Latest / Do You F*cking Mind? / 11 fascinating myths about the brain (E)

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11 fascinating myths about the brain (E) · Do You F*cking Mind?

0:11
Speaker 1: Good morning, my beautiful beans, and welcome to this encore
0:15
Speaker 1: episode of the Summer Break, And if you are in
0:18
Speaker 1: the Northern Hemisphere, then let's call it the Winter Break.
0:22
Speaker 1: This episode that we have chosen is about eleven myths
0:28
Speaker 1: about the brain that you must know. So some of
0:31
Speaker 1: them are really obvious myths that you've probably heard debunked,
0:33
Speaker 1: and others are not so obvious. And I had so
0:37
Speaker 1: much fun putting this episode together. It's a great episode
0:41
Speaker 1: to listen to if you want to drop some fun
0:43
Speaker 1: facts in the next dinner that you're at or conversation
0:46
Speaker 1: that you're at. It's a good conversation starter. So if
0:48
Speaker 1: you're interested in the brain, in social psychology, in pop psychology,
0:52
Speaker 1: then one hundred percent you want to be listening to
0:55
Speaker 1: this episode to separate fact from fiction. It is a vibe.
1:00
Speaker 1: I hope you're having a great holiday if you are
1:02
Speaker 1: on holidays, by the way, love you so much. Enjoyed.
1:07
Speaker 1: I was actually listening to an article someone on YouTube
1:11
Speaker 1: and neuroscientists talking about this and what has actually gone
1:15
Speaker 1: down and the reason why a lot of these myths
1:17
Speaker 1: occur or evolve into mainstream. You know, pop culture in
1:23
Speaker 1: the first place is because there's a lot of you know,
1:26
Speaker 1: scientific articles that will get published in scientific journals, and
1:30
Speaker 1: then you'll get someone that writes an article for a
1:33
Speaker 1: magazine or a newspaper based on a snippet or one
1:37
Speaker 1: thing that was said in that scientific journal, but didn't
1:40
Speaker 1: actually go through that journal article properly, didn't actually go
1:44
Speaker 1: through what was being said, what actually was proven or disproven.
1:48
Speaker 1: They just take like a snippet of information here and
1:50
Speaker 1: then say, this is a new fact about the brain.
1:52
Speaker 1: It is what it is. At times, there's even been
1:55
Speaker 1: articles about something that was done, you know, how to
1:58
Speaker 1: treat a certain cancer a cell within a petri dish,
2:01
Speaker 1: and then an article's come out saying, oh, this particular
2:04
Speaker 1: compound cures cancer. You know, so you're not comparing what's
2:07
Speaker 1: occurring in a petridish to what actually happens within the
2:10
Speaker 1: human body completely differently. So that's an example, and because
2:13
Speaker 1: of that then you like really skew. It's kind of
2:16
Speaker 1: it's kind of like Chinese whispers on speed, and it
2:20
Speaker 1: ends up the article to the mainstream culture ends up
2:23
Speaker 1: being an absolute like bastardization of what the scientific journal
2:28
Speaker 1: was in the first place, to the extent that sometimes
2:30
Speaker 1: it says the actual opposite of what the scientific journal
2:34
Speaker 1: article said or what the study is set out to
2:37
Speaker 1: prove or disprove. Right, So that's how they occur, and
2:40
Speaker 1: then they just keep getting like spread, and there's a
2:44
Speaker 1: lot of people that have tried a certain method of
2:47
Speaker 1: teaching something a certain way, and then it becomes gospel,
2:49
Speaker 1: and then people debunk it all these things. Okay, so
2:52
Speaker 1: I'm going to be going through I don't have a
2:53
Speaker 1: brain fact for today because they're all brain facts. So
2:56
Speaker 1: I'm going to be going through eleven points for today's
2:59
Speaker 1: episode Old. I'm excited share these, share these with people.
3:02
Speaker 1: They're just fun, like what do you call it? Party?
3:06
Speaker 1: It's not really a party, true, but fun like little
3:08
Speaker 1: anecdotes to tell when you have nothing else to talk about.
3:11
Speaker 1: So let's get straight into it. Brain myth number one,
3:14
Speaker 1: and I'm going to start with the really obvious one,
3:17
Speaker 1: a really popular one is this idea that you only
3:19
Speaker 1: use ten percent of your brain. You actually use all
3:23
Speaker 1: of your brain pretty much all the time, just at
3:26
Speaker 1: different intensities. If you didn't use it, you would lose it.
3:31
Speaker 1: What you want to look at when you come to
3:33
Speaker 1: maximizing your brain's potential is all about your ability for
3:36
Speaker 1: attentional focus. How can you steer your focus and your
3:39
Speaker 1: mind in like a laser way for longer periods of
3:42
Speaker 1: time to really maximize your memory, to maximize your productivity.
3:46
Speaker 1: Most of us have a lot of scattered focus and
3:49
Speaker 1: therefore we don't feel like we're maximizing our brain's potential. Okay,
3:53
Speaker 1: so you still use all of your brain, just not efficiently.
