Why taking a brain break is important

I'm your brain coach Jim quick and in

this lesson I'm going to show you how to
give your brain a break because your
brain is not built to be going 24 7 all
the time without any kind of rest the
challenges nowadays as we're behind
screens for hours upon hours upon hours
we know there's a dip in concentration
and focus after about 25 or 30 minutes
about the span of a sitcom and they call
it the pomodaro technique that if you
are studying and you are thinking and
you are working it actually helps to
take regular interval breaks because it
gives your brain a little time to
recharge to rejuvenate and also it
creates more primacies and recencies
Primacy means you tend to remember
something in the beginning
recency means you tend to remember
something at the end so if I give you a
list of 30 words you're probably going
to remember the first ones Primacy and
the last ones recency the challenge is
you lose a lot in the middle so the
reason why you take breaks is you create
more primacies and recencies so you can
learn and remember a lot more
information now what do you do during
these Brain Breaks I recommend after 25
30 minutes you take a little pause and
3 Tips for a brain break
for five minutes you do three things
number one in no particular order I want
you to breathe because a lot of times if
we are fatigued and you have mental fog
and you don't have Clarity part of it is
your brain is only two percent of your
body mass approximately but it requires
20 percent of the nutrients and oxygen
and so give yourself the gift of oxygen
and deep breathing what else do you want
to do during your break I would remind
you to hydrate when you are d hydrated
and you have more water it actually
increases your reaction time and
thinking speed about 30 percent what is
the third thing you do during this brain
break I need you to stand up and move a
lot of people they say that sitting is
the new smoking we're behind screens all
day hours and hours goes by and the
primary reason you have a brain is to
control your movement as your body moves
your brain grooves as your body moves
your brain grooves you create brain
derived neurotropic factors bdnf which
is like fertilizer for your brain when
you take long walks we talk about
Geniuses and how they come up with
creative ideas and they have walking
meetings outside in the sunlight and the
Clean Air and they're grounded these are
very important things to do even when
you're listening to an audiobook or a
podcast if you are taking a nice walk or
you're on an elliptical all or a
treadmill and you have that rhythm
you're likely to remember the
information understand it better now one
Juggling for brain health
of the exercise I like to do because
there's multiple benefits is juggling
did you know jugglers have bigger brains
there's a study done at Oxford
University that said juggling actually
creates more white matter in your brain
so in a moment I'm going to show you how
to juggle and you can pause this video
right now and I want you to get one ball
maybe one ball two balls if you've done
this before three if you're good at it
or a rolled up sock even better than a
ball a rolled up sock because it doesn't
roll all around when you drop it I
actually taught myself how to juggle to
actually increase my reading ability so
I noticed that train readers when
they're reading they don't look at one
letter or one word at a time it's not
their fobial Vision they're expanding
their peripheral vision so they can see
more words at the time so they can read
faster
and I noticed a similarity when I'm
juggling I have to relax my sense of
sight so I could take more in so I could
see the balls because I only have two
eyes but if there are three balls I can
be following all of them so I expand my
peripheral vision so I could take more
in so you get the benefits of a bigger
brain and it's great training for your
reading so let's grab your juggling
balls or a sock or a tennis ball right
now pause the video and do that now okay
do you have something to juggle with I'm
not talking about swords and flaming
knives but something really simple like
a sock and for juggling you have two
balls in one hand one in the other now
if you are new to juggling just start
with one ball But ultimately to give you
a picture of what it looks like
successfully and again I'm not a
professional juggler it's not my backup
plan but I learned I taught myself so
this is what I feel like juggling looks
like are you ready
so I'm looking at you and I could see
the balls and I'm relaxing my eyes
and notice that I dropped the ball now
you're thinking Jim did you do that on
purpose you probably did or is it maybe
it was an accident juggling is a great
metaphor for life do you feel like
sometimes you're juggling so many things
that you have so many roles so many
responsibilities when we talk about
quick thinking one of the things that
keep us from growing and being
successful is the expectations of others
and the power of mistakes and some
people are really fearful that they're
going to make a mistake and so I'm going
to encourage you to throw the ball up
and just let it drop and feel good about
it the world did not end and even if
people are laughing at you they're not
going to be thinking about that a few
minutes from now all right so throw up
the ball and just drop it right and it's
on the ground and you feel like that's
okay you don't have to be perfect
because it's never about perfection it's
about progress and you actually progress
faster you fail forward because failure
is not the opposite Sid of success
failure is part of success so pick up
your ball again and let's begin the
basics of juggling so what I want you to
do quick thinker is take the ball or
whatever you're juggling maybe it's a
sock and put it in your dominant hand
and we're going to start small small
simple steps what we're going to do is
we're just going to toss it into the
other hand that's it just toss it back
