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

Written by John Medina

Narrated by John Medina

If workplaces had nap rooms, multitasking was frowned upon, and meetings were held during walks, we'd be vastly more productive. Brain Rules reveals – in plain English – 12 ways our brains truly work.

Most of us have no idea what’s really going on inside our heads. Yet brain scientists have uncovered details every business leader, parent, and teacher should know—like the need for physical activity to get your brain working its best.

How do we learn? What exactly do sleep and stress do to our brains? Why is multi-tasking a myth? Why is it so easy to forget—and so important to repeat new knowledge? Is it true that men and women have different brains?

In Brain Rules, Dr. John Medina, a molecular biologist, shares his lifelong interest in how the brain sciences might influence the way we teach our children and the way we work. In each chapter, he describes a brain rule—what scientists know for sure about how our brains work—and then offers transformative ideas for our daily lives.

Medina’s fascinating stories and infectious sense of humor breathe life into brain science. You’ll learn why Michael Jordan was no good at baseball. You’ll peer over a surgeon’s shoulder as he proves that most of us have a Jennifer Aniston neuron. You’ll meet a boy who has an amazing memory for music but can’t tie his own shoes.

You will discover how:

Every brain is wired differently

Exercise improves cognition

We are designed to never stop learning and exploring

Memories are volatile

Sleep is powerfully linked with the ability to learn

Vision trumps all of the other senses

Stress changes the way we learn

In the end, you’ll understand how your brain really works—and how to get the most out of it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pear Press
• Release date: Apr 22, 2014
• ISBN: 9780996032636

John Medina

Dr John Medina, a developmental molecular biologist, has had a lifelong fascination with how the mind reacts to and organises information. He is the author of the internationally bestselling works Brain Rules, Brain Rules for Baby, and Brain Rules for Ageing Well. Medina is an affiliate professor of bioengineering at the University of Washington School of Medicine. He lives in Seattle, Washington.

Reviews for Brain Rules (Updated and Expanded)

[skybalon · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Good highly readable reference to the latest in brain research. Well worth the read, even you won't remember all 12 principles later. (And there is probably a principle in the book that would explain why.)

[cataloger623 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An amazing book on the brain. The book is highly readable and interesting.

[castiron_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An interesting basic overview of what we currently know about how the brain processes information and learns.

[simchaboston · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Short, but informative and engaging. I appreciate that Medina explains the biology clearly, tries not to generalize too much (even the "principles" of the title are more suggestions and ideas for future research), and emphasizes that there is so much about the brain that we still don't understand. This would be too basic for those who already know some neuroscience, but for me it was about right.

[willow1972 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Fascinating! A great book for those laymen (like moi) interested in Brain science and the implications on learning. The chapters on music and gender are especially good.

[collizzle · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

My advisor for grad school gave me this book as a graduation present. As a researcher, I have read about many of these studies but it was still interesting and engaging. I highly recommend it.

[jlapac-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a great book. It combines brain science with evolution, how people learn and the stupidities of how we teach. It took me a long time to actually read, but in the process I gave two presentations on the basic principles and gifted the book to a couple of different people.

I think it is a good book to read for many reasons:
-understanding how your children are developing
-understanding how to approach people and how their brain affects their reaction
-understanding the basic way your brain works so that you can leverage that knowledge
etc.

The above, of course, assumes that what the book says is correct. I choose to think it is and think that the concepts it provides can be very useful in managing staff and working with people in general.

[revslick_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Excellent, down to earth way that we can make simple Life Hacks with discoveries regarding how the Brain works. Best tips are - exercise is crucial!! naps are important for creativity and high Brain functioning; teaching and probably also preaching should only last for 10min increments; and lastly what we smell while learning can greatly enhance our retention and learning speed. Medina's downside is he breaks down things so much that it lack an air of academic rigor. If Brain Rules could be combined with Brain Fix you'd have a masterpiece.

[laphenix · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Wonderfully thorough and accessible! Medina presents complicated data and concepts in an engaging manner and supports his ideas with examples and stories designed to maximize recall. I loved reading this book and anticipate that I'll be referencing it often!

[kashtastic · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I'd rate this a 3.5I found it an interesting and educational read. I liked how the book was organized and how it was explained in terms I understood.Many of the principles, to me, felt rather self-explanatory but at the same time they were put in way that told me things I didn't know about the topic.I enjoyed reading it.

[paulsignorelli_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Although the brain often seems to be the most overlooked tool in trainer-teacher-learners' toolkits, great writers like developmental molecular biologist John Medina are doing a lot to move us past that that oversight through books like "Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School." Medina is never less than completely engaging, and his 12 rules about how the brain functions in learning are drawn from well-documented research, his own very funny observations, and his continual call for more research to help fill in the numerous gaps we still have in our knowledge: "This book is a call for research simply because we don't know enough to be prescriptive," he disarmingly admits (p. 4). Among the rules he documents: exercise boosts brain power; every brain is wired differently; stressed brains don't learn well; and stimulate more of the senses simultaneously to stimulate more effective learning. This is not a book for those comfortable with the status quo; in fact, Medina clearly expects us to approach his work with minds completely open to ideas that might initially strike us as ludicrous. And he encourages us to imagine (and create) learning spaces that inspire and sustain curiosity as opposed to the age-old model of lecture halls where learning is an instructor-centric endeavor.

[wodfest · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Briliant. I use stuff from this every day (that I remember to). I read about half of this then left it for a while then read a chapter that I was most interested in then I re-read the whole.

[tkadlec_7 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Brain Rules is an excellent overview of some key principles to optimize your brain's performance. Medina does a great job of mixing the science behind how your brain works with practical takeaways. While there is a lot of science discussed, Medina manages to present the information in a very engaging and easily digestible format.There are so many things we should be doing to optimize our cognitive abilities at work and in the classroom that are currently being ignored for the sake of tradition. The adjustments sometimes sound fairly radical (Medina proposes that companies should block out 1/2 hour each day for employees to nap for example) but they are also fairly simple to execute, and well supported by scientific evidence of their potential impact.This should be a must read for anyone in business or education.

[kjacobson1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I learned about this book from Garr Reynolds' website. Medina's storytelling approach worked well for me & many of the principles are relevant to my work. Like some other reviewers, I'd like to know more about the science behind the stories.

[lagodzilla · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A very humorus read about our brains!

[pcalico_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Interesting, useful, practical.

[tgraettinger_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An unusual book - not exactly pop science, not exactly self-help, not business, yet it has some of the flavor of all three. There is a companion web site, and at times you get the sense that this material would work better in a different format or combination of formats - and maybe that's what the web site helps accomplish. Since a couple of the "Rules" are "vision trumps all other senses" and "we don't pay attention to boring things", a book with no pictures seems a bit incongruous. And the rules are not prescriptive, but rather suggestive. Medina readily admits, maybe too readily, that almost all of these rules need more research. So, what are we to do with these rules. Maybe to do the "exploration" that is the basis of rule 12 and find out for ourselves.

[pipster_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I learned about this book from Garr Reynolds' website. Medina's storytelling approach worked well for me & many of the principles are relevant to my work. Like some other reviewers, I'd like to know more about the science behind the stories.