3:57
Speaker 1: That's the problem. So when someone says, oh, we only
3:59
Speaker 1: use ten percent of our brain, and obviously bullshit, what
4:01
Speaker 1: a waste of space and energy in the body. Your
4:05
Speaker 1: brain takes up twenty percent of your energy consumption. Twenty
4:08
Speaker 1: percent your brain, it's insane, So you're using it all
4:12
Speaker 1: the time. The issue is that we have just so
4:16
Speaker 1: many distractions and so many things that are pulling us
4:18
Speaker 1: in different directions, so many different emotions, that it's really
4:21
Speaker 1: easy to end up, you know, as we all know,
4:25
Speaker 1: stuck on social media scrolling for hours, and you know
4:28
Speaker 1: this laser being focused to really maximize your day and
4:32
Speaker 1: maximize your abilities is you know, it can be honed
4:34
Speaker 1: into a whole lot better, which we don't do. Most
4:37
Speaker 1: of us don't do every day. But that's what we
4:40
Speaker 1: should be focusing on. It's all about maximizing your brain's
4:42
Speaker 1: potential with what's already going in there, and like increasing
4:46
Speaker 1: you know, synapses between the cells and things like that,
4:48
Speaker 1: improving your cognitive reserve, which I've spoken about a million times.
4:52
Speaker 1: Number two, learning styles. I'm not sure if I've mentioned
4:56
Speaker 1: this before on the podcast, but I'm going to mention
4:58
Speaker 1: it here. Hate to bust a lot of people's bubbles,
5:00
Speaker 1: but learning styles is a myth. It's a myth. And
5:05
Speaker 1: I know some of you are thinking, wait a minute,
5:08
Speaker 1: but I'm a visual learner, and I know that for
5:10
Speaker 1: a fact. That's anecdotal, and you're gonna find out why
5:12
Speaker 1: it's not actually a scientific factor in a second. So
5:15
Speaker 1: the idea that someone's a visual learner or an auditory
5:18
Speaker 1: learner or a kinesthetic learner is a myth. However, it's
5:23
Speaker 1: so ingrained in our society and in the education system
5:27
Speaker 1: and a lot of educators obviously not all, but a
5:29
Speaker 1: lot of educators and people in general that it's continuously taught.
5:34
Speaker 1: It's been taught and it continues to be taught in
5:36
Speaker 1: a lot of schools around the world as well. But
5:38
Speaker 1: it's been debunked many times researcher and PhD. Her name's
5:43
Speaker 1: Abby Nol. She studies learning styles, and she said that
5:47
Speaker 1: it started kind of around the late eighties and nineties
5:49
Speaker 1: around this self esteem movement is what she called it,
5:53
Speaker 1: where everyone was unique and everyone was special and therefore
5:56
Speaker 1: everyone must have a unique learning style as well that
5:58
Speaker 1: should be catered to. Right. So, in one of many
6:01
Speaker 1: studies that was done around this topic of learning styles,
6:04
Speaker 1: students who were told what their learning style was or
6:07
Speaker 1: who identified what their learning style was still didn't study
6:12
Speaker 1: in a way that reflected that. And when they did,
6:14
Speaker 1: like when they were made to study in a way
6:16
Speaker 1: that reflected what they thought their learning style was or
6:19
Speaker 1: what they were told their learning style was, it did
6:21
Speaker 1: not improve their overall scores compared to controlts. So what's
6:26
Speaker 1: happening is that they get into habits and they tell themselves, oh,
6:29
Speaker 1: this kind of learner and I can't learn and that
6:31
Speaker 1: other modality. So they already set themselves up to expect
6:35
Speaker 1: less for themselves. What it actually comes down to is
6:38
Speaker 1: that people have different abilities and strengths in their abilities,
6:41
Speaker 1: but not different learning styles. And for most things, there
6:46
Speaker 1: is only one correct way of learning it, or one superior,
6:49
Speaker 1: more efficient way of learning it. Like you can't learn
6:52
Speaker 1: how to drive unless you physically do it. No matter
6:56
Speaker 1: how many audio fucking tapes you listen to about driving,
7:00
Speaker 1: you can't do it. It's not going to cut it.
7:02
Speaker 1: You will never learn to speak a language if you
7:06
Speaker 1: don't practice speaking it. You could listen to it all
7:09
Speaker 1: day long. You could listen to every film in a
7:11
Speaker 1: language and then try and speak it. Impossible now. One
7:14
Speaker 1: thing that I used to get all the time is
7:17
Speaker 1: people telling me I need to see you when I
7:19
Speaker 1: would pete like group fitness and all that I need
7:21
Speaker 1: to see you do something. I need to see you
7:23
Speaker 1: do something. And some things like being instructed to squat.
7:27
Speaker 1: Most people would rather look at someone demonstrate a squat
7:31
Speaker 1: because they claim that they are a visual learner. But
7:35
Speaker 1: just because you prefer to watch someone's squat and copy
7:38
Speaker 1: it does not mean that you're squatting properly. Most of
7:40
Speaker 1: the time, you can watch someone squat a new squad
7:42
Speaker 1: and you're doing a shit job, but you just think, oh,
7:45
Speaker 1: that's how I learn better because I've watched you do it.
