Hack your own brain | Karolien Notebaert | TEDxUHasselt

Summary

The speaker shares her journey of self-discovery, emphasizing the importance of unlocking one's brain potential. She explains how internal interferences, like anxiety, hinder performance and contrasts this with the role of the prefrontal cortex in executive functions. The key to overcoming these challenges is mindfulness meditation, which can reduce amygdala activation and boost prefrontal cortex capacity, leading to improved performance and well-being. The talk concludes with a simple mindfulness exercise and an encouragement to practice it regularly for personal and collective growth.

Takeaways

• 🌍 The speaker left home at 16, driven by a desire to discover the world, but was naive about life's challenges.
• 👩‍👧‍👦 The speaker's mother advised them to use their potential to develop the best version of themselves, which took years to fully understand.
• 🧠 The speaker became a neuroscientist and focused on understanding how to unlock the brain's potential and reduce internal interferences.
• 🎤 Performance can be hindered by internal interferences like anxiety, even if one has the potential, as illustrated by the example of public singing.
• 😨 The amygdala, responsible for emotions like anxiety, can over-activate and block our potential, while the prefrontal cortex is needed for executive functions like planning and decision-making.
• 🔋 The prefrontal cortex has limited capacity, like a battery, and its depletion during a busy day can lead to poor performance.
• 👨‍👩‍👧 The speaker shared a personal story of dealing with everyday stress, explaining how the amygdala and prefrontal cortex function during the day.
• 🧘‍♂️ Mindfulness meditation can reduce amygdala activation and boost the prefrontal cortex, leading to improved cognitive, physical performance, focus, and well-being.
• 🐒 The default mode network, or 'monkey mind,' constantly produces thoughts that can distract us, while mindfulness activates the direct experience network, helping to quiet the mind.
• 🕰️ Regular practice of mindfulness meditation (starting with 5-10 minutes daily) can help unlock brain potential, and it can benefit individuals, families, teams, and even humankind.

Q & A

What advice did the speaker's mother give them before they left home at 16?

The speaker's mother advised them to use their potential to develop the best version of themselves.

When did the speaker fully understand the advice from their mother?

The speaker fully understood their mother's advice about 10 years later when they were working as a neuroscientist.

What question did the speaker focus on during their scientific and personal journey?

The speaker focused on the question, 'How can you unlock the potential in your brain and develop the best version of yourself?'

What does the speaker identify as the main cause of internal interferences that block potential?

The speaker identifies internal interferences, such as nervousness, anxiety, and negative thoughts, which are often caused by overactivity in the amygdala.

What is the role of the prefrontal cortex according to the speaker?

The prefrontal cortex is responsible for executive functions like planning, organizing, and processing information. It plays a key role in bringing mental peak performance when fully charged.

How does the speaker explain the depletion of the prefrontal cortex throughout a busy day?

The speaker explains that the prefrontal cortex is like a battery that drains over the course of a busy day, leading to mental fatigue and increased amygdala activation.

What strategy did the speaker discover to downregulate amygdala activation and boost the prefrontal cortex?

The speaker discovered that mindfulness meditation is a strategy that can reduce amygdala activation and boost the prefrontal cortex.

What are some of the positive effects of mindfulness meditation mentioned by the speaker?

Mindfulness meditation can improve creativity, cognitive and physical performance, focus, decision-making, well-being, and health.

What is the 'monkey' in the brain, according to the speaker?

The 'monkey' refers to the constant chatter of the default mode network, a brain network that produces thoughts and can lead to increased amygdala activation.

How can mindfulness meditation help 'shut up' the 'monkey' in the brain?

Mindfulness meditation activates the direct experience network, which is closely connected to the senses. This network cannot be activated at the same time as the default mode network, thereby quieting the constant chatter of the 'monkey.'

Outlines

00:00

🌍 Leaving Home at 16: A Journey Begins

The speaker shares a personal story about leaving home at the age of 16, driven by a desire to explore the world despite being naive and unprepared. Her mother offered advice to use her potential and develop her best self, which only resonated 10 years later when the speaker was a neuroscientist. This moment marked the start of a scientific and personal journey, exploring how to unlock one's brain potential and become the best version of oneself.

