Funny brain breaks

Brain Breaks - 20 awesome ways to energize your students FAST!

Brain Breaks Can Be Quick!

Do you use Brain Breaks with your students?

You should!

This amazing guest post about why kids need to move from pediatric occupational therapist Loren Shlaes was so popular that I decided to follow it up with a list of Brain Breaks for kids!  

These are great to use anytime your students are feeling restless and are struggling to pay attention. 

Most of these will only take a few minutes, and then you can get back to the lesson with your students ready to focus on the lesson at hand.

20 Brain Breaks You Can Use Today!

1. 5-4-3-2-1 In this simple game, students stand up and the teacher (or leader) has them do five different movements in descending order.

For example the teacher would say: “Do five jumping jacks, spin around four times, hop on one foot three times, walk all the way around the classroom two times, give your neighbor one high-five (pausing in between each task for students to do it).

Here's a DIGITAL VERSION you can use!

You can use this FREE brain break activity either face-to-face or over Zoom for Distance Learning!  This activity is fun to use and can even be customized!

Watch the video to see how this quick and easy activity works!

Click here to get your own copy.  Once it’s yours, you can customize it for your own students or use it as is!

Be sure and check out our new blog post:

2. Trading Places Have students stand behind their pushed-in chairs. Call out a trait, and everyone who has that trait must change places with someone else (students who do not have the trait stay where they are). Examples: “Everyone with curly hair.” “Everyone who ate cereal for breakfast.” “Everyone who is wearing stripes.”
3. Six Spots Number six spots around your room from 1-6. Have students each go to a spot of their choice. Choose a student to roll a die (if you can make a big one out of foam, it adds to the fun). All the students at the number rolled must go back to their seats. Students that are left go to a new spot, and the die is rolled again. Continue until only a few students are left. You can click here for a digital dice you can project!
4. Mingle, Mingle, Group! In this game students mill about the classroom saying, “mingle, mingle, mingle” in soft voices until the teacher says, “Groups of 5,” at which point the students must quickly group themselves into groups with the correct number of people. Students who are left over must do three jumping jacks before the next round starts. The teacher can call out any number for the group size. You can also add rules such as: as soon as a group is complete, all members must sit down in a line.
5. Dance Party! Put on some rockin’ music and dance! If you can make the room semi-dark and have a black light or other special effect, your kids will love it!
6. Freeze Dance! Similar to Dance Party, except that every so often the music stops, and students must freeze and hold the position they are in until the music begins again.
7. Name Moves Students stand behind their chairs. In turn, each student says his or her name accompanied by a special movement. For example a student might say, “Kayla!” while dramatically dropping to one knee and doing Jazz Hands. After the student does his or her move, the rest of the class says the student’s name in unison and imitates the move. Then it is the next student’s turn.
8. Keep It Up Students must keep a beach ball from hitting the ground. Add two or three balls to make it even more fun.
9. Simon Says An oldie but a goody!
10. Movement Songs Sing a song with whole-body movements, such as, “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes,” “Father Abraham,” “Toe-Knee Chest-Nut,” “Shake Your Sillies Out (Raffie),” “Grand Old Duke of York,” “My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean,” etc.
11. Recorded Movement Songs Older students might enjoy a simple Zumba routine, YMCA, or the Macarena. Littler ones will love Sesame Street’s A Very Simple Dance to Do.
12. Animal Pretend Younger children will enjoy pretending to be various animals (or even objects such as lawn mowers or airplanes). Call out a few in sequence.
13. Would You Rather Ask a “would you rather” question and have students show their choice by moving to one end of the room or the other. Have a few kids share why. Here are 20 free “Would You Rather” Questions to get you started.
14. Find It Fast Call out a color or other trait (e.g. something round, something made of wood), and students must find an object in the room that fits the trait and get to it quickly.
15. Physical Challenges Challenge students to do something physically difficult, such as standing on one foot with arms extended, or this one: Grab your nose with left hand, and grab your left earlobe with your right hand, and then quickly switch so that your right hand is on your nose and your left hand is grabbing your right earlobe. Yoga poses could also be a good variation.
16. Plates Give each student a paper plate. Students must walk around the room balancing the plates on their heads. If a student drops his or her plate, the student must freeze until another student picks it up and places it back on the student’s head (while keeping his or her own plate in place, of course).
17. Line Up! Have students line up using a specific criteria, such as age (use day and month, not just year), height, alphabetically by middle name, hair length, etc.
18. Limbo All you need is a long stick and a pair of kids to hold it. Music is nice, too.
19. Human Knot Divide students into groups of about eight students. Have students each grab right hands with someone who is not directly next to them. Then do the same with left hands. The challenge is to untangle and become a circle without releasing hands.
20. Jump Skip Counting Have students count by twos, fives, tens etc. while jumping with each count. You could also practice spelling words this way.

