The brain is a malleable organ. We can train it in a certain way to have a fuller life. It seems like a slogan taken from a self-help manual, but exercising the brain to change our mentality – like we work our muscles to improve our physical fitness – is exactly what biologist David Bueno (Barcelona, ??1965) proposes.
The doctor in Biology and professor and researcher of Biomedical, Evolutionary and Developmental Genetics at the University of Barcelona has just published Educate your brain (Grijalbo), a volume where he explains how this organ changes, how we can contribute to its development and evolution. and what mechanisms we have at our disposal to achieve this. Founder and CEO of the UB-EDU1st Neuroeducation Chair and researcher at the University of Oxford, Bueno explains to us in this talk how to optimize our mental growth.
The mind and brain change over time and we can influence them, we can educate them. Is that so?
It is essential to keep this in mind to empower ourselves over the capacity we have over ourselves. The brain is a plastic, malleable organ that is constantly changing. Everything we learn, the experiences we live, that deserve to be remembered, are stored in our brain in connections between neurons. Emotional states also remain in our brain, which changes every day. It is about educating ourselves, through our thoughts, about how we consciously relate to other people. Let’s decide how we want to change our brain thinking about our well-being.
How is the brain trained?
We can educate our brain in the broad sense, acquiring new knowledge, but also acquiring skills, aptitudes, talents, or improving those we already have in any aspect, not only professional, but also social, family, etc. We can change all this a little to our liking.
Since we start exercising, are the effects immediate?
You can see almost immediate effects. If at the moment you cross paths with that neighbor with whom you only exchanged a glance, you suddenly think “I’m going to smile at him, because if he smiles at me too, I’ll start the day happier”, the effect is immediate. What is more difficult is for the brain itself to act in this way, to incorporate these changes. We automate many attitudes and actions, but it is difficult to acquire those automatisms. It is a matter of repeating so that the brain integrates it. If you change these aspects, there will come a time when your brain will do it alone.
Can everyone educate their brain and train it, or are there exceptions?
The exception is people with neurodegenerative diseases. In that case the changes go another way, because it is a pathological situation. Many of these diseases precisely cause you to lose memory capacity and the ability to manage your own life. There may also be some psychiatric disorders that make it difficult to realize one’s actions.
To enjoy a fuller life, talk about the growth mindset. What does it consist of? It sounds like improvement, improvement, producing more, “if you want you can”…
It doesn’t go there. The growth mindset is a very intimate feeling. An American psychologist, Carol Dweck, defined it about 30 years ago. She was working on IQ and saw that there were people who believed that their intelligence was no longer changing, that they had reached their limit. She called them people with fixed mindsets. And she observed that there were other people who thought that their intelligence could be increased, not the infinite “if I want, I can”, but that if they were motivated, if they dedicated effort, if they saw it with optimism, they improved. And she called it growth mindset.
Is this growth mentality focused on the work sphere, or any facet?
It has expanded to any aspect of our mental and cognitive life. We can continue to develop, increase any skill and talent or generate new ones. And here is the fun. It is not something neoliberal, capitalist, we do not achieve everything, it is an intimate feeling. There are many people with a growth mindset who don’t stand out at all, only for themselves. This mentality is related to optimism, with the ability to find your intrinsic motivations, which literally energize the brain. Also with the ability to dedicate efforts to achieve what you set out to achieve: you achieve it because you have been able to energize your brain. And all of this is related to well-being.
So can we all do more? It may sound naive, marketing-esque, a self-help proclamation, the classic and hackneyed “get out of our comfort zone”…
No, it is deeper and more biological, brain-based. Not everything can be wonderful, reality surprises us with terrible situations. The basic idea of ??this growth mindset is that you can always go one step further, even if it is small, in any aspect you want. You need objectives and purposes, but without obsessing yourself. You can develop any talent by going little by little. The trick is not to seek rewards in achieving goals, but to enjoy each small step.
There is also a fixed mindset. Do we have these types of mentalities due to genetics, habits…? What determines them?
There is a genetic component in our entire being, in all our behaviors, skills or cognitive abilities. What there is not is determinism. “Genetic” means that it is just a predisposition to have a growth mindset or have a fixed mindset, but there is still a long way to go. And this path is the education we have received, which also conditions us. If I detect that I have a mentality that is too fixed in some aspects, I know that I can improve it.
