Your brain is not a muscle, it’s a brain
Newsflash - brain training needs to be totally different
I love a good analogy. Something we understand well that has parallels to help our mind comprehend a new thing easily.
It is a shortcut for putting information into your brain.
You can’t shortcut new abilities into your muscles. They are either working or relaxing.
I feel something is wrong when I regularly hear people wisely stating that your brain is like a muscle.
Training, growing and resting a brain should be considered very differently. Digging into the opposite of common advice actually helps us understand how to treat it.
Some clear differences:
Your brain is the most complex creation in the universe.
Your muscle is (relatively) generic.Your brain doesn’t stop. It just does different things, constantly.
Your muscle is mostly resting (off), it needs instruction brain to contract (turn on).Your brain is contained inside bone to protect it.
Your muscles sit outside of bones (mostly) and pull on them to move them.Your body is a vessel for you brain. The brain directs the body to do things to keep the whole thing (including the brain) alive.
Your body is moved by your muscles so it can do what the brain wants.Your brain needs brain food ( Fats, oils, nutrients )
Your muscles need muscle food ( mostly protein )Brain tissue is not replaceable (last year it was cool to say non-fungible). You can’t replace a damaged part of it. You can’t regrow new parts of brain. With neuroplasticity different parts can learn to do different things.
Muscle tissue is replaceable and re-growable. Yet, it still only does one main function, contract and relax.+ Your brain forms new connections and learns through experiences. If it experiences the same thing it doesn’t learn much. If it experiences something important, new and understandable, it learns a lot.
Your muscles grow new cells in response to exercise. They grow in response to the amount of stress put on them. The more the better (until they break).
So why do I care?
Drawing these together I concluded the most important difference is this.
You entertain your brain.
You exercise your muscles.
The muscles have a fairly linear sense of improvement due to stress. We are often told we need to stress our brain but I’m not sure that’s entirely correct or necessary.
The brain can learn things much quicker with enjoyment than with stress. It is averse to stress and avoids it (it can even block things out to protect itself).
Lessons from stories
Teachers
I was good at music as a child. I had a piano teacher who made me do classical music that I didn’t know and had no enjoyment for. It was kind of stressful and repetitive and I avoided practice.
I got bored and dropped it when I moved schools.
A few years later I picked up the guitar. I had a teacher who helped me learn whatever I wanted. It was fun. It became a way to entertain myself and even I enjoyed the challenge of learning hard things. So I became good at it.
Stress teaches you, but mostly it just teaches you what to avoid. Find ways to enjoy things and you get a lot more out of your brain.
Gamify
I struggled to speak well for a long time and basically had a lisp as a child. Elocution practice is boring.
Listening to karaoke versions of rap songs whilst I walk around is a game I started playing with myself. How much could I say correctly, how much could I remember? I enjoyed my walk and this did more for me than trying to find ten minutes each day for drills.
To improve you don’t need to be stressed, you need to be creative.
For the love of it
Alexander the Great created one of the greatest empires in history. It wasn’t because of his ability to handle stress. It was because after taking over Persia he was left sitting around dealing with legal regal stuff which he found boring(stressful). So he made up an excuse to go and invade India and be back on the campaign where he enjoyed himself (entertaining).
To be successful, you don’t need to be stressed. You need to find and do what you love.
No Sweat
When I was young I didn’t like running or cycling uphills. I tried to avoid them.
Now I appreciate the health it gives me and I enjoy physically testing and stretching my limits. I also love the time to myself where my brain is free to think or learn. Exercise became entertainment for me, so I do it every day.
To exercise regularly, you don’t need to be stressed, you need to make it enjoyable.
(a nice way is to take entertainment with you, an iPad to watch or a podcast to listen to or a friend to hang out with)
And so
Don’t train your brain like a muscle.
To build muscle output, you must do hard things.
To build personal output, you must make hard things enjoyable.
If you try to do hard things using the hard way, you fail and resort to entertaining yourself the easy way. You procrastinate on social media or watch Netflix and get nowhere.
If you find an entertaining way to do hard things, you can achieve almost anything.
Remember your brain doesn’t turn off, offence is the greatest defence.
Learn to entertain yourself, or you will be entertained.
Play to Learn
Whilst there was an obsession with “Play to earn” last year in the blockchain world, I thought we should obsess on the term “Play-to-learn”.
Play-to-learn is the future. But it is also our past and our present. I just think it will have more of a boom in the future. Apps like DuoLingo with ‘gamification’ are neat but there are levels much higher than this.
A few years ago I built a version of space invaders where you learnt the names of new people you’d met.
It seems the millions of people playing Candy Crush etc.. for hours is rather a wasted opportunity. Or just imagine how much data is in my brain remembering the entire map of GTA San Andreas.
Someone will find ways to take advantage of this.
Be your own favourite teacher
Teachers who make you workout your brain by repeating things to become stronger. They are crappy.
Teachers that entertain you with exciting stories and captivating challenges where you learn through interest. They are awesome.
When you become an adult you are in control of your own education. You get to choose what sort of teacher you want to be.
So entertain yourself.
- - - -
“I’ve come to the conclusion that people who wear headphones while they walk, are much happier, more confident, and more beautiful individuals than someone making the solitary drudge to work without acknowledging their own interests and power.”
Jason Mraz
I’m not sure you have to wear headphones all the time, but you should acknowledge your interests. That is where your power lies.
Further Reading
Hi to the 25 new subscribers this week! 🤗
If you joined recently these posts make good further reading:
When and what to celebrate
Our concept of achievement is often completely wrong. This messes up our work, motivation and happiness.You are not the result of the 5 people you spend time with
But you are restricted by those who prevent you from being yourself. They get in the way of you being able to entertain yourself.
(Imagine the difference if one of those five people was my piano teacher (boring) or my guitar teacher (fun))Blinded by the obvious
We often search for things with more complexity than the obvious answer. Often things that are too easy (fun) for you don’t seem worth doing when they are exactly what you should be doing.
(Not because they are not challenges but we don’t perceive the challenge in the same way - I don’t think cycling up a hill as difficult anymore, it doesn’t mean it isn’t challenging)