The resource comes with a RANDOM Brain Break Chooser!

CLICK HERE!

What’s your favorite Brain Break? Leave it in the comments!

50 Educational Brain Breaks that Your Students Will Love!

Topic: Classroom Management,Healthy Students,Sponsored

Quick, easy activities to help kids re-energize, refocus and give their brains a boost.

Brought to you by Sanford fit

Brought to you by Sanford fit

Looking for movement ideas for your kids? Sanford fit has hundreds of free resources—like brain breaks, lessons, and videos—to help kids make healthy choices inside and outside of the classroom. See them all >>

Whether kids are learning at home or in the classroom, it’s important to build time into schedules for brain breaks. Maybe they need a movement break to get the wiggles out? Or a quiet moment to just stay still? Research shows that giving kids frequent brain breaks to reset their energy level improves their ability to focus, retain more, and stay on task. Here are 50 of our favorite educational brain breaks that are sure to increase productivity and give your kids a much-needed break. Almost every one of them can be done individually and safely by maintaining at least 6 feet between learners!

1. Use

There are so many great educational brain breaks out there. This is why we love this amazing free resource from Sanford fit. Click “Let’s Go!” and you’ll get three fun moves designed to get your kids warmed up, moving, and cooled down—perfect for physical fitness and mental alertness. Plus, there are easy-to-print cards with dozens of action-packed brain breaks to have on hand.

2. Practice “focus ball” breathing

Walk your kids through the following exercise: Stand or sit with legs and feet together. Bring your palms together in front of your chest. Keep your fingertips touching as you pull your palms apart, forming a ball with your fingers. Press your fingertips together until you feel the muscles in your hands and arms activating. See if you feel your core tighten too. Now close your eyes and as you breathe in, inflate your ball and as you breathe out, flatten the ball by pushing your palms together. (Then repeat these instructions for 60 seconds).

3. Try the old Ear-Nose Switcheroo

This is a quick and easy challenge to reset the brain. Instruct kids to touch their left ear with their right hand and at the same time touch their nose with their left hand. Then have them switch their hands and touch their right ear with their left hand and their nose with their right hand. Switch back and forth a few times. Then have them close their eyes, take a deep breath, and blow it all out.

4. Take a yoga break

Inspire kids to move, stretch, and practice mindfulness with fitFlow yoga.  This activity makes incorporating yoga breaks easy with 22 printable cards, each with pictures and descriptions of 4 yoga poses. And don’t worry—it’s not a huge time commitment. The sequence on each card is designed to take only 3-5 minutes. See it in action here.

5. Just jump!

Sometimes kids just need to bounce their energy out. Have them pretend they are bouncing on a mini-trampoline (this will keep their movement on a vertical plane instead of all over the room) and give them a couple of minutes to let loose!

6. Take a cue from the stadium

Here’s one for a group of kids—start the wave! Beginning at one end of the room, kids stand up and throw their arms overhead, bringing them back down as they return to their seats. Each row follows until you reach the other end of the room. Amp it up by encouraging your kids to tap their feet or tap their hands on their legs so that they are in constant motion. This activity works great on Zoom too!

7. Stretch it out

Source: Mom Junction

It’s never a good idea to spend too much time sitting in one position. Allow kids to take a break and bring some flexibility back into their spines. Have them stand with their feet shoulder-distance apart. Put their left hand on their hip and raise their right hand overhead. Lean to the left and stretch their arm as far as they can to the left. Repeat on the right side. Then stand tall and slowly roll down one vertebra at a time until their hands reach the floor (or at least their shins). Have them take a deep breath then slowly roll back up. Repeat as necessary.

8. Stir the pot

Have kids visualize they are standing in front of an enormous cauldron. Inside the cauldron is an ooey-gooey pot of caramel. Take hold of a large stirrer and plunge it to the bottom of the pot. Slowly begin to stir in a clockwise direction. Have them use their whole body to help get a full range of motion in their wrists and shoulders. Instruct them to throw their hips into the action. After a minute or two, reverse the direction.

9. Make it rain

Conjure up a rainstorm! Sitting or standing at a desk or table, have kids tap 1 finger on the desk, then 2, then 3, then 4, then their whole hand until you all feel like you’re in the middle of a deluge. Work your way backward from 5 down to 1 as the storm ebbs away.

10. Focus on sound

Have kids sit quietly with their eyes closed. Ring a chime or gong. Have them listen carefully to the chime, feeling the vibration in their body as the sound reverberates and then slowly fades. Tell them to breathe slowly and deeply as they focus on the sound.

11. Practice mindfulness

These free printable cards are a great thing to keep in your desk. Each card will give a prompt for kids to try that will let them refocus and recharge. Perfect for moments when you need to bring down the energy in the room.