To reach the growth mindset, one of the keys are objectives?
Yes. If you don’t have goals, where are you directing your own life? I like to say that we are all protagonists of our lives. No one can take that away from us, but we must also want to be scriptwriters and directors of our lives. To be the director and screenwriter of your life, you have to know what you want to achieve.
Cultivate the mentality of constant learning. Isn’t it normal to get tired of having a busy and active mind?
Curiosity is the driving force of learning. Sometimes we learn out of simple obligation, but it is very boring learning, it does not generate feelings of satisfaction. What satisfies us? What we do out of curiosity. When we are reading a book, watching a television series, something that arouses our curiosity, we lack time to continue with that activity. Well, it’s about finding what arouses our curiosity in any aspect of our life.
What happens biologically in our brain when we feel that curiosity? How is the brain energized, as I mentioned before?
The first thing that happens is that motivation processes are activated. And motivation has two brutal effects. One is that it literally energizes our brain. What does that mean? When we are motivated, our brain receives more sugar, or more glucose, and more oxygen, which is what it needs to generate metabolic energy to function. Therefore, when we are motivated, we can spend longer doing any activity without getting tired. And what’s more, we do it much more efficiently, because the entire brain has much more fuel to function at full capacity.
What areas of the brain are activated by motivation and how does it work?
An area called the striatum is activated, which is what generates sensations of reward, and allows us to anticipate future rewards, so it makes us feel comfortable now and anticipate that in the future, continuing with this activity, we will also we will feel good.
It recommends perseverance and resilience, not giving up. Is it possible, in our times of rush, multitasking and exhaustion?
If I don’t persevere, if I give up the first time something doesn’t work out for me, my brain will be interpreting that I’m not good for this. And that leads to the fixed mindset. Persevering or persisting are the doors to advance in small steps. And the same thing happens with resilience: if in the face of a difficult situation I withdraw into myself and disconnect, I will not be able to continue moving forward. There are unfortunately traumatic situations, sometimes the help of a therapist is needed. Well I get it, but I keep moving forward.
Cognitive flexibility is also needed, he says. How do we work it?
It is the ability we have to find different solutions, different paths to the same challenge, to the same problem. If I’m wrong, I try another option. If I have already started the path, I must be able to change it, modify it, as events occur.
Overcoming mistakes is key. But it kills us with rage at making mistakes. How do we change that in our brain?
Breath deeply. The mistake makes us angry, we feel anger, but this can be healthy, because we activate ourselves to look for another way out. If the error generates a stress spike, that stress decreases reflective flexibility. If I breathe deeply, I will reduce stress. Also playing sports or distracting myself with something else is good for reducing the stress of anger at the mistake.
Collaboration with others and constructive feedback are, you say, two more pillars…
If you receive only negative feedback, “you don’t do it well, what a disaster”, this is a finalist, no one can overcome it. Positive feedback is “we can do this better”, seeks to collaborate. Team leaders must start this path, so that the rest can join.
He reflects a lot in the book on education and learning. Taking into account the latest PISA results, do you think it is necessary to change methodologies?
Yes, definitely. What should be done is to go even deeper into competency learning. The PISA tests are competency-based. They haven’t gone well. What does it mean? That we should return to a previous system where memory basically predominated? Or that we should delve deeper into a competency system, which is what the PISA tests are measuring? For me what they indicate is that we talk a lot about competencies but perhaps we still don’t fully understand what it means. It does not mean doing without memory, because memory gives us reference points, and it means helping our students so that they can extrapolate this data that we give them to any new situation they may encounter. This is competence. And we must deepen it, starting with adults.
Neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky has recently come to the conclusion that free will – the ability and power to decide and act freely – does not exist. What do you think?
It depends on how we interpret the studies. Absolute free will, “I am capable of thinking everything,” does not exist. We have genetic and educational conditions that have directed our minds towards one path or another. But we have free will to decide if we want to continue being the way we are or not. If there are aspects of my life that do not satisfy me or harm my environment, I can freely decide if I want to change them or not.