This month’s Rock.Paper.Scissors newsletter is a review of John Medina’s wonderful Brain Rules book.  John does a great job of inspiring us to rethink cubicles and classrooms.

Check out the entire e-newsletter here and/or see below for resources related to how to have our boardrooms and businesses working in sync with how our brains actually work (instead of working against how our brains work, which is how cubicles and classrooms are typically designed today).

John’s book outlines 12 principles for how the brains work.  I’ve taken some of those principles and matched them with resources for you.

• Check out John’s book here: Brain Rules; 12 principles for Surviving & Thriving at Work, Home & School.

• Regarding John’s Brain Rules exercise principle, see this infographic for how sitting is killing us

• I’ve bookmarked a bunch of brain-based learning resources in my Delicious account; access them here. 

• Regarding John’s Brain Rules stress principle, read a blog post I wrote about stress called Learning can be stressful; throwing learning to the dogs

• Check out a blog post I wrote about getting attention (another of John’s brain principles) called Looking for inspiration?  Try an add (especially these unusual ones from Fast Company)

• In terms of exploration, another Brain Rules principle, why not explore a variety of ways to soothe your brain & meditate via Deepak Chopra’s online meditation program?

Check these out, your brain will love you for it.

This month’s Rock.Paper.Scissors’ newsletter reviews John Medina’s Brain Rules book.  See the entire newsletter here, including a bunch of related resources and/or read the book review below.
What is ‘easily the most sophisticated information transfer system on earth?’

Our brains says molecular biologist John Medina in his book Brain Rules; 12 principles for Surviving & Thriving at Work, Home & School.

Our brains were originally ‘designed to solve problems related to surviving in unstable outdoor environments and to do so in nearly constant motion,’ says John.   If we were going to design environments that deliberately hobble our abilities and work against the brain, classrooms and cubicles would take the grand prize.

Most of us have no idea how our brain works … and that has strange consequences.  This self-described nice guy[1] & grumpy scientist lays out 12 rules for how our brains work & the implications of those workings.  The M.G.T. or Medina Grump Factor ensures he doesn’t quote any studies that haven’t passed his (very) rigorous standards.

Brain Rules book is peppered with humourous twists that peek inside the workings of your gray matter with glee.  Here are highlights for 7 of John’s Brain Rules.

Brain rule 1: Exercise

What can decrease your risk for general dementia by 50% and decrease your chances of getting Alzheimer’s by a whopping 60%?  Exercise.  Physical activity is cognitive candy.  Our ancestors were used to walking 12 miles … per day and before you think you have to measure up to those standards, exercising a mere 2 times per week can effect the changes he’s talking about.

Brain rule 2: Attention

Better attention always means better learning.  If that’s not something to make your ears perk up, John says that, because we don’t pay attention to boring things, ‘if keeping someone’s attention in a lecture was a business, it would have an 80% failure rate’.

What grabs our attention?

• Memory: we use previous experiences to predict where to put our attention
• Interest: if we think something’s important we’ll pay attention
• Culture: turns out our culture affects our attention.  Urban Asians for example pay more attention to the context of a visual scene, while urban Americans pay more attention to the details in the foreground.  (Wonder what Canadians do?)
• Emotions: if something is emotionally arousing we’ll remember it better
• Meaning: we remember meaning before details

And being able to pay attention to several things at once?  Turns out multitasking is a myth.  It is biologically impossible for us to multitask.  What we call multitasking is task switching or jumping from one thing to another and back again.  Yet we persist in thinking we’re great multitaskers, even though interruptions make us take 50% longer to complete a task and with 50% more mistakes.

And the younger generation, what with their IPhones, IPads, Facebook, and Twitter universes?  They’re simply faster at task switching.

Brain rule 3: Survival

When we came out of the trees it was with a sign on our backs saying ‘eat me, I’m prey.’  Historically we gave up stability (hanging out in trees all day) to adapt to variation. And so began our march towards to being ‘increasingly allergic to inflexibility & stupidity.’

Brain rule 4: Sleep

What management strategy will improve performance 34% in 26 minutes?  Sleep.  That’s why some progressive companies encourage napping on company time.

If we sleep well we think well.

Conversely, the nap zone (that sleepy time mid-afternoon that all trainers dread) is literally fatal.  There is no other time of day when there are more traffic accidents.  Sleep loss hurts attention, executive function, memory, mood, reasoning and math.

Why do we sleep?  To learn.  Rats who learn a maze pattern by day, replay the same maze thousands of times in their sleep.  And if they are interrupted & not allowed to do that replay in their sleep they don’t remember the maze the next day.