12. Chill out with this cross-body exercise

Have kids stand tall and cross one leg in front of the other while pressing the outsides of their feet together. Now have them cross their arms over one another at the wrists. Clasp their hands and curl their arms into their chest. Take a few breaths, uncross and cross the opposite way for a few more breaths.

13.

First, instruct kids to touch their left elbow to their right knee, then touch their right elbow to their left knee. Switch back and forth, going slowly at first, building speed until they are going at a vigorous pace. Next, do some windmills by standing tall with their feet shoulder-width apart, and their arms stretched out. Bend at the waist and touch their right hand to their left toes, then their left hand to their right toes. Switch back and forth.

14. Make lesson plans mobile

Source: @sanfordfitkids

Incorporate movement into classroom activities to keep the learning fresh.

15. Make Xs and Os

Walk kids through the following exercise: Sitting in a chair with your feet on the ground and legs together, curl your body into your lap, folding yourself into a tiny O shape. Next, open your arms and legs wide, forming an X shape with your body. Pull back into an O shape, then back out to an X shape. Repeat three times.

16.

Get hearts pumping with a quick sequence of exercises. Call out 5 actions for your students to do as quickly as they can. For instance, 5 jumping jacks, 4 push-ups, 3 situps, 2 squat jumps, and 1 tree pose.

17. Practice another language

Photo credit/ASL Alphabet

Teach your kids the alphabet in sign language. Use brain breaks to practice by singing the ABCs while signing the letters. Then practice vocabulary words by spelling them out loud while signing the letters.

18. Take a cruise on an imaginary skateboard

Have your kids line up next to a wall and place one hand on the wall. Tell them to plant the foot closest to the wall and swing the other leg, as if pushing off the ground on a skateboard. Start slowly, with tiny swings, moving up to power pushes. Repeat on the other side.

19. Find out how it’s made

Remember that classic Sesame Street video about how crayons are made? We watched in awe as crayons rolled off the assembly line, wrapped in paper, and then slipped into those familiar cardboard boxes. Kids today are just as fascinated by how things are made! Here are our favorite videos about how things are made—from fireworks to LEGOs.

20. Break out the hot hands

This is a good break when you sense a weariness in the air. Have kids rub their hands together vigorously until they warm up. Tell them to close their eyes and place their hands over their eyes. Instruct them to breathe deeply as they clear their mind and refocus.

21. Take a break to groove

Music is a great way to reset the mood in a room and raise the energy level. Put on a fun song and have a 30-second freestyle dance party. Here are some kid-friendly music playlists.

22. Or take it to the next level

Teach your kids the steps to popular dances such as the Cha-Cha Slide, the Macarena, or the Kidz Bop Shuffle.

23. Try some facial gymnastics

Have kids get their silly on for 30 seconds. Tell them to wiggle their eyebrows up and down as fast as they can. Then try to raise one eyebrow at a time.

24. Open your chest

Source: @sanfordfitkids Open Your Chest Brain Break

We spend so much of our day hunched forward. Have kids take a break to open their chests and breathe deeply.

25. Take a doodle break

According to researcher Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, downtime is essential for brain health. Kids need time for their growing brains to integrate and process the vast amount of information they receive each day. In other words, it is actually beneficial to give our kids time to allow their minds to wander. Try this: Set a timer for 3-5 minutes and let kids silently doodle with pencil and paper or a dry erase board and marker while soft, calming music plays in the background.

26. Do nothing for two minutes

Never underestimate the power of stillness. When the energy gets a little ramped up, and it’s time for the entire class to take a pause, have them drop everything and glue their eyes to the screen as you show this countdown. The gentle lulling of the waves and the sight of the sun sparkling off the water will reset their nervous system in a jiffy.

27. Clap for a little call and response

Pep things up with a little call and response clapping. It’s simple to do and is often used in the classroom to get students’ attention. Simply clap out a pattern that your kids will repeat back to you. Switch out the pattern a few times until everyone is focused and engaged. Alternatively, try a vocal call and response. Sing out a few riffs and have kids echo the tune back to you.

28. Take a comedy break

Comedy is a great release when the atmosphere is feeling a little intense. Show a funny video clip or have kids volunteer to tell a joke or pose a few silly riddles.

29. Color yourself mellow

Even grown-ups have picked up on the coloring craze as an excellent way to calm down and zone out. Put on some nice mellow background music, set a timer, and pass out some of these free positive self-talk coloring pages.

30. Make a brain break spinner

How to Make a Brain Break Spinner

How's this for a brain break during the day?!

Posted by Sanford Fit Kids on Friday, January 4, 2019

One way to make sure educational brain breaks are effective is to change up activities. Check out this step-by-step video from Sanford fit that shows you how to make your own Wheel of Fortune-type game to help you add variety to brain breaks!

