This is Part Six  of the Brain Rules for Bloggers series, based on
John Medina’s excellent book & dvd, Brain Rules. 

Brain Rule #11:  Male and Female Brains Are Different (and they’ll read your blog differently, too.)

It should come as no real surprise that men and women think differently;  from the time we’re infants (or a splotch on a sonogram) the world assigns us little labels in pink or blue, and then trains us to react accordingly. 

But the differences run deeper than baby-blanket colors. Through a combination of nature and nuture, the differences are wired into our brains according to our sex.

This is a difficult segment to write.    The wording is awkward, the assertions are awkward, and I’m usually allergic to  gender based generalizations, because they are so often used as excuses or justifications for poor behavior.  The science does not support those excuses and justifications -  there’s a lot we dont know about the gender difference in the brain, but  we *do* know that neither gender has any sort of inherent  brain-based advantage over the other.   We also know that the brains of both sexes are capable of learning new ways to process things,  and that the generalizations do not hold true on an individual basis. 

With that said?

Men and women really do think differently.

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One of my favorite mind-tweaking methods is to track down my most sacred assumptions, turn them upside down, shake violently and see what moos. 

So when  I ran across “The Work” of Byron Katie during a recent New Age debunking binge,  I was pleased  to find it a practical method of  investigating and challenging our beliefs about the world, and how we think it should be.    There *are* some gems  buried in the newage fluff out there (really, there are!) and this appears to be one of them.  Here’s how it goes.

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Two of my favorite Mind/Brain Bloggers  are having an interesting conversation about different approaches to cognitive fitness, and I’ve decided to butt in. (Because that’s the only way I know to do this social media thing, you know.  I butt in)

If you’re not familiar with Jeremy Dean of Psyblog, or Alvaro Fernandez of SharpBrains, hop on over to their sites,  and subscribe.   They both blog circles around me, frankly, so it’s worth your time (and hopefully that plug will make up for the photo of stuffed animals I’ve plonked next to their names…  sorry guys. )

But about that conversation…

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Just got an email from the brain-training folks at PositScience. They’re offering a danged good deal for Father’s Day… [click to continue...]

Design and productivity blogger David Seah thinks frighteningly like me at times. He’s often so on the mark for my twisted little brain that I’m too astounded to leave comments for him (sorry about that, David!) Recently, he’s chimed in on the struggles with Social Media with “Community Building for Introverts” , a far more positive take approach than my own recent declaration than my I Suck at Social Media.

But it’s an older post of his that’s been on my mind lately. Scheming vs Collaborating lays out two starkly different approaches to team projects. One approach is all about contributing your little bit to a project, the other is about buying into the whole project as co-conspirators scheming against the world. It nailed a core issue for me right off the bat, and I’ve been pondering it ever since. Here’s why:

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Last month, Posit Science thoughtfully sent me a review copy of their latest brain training product,  Insight.   I popped it into the computer, jotted down my preliminary thoughts, and embarked on the program, fully intending to blog about my progress along the way.  

The blogging hasn’t happened, because  “along the way” hasn’t happened.

Mind you, I have no doubts that program is effective - in fact, my exposure to the software makes me think it’s quite capable of helping users sharpen the targeted vision processing areas in the brain.  

But I’m not seeing progress.

I’m not seeing progress,  because I haven’t been doing the training sessions.  

Yes, yes,  I am a negligent brain-trainer.   But stop that  finger wagging! There’s a reason for my negligence, and it *does* lay in the software itself. You see,  the recommended training program takes 40 minutes a day.  It’s broken up into 4 sessions of ten minutes each - but still… 

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This is Part Five of the Brain Rules for Bloggers series, based on
John Medina’s book & dvd, Brain Rules.   And yes, I know I promised
this segment would include sex, but it doesn’t.  Next time,  it’ll be about sex,  I promise… but for now, it’s all about stimulating senses.

Brain Rule #9:  Stimulate More Of The Senses (and stimulate your blog readers)

We experience the world (and blogs) through our senses - and the more our  senses are involved in an experience, the more likely we are to understand and remember it. 

More importantly, our senses work as a team, each providing context and meaning to the others, so that what we see influences how we interpret what we hear, and so on. We process our senses in an integrated way, and we remember what our senses have told us n an integrated way - the more our senses are involved in an experience, the more accurate our recall will likely be. 

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Yes, I hear you cheerleaders in the audience stroking my ego, telling me how I am oh so popular and loved and shouldn’t feel bad. Enough of that! I’m done with denial, ready to walk into a group meeting, and loudly declare the truth.

“Hi, My name is Deaux (hi deaux!) and I
suck at Web-Two-Point-Oh.”

I mean well enough, you know. With the best of intentions (and some nagging from a tech-addict friend) I’ll jump on the bandwagon and sign up for the latest, greatest social service. I connect to a few friends, make contacts with a few people I don’t know, and swallow my allotted bit of spam, dutifully expanding my network. I work hard at commenting, twittering, stumbling, digging, commenting, linking, friending or whatever the in ing-thing is. [click to continue...]

There’s been a lot of talk lately about how natural aging causes changes in the brain: changes responsible for a weaker memory, a less focused-focus and overall perceived loss of mental function. An entire industry of brain-training programs has sprung up, waging war against these age-related changes.

But what if those changes aren’t a sign of a failing neural system?

What if they simply reflect a useful, positive change in how we process information as we age?

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This is Part Four of the Brain Rules for Bloggers series, based on
John Medina’s Brain Rules. More links at the bottom of the post
(Assuming you aren’t asleep by then, of course!

Brain Rule #7: Sleep Well, Think Well (and blog better)

You there… Yes, you with the Starbucks Grande in your hand, and the dark circles under your eyes. Go take a nap, will ya?

Yes, I know there is so MUCH to blog about. I know about all the social media demanding your attention, the blog design that needs tweaking, the emails you need to answer. I know that the internet is open 24/7, that there is never, ever enough time, and that something has to give — but that “something” shouldn’t be your sleep.

On the surface, sleep may seem like a waste of productive time - but to your brain, snore-time is crucially important.

Denied downtime, your brain begins to falter, affecting mood, attention, working memory, and many other functions. Loss of just one night’s sleep can cause a 30% drop in cognitive function. Lose two nights, and the drop is 60%. More worrisome? The effects of sleep loss is cumulative, according to Brain Rules: “When sleep is restricted to six hours or less for just five nights… cognitive performance matched that of a person suffering 48 hours of continual sleep deprivation”

Ouch. But sleep is more than just a mental restorative to the brain - it’s time spent processing, replaying, sorting, and learning from the days events.

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