05:01

🧠 Potential vs. Performance: Overcoming Internal Barriers

The speaker defines performance as the result of one's potential minus internal interferences. While potential includes talents and skills, internal interferences such as anxiety and negative thoughts can block performance. Using an example of singing, she explains how being on stage creates nervousness, which hampers potential. She introduces the amygdala, a brain region that triggers internal interferences, and the prefrontal cortex, which is crucial for peak performance but has limited capacity, similar to a battery.

10:03

📉 Mental Battery: The Battle of the Amygdala and Prefrontal Cortex

The speaker illustrates how a typical day drains the prefrontal cortex, leaving it depleted, while the amygdala becomes overactive. She shares a relatable story of waking up after little sleep, negotiating with her stubborn child, and handling a stressful day. By evening, mental capacity is low, leading to irritability and a chaotic family environment. She stresses that this cycle affects everyone, including children, and highlights the need for strategies to recharge the prefrontal cortex and reduce amygdala overactivation.

15:06

🧘 Mindfulness Meditation: A Brain Hack for Peak Performance

The speaker introduces mindfulness meditation as a scientifically proven strategy to reduce amygdala activation and boost the prefrontal cortex. Initially skeptical about meditation, she explains how regular practice can shrink the amygdala and improve creativity, cognitive performance, decision-making, and overall well-being. She likens the mindfulness approach to M&Ms and emphasizes the importance of practicing it correctly to unlock these benefits.

🐒 The Monkey Mind: Shutting Down the Default Mode Network

The speaker describes the 'monkey mind'—a constant internal chatter known in neuroscience as the default mode network, which dominates our thoughts and triggers amygdala activation. Mindfulness meditation activates the direct experience network, which focuses on the senses and silences the default mode network. She walks the audience through a simple mindfulness exercise to demonstrate how paying attention to sensations can help deactivate the 'monkey' and shift to a more peaceful mental state.

⏳ Practice Makes Perfect: Starting Your Mindfulness Journey

The speaker encourages the audience to practice mindfulness meditation consistently, starting with five minutes a day and gradually increasing to 10-15 minutes. She explains that mindfulness can be done anywhere, even during daily routines like meetings or classes. Reflecting on her mother’s advice to unlock her brain’s potential, the speaker emphasizes that mindfulness is a key tool for personal and professional success, and advocates for its use not only individually but also within families, teams, and companies.

Keywords

💡Potential

Potential refers to the inherent qualities or capabilities that a person possesses, which can be developed or used to achieve goals. In the video, the speaker emphasizes the importance of using one's potential to develop the best version of oneself. The concept is central to the video's theme of personal growth and self-improvement. The mother's advice to 'use your potential' is a pivotal moment that sparks the speaker's journey into neuroscience and self-discovery.

💡Internal Interferences

Internal interferences are the mental or emotional obstacles that prevent an individual from fully utilizing their potential. The video describes how these interferences, such as nervousness and anxiety, can block one's ability to perform at their best. The script uses the example of singing in the shower versus on stage to illustrate how internal interferences can significantly reduce performance.

💡Amygdala

The amygdala is an almond-shaped part of the brain involved in processing emotions such as fear and anxiety. In the context of the video, excessive activation of the amygdala is described as a cause of internal interferences. The speaker explains how too much amygdala activation can block one's potential, drawing a connection between neuroscience and personal performance.

💡Prefrontal Cortex

The prefrontal cortex is a region of the brain that is crucial for executive functions such as planning, organizing, and decision-making. The video highlights the importance of having a fully charged prefrontal cortex for peak mental performance. The script contrasts the limited capacity of the prefrontal cortex with the negative impact of an overactive amygdala.

💡Mindfulness Meditation

Mindfulness meditation is a practice that involves focusing one's attention and eliminating the stream of thoughts that can cause stress and internal interferences. The video presents mindfulness meditation as a strategy to reduce amygdala activation and boost the prefrontal cortex, leading to improved performance and well-being. The speaker shares a personal exercise to demonstrate how mindfulness can be practiced.