31. Write it out

Don’t underestimate the power of journaling or creative writing. Give your kids a 5- or 10-minute break to open up a page of their notebook and write about anything they’d like. They don’t have to share it with the class or do anything else with it; just use the quiet time to focus on something they love and want to write about.

32. Ramp up with a round of cherry pickers

This easy activity will get your students’ hearts pumping and give their brains a boost. Have them jump up off the ground, then down to the floor into a push-up position. From there, instruct them to hop their feet up into a frog position, then pop up to a standing position.

33. Clap on, clap off

When you say “clap on,” kids clap their hands vigorously together. When you say “clap off,” they stop as quickly as they can and freeze. Or follow along with this fun video.

34. Skip it out

When the energy is fading, and kids need to get their blood flowing, put on a peppy song and pull out the imaginary jump ropes. Have kids skip or jump rope in place until the song ends.

35. Spread your wings (in slow motion)

Walk your kids through this winged movement: Sit cross-legged on the floor. Stretch your arms down by your sides with your palms facing inward toward your body. Slowly raise both arms while rotating hands forward. When your arms reach shoulder level, your hands should be facing forward. Continue raising arms, slowly rotating palms so that by the time hands are overhead, palms are facing each other. Slowly lower arms, repeating the rotation (palms facing each other, palms facing forward, palms facing sides) until they are once again resting at your sides. As you raise and lower your arms, stretch them as long as you can, as if you are scraping the sides of the room and the ceiling. Repeat slowly three times, breathing deeply.

36. Exercise your answer

Source: @sanfordfitkids True or False Brain Break

This fun activity is an active community builder. Kids raise their heart rates while playing trivia.

37. Make like a blender

Tell kids it’s time to make fruit smoothies. Ask them to pretend they are in a blender and they are strawberries (or blueberries or bananas, etc.). Dramatically pour orange juice or yogurt into the air in front of you. Tell kids when you flip the switch that they need to wiggle and jiggle (separately, not together) until they are each individually blended up. Start with a slow speed, moving up to medium speed, fast speed, and finally turbo speed. And then reverse it! Start at turbo speed and go back to slow speed.

38. Celebrate with a silent cheer

This activity is perfect for the end of an activity or a sustained amount of work time—especially for kids who are learning remotely. Let kids stand up and silently cheer and gesture in celebration. How animated can they get?!

39. Do a full-body workout

This kid-friendly exercise video is great for your body and brain! Kids can follow along through a set of workout moves that will get their blood pumping.

40. Play popcorn

Students will all be sitting in their chairs, and at any time, a student can jump up and say, “Pop!” Once they do, that student remains standing. If two students pop up at the same time, everyone takes their seats, and the game starts over. How quickly can the entire class pop without having to start over?

41. Build a sensory pathway

These color-coded posters will take your kids through a different set of tasks to help them move, recharge and set their mood! Get the free set of posters from Sanford fit here.

42. Hit the wall

Pushing against a solid object is a good way to displace extra energy from your body. Have kids stand facing a wall with their arms stretched out in front of them, palms on the surface of the wall. Push the wall away with all their strength for a count of ten. Relax for five seconds, then push again. Other activities they can do at the wall include calf stretches and wall push-ups.

43. Try a cat/cow pose

Have kids start on all fours and then give them the following instructions to complete the cat/cow yoga pose: Place your shoulders over your wrists and hips over your knees. Arch your back to the sky and tuck in the tailbone. Let your head fall between your arms. From there, sink the belly towards the ground, and lift the chest and chin. Gently alternate between the two poses while breathing deeply.

44. Grab your favorite GIFs

Make a slideshow of your favorite GIFs and have your kids act them out. Funny animals are a good place to start!

45.

Kids don’t even have to get out of their seats for this one, but they can! Have one student start by finding an object and saying, “I see something beginning with the letter [fill in the blank].” The first person to guess the item correctly gets to choose the next object. This can be a fun one to play on Zoom too! You can have kids add in additional clues to help.

46. 3, 2, 1 blastoff!

Instruct kids to stand and then squat down with their hands on the ground in front of them. All together, count down 3, 2, 1. When you get to zero, they should push up like a rocket, jumping as high as they can—letting all of their energy burst from their center.

47. Float with jellyfish

When you really need to take the energy in your room down a notch, turn off the lights, set a timer, and put on this amazing video. Kids will find themselves under the brilliant blue sea in the middle of a swarm of jellyfish. They’ll be mesmerized by the slow, fluid motions and lulled into calmness by the soothing music.

48. Quick as a snap, wink

Photo credit/Getty Images

This is a quick, easy refocusing activity. Tell kids to snap their left fingers while they wink their right eye. Switch to snapping their right fingers while winking their left eye. This activity is particularly effective for younger learners who may find both activities challenging.