7:47
Speaker 1: Sometimes verbal cues allow you to do a better job
7:51
Speaker 1: just because one style is easier to take in like
7:54
Speaker 1: through your eyes. It does not mean that you are
7:57
Speaker 1: then able to perform that task better. I can fucking
8:00
Speaker 1: tell you after teaching people to do a basic squad
8:03
Speaker 1: forever ten years, I can testify that verbal cues help
8:07
Speaker 1: people squat better than me demonstrating a squad any day
8:11
Speaker 1: of the week. And it's so harmful. When you pigeonhole
8:15
Speaker 1: yourself into a quote unquote learning style, you limit yourself
8:18
Speaker 1: to thinking that you're not going to excel in other areas,
8:21
Speaker 1: and therefore you're less likely to try something, or you're
8:23
Speaker 1: less likely to commit. If you go into a class
8:26
Speaker 1: and someone's verbally cuing and you're like, oh no, no, no,
8:28
Speaker 1: no, no no, I'm a visual learner, you're subconsciously shutting yourself off, thinking, oh,
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Speaker 1: I'm not gonna get it. I'm not gonna get it.
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Speaker 1: They're telling me what to do, when in reality, you
8:37
Speaker 1: probably would do a really good job at it if
8:39
Speaker 1: everyone else is doing it, because if the masses can
8:41
Speaker 1: do it, the chances are so can you. Number three,
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Speaker 1: Memory does not necessarily go down with aging. Some forms
8:51
Speaker 1: of memory do a little bit episodic memory, which is
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Speaker 1: like who, what, when, where? Why? Does decline a little bit,
8:58
Speaker 1: but procedural memory, like the skill of doing something, and
9:02
Speaker 1: your memory for vocabulary will continue to get better and
9:06
Speaker 1: better and better with age if you work on it, obviously,
9:10
Speaker 1: use it to lose it kind of thing. So if
9:11
Speaker 1: you're always working on it, you know, if you're a
9:13
Speaker 1: writer or you read novels, you consume novels like crazy,
9:17
Speaker 1: your vocab is going to keep getting better and better
9:20
Speaker 1: and better well into your nineties. Right. However, dementia, obviously
9:25
Speaker 1: and other forms of degeneration are a different thing altogether,
9:28
Speaker 1: but they don't go hand in hand with aging. While
9:31
Speaker 1: it's way more common to get dementia in old age
9:34
Speaker 1: for many reasons, it doesn't mean that old age equals
9:39
Speaker 1: degeneration necessarily. And if your cognitive reserve is really good,
9:44
Speaker 1: that's seen I've spoken about cognitive reserve. I'll quickly reacap
9:47
Speaker 1: what I mean in case you haven't listened to episodes
9:49
Speaker 1: where I speak about that cognitive reserve is basically like
9:52
Speaker 1: a backup reserve. So imagine that the analogy I used
9:57
Speaker 1: last time is like a tree. Imagine you've got this
9:59
Speaker 1: tree and there's like a couple of leaves on it.
10:01
Speaker 1: There Let's imagine that those leaves are kind of like
10:03
Speaker 1: your neural connections, neurons and neural connections. Right, there's like
10:07
Speaker 1: a decent amount of leaves, but nothing crazy. You give
10:09
Speaker 1: that tree a really big shake and all these leaves fall,
10:12
Speaker 1: and then you're left with half the leaves. Maybe imagine
10:15
Speaker 1: then that you've got a tree like filled with all
10:18
Speaker 1: these leaves and connections and filled field, filled like all
10:20
Speaker 1: the leaves represent you know, connectivity, neurons are, it's filled.
10:24
Speaker 1: You give that tree the same shake that you gave
10:26
Speaker 1: the other tree, and you get the same fall of
10:28
Speaker 1: the leaves, but because you had more leaves to start with,
10:31
Speaker 1: you have way more connections remaining. Okay, so that's my
10:34
Speaker 1: analogy for cognitive reserve as you start to decline, because
10:39
Speaker 1: and the reason why you get declined with age is
10:41
Speaker 1: often because you are doing less tasks. You slow down,
10:45
Speaker 1: you are moving less, you're probably well maybe not always,
10:49
Speaker 1: but sometimes they eat worse when they're older, maybe not
10:52
Speaker 1: as much, or maybe they're eating like too much of
10:54
Speaker 1: one food style, less social, you know, less cognitive like
11:00
Speaker 1: demanding tasks, you start to lose certain connectivity, right, and
11:07
Speaker 1: that's where then when you do get degeneration. If you've
11:10
Speaker 1: then not worked on all those other things, then you're
11:12
Speaker 1: going to get the onset of dementia and other degenerative
11:15
Speaker 1: degenerative diseases. You're going to get the onset of the
11:17
Speaker 1: symptoms a lot earlier. But if someone's got really great
11:20
Speaker 1: cognitive reserve, whereas they're always doing something, they're keeping their routine,
11:24
Speaker 1: they're exercising, eating well, they're really social, speaking different languages,
11:28
Speaker 1: learning new skills, then as they get a bit of
11:32
Speaker 1: degeneration in some areas, their cognitive reserve is good enough
11:35
Speaker 1: that's going to hold them up quite till quite late
11:38
Speaker 1: in life in most cases. Of course, this does not
