The Brain Code: Using Neuroscience to Improve Learning, Memory and Emotional Intelligence

by Yossi Chalamish

This practical and accessible book empowers listeners to access their brain’s full potential, featuring cutting-edge neuroscience research presented for the first time.

This book introduces the new and fascinating field of Clinical Neuroscience, which argues that the brain has the power to prevent and treat a variety of neurobiological disorders, from autism to attention deficit disorder. With ground-breaking neuroscience research presented in an accessible, easy-to-understand way The Brain Code teaches listeners how to get the most from their brains and how to access their peak cognitive function.

Each chapter will look at different functions of the

how can we regulate and control our emotions and thereby promote optimal thinking and behavior improving creative thinking through some simple tried-and-tested tricks efficient ways to use memory and thinking to improve our learning ability—a mandatory chapter for every student! steps to take to promote peaceful sleep recent brain research describing natural ways to deal with fears and anxieties look behind the scenes at a mind in love and understand how the knowledge can be harnessed to manage more successful relationships Dr. Yossi Chalamish uses his expertise in neuroscience to provide contemporary research on how each brain function works, featuring case studies from his clinical experience that illustrate its function, and practical exercises and tools to improve your cognitive abilities in your everyday life.

Genres: Nonfiction, Audiobook

Audible Audio

Published May 14, 2024

Reviews

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

The main theme that is repeated throughout this book is that the purpose of the brain is to promote survival. We can use this information to help us with memory, emotions, anxiety, etc.

There were a lot of different topics touched on including neurology, evolutionary biology, game theory, sleep, and nutrition. There are more in depth books on all of these topics and a lot of the information given here was somewhat surface level.

What was different about this book was that there was a bit of a self-help section at the end of each chapter, some of these exercises could potentially be very powerful.

There were also a ton of examples. I am not one for anecdotal evidence. If you are like me, you will get tired of the phrase, "for example". Also, some of the examples just didn't make sense or weren't necessary.

Here's an example of an example that didn't follow logic. The author states that there is a relationship between good posture and good general health and mental wellbeing. This makes perfect sense to me but the author follows it up with this, "For example, extroverts often have an upright posture, while introverted people tend to bend forward more with their shoulders slumped". First, the author needs to prove that introverts enjoy poor health or bad mental wellbeing AND poor posture in order for this example to make sense from the information that preceded it but he did not do that. Second, and more important, the example is completely unnecessary and does not add anything to the text.

Now on to some of the more powerful information and the reason I read this book.

Memory is enhanced by:
1. Nutrition
2. Sleep
3. Emotions (high levels of stress and cortisol in the body over time causes damage to different areas of the brain including memory networks)
4. Exercise (walking 4-5 times per week)
5. Genetics

The brain forgets details that do not help us survive so if you want to remember something:
1. Motivation: tell yourself something is important
2. Concentration: Focus when you do something, tell yourself that you have done it
3. Imagination: A combination of any emotion will improve memory
4. Use a combination of channels to enhance memory including touch, smell and even taste

We can train our amygdala to deal with threats in a different way, to respond to the real level of threat and lower cortisol levels:
1. Become familiar with the threat, go toward it, experience it. This encourages 2-way neural pathways between the amygdala and the awareness areas in the cortex. One way to do this is to focus on a similar situation that had a positive outcome. (I have already used this advice to great effect.)
2. Note the correct level of the threat. One way to do this would be to picture a mental dial with threat level 1-10 and then dial it back to the appropriate level. (I did this too!)

There is a 40 day plan to help increase awareness of your emotions and regulate their intensity. I did not do this yet so I can't speak to it but I might. It's really interesting.

One of the more powerful things I learned was regarding emotions. The author teaches you to think of emotions on a spectrum from low level brain activity to high level brain activity. If you want to convert from one emotion to another, it is very difficult to convert from an emotion that is high level to an emotion that is low level. So if you want to go from anger to calmness, this might be hard. It would be easier to go from anger to something like curiosity.

There are notes on creativity. Completing a task with limited resources promotes creativity as it forces you to use those limited resources to come up with something new.

I learned about something called Theory of Mind (TOM). Some people can't distinguish between their own thoughts and desires and the thoughts and desires of others. These people often have autism, schizophrenia or brain damage. But this problem can occur with lower intensity even in people who do not have these disorders.

There are a couple of good chapters on sleep and nutrition. As a student of these subjects, there was very little new information there for me so I didn't make any notes. However, I think these chapters could be really helpful for a lot of people.

So here's the summary. There is a lot of surface level information in this book on a lot of different topics. If you are a student of the subjects I have mentioned above, you will find yourself reading many things that you have read in other books before. The new information is at the end of each chapter and includes tips for improvement based on what the author calls "the brain code". That is the most exciting part of the book and the reason for my 4 star rating.

[Ralph Relador · Rating 3 out of 5]

Brain Code explores neuroscience and psychology through the lens of evolution and survival. However, survival and evolution quickly turn into the central theme of the entire book. While it covers a variety of research-based topics, Brain Code ends up feeling overly repetitive. I enjoyed the chapters on the colors of emotion and reality, but I don’t think I could recommend this book to anyone.

[Mikaela Rawson · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an excellent read to discover more about the brain! I enjoyed this so much and am so glad I picked it up. There was a TON of information in this book and I learned so much.

I loved all of the different stories and examples he gave of his studies and research with actual patients. It was fascinating to read about how we operate and how to maximize our own brains.

I would recommend this book to anyone looking to further increase their knowledge and understanding of the human brain.