49. Balance break

A great way to get kids out of their chairs is to practice balance. Have them hop on one foot. Then up the ante by having them stand on one foot and bend their other knee out in front of them.

50. Tabletop push-ups

Kids can use their desk, a chair, the side of their couch—anything really. Have them place their hands on the table and focus their eyes in the center, moving down slowly and pushing back up.

What educational brain breaks do you love? Sanford fit has some of our favorite brain break ideas that you can use in your classroom or at home.

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05.10.201717:14 link -3.2

eshborn

Well-known Danish physiologist Anke Ninia denied the hopes of many people to develop the brain by another 90%. The specialist claims that we are already using it at 100%. There is nothing to develop. The results of the research work of the scientist are published in the publication Videnskab.

The scientist believes that the use of only 10% of the resources of the brain is extremely illogical from the point of view of evolution. The study of the brain using the latest equipment proves that during the performance of various tasks, the brain is almost completely activated. At the same time, the maintenance of the brain is quite expensive for the human body: all brain activity consumes about a quarter of the energy of our body.

The full functioning of the brain is also supported by the fact that damage to very small areas of the brain during a stroke leads to catastrophic consequences for the body. At the same time, the scientist notes that indeed, at the same time, all eighty-six billion neurons never work. The brain maintains a certain ratio between the cells that process signals and those that are at rest. If all of a sudden the brain activated all its neurons, a person would have a seizure.

So, sums up Anke Ninia, the dreams of the explosive development of the human brain are not viable. Man has always used his brain fully.

https://planet-today.ru/novosti/nauka/item/133541-datskie-fiziologi-oprovergli-mnenie-chto-chelovek-zadejstvuet-lish-10-mozga

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04.05.202108:28link9. 9

forogr

Brain-breaking dance

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03/16/201315:32link0.0

spiritofhemp

These are not thoughts, but active spontaneous brain waves. What this means, no one understands yet.

"Mini-brains" bred in the laboratory for the first time recorded brain waves similar to human, and they appeared spontaneously. The electrical patterns are similar to those recorded in the brains of premature babies.

Such mini-brains are called organoids, in fact they are three-dimensional cultures of embryonic stem cells. Such cells have already been used to create miniature versions of the eyes, intestines, liver, kidneys, prostate, and several other organs. But the human brain is a completely different case.

Scientists at the University of California San Diego are trying to recreate the tissue of the cerebral cortex that is capable of thinking and interpreting sensory information. Hundreds of these organoids grew in cultures for 10 months. During growth, scientists measured the electrical activity of the mini-brains using an EEG.

Six months later, the organoids began to show extremely curious activity. The EEG showed patterns similar to the chaos that occurs in the brain in the early stages of formation. In fact, brain organelles showed a clear similarity with the activity of the brain of children born after 25–39weeks after conception.

It is not yet possible to say exactly what these waves mean. Whether it's the dawn of a human-type brain, or just random signals. Scientists still do not know how the brain works, they are poorly versed in how exactly human thought is born, and the early periods of brain formation in embryos and fetuses in the uterus are completely poorly understood. It is possible that the organoids do not have those parts that are necessary for a full-fledged brain, and all electrical signals are pure chance.

However, they are. The data exists. Now scientists have, as they themselves write, “new opportunities to study the role that neural network activity plays in the development of the cerebral cortex.” It doesn't matter if it's an accident or not, but now how organoids develop will greatly affect their future.
https://www.popmech.ru/science/news-450382-v-laboratornyh-mini-mozgah-poyavilas-aktivnost-pohozhaya-na-chelovecheskuyu/?utm_source=yxnews&utm_medium=desktop&fbclid=IwAR0VsW-Cxl1gO7-nTL6mWie974v7sWgBcTdCoz6tRgpi9BDrTKCU6JVlX_Q

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11/22/201821:35link42. 3

cynepDen

Little man
Don't be a kiddo
And then I’ll use the mode
Belly will pour out of blood
And move you through
Author: Sedrik (Yuki AIRI)

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02/09/201316: 38 Sytlka-1.6

DAKADUCK

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02/16/202015: 56 Dry5.8

Babos

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004

31.07.202221: 45 lifting170.3

....

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01/28/201921: 40 Dry24.4

Sashkauskas

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06/06/201721: 13 POSITS0.7 9000 9,0004 $ 9,0004 on youtube and just stumbled upon a treasure channel.
Here, for example, is a video about Rogozin, a great manager.