11:40
Speaker 1: speak for every single individual case. Now, what does seem
11:43
Speaker 1: to happen with that use it or lose it phenomenon
11:47
Speaker 1: is that memory seems to become a lot poorer when
11:51
Speaker 1: people get older. But this could be due to a
11:55
Speaker 1: lack of them using their minds the way they used
11:58
Speaker 1: to before they retired. So one of my lecturers that
12:01
Speaker 1: I had at the Brain and Mind Center, she worked
12:04
Speaker 1: very closely with centenarians or close to centenarians around Australia,
12:08
Speaker 1: and these guys were in their late nineties early one hundreds,
12:12
Speaker 1: and they were trying to study what was it that
12:15
Speaker 1: made them different and how were they, you know, performing
12:19
Speaker 1: very independently, so sharply at all these tasks at such
12:22
Speaker 1: an old age. And they found that these centenarians never
12:26
Speaker 1: really retired. They all kept busy. One of them was
12:30
Speaker 1: an accountant. He was like ninety eight or ninety nine,
12:32
Speaker 1: and he'd go into his office every fucking day. Okay,
12:36
Speaker 1: physically he's slower, he might be a little bit slow
12:38
Speaker 1: at certain things, but he's still keeping busy. And they
12:40
Speaker 1: had this strong sense of purpose. And for those that
12:43
Speaker 1: didn't work a job with an income, they were going
12:46
Speaker 1: and volunteering to places. They were going and you know,
12:49
Speaker 1: helping out here or meeting these groups of people. They
12:51
Speaker 1: had set routines where they would see their friends and
12:53
Speaker 1: do this and play golf and socializing and blah blah blah.
12:56
Speaker 1: What they didn't do was like, I'm retired, now, let's
12:59
Speaker 1: just relax, sit back, and let's not set an alarm. No,
13:02
Speaker 1: they all got up early that routine, routine, routine, purpose,
13:05
Speaker 1: purpose work, work, work, work work. You have to use
13:08
Speaker 1: it or you lose it. So these people were like,
13:10
Speaker 1: why retire, Why what am I gonna do sit around? Especially,
13:14
Speaker 1: A lot of them found things that they enjoyed doing.
13:17
Speaker 1: Like this guy that was the accountant fucking loved it
13:19
Speaker 1: and that was just like he had. He loved his life,
13:22
Speaker 1: and so he was always doing that kind of stuff.
13:25
Speaker 1: There were still a lot of them were still driving.
13:27
Speaker 1: They were just doing all these things because they didn't
13:29
Speaker 1: slow down at the typical age of retirement. And that
13:33
Speaker 1: is crucial. And if you're doing that, then your memory
13:36
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily have to go down, especially a procedural memory.
13:42
Speaker 1: Sense sense number four. You are not every time you
13:52
Speaker 1: lightly hit your head, you are not losing brain cells.
13:55
Speaker 1: Do you remember. I don't know if you guys did
13:57
Speaker 1: this in primary school, but remember in primary school, kids
14:01
Speaker 1: would run around and like lightly hit your head and
14:03
Speaker 1: be like, you just lost a hundred brain cells. You
14:05
Speaker 1: just lost another hundred, You just lost another hundred. It
14:07
Speaker 1: doesn't work like that. Luckily, you are not losing brain
14:10
Speaker 1: cells every time you lightly knock your head. If there's
14:13
Speaker 1: a light knock, there's no evidence whatsoever that you are
14:17
Speaker 1: losing any brain cells as in like neurons or glile cells. Okay,
14:21
Speaker 1: the brain is very well cushioned and it's designed to
14:25
Speaker 1: have movement within the brain. Okay. The issue is when
14:27
Speaker 1: the blow is enough to have the brain impact on
14:32
Speaker 1: the sides of the walls of the skull. Okay, if
14:35
Speaker 1: there's significant impact that there's bruising or swelling or bleeding,
14:40
Speaker 1: then this can cause obviously cellular loss due to blood
14:45
Speaker 1: supply being cut off through the bruising and bleeding process
14:48
Speaker 1: of when there's too much impact within the brain. But
14:50
Speaker 1: a light knock to the head, and I'm talking a
14:52
Speaker 1: light knock obviously, don't go around fucking knocking your head
14:54
Speaker 1: is not going to make you lose a hundred brain
14:56
Speaker 1: cells like they used to make you believe in primary school.
15:00
Speaker 1: The teachers, I'm talking like your peers in primary school.
15:02
Speaker 1: Am I the only person that I don't know? I
15:05
Speaker 1: feel like that was just something that was done around
15:07
Speaker 1: school anyway. Number five, you don't need to be knocked
15:10
Speaker 1: unconscious to suffer a concussion, right. A concussion is a
15:14
Speaker 1: mild traumatic brain injury. Okay, So after a hit or
15:18
Speaker 1: a blow to the head or violent shaking off the
15:21
Speaker 1: head or whiplash, et cetera, you're gonna get inflammation that
15:25
Speaker 1: occurs within the brain because what happens is your brain. Obviously,
15:28
Speaker 1: you get impact to one side of the brain right
15:31
Speaker 1: then your brain bounces wherever you say. You've got impact
15:35
Speaker 1: to the back of your head. Your brain then rushes
15:39
Speaker 1: through the cerebral spinal fluid that's cushioning and holding your brain.
