As a neuroscientist, it is probably not surprising that I think everyone should learn about their brains. In fact, I am so convinced that understanding how our brains work could improve society and enable everyone to thrive that I left my comfortable position as a University Professor and I now travel the country presenting at schools and organisations. Why? Because our brain is our most important asset!
Our brains are what allow us to think, to feel, to smell, to taste, to love, to remember, to move, to touch, to communicate, to read, to do everything we do! Our brains are who we are – so we need to take care of it. We should all learn how it works, especially our kids.
At the moment, though, kids are not taught about their brains in school. Unless you go to university and choose to study neuroscience or a related field you might never discover how fascinating our brain is or how to look after it. As a result, many people are habitually doing things that impact negatively on their brains.
What are some of the most important facts that kids (and parents) need to understand?
Our brains are continuously changing: We call this neuroplasticity – the brain is changing throughout life. It used to be thought that after certain critical periods in development, the adult brain was relatively static (until it started to decline with old age). It turns out that this is not true, our brains constantly change throughout our lives. In fact, our IQ can change significantly! We are not stuck with the brain we were born with, we can all improve our cognitive abilities at any age.
Use it or lose it: Related to the fact that our brains are continuously changing, the things that we do regularly we get better at and the things we don’t do get worse because you can think of your brain like a muscle. We need to regularly exercise all our muscles to stay fit and we need to exercise all our brain for it to stay healthy. The key is activating all our brains. If you do lots of arm exercises and nothing else then when you go to lift a baby you will hurt yourself because your back, legs and so on are not strong. Similarly, just playing video games all the time will not result in a healthy brain. Kids need to do a range of activities.
Habits control our behaviour: Our brain is amazing and one thing it does extremely well is automate a lot of what we do. The world is a complex place and the amount of information we can process and be aware of is very limited. So, to save this very limited resource for important cognitive tasks, we rely on habits to determine most of our behaviour. In fact, more than 50% of what we do each day is likely to be due to a habit rather than a conscious decision. Teaching kids about habits, how they form and how to change them can literally change their lives.
Emotions are contagious: About 25 years ago mirror neurons were discovered in the brain. These brain cells allow our brain to mirror what someone else is doing. For example, when someone smiles, the neurons in our brain that would make us smile activate, causing us to feel happy so we understand that that person is happy. If you hang around with happy people, you also will automatically feel happier.
Face-to-face connection is key: We are a connected species. We have a large brain to allow us to communicate, to collaborate, to empathise, and to connect. More of our brain is active during face-to-face communication than anything else we can do. If you want your child to exercise their brain then hanging out with a friend and chatting is one of the best exercises they could do. In fact, hanging out with someone we trust face-to-face on a regular basis improves health and wellbeing, decrease the likelihood of mental health issues, and can increase our life by up to 15 years. We all need to be spending more time with each other in real life.
Remember knowledge is power and giving our kids the important keys to a healthy brain are crucial. All of these important facts are important for us all to know and understand so that we can all thrive in this very busy, very confusing world of distractions.
Dr Mark Williams is a cognitive neuroscientist who lives on the Northern Beaches and works with schools and businesses to create brain-healthy organisations. Mark has over 25 years’ experience researching and teaching how our brain works. He has worked at MIT in the USA as well as numerous Universities in Australia and received numerous prestigious awards.
Dr Mark Williams is now co-director of Brain Camp which is a holiday program for year 5-6 students where kids learn how to be real scientists exploring how the mind and brain work through innovative STEAM-based activities. Mark is also the author of “The Connected Species” which is a practical guide to how our brain works and how we can create a better world for ourselves and our communities.