[Music]
who controls your brain surely you do in
the next 12 minutes I invite you to
listen and then decide and ask yourself
what do you want to do about it I grew
up in the 1970s in Vancouver Canada my
immigrant immigrant parents had eight
children in 10 years life was chaotic
and Loud I'm sure you can imagine just
how challenging it might be to have your
voice heard in such a large family when
I was 13 years old I knew I wanted to be
a teacher it took me 20 years before I
began to realize perhaps one of my
motivating factors was that I wanted
somebody to listen to me not such a
great reason to go into this
profession inspired by Simon sy's work
it took me at least another 15 years of
teaching before I began to very clearly
real realized my why I knew I loved
learning sharing ideas and learning from
young people my why simply put is to
live a purposeful life so that I may
Inspire others to find their purpose and
passion in life 25 years in and I was
loving my craft my students were
thriving and then I started to notice
around 2015 some concerning changes in
my students I like many of my colleagues
was feeling ill equipped and unsure of
how to help my students Thrive to help
them find that love of learning that I
had witnessed for decades in my
classroom so at 53 I felt compelled to
go back to school to get my masters and
counseling in order to help me support
my students better this won't come as a
surprise to many of you but the shift
just so happened to be very closely
correlated with a sharp increase in
Social Media use around the world in
2015 according to data reportal there
were approximately two billion social
media users around the globe and just 9
years later we see approximately five
billion social media users that is 138%
increase in just nine years in the
classroom this shift was marked by
decline in our students abilities to
focus to ask questions in class to
flourish in a school
environment my Master's Focus was on
substance use through experts like Dr
Gore mate and brne brown I've been
teaching and learning about the bio
psychosocial spiritual aspects of
addiction for years to my psych
psychology
students as a teacher I had always sens
that to establish a sense of connection
in the classroom is critical for
Learning and for safety and
belonging and yet the more I learned
from the experts in the field the more I
recognize this just doesn't seem to be
enough
this problem I began to realize was
systemic so many continued to suffer and
to be pulled to their devices it was
becoming common place for diagnoses of
ADHD anxiety depression if students
weren't diagnosed then we saw a
languishing that Adam Grant refers to in
his work and Dr vet Murthy speaks to in
his bestseller on
Lon to further exacerbate this problem
the covid-19 disruption in face Toof
face learning compounded the already
growing developmental delays that we
were
seeing then in 2023 I read Stanford
psychiatrist and author's book Dr Anna
ly's dopamine Nation this was a game
Cher for me she offered an interesting
Theory one that resonated with both me
and my students Dr lmy explained that in
our dopamine addicted World many people
in developed countries are in a constant
state of dopamine deficit she named this
the Plenty Paradox with her almost CAU
and hits of 30 second Tik Tok videos and
Amazon Prime and Netflix binges to name
just a few we are receiving constant
hits of dopamine all day long creating a
dopamine addicted brain a common law of
physics and of the human body and brain
what goes up must come down as we
continue to scroll order and watch our
brains begin to struggle with balance so
many of my students used would tell me
I'll look at social media or I'll binge
a series and I don't even notice the
time passing and then when I do I feel
bad frustrated tired and then as my
students get into the older grades and
their marks begin to suffer they tell me
they feel
shame this is their brains trying to
regain balance with the constant influx
of dopamine there's never a chance to
get back to Baseline to add to this
challenge a further problem
is as Sy explains in his famous
Millennial video the important things in
life like building self-confidence
nurturing true friendships and finding
Joy there's no app for these things they
don't happen instantly they are often
long and difficult journeys of ups and
downs so decline in academic performance
was only one challenge our students face
these more important developmental goals
of adolescent life develop the ability
to talk face to face to critically
reflect to resolve conflict through
discussions simply not being practiced
instead filters snaps and insta posts
replaced true face-to-face conversation
ensuring that all we saw was a facade a
mask not a wonder that so many were
suffering from anxiety depression and
loneliness you know I often hear people
from my generation say ah the younger
generation is lazy and entitled this is
simply not not true you are not lazy and
you are not entitled you are impatient
your dopamine addicted brains are
hardwired for instant gratification and
so you are
impatient you want everything now and
it's not your
fault you didn't create this toxic
dopamine World Our Generation did and
now we have to help fix
it thankfully Dr ly gives us somewhere
to start abstain maintain and seek out
pain you know the human brain is
remarkable if we can curve or limit our
use of technology in just four weeks we
can begin to rewire our brains and
create new neural Pathways
but we are social animals we cannot do
this alone and so for the maintenance
part of this strategy we require
systemic and social supports we need
laws to ban the use of self phones in
schools while at the same time providing
funding for access to social media free
technology so that we may prepare our
students for 21st Century Learning as we
see in many European countries
today we as parents teachers and bosses
we must learn to reconnect to each other
to show empathy and to stop shaming our
younger generation you know as SX says
we keep saying they are our Future
Leaders well we are the leaders now we
must be accountable we are all in this
together the third part of Dr ANM
solution is to find healthy ways do Z go
pain now I know healthy ways what are
you talking about why would I want to
seek out pain you say well what is clear
now in the science is that we must do
the hard things like exercise as we
break down the body's muscles we rebuild
them eat real food not processed so we
can feed our biomes our second
brains take that ice cold plunge or have
that hard conversation so you might
rebuild a broken relationship do that
boring or hard homework now get that
eight hours of sleep so that you may
metabolize the cortisol in your body
have that meditation time practice being
present on that walk with your dog
without your
headphones and get out of Nature and
play now some of these examples may not
sound like
fun but what we understand now is that
when we do the hard things our brains
literally begin to rewire themselves the
dopamine deficit is reversed and it
flips the imbalance in science this is
called hormetic stress we've all felt it
we choose to get that work and then we
go out with our friends and we can have
guilt-free fun because we've done it all
we feel great but when we do the reverse
we go and say ah we'll do it later we're
plagued by these anxieties and that
quiet negative voice in our heads and it
robs us of the pure joy of connecting
with
others I close with this powerful piece
of wisdom by o jigu author Richard
fagames I am constantly surrounded by
noise TV
text the internet music meaning the
small talk my thinking all of it blocks
my Consciousness my ability to hear the
me that exists beneath the
Caff we can do this we can reclaim our
own brains but we cannot do it alone
Collective action and Collective care
are key you know I often say to my
students want you know something we
can't unknow
it I leave you with this question
today what will you do how will you
support yourself your friends and your
family to reclaim your brains and your
joy her very future depends upon it
thank you