15:43
Speaker 1: They're floating within the skull. It smashes to the front
15:46
Speaker 1: of your head and then smashes back again to the
15:49
Speaker 1: back of your head. So it does this shaking forward
15:51
Speaker 1: and back. If you hit your head on the side
15:53
Speaker 1: really hard, it does it same shaking, but side to side, okay.
15:55
Speaker 1: And what happens is you can get quite a bit
15:58
Speaker 1: of bruising and inflamm when that happens to the brain
16:02
Speaker 1: because the brain is actually very soft, okay, very soft,
16:06
Speaker 1: so it's quite easy that when it hits the like
16:09
Speaker 1: part of the skull, the brain squishes into that part
16:12
Speaker 1: of the skull and there's a lot of stretching and
16:14
Speaker 1: tearing that can happen to that part of the brain
16:17
Speaker 1: that's been hit on the side of the skull. Obviously,
16:19
Speaker 1: you need a big enough blow that's going to create
16:21
Speaker 1: that impact within the cushioning. But that's what concussion is.
16:27
Speaker 1: And when that happens, there's going to be it's going
16:30
Speaker 1: to lead to symptoms of concussion. Okay, But the inflammation
16:34
Speaker 1: and that damage, the bruising, the bleeding that can occur
16:37
Speaker 1: without being knocked unconscious and being knocked out does not
16:42
Speaker 1: necessarily mean that the injury that you sustained is worse.
16:45
Speaker 1: It might or might not be. Only around ten percent
16:48
Speaker 1: of concussions include the person blacking out. Okay, so you
16:52
Speaker 1: could hit your head quite hard. Obviously headache is a
16:56
Speaker 1: main one, but then other symptoms can be you know, fatigue,
17:00
Speaker 1: so you might just feel fatigued for the next few days,
17:02
Speaker 1: and that could be that you had a concussion. And
17:05
Speaker 1: a lot of scans also don't pick up on concussion
17:09
Speaker 1: or the damage that's caused by a concussion because scans
17:12
Speaker 1: often don't really look out for that kind of stuff.
17:15
Speaker 1: Scans look for activity within the brain, so it's hard
17:18
Speaker 1: to know where the activities. You know, what's been bruised,
17:22
Speaker 1: what's not in a lot of scans. Okay. Now, another
17:25
Speaker 1: myth is that after a concussion you should be doing
17:30
Speaker 1: something called cocooning, and that is being in a dark
17:32
Speaker 1: room with no stimulus all day long and avoiding any
17:35
Speaker 1: sort of activity. But now researchers reckon that cocooning straight
17:39
Speaker 1: after a concussion might make the symptoms worse. So instead
17:43
Speaker 1: what you should be doing is just light activity like walking,
17:47
Speaker 1: listening to like calming music or like a something relaxing.
17:51
Speaker 1: Light work if you feel up to the task, but
17:53
Speaker 1: not if it feels strenuous, like if you feel, oh no,
17:55
Speaker 1: I'm actually quite tired, then obviously rest, but puzzles and
17:59
Speaker 1: things like that really good. And then of course when
18:01
Speaker 1: you do go to bed, having like a really decent
18:04
Speaker 1: night's sleep. Sleep is crucial for it. But just to
18:06
Speaker 1: be awake in a dark room doing fuck all is
18:08
Speaker 1: actually not going to help the symptoms at all. Number
18:13
Speaker 1: six IQ tests do not actually accurately measure intelligence. They
18:18
Speaker 1: measure cognitive capacity in certain domains, but the test doesn't
18:24
Speaker 1: take into account all other parts of what intelligence is.
18:28
Speaker 1: For example, you might have the potential of capacity to
18:30
Speaker 1: learn at a ridiculously fast rate and retain a whole
18:33
Speaker 1: lot of information on certain things that that test is
18:37
Speaker 1: not testing for. And you might have a lot of
18:39
Speaker 1: abilities that cannot just be answered on a piece of
18:42
Speaker 1: paper that do correlate with intelligence, like a lot of
18:46
Speaker 1: coordination abilities or future planning or predicting or problem solving
18:51
Speaker 1: activities that might not correlate with how the IQ test
18:55
Speaker 1: is kind of laid out, so it will roughly measure
18:59
Speaker 1: what it is testing for at that point in time,
19:02
Speaker 1: so not really like it is quite hard to measure
19:06
Speaker 1: intelligence overall. You can measure intelligence in certain domains for sure,
19:11
Speaker 1: but just overall intelligence, it's actually very hard to measure.
19:14
Speaker 1: Number seven. We're back to the concussion topic sleep after
19:18
Speaker 1: a concussion. So you might have heard that it's terrible
19:22
Speaker 1: to go to sleep in the hours following a concussion,
19:25
Speaker 1: and that was because there was this myth of this
19:28
Speaker 1: belief that sleep could cause you to slip into a
19:31
Speaker 1: coma or die, right. I believe that when I was
19:35
Speaker 1: a kid to teenage are even before I studied the brain,
19:37
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, you cannot sleep after
19:40
Speaker 1: after a concussion, or especially after you've blacked out and
19:42
Speaker 1: then came two. But sleep is actually not the issue.
