what he had to say about our attention spans, what draws a person in, how we keep attention with things like pictures, things we can relate to... I'm a writer, so this can help me write."

After the reading, some attendees stuck around to talk to Medina. He offered this helpful piece of advice: "When you really don't want to do something, do it. It creates new connections in your brain. It's just like going to the gym; you tear muscles, and it helps you build more muscle."

The discussion lasted for 45 minutes, and afterwards, people were able to purchase his book, which was on display near the entrance of the reading room.

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