I haven't heard such impudent bullshit for a long time. It turns out that Dimka honorably completed the most difficult job in Roscosmos and retired into the sunset with his head held high. And the population is hawala in the comments. This is some bullshit, sir. There is a whole set of such selective shit on the channel. And in the comments there, of course, there is a complete wadded kingdom, and almost 500 thousand subscribers. One question: yes, how so?
Of course, I am entirely for freedom of speech and against censorship, but, in my opinion, the ability to shit in the ears with diarrhea has nothing to do with this freedom. Considering the latest events on YouTube, I will take the liberty of making a suggestion: to study this channel a little and send reports. I skimmed through a couple of videos, the authors are very cunningly fucked up so as not to violate the rules of the u-tube, but I think it will not be difficult for respected faggots to find obvious violations.
We won't let you shit in your ears! Well, or at least we will undermine the fart of the FSB officer responsible for this project (I refuse to believe that someone voluntarily invested forces and means in this shit).

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08/07/202207:40link7.6

Buckwheat effect: how we bankrupt ourselves in a crisis and how to deal with it

Why do smart people act illogically? They buy buckwheat and toilet paper, post fake news, bombard each other with spam, and make other ridiculous gestures. The mechanisms that the brain turns on in turbulent situations are very special - they are not similar to how it behaves in more stable times

Speaking of the "buckwheat effect", let's start with less emotionally charged examples. If you accidentally touch a hot pan, you can pull your hand back before you realize what happened to you. Such a reaction to the danger of a burn is sewn at the level of reflexes evolutionarily. And in this case it works great. But when you hit the brakes sharply on a slippery road in winter and realize that the car has begun to slip, the same mechanism does not allow you to take your foot off the brake pedal, although this must be done in order to restore the grip of the wheels with the road. “The speed is too high, there is a danger of a collision, so you need to reduce it, and for this you need to put pressure on the brake, because it almost always worked like that, so it will work now.” What helps us to be saved in this situation? That's right - ABS, an automatic electronic system that prevents the wheels from locking and losing control of the car during heavy braking.

And here the fun begins: there are racing cars on which it is forbidden by the rules of the competition to install such assistant systems. All responsibility for the control of the brake pedal lies with the driver of the racing car. Think they just don't hit the brakes? Bute. But this must be specially studied and for quite a long time, while regularly flying off the track. Pilots learn to mimic anti-lock braking with their own foot, hitting the brake pedal and releasing it immediately, then hitting it again in a fraction of a second.

The last few weeks as a novice non-ABS race car driver who gets swept to the side of the road over and over again are many of us. We, who, despite academic degrees, have a mathematical mindset, experience as a crisis manager at a large bank, post fake news, engage in disturbing couch analytics, spam work chats with memes about “Zewa bought Apple.” And if not us, then who sweeps away buckwheat and other cereals in the evening in all the ABCs of Taste? And in the morning they bring everything back. Those who can afford something cooler than buckwheat do other things. Just the other day, The Moscow Times told about a Russian billionaire: just in case, he is urgently equipping a home clinic with ventilators that are not sold to private individuals.

Which of the three centers of the brain is active at that moment? He overcomes the reflex hardwired into the reptilian brain and time after time, flying off the training track, learns to overcome the power of emotions born in the limbic system.

In 1990, the American neurophysiologist Paul McLean, in his book Triune Brains in Evolution: A Role in Paleocerebral Functions, described the "triune mind model" that he worked on in the 1960s. He singled out three centers of mental activity in the human brain, each of which reacts in its own way to ongoing events.

The first brain is reptilian. It was already among the ancient reptiles, hence its name. It is responsible for the basic functions necessary for survival: instincts, the desire to satisfy basic needs (food, reproduction, self-preservation and protection, etc.). According to various estimates, it is more than 100 million years old.

The second center is limbic or emotional; a.k.a. "the brain of mammals". It received the last name for what representatives of this class of animals have. Simply put, it is responsible for emotions, social relationships. What is important for us is that he strives for momentary pleasure and does not particularly like us to strain. Yes, all your laziness lurks right here.

The third center is the neocortex, the prefrontal cortex or "human brain". It is responsible for thinking, speech, sensory perception, intellectual development, self-awareness, intelligence. Thanks to him, we can think not only about the current moment, but also about the future, and in general we proudly call ourselves “reasonable man”. This is a young superstructure - the neocortex is 2 million years old, or even less.

The three centers of the psyche, as we see, have different purposes. The “human brain” deals with the issues of meanings, goals and explanations of the situation, the “mammalian brain” with emotional attitude, passion, anger or love, and the “reptilian brain” with issues of survival and procreation.

Neocortex: trains well, but gets tired drastically

So, using the example of braking a car pilot, we can say: we are able to overcome the installations sewn into us. Similarly, we do this when we make our first skydive, an act that is completely suicidal from the point of view of other parts of the brain.