19:46
Speaker 1: The reason why they say that they don't want you
19:48
Speaker 1: falling asleep is because when the person is asleep, it's
19:53
Speaker 1: not possible to be aware of the signs of serious
19:55
Speaker 1: brain damage that normally show up soon like in the
19:58
Speaker 1: hours following the blow to the head, So it's more
20:01
Speaker 1: so for the people around the person than the person
20:04
Speaker 1: who's sleeping. When if when you're slurring or suffering a seizure,
20:09
Speaker 1: big seizures or minor seizures, weakness to one side of
20:12
Speaker 1: your body, all of that, either you should be awake
20:17
Speaker 1: to be aware of those things, or you should be
20:19
Speaker 1: around someone that's going to notice things that you might
20:21
Speaker 1: not be noticing that your behavior might be different if
20:23
Speaker 1: you've had like a big hit to the head. So
20:25
Speaker 1: kind of until you seek medical attention and you get
20:29
Speaker 1: like the old clear or like a really good check,
20:31
Speaker 1: it is recommended that you don't sleep so you don't
20:33
Speaker 1: miss out on any vital cues about the state of
20:35
Speaker 1: your brain. Okay, and after seeking medical attention and receiving
20:38
Speaker 1: the clear, which really anyone should be doing after a
20:41
Speaker 1: big hit to the head, then you'll get a really
20:43
Speaker 1: good idea if you can now like rest or sleep
20:45
Speaker 1: or what you should be doing, and you you're obviously
20:48
Speaker 1: the physician will tell you what you need to do.
20:50
Speaker 1: But things to look out for are if you struggle
20:53
Speaker 1: to carry a conversation, if you have dilated pupils, difficulty walking,
20:58
Speaker 1: then you definitely need to get medical attack and then
21:00
Speaker 1: after the orclear sleeping and rest is like sleeping is
21:04
Speaker 1: one of the best ways to recover from a concussion.
21:06
Speaker 1: Most of the deep repair work in your brain and
21:08
Speaker 1: body is only done in your sleep. And kind of
21:12
Speaker 1: like what I said before, you want to avoid crazy
21:14
Speaker 1: stimulation like operating machinery and something that like working really hard.
21:20
Speaker 1: It's all light, light to gentle tasks, light puzzles, things
21:24
Speaker 1: that are relaxing, things that are coming. That's what you
21:26
Speaker 1: want to be doing, okay. And then of course you
21:28
Speaker 1: want to be seeking medical advice as to if you
21:30
Speaker 1: should be taking any medication or not. Okay, so definitely
21:34
Speaker 1: go to a doctor if you think you have suffered
21:36
Speaker 1: a concussion. Now number eight left brained and right brained people.
21:42
Speaker 1: It is a myth, this idea that logical thinking and
21:47
Speaker 1: intellectual people are left brained, and if you're more creative
21:51
Speaker 1: and artistic and free spirited, you are right brained. Both
21:54
Speaker 1: sides of your brain are used equally. You don't have
21:56
Speaker 1: a dominant side that's going to determine if you're creative
21:59
Speaker 1: of your more of an intellect. Okay, it just doesn't
22:02
Speaker 1: work that way. The brain doesn't work that way at all.
22:04
Speaker 1: There is no extra activity in one side of the
22:07
Speaker 1: brain if you are logical, and the same goes for
22:10
Speaker 1: the other side of the brain if you are creative.
22:12
Speaker 1: There are certain regions of the brain that are localized
22:16
Speaker 1: to one hemisphere, like the language center, for example, which
22:19
Speaker 1: is generally located in the left hemisphere. But in general,
22:25
Speaker 1: you've got equal communication between both hemispheres all the time.
22:28
Speaker 1: If you didn't, and one was fully dominant and the
22:32
Speaker 1: other hemisphere was just like cruising, then you would I
22:36
Speaker 1: would imagine, I would guess that you would probably have
22:39
Speaker 1: a disparity in like a differences in the sizes of
22:41
Speaker 1: the hemispheres. So that just doesn't work. That's totally been debunked.
22:44
Speaker 1: There's been a whole bunch of studies on this one.
22:47
Speaker 1: Number nine, video games are not bad for your brain.