💡Default Mode Network

The default mode network is a brain network that is active when the mind is not focused on the outside world and is often associated with mind-wandering and self-referential thoughts. The video describes this network as the source of the 'monkey mind,' which is constantly chattering and can lead to increased amygdala activation. Mindfulness meditation is presented as a way to deactivate this network.

💡Direct Experience Network

The direct experience network is a brain network associated with being fully present in the moment and experiencing the world through the senses. The video suggests that activating this network through mindfulness can help quiet the default mode network and reduce internal interferences. The speaker illustrates this by guiding the audience through a mindfulness exercise focused on the sensation of touch.

💡Performance

Performance in the video refers to the actual execution or output of an individual's abilities or skills. It is contrasted with potential and is often hindered by internal interferences. The script uses the term to discuss how one's actual performance can fall short of their potential due to factors such as nervousness or anxiety.

💡Hacking the Brain

Hacking the brain is a metaphorical term used in the video to describe the process of unlocking the brain's potential through strategies like mindfulness meditation. It suggests a proactive approach to personal development, where one can 'hack' or optimize their cognitive functions to achieve better performance and well-being.

💡Best Version of Oneself

The concept of becoming the 'best version of oneself' is a recurring theme in the video. It represents the idea of reaching one's full potential and achieving personal excellence. The speaker's mother's advice to 'develop the best version of yourself' inspires the speaker's journey and serves as a call to action for the audience to engage in practices like mindfulness meditation.

💡Mental Battery

The mental battery is a metaphor used in the video to describe the capacity of the prefrontal cortex. It is likened to a battery that, when fully charged, allows for peak performance. The script uses the analogy to explain how daily stressors can deplete this 'battery,' leading to increased amygdala activation and reduced performance.

Highlights

The speaker left home at age 16 to explore the world, believing they were ready but later realizing they were naive.

The speaker's mother gave important advice: 'Use your potential to develop the best version of yourself,' which didn't resonate until years later.

The speaker, as a neuroscientist, focused on understanding how to unlock potential in the brain and reduce internal interferences.

Performance is described as 'potential minus internal interferences,' highlighting how anxiety and nervousness can block talents like singing.

Internal interferences are often caused by overactivation of the amygdala, which can block access to full potential.

The prefrontal cortex, which manages executive functions like planning and problem-solving, has limited capacity, acting like a battery that depletes over the day.

A story illustrates how the prefrontal cortex gets drained throughout the day by common stressors, leading to poor emotional control by evening.

The speaker sought a way to reduce amygdala activation and recharge the prefrontal cortex, discovering mindfulness meditation as an effective strategy.

Regular mindfulness meditation reduces amygdala activation and boosts prefrontal cortex functioning, enhancing cognitive and physical performance.

Scientific studies show that mindfulness meditation can shrink the amygdala and lead to better decision-making, focus, creativity, and well-being.

Mindfulness meditation activates the 'direct experience network,' which is linked to our senses and helps deactivate the 'default mode network,' or the mental chatter in our minds.

The default mode network, or the 'monkey mind,' constantly produces thoughts that lead to stress and over-activation of the amygdala.

Mindfulness involves focusing on sensory experiences, which can quiet the 'monkey mind' and promote mental clarity.

The speaker conducts a mini mindfulness meditation exercise, emphasizing that even a few seconds of practice can reduce stress.

The speaker concludes that regular mindfulness meditation can help individuals, teams, and even companies unlock their full potential, ultimately improving humankind.

