5 WAYS BRAIN SCIENCE CAN MAKE YOU MORE SUCCESSFUL

Feeling overwhelmed by information overload? Start small and achieve more by putting these 5 scientific discoveries to work for you

Bruna Martinuzzi

Presentation Skills Training, Author, Columnist AMEX OPEN, Clarion Enterprises Ltd.

SEPTEMBER 12, 2014 

We're all buried in an avalanche of information, 

but few of us ever act on that information. 

Knowledge is power 

only when we put it to use. 

Whether we're reading books, consuming blogs, 

watching TED videos or attending presentations, 

how many of us make notes of helpful advice and 

then put those notes into action? The percentage is low.

In The Little Book of Talents: 
52 Tips for Improving Your Skills, 
author Daniel Coyle says, 

"Learning is reaching. 
Passively reading a book—a relatively effortless process, 
letting the words wash over you like a warm bath
—doesn’t put you in the sweet spot. 
Less reaching equals less learning." 
The fact is, 
our brains evolved to learn 
by doing things, 
not by hearing or reading about them

Research  also shows 
that our brain is constantly recording 
information on a temporary basis. 
If the information doesn't come up again, 
our brain dumps it, 
and we forget 50 to 80 percent of what we learned.

A very smart habit to get into is 
to take notes on the information 
you find interesting, then put those notes into action. 
To help you get started, 
here are five scientific discoveries 
that can help you make full use of your brain's potential.

Put the Zeigarnik Effect to Use

The Zeigarnik Effect 
—named after psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik —
is our tendency to have intrusive thoughts 
about an objective that was once pursued 
and left incomplete. 

Zeigarnik studied this phenomenon 
after her professor, sitting at a restaurant in Vienna, 
noticed that waiters only remembered orders 
that were in the process of being served and 
had little recollection later of orders 
that were completed. 

During her research, 
she discovered that an incomplete job, 
or unfinished business, 
creates a discomfort within us. 
It's in our human nature 
to want to finish what we start and, 
if it's not finished, we experience dissonance.

How can you benefit from this information? 
Think about the projects you need to work on 
but are putting off and 
simply start now, even if you only take a small step. 
The Zeigarnik Effect will likely kick in, and 
you'll feel a need for closure, 
which will increase your chances of completing the project.

Don't Snooze

The University of Kansas reports 
that more than one-third of American adults use 
the snooze button at least three times every morning, 
and more than half of all people aged 25 to 34 
hit the snooze button on a daily basis. 

If you're in the habit of snoozing your alarm clock 
to get an extra few minutes sleep in the morning, 
stop this habit now. 

Research has shown 
that when you hit the snooze button, 
you enter another sleep cycle. 

By interrupting this cycle, 
you not only hurt your health, 
but you end up waking up feeling tired and groggy, 
which will cause you to perform poorly.

If you need more sleep, 
just set your alarm for a little later and 
bypass the snooze button altogether. 

Think "mind over mattress," and 
get yourself out of bed promptly. 

If this is difficult for you to do, 
get the Alarmy (Sleep If U Can) app, 
available at the iTunes Store. 
This app forces users out of bed 
by making them register a place 
at night and when the alarm goes off, 
they have to go to the registered place and 
snap a picture before the alarm clock will turn off.

Try Power Posing to Lower Your Stress

Amy Cuddy social psychologist 
at Harvard Business School, 
studies nonverbal behavior 
such as postures of dominance and power. 

She discovered 
that there's a link 
between adopting such postures and our hormonal levels. 

In her TED talk, 
Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are, 

she reports on her findings and 
says that adopting an expansive power stance 
(such as spreading your legs, 
placing your hands on your hips or 
striking the "CEO" pose, 
which is legs resting on desk and arms behind your head) 
for as little as two minutes 
increases the level of testosterone in your body, 
making you feel more powerful. 

At the same time, 
it decreases the level of cortisol, the stress hormone, 
in your bloodstream. 

Here you can see Cuddy's power poses visualized. 

If you're prone to anxiety 
prior to an important presentation, 
use this information to help you decrease your stress level and 
give yourself a psychological boost 
so you can present with power. 

Rather than hunching over your speaking notes 
as you review them, 
you're better off going to a private place and 
making yourself as big as you can 
by spreading your legs and 
stretching your arms out 
as far as you can. 
Do this for a few minutes 
before going to the front of the room, 
and see what happens.

Know the Optimal Time for Making a Big Decision

In the just-released book, 
The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload
, neuroscientist Dr. Daniel J. Levitin

 says the information age is drowning us 
with an unprecedented deluge of data, 
while, at the same time, 
we're expected to make more decisions, faster, every day. 
This leads us to be mentally fatigued at the end of the day.

“Each time you make a decision, it uses some neuro-resources," 
Levitin says. 

“If you spend your day making a bunch of little decisions and 
it comes time to make a big important one, 
you’re neurologically depleted.”

How can you benefit from this information? 
If you're scheduling a meeting 
during which you expect to make a big decision, 
you're better off holding the meeting in the morning 
when you're not prone to what Levitin calls "decision fatigue."

Other research reported in a Scientific American Mind article,
 "Sleep on It: How Snoozing Makes You Smarter,"
shows that while we're sleeping, 
our brain is busily processing the day’s information. 

It engages in data analysis, 
finding hidden relations among memories and 
coming up with solutions 
to problems we were working on while awake. 

Sleep even weeds out irrelevant details 
so only the important pieces remain. 
This helps us to consider an issue with a clearer mind in the morning. 
The old adage of "sleep on it" seems to have a scientific basis to it.

When you have an important decision to make and 
you're unsure how to proceed, 
think about delaying the decision 
until the next morning. 
Chances are, you may be able to see things more clearly.

Spend 12 Minutes a Day Meditating

Research reported in a recent Scientific American article,
 "Why Your Brain Needs More Downtime,"
shows that as few as 12 minutes of meditation a day 
helped prevent the stress of military service 
from deteriorating the working memory of Marines. 

If it does this for Marines, 
can you imagine what it would do for you 
to boost your resilience in the face of daily stress?

If you're not self-motivated 
to start your own meditation routine, 
try some meditation apps such as Buddhify, 
Headspace and Universal Meditation. 

You can also sign up for the free 12 lessons in meditation 
from The Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness. 
There are also many online meditation videos, 
such as the one offered by the Mayo Clinic.

There's a wealth of information resources 
at our fingertips that can make us happier, 
healthier, more productive and more successful. 
Two quick gateways to these resources are TED Summaries

and Useful Science 
"Never neglect an opportunity for improvement," 
scholar Sir William Jones once advised. 
Today, learning opportunities are all around us. 
All we have to do is grab them and make them our own.  
Bruna Martinuzzi is the founder of Clarion Enterprises Ltd., 
and the author of two books:
 Presenting with Credibility: Practical Tools and Techniques for Effective Presentations 

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