Brain rule 5: Stress

Why does stress cause some of us to go off the deep end while others maintain their equanimity?  It comes down to control.  The more loss of control we perceive the more severely we experience stress.

Historically our stressful survival issues were resolved in seconds (evade charging lion or be eaten) but now stressful incidents can continue for hours, days, months and even years.  If sleep is like candy to a baby, then ongoing stress is like crack cocaine.  Stress affects learning, language, memory & concentration.  The Centres for Disease Control & Prevention say that 80% of medical expenditures are now stress related.

So what’s a stressed out person to do?  The number one successful stress strategy is regaining control.

Brain rule 6: Sensory Integration

Stimulate more of the senses and you’ll have better learning.  Learning is more effective in a multi-sensory environment … & the effect can be measured 20 years later.

 Scent is particularly strong.  In one experiment vending machines that gave off a smell of chocolate increased sales by 60%.  Using the same principle, Starbucks employees are not allowed to wear perfume on the job because it interferes with the coffee olfactory experience.

Brain rule 7: Exploration

Perhaps it’s because I’ve moved to Africa for a year but this one particularly caught my interest.  ‘We are natural explorers, even if the habit sometimes stings us.  The tendency is so strong, it is capable of turning us into lifelong learners.’

‘When we came down from the trees to the savannah, we did not say to ourselves, “Good lord, give me a book & a lecture & a board of directors so I can spend 10 years learning how to survive in this place.”  Our survival did not depend upon exposing ourselves to organized, pre-planned packets or information.  Our survival depended upon chaotic, reactive information-gathering experiences.  That’s why one of our best attributes is the ability to learn through a series of self-corrected ideas.’

Brain Rules is a great read if you’re in the training and development field and/or have responsibility for managing and working with people.  I join John in urging you to:

• Explore.  Go seek some adventure.
• Get plenty of sleep and exercise.
• Pay attention to attention, because it’s scarce and it’s valuable.
• Take back control and your stress will decrease.

Your brain will thank you for it.

If stress can cause this kind of physical response in dogs imagine what a nervous learner can be suffering!

Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one’s self-esteem. That is why young children, before they are aware of their own self-importance, learn so easily; and why older persons, especially if vain or important, cannot learn at all. ~ Thomas Szasz, U.S psychiatrist

Here’s to training that soothes ruffled feathers, calms the nerves and is both welcoming and inclusive … so that learning can happen.

The roots of engaging training can be found anywhere.  You do however have be on the lookout.

Some of my ideas have come from advertisements – yep ads.  When I say I’m going to be talking about hairy, naked guy (above specimen) I can see participant’s question marks dancing in the air.  (Curiousity being a trainer’s best friend.)

I took a picture of this ad and it serves me well when I’m talking about the effects of stress, how training is affected, how our brains operate when we’re under pressure, the part of the brain called the amygdala or any other number of things.

Here are some provocative ads.  See if you can draw inspiration from them …

Inspiration can be flimsy and delicate, so keep a catch-all design book with you to jot down when inspiration strikes.

See more unusual ads from Fast Company here.

This is part two of 10 tips for trainers.  See part one here.  It’s my gift to you the day after my birthday.  I figured as I don’t have to wait until Christmas to open gifts why should you.

6.   Avoid the hairy, naked guy; part A

• when we’re stressed our brains aren’t primed for objective thinking, rather we’re focused on how to stay safe
• when we’re stressed our hearing can actually tank by up to 68% like the naked hairy guy above – talk about not being able to respond to learners!
• as trainers when we’re stressed we default to our level of preparation
• to help you and your brain avoid the effects of stress create a training supplies kit that goes with you to every training (no matter the audience or the content)
• mine’s in a ziplock plastic bag so I can easily see what’s in there – it’s full of fasteners, chalk, whiteboard markers, tape, scissors, kleenex etc.
• easy peasy – pack and go

7. Avoid the hairy, naked guy; part B

• as a trainer when our brain’s under stress (we’re behind time, a participant is being particularly challenging or we’ve just realized we’ve been training with bits of lunch stuck between our teeth) we’re not primed to be operating at peak efficiency
• for proof just look at said hairy, naked guy trying to absorb his doctor’s advice
• to help you avoid him and his state make your training agenda your friend
• make your training agenda easy to read by making the font larger than you normally would
• underline bits of your agenda that have a corresponding handout
• highlight parts of your agenda that have a corresponding powerpoint slide
• if you’re co-facilitating, highlight (in a different colour) the parts of your agenda that your colleague is responsible for
• if you do find you’ve had spinach stuck in your teeth for the last few hours at least you’ll be able to easily find your place in the schedule

8.  ‘Ah ha’ is most powerful when preceded by ‘huh?!’