and forth and it's okay if you drop it
all right and when you drop it be happy
about it be joyful because here's the
thing if you're so stressed out about
being perfect you're going to tense up
and that's going to limit your
performance you want to do this in
relaxed State and I'm doing this also
because we have so many people who we've
taught how to juggle and they're able to
do it and it's a nice way of breaking
your belief that you can learn something
brand new and so you're going back and
forth
and it's okay you don't have to get this
perfect
and it's not about catching it better
it's getting that toss getting that Arc
and you could keep it to about the top
of your head if you like
and it varies right wherever you're
comfortable you're just going back and
forth and you're getting good and maybe
you're doing this for like your break
you know doing it for a few days doing
it for a week you don't even have to add
a second ball and when you do have two
this is what it looks like you have one
in each hand and here's what you do not
want to do what some people will do is
they'll throw them at the same time but
what happens they hit each other right
so you do not throw them at the same
time this is what other people do that's
also not correct they're not actually
juggling they're just passing it over do
you see that I'm just handing it into
another hand so in order to juggle both
balls have to go up in the air so you're
not passing it like this what you're
doing is you're imagining you're
throwing this ball up to this peak and
the other ball goes up to this peak
because if you had the same point then
they're going to collide and the goal is
once this ball hits its peak that's your
signal or trigger to throw the other
ball up so it looks like this
you see that
it doesn't have to be perfect at all now
three balls look like this you have two
in your dominant hand and it's actually
for me easier than two balls because
there's no pause you just again you go
for imagine a box like this a box you're
keeping the balls in this box and
there's a point here and a point here
this is what it looks like
now I don't have control over physics so
I can't slow this down because there's
gravity
but you see the two points
and you notice how I can look at you
right because my peripheral vision could
pull in the information here so it's a
nice way of learning how to relax your
vision so you could see more because if
I'm so narrow focused I won't be able to
see where the ball is and so that is
juggling now you could go on YouTube and
search for Great jugglers and get great
instruction on how to juggle the reason
I bring this up for you is it's a fun
way to kind of break up the monotony of
something you might be studying and also
you're giving your brain a break plus it
creates more white matter in your brain
and it's a great metaphor for life and
it can help potentially with your
reading ability so what else can you do
besides juggling the goal is to get
Movement for brain health
movement in your body you could do
jumping jacks you could do burpees you
could do some calisthenics some push-ups
sit-ups anything that moves the blood
around so generally what's good for your
heart it's going to be good for your
head so you get your heart beating
creates more blood flow to the brain
which means you have more oxygen in your
brain so the goal is to move but here's
some things you can do that could help
you potentially improve your your brain
function and they call them cross
laterals cross laterals and this is
where we're going along the midline when
you're crossing the midline and
potentially what has the ability to do
is we know the left side of your brain
controls the right side of your body and
that the right side of your brain
controls the left side of your body
right but it's not just a mind-body
connection there's a body mind
connection so what you're going to do is
you're going to take one hand go to the
opposite knee and you're just going to
connect them and then vice versa you're
going to go back and forth
now depending on your flexibility and
what you're wearing instead of your hand
you could use your elbow right and you
don't have to touch it but just come
close these are cross laterals this is
where the left side of your brain and
the right side of your brain it is split
by this thing called the Corpus colossum
which is like a bridging station how
they communicate and potentially with
some research suggests is that by using
your body in certain ways especially
crossing the midline helps you to create
connections here and even if that's not
the case you're moving right and using
conscious effort into your moving one of
the great exercises to learn is to dance
right ballroom dancing amazing for your
brain table tennis amazing for your
brain what's something else you could do
you could put your mind into your muscle
so how about this there's something
Super brain yoga
called Super Brain yoga you can look it
up super brain yoga how do you do it I
want you to take one hand and massage
your opposite earlobe
and then the other hand a massage the
other earlobe and as you're massaging it
just squat down
and then squat up so what's the major
message out of this lesson is take time
to move it's not just doing your Pilates
three times a week or doing your yoga
twice a week or running twice a week
it's about making movement part of your
daily routine every half an hour or an
hour just going for a walk and moving
and if you want to do something more
challenging take on one of the exercises
that I share with you today now in the
Assignment
comments what I want you to do is what's
your brain break when you start taking
your brain break after 25 30 minutes the
Pomodoro Technique what are some of the
things that you want to do to be able to
just be physical and get inside your
body share it in the comments so we
could all learn from each other I'm your
brain coach Jim quick and I'll see you
in our next lesson