But there is one caveat: as he says in his book “Brain. Instructions for use ”David Rock, the neocortex spends resources very quickly. By focusing and making even one difficult decision, for which you most likely had to analyze some information and make a choice in favor of one of the options, you can use up all the amount of energy available at the moment. And for the next decision or fight with the limbic system, which will incline you to momentary joys, there will simply be no resources left.

It looks like this: let's say a manager spent 2-3 hours on a difficult task, and now their number for business or project managers is over the top. And then someone says to him: "There are empty shelves in the store." And something inside suddenly takes control, and the person begins to think: “Maybe you really need to go for buckwheat and toilet paper?” It's the battery of the neocortex that has run out.

If you want to know what these batteries run on, glucose. Don't be surprised when you feel like eating a bar of chocolate when you're stressed. The bad news is that your weight and blood composition are completely irrelevant to the brain as long as it does not become a visible threat to cholesterol or diabetes. Therefore, at the moment when the fuse in the head "burns out", let it not be a whole chocolate bar, but for example, a piece of banana - there is also a lot of sweet, sugar will enter the blood quickly. But after a banana, ironically, you can just go to boil buckwheat: instead of fast carbohydrates, it is more prudent to use slow ones. Another thing is that you need a little buckwheat, and not an annual supply.

Well, you ate the right buckwheat with a banana. But the ruble exchange rate “hysteria” again, the price of oil fell, the president reset to zero, new figures came in on the coronavirus in Italy and Spain, and again it “bombed”. But the brain continues to self-regulate! He loves funny things very much, he likes unexpected information - this gives dopamine. That's why there are so many new memes now. Here the most rational people forget about digital etiquette - this is a superstructure of the neocortex, and, as we remember, it has overheated in our country. And now we are already spamming each other with memes, increasing our general nervousness.

And so it goes around and around: after all, now the news flow is very specific - last week there were days when we received secondary damage every hour: bad news cascaded, and only we adapted to one "horror" as another happens.

The brain loves certainty, but it does not exist and never has been

The brain is lazy in a good sense of the word: wherever there are certain patterns and templates, it wants to identify them in order to then develop standard algorithms of actions for these conditions and not waste wasted energy for the work of the prefrontal cortex. As we said, making a decision comes at a high price. She is still young and does not yet know how to save energy, unlike the reptilian brain.

When does the neocortex go crazy? When the percentage of entropy becomes higher or more obvious. In times of chaos. And no one is protected from this "system failure" - even the most reasonable and authoritative do stupid things. Entropy - in simple terms, is a measure of the complexity or randomness of a system: the less the elements of the system are subject to any order, the higher the entropy. No wonder the famous Chinese curse says: "May you live in an era of change!". As you can see, stability is something rather ephemeral. Something constantly happens, and now the law of non-decreasing entropy or the so-called physical meaning of the second law of thermodynamics, discovered by Rudolf Clausius, has migrated to everyday life.

We foresee a counter-argument - in Russia every seven years there is a terrible crisis, have we not learned to take it calmly? But seven years is a gigantic period, if we experienced past crises at the "reptilian-limbic" level and did not draw our systemic conclusions, then we forgot everything.

How to get the neocortex back on track: quick tips

In the face of information bombardment, the best thing to do is to pause yourself more often. You need to learn how to do this before starting a fan mailing of a PDF file with the next “epidemic analytics” throughout your notebook, which, in a state of reptilian panic, was collected by your familiar developer, a specialist not in viruses, but even in square meters.

Why should one save oneself? Because in addition to blocking the neocortex, the hormonal system also reacts in a cascade. “A vicious circle is starting,” says Forbes Ontology program director and psychotherapist Sergey Nasibyan. Panic is the release of adrenaline and cortisol. Each stress lasts minutes, but then the body needs up to 8 hours to bounce back. Prolonged stress leads to the fact that immunity falls, and this is exactly what we need least of all during epidemics - we become a target for viruses.

But how to disconnect? If you can’t completely get out of the news flow, get in the habit of walking an hour a day without a phone - the neocortex really needs fresh air for rehabilitation. Every person, even a nursing mother and the head of a billion-dollar business, definitely has such an hour. If you are in self-isolation, open a window and connect to exercise or meditation in Zoom, since dozens of yoga and fitness studios have already switched to online and the choice is large.

Leonid Krol's life hacks

“Modern people are accustomed to psychological comfort, and they use a lot of “anxiety plugs” that essentially do not help, but only prevent them from adapting to this uncertainty,” says psychotherapist and business coach Leonid Krol. “Existential anxiety about the global pandemic of an unknown virus is the case when “local anesthesia” in the form of memes and reposts will not help, but only hurt. ” What will help, besides walking and exercising? Here are his recommendations:

Don't:

• Chew anxiety endlessly: read all the articles about the coronavirus, spend a lot of time on it, discuss what is happening for a long time. Limit the time you devote to this topic and spend it only on comments from authoritative sources, not on emotional testimonies.
• Stigmatize and blame anyone (governments, peoples), mock "stupid alarmists" or "buckwheat-buying masses", fall into apocalyptic horror. These automatic reactions should be monitored - they do not help, but worsen the mental state and the general atmosphere around you.