• curiousity is to the brain what a cold, glass of lemonade is to a thirsty throat on a scorching hot summer’s day
• our brains LOVE being curious – they seek to satisfy that curiousity
• as the Heath brothers talk about in their book Made to Stick the ah ha of discovery, of powerful learning is most powerful when preceded by huh?! or what’s going on, you have my attention, I’m engaged, I’m paying attention
• create learning situations that arouse learner’s curiousity and they’ll be powerfully motivated to satisfy that curiousity
• confession: I used this strategy by creating posts called bumblebee butts and avoiding naked, hairy guys

9.  Once upon a time

• we all want learners who are engaged and curious (see point #8)  and one way to get them there is to tell engaging, true stories
• stories are a powerful shortcut to great learning and increased retention
• I have a whole back pocket full of stories at the ready – there’s the one about training in East Africa when at night I had to watch out for hippos and during the day monkeys were on my radar
• make it real, make it personal and have several at the ready
• most of all make sure your stories are related to your learning objectives

10.  Group groans

• group groans, a.k.a. learning activities that are embarrassing and/or silly, dampen learning faster than your teenager can come up with multiple excuses as to why their homework’s not done
• if participants feel embarrassed or are made to feel silly their brains are focused on keeping them safe, not on learning
• group groans are defined by the learner’s perspective, not ours – you may find an activity engaging but if it looks like your participants are sucking on lemons ditch it and change tracks fast
• still not sure what a group groan is?  Take a listen.  It’s any activity that prompts a participant to audibly or inaudibly do this: group groan

So there you have it – 10 tips for trainers- from bumblebee butts & booty to avoiding hairy, naked guys.

I welcome any tips you’d like to share.  Please feel free.

I went to a talk at my kids’ school the other night about drug abuse prevention.  Interesting material and great presenter.

One of the things that caught my attention was the presenter’s definition of stress.

Before I tell you what it was, what’s yours?  Definition of stress that is.

The dictionary calls it “a state of mental or emotional strain or tension resulting from adverse or very demanding circumstances.”

Sounds significant.

The presenter called stress the result of emotions that aren’t dealt with.

Simple.  Clean.  Manageable.  This means that emotion we don‘t deal with or acknowledge is a shortcut to stress.

I like that she didn’t say you have to necessarily solve your stress inducing problems.  She didn’t say bliss out and force a smile on your face.

She did say acknowledge.

As in my shoulder hurts again.  I feel under pressure.

As in my scalp is tingling.  I’m chock full of anticipation.

As in my chest feels tight.  I’m scared.

As in my heart feels bigger than my body.  I’m full of love.

As in my throat feels tight.  I’m sad and about to choke up.

Dealing with your emotions hits as home run.   Dealing with your emotions is a direct path to reducing stress.  Clearly.

And you? How are your emotions connected to your stress level?

In my last post I talked about my first day on the job, doing job training for developmentally delayed adults when I was 17 years old.  I learned a lot about expecting the unexpected there.  From helping an elfin older lady named Cookie do up her bra to customizing stress relief.

Stress.  It’s a killer, it’s a pain in the back, in the heart and about every other body part.

We all experience it.  Not all of us know how to manage it effectively though.

But I digress.  First let me tell you more about working with developmentally delayed adults.  The organization I was working with would receive items that needed to be assembled.  Think folding cardboard boxes and putting items inside in a certain order.

Easy right?  Not for the folks I was working with.  It was my job to break down the jobs into parts that each person was capable of.  It was not easy figuring out for example what Larry, who was some 6′ 8″ tall, with the understanding of a three year old, could manage.

Sometimes I got it right and the human assembly line folded, elastic-banded, sorted, assembled, stacked and packed away.

Sometimes I got it wrong and stress levels would rise.  Tempers would flare.  Tears would flow and I’d have to start over again, re-assigning and re-designing  while soothing hurt feelings.

One day I realized we all needed a break.  Something to relieve the stress.  I asked around and hit on pickles and country music.

Say what?  Yes, that’s right, for some reason this group loved country music and eating pickles.

So the next time a meltdown happened I cranked the music and we all danced around, shaking and shimmying, some to the rhythm of the music, others to the rhythm only they could hear.  After a few minutes calm was restored and we continued our work.

Other days I’d serve dill pickles.  Different method, same result.

Cost for this wellness plan?  Under 10 bucks.  Results?  Many and marvelous.

And you?  What simple, irreverent, unusual methods do you use to relieve stress?