The ability to double our biomass - not by waiting several million years and growing to be the size of an elephant - but waiting a few hundred thousand years for neurons to sprout into our brains - ones capable of having us create emotional relationships with other members of our species. We thereby double our biomass not by getting bigger, but by creating an ally.

John Medina

If you wanted to create an education environment that was directly opposed to what the brain was good at doing, you probably would design something like a classroom. If you wanted to create a business environment that was directly opposed to what the brain was good at doing, you probably would design something like a cubicle. And if you wanted to change things, you might have to tear down both and start over.

John Medina

starting-over design brain

You've got seconds to grab your audience's attention and only minutes to keep it.

John Medina

minutes business attention

The brain remembers the emotional component of an experience better than any other aspect.

John Medina

emotional brain remember

Change often involves loss, so change can be a risky experience.

John Medina

loss

What you do and learn in life physically changes what your brain looks like—it literally rewires it.

John Medina

medina brain looks

The more senses recruited at the moment of learning, the more likely you are to recall it later.

John Medina

recalls senses moments

Based on research into the Picture Superiority Effect, when we read text alone, we are likely to remember only 10 percent of the information 3 days later. If that information is presented to us as text combined with a relevant image, we are likely to remember 65 percent of the information 3 days later.

John Medina

information research remember

The brain appears to have been designed to solve problems related to surviving in an outdoor setting, in unstable meteorological conditions, and to do so in near constant motion.

John Medina

unstable problem brain

The brain cannot multitask. Multitasking, when it comes to paying attention, is a myth. The brain naturally focuses on concepts sequentially, one at a time…To put it bluntly, research shows that we can’t multitask. We are biologically incapable of processing information-rich inputs simultaneously…Studies show that a person who is interrupted takes 50 percent longer to accomplish a task. Not only that, he or she makes up to 50 percent more errors.

John Medina

errors tasks brain

The brain processes meaning before detail. Providing the gist, the core concept, first was like giving a thirsty person a tall glass of water. And the brain likes hierarchy. Starting with general concepts naturally leads to explaining information in a hierarchical fashion. You have to do the general idea first. And then you will see that 40 percent improvement in understanding.

John Medina

fashion glasses ideas

Empathy works so well because it does not require a solution. It requires only understanding.

John Medina

empathy understanding doe

Years of research show us that the less control a person feels over an aversive stimuli coming at them, the more likely they are to disengage. Complete loss of control over a sustained period of time can actually lead to depression. It then follows that giving the person a level of control over the situation reduce the stress - and perhaps restore the disengagement.

John Medina

stress loss years

Whether at work, home or school, everybody carries their brain around them, and if the organ suffers from a disorder, we carry the disorder around with us too.

John Medina

brain home school

One of the greatest predictors of academic success that exist is the emotional stability of the home. So if parents are interested in education reform, they should also be interested in how they conduct themselves in front of their children. If they are homeschooling their kids, they are even more exposed, so the idea is even more important.

John Medina

home kids children

Don't start with the details. Start with the key ideas, and in a hierarchical fashion, form the details around these larger notions.

John Medina

fashion keys ideas

Every brain is wired differently from every other brain, and learns in ways unique to that wiring.

John Medina

unique brain way

Having a first child is like swallowing an intoxicating drink made of equal parts joy and terror, chased with a bucketful of transitions nobody ever tells you about.

John Medina

transition joy children

To improve short-term memory significantly, reduce the stress in your life. And choose your parents wisely.

John Medina

stress parent memories

We are human because we can fantasize.

John Medina

humans

There are nature and nurture components to virtually every behavior a human experiences. The research effort lies only in finding the relevant percentages, not on some absolute value. That's one of the reasons behavioral scientists have to be really good statisticians.

John Medina

effort research lying