We know that our brain is what makes us “us”.
It's what does all of our thinking.
It's what processes all the sensory input from the outside world
and creates this reality in our brain that we experience.
It is “us”.
So the question is
What is the brain actually made up of?
And it's primarily made up of neurons.
And these are depictions of neurons right over here.
And the current view on how the brain processes information,
it’s by these different neurons
triggering, by getting excited and stimulating other neurons
and as the signals go through this huge neural network
that has 80 to 100 billion neurons.
That electrochemical signal going through this neural network
is essentially our thought.
It's essentially our intelligence.
It's arguably essentially “us”.
So given that, a question arises.
What determines our ability to do things?
What determines our intelligence?
and one school of thought is that
“okay maybe you’re either just born with it or either have it or you don't
some people are smart some people are less smart
or maybe you can change it"
And it turns out there's actually been a lot of research on this
in the last few decades.
And the answer is pretty clear
that your intelligence can actually be changed.
What we've learned what researchers have taught us
is that our brains are actually a lot like a muscle.
We know that you can grow your muscles
by going into the gym and doing exercise
and straining your muscles.
You don't just work on things that are easy for your muscles to do.
You do things that your muscles have to struggle with
that your muscles have to strain with.
And then they rebuild themselves and they come back stronger.
By struggling it's a signal to your body
to devote more resources to that part of the body.
And we see that exact same thing with the brain.
And here just a couple of examples of it.
This first one,
this shows how the human brain develops in early childhood.
This is a depiction of the neurons in the brain at birth.
And then over as a child develops
it interacts with its environment
It tries things out
it struggles to talk to converse
to interact with folks to understand the world around it.
and as it struggles, you see that by age 6
you have a much deeper and much stronger connectedness
between the different neurons
Similarly...similarly, I can never say that word,
these are depictions of the neurons of two different scenarios.
This is the the nerves of animals
that were in unstimulating environments
where they're not around other other animals
They’re in a bare cage.
and then this is the brain of an animal
that is in a stimulating environment
that is constantly being challenged
that is constantly looking at stimulating new things
and so the big takeaway from this whole area of research is
you absolutely can change your intelligence
that your brain is like a muscle
The more you use it, the stronger gets
and that the best way to grow it
isn't to do things that are easy for you
that might help a little bit
But what really helps your brain
is when you struggle with things
and actually research shows that
your brain grows the most not when you get a question “right”
but when you get a question “wrong”
So at least for me this is incredibly exciting
because it lets me know that
when I'm going through something
and I'm facing those times of
maybe a little bit of adversity or a little bit of frustration
I can feel good about the fact
that those are actually the times
that I am growing the most.
And this isn’t just something that I'm saying nice words
research tells us
when you get something wrong
when you challenge your brain
when you review why you got it wrong
when you really process that feedback
that's when your brain grows the most
and that if you keep doing that
you're well on your way to having a stronger more able
and I guess you could say
smarter brain.