Transcripts

[Music]

cause many people do not know about me

is that I left my home my parents home

when I was 16 years old I had just

turned 16 and that's the moment that I

believed I was ready for the world I was

ready to discover the world and of

course I was very young and very naive

but the day that I left my mother she

came to me and she decided to give me

her final piece of good advice and she

said Carol I knew you have a lot of

potential however if you want to make it

in life make sure you use your potential

so you can develop the best version of

yourself those words of advice did not

mean much to me when I was 16 but it's

only about 10 years after that when I

was working as a scientist in the field

of neurosciences that the advice came

back to my mind and that for me was the

start of a scientific and personal

journey on which I focused on one

particular question namely how can you

unlock the potential in your brain or

differently put how can you hack your

brain get your potential and develop the

best version of yourself now on this

journey not only have I come to crucial

insights with respect to this topic but

it also radically changed my life and it

those insights that I want to share with

you today first of all let's have a look

at what performance and potential means

the performance that we bring stands for

the potential that we have - the

internal interferences what's the

potential that we have these are your

talents your skills

your expertise what you can do well

however in many situations we are

dealing with internal interferences and

we are blocked to use our potential let

me give you an example let's say that we

all in the room have a great potential

to sing and when we are at home in the

shower we give our best performance but

then you're being asked here and now to

come on stage in experience Li

unexpectedly

to sing a song for us what is going to

happen well it's very likely that your

performance is going to drop now why is

that clearly you have the potential to

sing but standing here on stage all of a

sudden created these internal

interferences such as nervousness

anxiety perhaps even negative thoughts

and these factors they started to act

like internal interferences and they

blocked you in your potential to sing to

get an idea on how we can reduce those

internal interferences so we can access

our potential let's have a look at how

this works in the brain most of the

internal interferences that we

experience are being caused by too much

activation in one particular brain

region which is called the amygdala and

the amygdala they are generally very

important for our survival but if there

are two active they cause our

interferences and block us in our

potential now what do we need for our

potential on the other side for our

potential we need a totally different

brain structure which is called the pre

frontal cortex as the name suggests it's

a brain structure that is fully in the

front of our

brain and this part of the brain is

significantly involved in all your

executive functions and what are those

planning organizing processing

information thinking about solutions in

fact all the tasks that you do

throughout the normal day for these you

need your prefrontal cortex now the bad

news is and you might have noticed that

but the prefrontal cortex has a limited

capacity it works a bit like a battery

if the battery is fully charged we bring

a mental peak performance but the more

we use it and the emptier it gets the

worst version we are of ourselves to

give you an idea of how that Amidala and

prefrontal cortex work throughout the

normal day I'm going to tell you a story

it's a story about you a story about me

about what we did yesterday and what

happens during that day in our amygdala

area and our prefrontal cortex area now

keep in the back of your mind that we

want to have the amygdala not too active

and we want to have a prefrontal cortex

that is fully charged okay so let's say

you woke up yesterday and you hadn't

slept enough and when we don't sleep

enough our prefrontal cortex is not

fully charged you have two children two

girls and the youngest girl she is two

years old

and even though it's not very warm

outside she absolutely insists on

wearing shorts a t-shirt and sandals and

your daughter she's just like you she's

very stubborn and she's not giving in so

what do you do

you used your prefrontal cortex to

negotiate with your child half an hour

later she's wearing trousers you're in

the car you're stuck in traffic where

you also need your prefrontal cortex and

what happens

after that is your day and I can

summarize your day as follows we use our

prefrontal cortex like crazy and after

an extremely busy day we come home and

this is our mental state our mental

battery is empty and our amygdala our

having free play and let me tell you a

secret this is also happening with the

other members of the family because your

children they also have this mental

battery but it's very tiny and super

quickly angry so what do children do

with an empty battery at least mine they

do they start fighting you try to calm

the children you try to make the food

the food burns it is absolutely the

worst case scenario and it's a moment

that you think things can't get worse

that's the moment that you bare feet

step onto a lego breaking have you

already stepped onto a Lego braking it

hurts right and after a day like that it

hurts even more because of the mental

state were in we have too much a missile

activation and our mental battery is

empty and this at a moment where we are

expected to have the best moments of our

lives that our mental state so I say we

can do better as a scientists I was

looking for a strategy with which we can