22:52
Speaker 1: So I think a lot of people think that sitting
22:54
Speaker 1: there watching video games all day long are going to
22:55
Speaker 1: be bad for your brain. It can have secondary It
23:00
Speaker 1: could cause secondary problems that are bad. For example, it
23:03
Speaker 1: could be addictive to the extent that it draws you
23:06
Speaker 1: away from other tasks, It draws you away from socializing,
23:09
Speaker 1: and then it could lead to feelings of being out
23:12
Speaker 1: of place or feelings of anxiety. You can have these
23:14
Speaker 1: addictive patterns which are destructive in other areas. But if
23:17
Speaker 1: you're someone that would play, for example, a couple of
23:20
Speaker 1: hours of video games over in a week, the actual
23:25
Speaker 1: activity of playing a video game is not damaging to
23:29
Speaker 1: your brain. Obviously, if your children are addicted to video games,
23:32
Speaker 1: do not let them listen to this, because they're going
23:33
Speaker 1: to take that. Teenagers take one piece of information and
23:36
Speaker 1: apply it to what's going to work for them. But
23:39
Speaker 1: you've got to look at it as the activity is
23:41
Speaker 1: not detrimental and if in certain things it can actually
23:44
Speaker 1: help them strengthen different connections in their brain with reaction
23:48
Speaker 1: times and things like that. However, any behavior that it's
23:52
Speaker 1: going to tap into your addictive pathways where it is
23:55
Speaker 1: pulling you away from a balance to lifestyle is detrimental
23:59
Speaker 1: and will be detrimental in other ways. But I'm talking
24:01
Speaker 1: about directly bad for your brain. No, it is indirectly
24:05
Speaker 1: bad for your brain if it is done too much. Okay,
24:10
Speaker 1: Number ten. Contrary to the popular belief drinking alcohol, this
24:16
Speaker 1: is again a directly thing does not directly kill your
24:18
Speaker 1: brain cells. But don't go celebrating too soon. I'd be like, oh, fuck, yeah,
24:22
Speaker 1: it's not gonna damage my brain. There is still a
24:24
Speaker 1: lot of alcohol related brain damage that can occur long
24:28
Speaker 1: term alcohol consumption, especially in larger amounts, even if you're
24:31
Speaker 1: not an alcoholic. What happens is that if you drink
24:35
Speaker 1: a lot of alcohol consistently for a long period of time,
24:38
Speaker 1: it can actually cause a lot of issues within your
24:42
Speaker 1: circulation throughout your body, but also within your brain. And
24:46
Speaker 1: poor circulation is one of the biggest factors that are
24:49
Speaker 1: responsible for neurodegeneration. If your cells don't get blood, if
24:53
Speaker 1: your cells don't get oxygen, they don't get the nutrients,
24:56
Speaker 1: and it's all fucking game over from there. It's a
24:58
Speaker 1: downhill from there. And just because alcohol doesn't kill the
25:01
Speaker 1: brain cells, it still actually can cause damage to the
25:05
Speaker 1: ends of the neurons at the nerve terminals. Okay, so
25:09
Speaker 1: it's not all celebrating, but I think people think all
25:12
Speaker 1: alcohol's going to kill your brain cells. No, your number
25:14
Speaker 1: of brain cells, your number of neurons are not dropping
25:17
Speaker 1: down every time you have a glassifye. That's not what's happening.
25:20
Speaker 1: So don't stress If you just have the occasional drinks
25:22
Speaker 1: here and there, you're probably fine. The issue is when
25:26
Speaker 1: you're drinking a bit too much and when you're causing
25:31
Speaker 1: that damage to the ends of the neurons, and also
25:34
Speaker 1: the when you're causing problems with your circulation within the brain. Okay,
25:38
Speaker 1: it does increase stroke risk as well, which then of course,
25:42
Speaker 1: if you get a stroke, that causes crazy extensive damage
25:44
Speaker 1: to the brain. And also given how much it can impact,
25:50
Speaker 1: alcohol impacts the release of GABBA, which is major inhibitory neurotransmitter,
25:55
Speaker 1: and it's quite Gaba plays a very important role in
25:57
Speaker 1: the brain. And if you're constantly playing around with your
25:59
Speaker 1: GABBA levels, then you can potentially if you're doing it
26:03
Speaker 1: at a higher level, you can potentially then cause extensive
26:06
Speaker 1: damage to the brain when you're fucking around with excitability
26:08
Speaker 1: and inhibition within the brain. But like I said, we'll
26:12
Speaker 1: drinking a glass of wine kill some brain cells. No,
26:14
Speaker 1: it will not number last one DN number eleven. Multitasking
26:21
Speaker 1: cannot be done at full capacity, and what I mean
26:24
Speaker 1: by that is we're talking about attention heavy, focus heavy tasks.
26:30
Speaker 1: You might think, oh, but I can I can walk
26:32
Speaker 1: and talk, I can drive and talk. No, because anything
26:35
Speaker 1: that can kind of be, you know, taken over by
26:39
Speaker 1: your subconscious mind. A lot of the movements and things
26:43
Speaker 1: that you do when you're driving or walking is very
26:45
Speaker 1: subconscious activity. So you can talk to people as well.
26:48
Speaker 1: I'm talking about two focused tasks at the same time.
26:51
Speaker 1: It can't be done. And when you're trying to encode information,
26:56
Speaker 1: when you're constantly dividing your attention back and forth, you're
27:00
Speaker 1: ulited to encode your information effectively is diminished. So, like
27:05
Speaker 1: I said, this is more for high focus activities. But
27:07
Speaker 1: for example, this is why you're always losing your keys.
27:11
Speaker 1: This is why because you're probably trying to do another
27:13
Speaker 1: task and then you've not paid attention to what you're doing.