Need:

• Determine for yourself the necessary measures to change your life. This is not so easy to do in countries where everyone is left with the freedom to react to what is happening. Answer the following questions for yourself: 1) How big is the danger for me personally? 2) What measure of social responsibility can I afford to protect vulnerable groups from infection? Act on the answers.
• Distance yourself from the "collective unconscious". People on social media are at different stages of acknowledging the problem, from denial to panic. Extremes are equally unproductive, but the calm acceptance of the situation has a beneficial effect on the psyche. Try to come to this point and stay there.
• Recall and realize the "catastrophic" experience - your own and your parents, grandmothers. Often, a feeling of intense anxiety, panic, originates in past traumas - personal or family. Perhaps you will realize that you are drawn to buy products, because the hungry past of your grandmother spoke to you, but in the present there is no particular reason for this.
• Support yourself and others. “Slow” activities, including those related to fine motor skills and ordering, as well as creativity and communication with children and pets, are best for anxiety relief.

Antifragility: how to become better when everything is falling apart

As Nassim Taleb, Ph.D., tells us in his book Antifragility. How to benefit from chaos”: “In a world where uncertainty reigns, one cannot wish for more than being antifragile, that is, being able, when faced with the chaos of life, not only to remain unharmed, but also to become better than before, to evolve, to develop.” He cites as an example the image of the ancient Greek bird Phoenix - an example of the "invulnerable", which burns down and is reborn from the ashes. And in contrast to it, an example of the “anti-fragile” is the ancient Greek Hydra, they cut off her head - in place of the cut off, two grow. In Russian folklore, we have an analogue - the Serpent Gorynych.

There are already many recent examples of such “gorynych snakes”, the same Evgeny Chichvarkin completely removed the mark-up on alcohol in his London restaurant and said that you can drink the best wines, cheaper than in a store, while the tables stand at a distance from each other. 2 meters, everything is disinfected. He will earn himself some more social capital and will not stop the cash flow. Restaurants Lucky Izikaya and Eva, where in peacetime a table for Friday must be booked several days in advance, quickly agreed with Yandex-Lavka and began to deliver ready-made meals to your home.

And one more thing - now is the time to throw away the "suitcase without a handle." “In the crisis of 2008, I lost everything, just in a panic. - says Sergey Nasibyan. - I clung to, refinanced, entered into an even greater minus. As a result, he paid off his debts only by 2013. The next crisis in 2014 was completely different - I thought like this: “Crisis? All right, we're closing." This is a great opportunity to start something else. Any crisis - economic, social - is a social elevator. It is true that during a crisis there is a cardinal change of elites, but not everyone collapses, but those who panicked too much and made mistake after mistake. ”

“Instead of courses on multiple growth or business reorganization online, it’s better to read ancient Greek myths in terms of patterns of behavior,” says Gor Nakhapetyan, Honorary Professor of Business Practice at Moscow School of Management Skolkovo and co-founder of the Sensemakers project. - What you are doing is not Sisyphean labor? Why not look at yourself from the point of view of narcissism? And he also says that it is important not to lose sight of your "tandem" - crises come and go, and your resource depends, among other things, on whether you maintain relations with your partner - he believes that any team, whether it be a business or a family , rests on a tandem, this is never the merit of one person.

Nassim Taleb assures us that when faced with stress, you can turn on the mechanism when you change for the better. Yes, some will try to cling to the old ways, find a job, move their offline business online - in fact, do the same thing that they have always done. Panic attempts by all businesses to urgently go online - in many cases the position is fragile if you are not a delivery or streaming service for movies and series. “Anti-fragile” strategy: this is when a restaurant focused on organic menu becomes a smaller family business, moves to a farm and starts growing food - at the same time, the owners will start spending more time with their family, in nature.

The Forbes Ontology Personal Development Club starts today a free anti-crisis online marathon that will last 21 days. Every evening, live, together we will go through all the stages of the evolution of voluntary self-isolation - from resistance to "imprisonment" to its acceptance and discovery of deep meanings. The schedule includes psychologists, experts in various self-development practices: gaming technology trainer Vadim Demchog, NLP expert and psychotherapist Alexei Sitnikov, emotional intelligence specialist Leonid Krol, leadership expert, INSEAD professor and Ward Howell consultant Sergey Sirotenko, founders of the Sensemakers project Gor Nakhapetyan and Oksana Razumova, and many others.

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