down regulate the amygdala activation

and give a boost to our prefrontal

cortex because that's what it needs for

a peak performance and I found that

strategy it is a strategy that when you

regularly practice it the amygdala

activation will go down and your

prefrontal cortex will get a boost not

only that it even gets better if you

regularly practice this strategy the

amygdala will eventually become smaller

means that the largest source of your

internal interferences will become

smaller and as a consequence science has

shown that this strategy leads to a very

very long list of positive effects such

as a better creativity a better

cognitive and also physical performance

a better focus better decision-making

better well-being also a better health

what's the strategy I'm talking about

here I'm talking here about mindfulness

meditation mindfulness meditation mmm

you know the M&Ms you eat the sweets mmm

the next time you eat them you think

about mindfulness meditation as a

skeptical scientist the first time that

I read that word meditation I still

remember that very clearly

I put the article aside because I

thought that meditation had something to

do with putting candles in your ears or

sniffing lavender or saying ohm

but I can assure you that mindfulness

meditation is nothing esoteric

mindfulness meditation is a hardcore

scientifically under built strategy with

which you can unlock the full potential

in your brain if you want to experience

those positive positive effects of

mindfulness it is very important that

you practice mindfulness in the correct

way and how do we practice mindfulness

meditation in the correct way well let

me start by telling you that you all

have a monkey in your brain you might

have noticed there is this constant

voice that is constantly chatting to you

Chat Chat Chat Chat Chat it's telling

you what to do you know check your phone

check your facebook page it's also

telling you how to feel to feel good to

feel bad and it's constantly

giving you it's opinion now this monkey

in your voice in science we don't call

this monkey we have another name for it

but in neuroscience we call this voice

in our head the default mode Network

it's a bit like a computer has its

default settings we also have that as a

human being with us it's called the

default mode Network and this default

mode network is a very dominantly

activated Network that constantly

produces our thoughts it's the monkey

setting and it's just hearts that

eventually lead to our amatul activation

for mindfulness meditation we need a

totally different brain network we need

a brain network that is called the

direct experience Network and now why is

it so important the power of mindfulness

lies in the fact that these two networks

cannot be activated simultaneously this

implies that when I activate the direct

experience Network you will deactivate

the default mode network or differently

put you will shut up the monkey in your

mind now how do you do that well the

direct experience network is a network

that is in very close connection to all

of our senses hearing seeing smelling

tasting and when we bring our full

attention to one of our senses we

activate the direct experience network

and we deactivate a default mode network

or we shut up the monkey in our mind but

when we do that what is going to happen

that monkey really likes to chat so

after a few milliseconds or a few

seconds the monkey is going to start

chatting again that's fine if that

happens you bring your attention back to

one of your sense

now that you understand why we might

need mindfulness that's also experience

it

I brought an exercise for you it's only

20 seconds and the only thing you have

to lose this bit of a methyl activation

which is a good thing so we're gonna do

it all together and how does the

exercise look like when I say start

we're all going to tap with both our

hands on our knees until I say stop and

when I say stop you are going to lay

your hands flat on your legs and you are

going to close your eyes and bring your

full attention to the sensation that you

experience on the skin of your hands and

with this simple trick you will activate

your direct experience network are you

ready okay we all tap our knees and stop

now you close your eyes and feel your

hands

okay you can open your eyes again for

those who have never practiced

mindfulness meditation before well

congratulations this is was your first

mini mindfulness meditation session if

you really want to have those effects

it's important to practice practice

practice start by doing this five

minutes per day in this week increase it

to test 10 minutes next week and if you

reach an average of 10 to 15 minutes a

day it's a brilliant start and you don't

always have to fill your hands you can

feel something else in your body you can

mind your breathing and this is

something you can do anywhere during a

meeting where you have no active

participation do mindfulness meditation

session or in your class rather than

playing with your phone coming back now

to the advice that my mother gave me 20

years ago namely unlock the potential in

your brain develop the best version of

yourself I have come to learn that

mindfulness meditation is the key to

high performance it's the way to hack

your brain and this is something that we

can do for ourselves to become the best

version of ourselves but think bigger

this is something we can do as a family

or as a team or as a company as a

company we are seldom the best versions

of ourselves or even thing beyond that

the moonshot thinking with mindfulness

meditation we can create a better

version of humankind which lies in our

hands and this I think was an idea worth

sharing with you today thank you

you