Brain Rules

I read one of the more amazing books recently, Brain Rules by John Medina. The author talks about the role of the brain and although gets into some technical terms, he allows the reader to get the important insights we need to know without all the medical jargon.

Here are some insights I picked up that I thought you would be interested to know about.

Tom Trybus is one of our VP of Sales and is in charge of The Pavilion. Now if I just mentioned his name, you would skip right by it, forget the name in a matter of minutes or hours and have no recollection. But the photo above gives you a brilliant mental snapshot of what Tom looks like and how relaxed he can be when he is working hard.

This is a photo that was taken at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor during the U-M vs. MSU game. You can see the 110,000 plus fans and all the green and white cheering as the Spartans crushed the Wolverines. Now if I just mentioned the Stadium without the photo, you would not even think about what it looked like.

The brain remembers photos and not words. In fact, of the major senses we have, vision takes up a full 50% of the brains capacity. That is why visuals are so important.

The brain makes up 2% of your body weight but accounts for 20% of calorie usage. One reason why physical exercise is so important is that the oxygen intake feeds brain cells and keeps them sharper. It's no mystery why physically fit people are more alert. The author recommends a minimum 30 minutes per day.

Question: The brain is more active when you are awake or when you sleep? The answer: When you are sleeping. In fact, the brain doesn't stop working when you are sleeping and that is the time the brain absorbs all the input from the waking hours into the "memory" area. It is also one reason why 7-8 hours of sleep are so important. Without sleep, the brain can't do its thing.

I remember the above photo from high school. I was never one for science and stuff and still aren't. But the brain is fascinating and we all have one. It's how we use it that determines our daily outcome in life. If you want to learn more, read the book.

Happy Thursday!