27:16
Speaker 1: You've come home, you've put your shit somewhere, you've gone
27:18
Speaker 1: somewhere else. Not those people that are always losing their
27:21
Speaker 1: shit all the time. They're people that probably multitask all
27:24
Speaker 1: the time. Okay, they're people that struggle. If you're always thinking,
27:28
Speaker 1: oh my god, why can't I remember that, Why can't
27:30
Speaker 1: I remember this? Why can't I Encoding information is something
27:35
Speaker 1: that the more focused you are when you're doing the task,
27:37
Speaker 1: it's a lot easier to encode the information. Okay, and
27:40
Speaker 1: that's pretty It makes kind of sense, doesn't it. But
27:42
Speaker 1: that's why when you walk into your home, if you
27:44
Speaker 1: put the keys bang in a particular place that you
27:47
Speaker 1: know for a fact you're always going to put it,
27:48
Speaker 1: it's a lot easier for that routine to be ingrained,
27:51
Speaker 1: being like, well, I know where the keys are. You
27:52
Speaker 1: never have to think about that again. But it's a
27:54
Speaker 1: very focused thing of putting them there when you're busy,
27:57
Speaker 1: when you're fucking around, when you're trying to do a
27:59
Speaker 1: mini and things, and you're trying to help someone with
28:01
Speaker 1: their homework, but at the same time you're trying to
28:03
Speaker 1: pay a bill, and then you're trying to do this,
28:04
Speaker 1: you're trying to do that. Something's gonna give, something's gonna crack,
28:07
Speaker 1: and that courses more stress and then it ends up
28:09
Speaker 1: taking you longer to do the task than if you
28:12
Speaker 1: did it in a short amount of time. Okay. Now,
28:16
Speaker 1: another big one is when you're trying to have a conversation.
28:18
Speaker 1: I think we think we're better at multitasking than we are,
28:21
Speaker 1: but a lot of people have conversations on their phone,
28:24
Speaker 1: on their mobile phones on speaker and they're trying to
28:27
Speaker 1: do other tasks on their phone at the same time
28:30
Speaker 1: that they're talking to the person on the phone. And
28:32
Speaker 1: it is so obvious when someone is doing it to
28:35
Speaker 1: you because you'll ask them a question, like you'll say, oh,
28:37
Speaker 1: what time what time is dinner? By the way, and
28:39
Speaker 1: they'll be like, what time's dinner? What time is dinner? Like, cunt,
28:46
Speaker 1: it doesn't take you fucking ten minutes to figure out
28:48
Speaker 1: that dinner's at seven o'clock when you're the one that
28:50
Speaker 1: booked it. It's they're probably strolling through social media as
28:53
Speaker 1: they're talking to you, and they just cannot multitask, so
28:57
Speaker 1: they're like really scattered trying to So when when like
29:00
Speaker 1: and you just see it a mile away. I've got
29:02
Speaker 1: like a couple of friends that do it, and I'm like, babe,
29:03
Speaker 1: just fucking call me when you're free. You know, if
29:07
Speaker 1: you've got shit to do right now, focus on that
29:10
Speaker 1: and then give me a call when you're free. And
29:11
Speaker 1: they're like, oh no, no, no, no, no, no, fine, And
29:12
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden they're on the ball and
29:14
Speaker 1: they can focus. Do you know why, because I obviously
29:16
Speaker 1: identify that they're on social media, I say, im gonna
29:19
Speaker 1: leave the phone call and then they get off social
29:21
Speaker 1: media and they give them their full attention, and all
29:22
Speaker 1: of a sudden, the conversation goes from being boring as
29:25
Speaker 1: fuck to very entertaining because they're focused. Okay, so the
29:29
Speaker 1: same guest for you. If you're dividing your attention when
29:31
Speaker 1: you're on the phone, don't waste that person's time. Do
29:34
Speaker 1: not waste that time. Just say, look, I'll call you.
29:36
Speaker 1: Like either get off social media probably what you should
29:39
Speaker 1: be doing, and get off your phone and give them
29:40
Speaker 1: your full attention, or if you don't have time to
29:42
Speaker 1: talk to them and say, do you mind if I
29:43
Speaker 1: call you back in X time. You get the task
29:46
Speaker 1: that you're trying to do a lot faster than trying
29:47
Speaker 1: to do it when you're on the phone, and then
29:49
Speaker 1: when you talk to that person, you'll actually enjoy their
29:51
Speaker 1: company over the phone so much more than you are
29:54
Speaker 1: right now while you're trying to do a task. All right, guys,
29:56
Speaker 1: thank you for listening to today's episode. This is my
29:58
Speaker 1: phone brain facts midst debunked. I'm going to try and
30:02
Speaker 1: do more of these. I find them very entertaining. Anyway,
30:05
Speaker 1: Please share, Please tag me in all your stories, good times,
30:11
Speaker 1: and that is all for today's episode. Love you guys
30:14
Speaker 1: so much. You guys are the real MVPs. As always,
30:17
Speaker 1: remember becindt to yourself, becon't to your broones, don't text
30:20
Speaker 1: it from anyone, and especially don't take shit from yourself.
30:22
Speaker 1: Don'ty