#1: Exercise boosts brain power.
The human brain evolved under conditions of almost constant motion. From this, one might predict that the optimal environment for processing information would include motion.
Exercise improves cognition for two reasons:
Exercise increases oxygen flow into the brain, which reduces brain-bound free radicals. One of the most interesting findings of the past few decades is that an increase in oxygen is always accompanied by an uptick in mental sharpness.
Exercise acts directly on the molecular machinery of the brain itself. It increases neurons’ creation, survival, and resistance to damage and stress. 
#2: The human brain evolved, too.
The brain is a survival organ. It is designed to solve problems related to surviving in an unstable outdoor environment and to do so in nearly constant motion (to keep you alive long enough to pass your genes on). We were not the strongest on the planet but we developed the strongest brains, the key to our survival.
The strongest brains survive, not the strongest bodies. Our ability to solve problems, learn from mistakes, and create alliances with other people helps us survive. We took over the world by learning to cooperate and forming teams with our neighbors.
Our ability to understand each other is our chief survival tool. Relationships helped us survive in the jungle and are critical to surviving at work and school today.
If someone does not feel safe with a teacher or boss, he or she may not perform as well. If a student feels misunderstood because the teacher cannot connect with the way the student learns, the student may become isolated.
There is no greater anti-brain environment than the classroom and cubicle.
#3: Every brain is wired differently.
What YOU do and learn in life physically changes what your brain looks like – it literally rewires it. We used to think there were just 7 categories of intelligence. But categories of intelligence may number more than 7 billion—roughly the population of the world.
No two people have the same brain, not even twins. Every student’s brain, every employee’s brain, every customer’s brain is wired differently.
You can either accede to it or ignore it. The current system of education ignores it by having grade structures based on age. Businesses such as Amazon are catching on to mass customization (the Amazon homepage and the products you see are tailored to your recent purchases).
Regions of the brain develop at different rates in different people. The brains of school children are just as unevenly developed as their bodies. Our school system ignores the fact that every brain is wired differently. We wrongly assume every brain is the same.
Most of us have a “Jennifer Aniston” neuron (a neuron lurking in your head that is stimulated only when Jennifer Aniston is in the room).
#4: We don't pay attention to boring things.
What we pay attention to is profoundly influenced by memory. Our previous experience predicts where we should pay attention. Culture matters too. Whether in school or in business, these differences can greatly effect how an audience perceives a given presentation.
We pay attention to things like emotions, threats and sex. Regardless of who you are, the brain pays a great deal of attention to these questions: Can I eat it? Will it eat me? Can I mate with it? Will it mate with me? Have I seen it before?
The brain is not capable of multi-tasking. We can talk and breathe, but when it comes to higher level tasks, we just can’t do it.
Driving while talking on a cell phone is like driving drunk. The brain is a sequential processor and large fractions of a second are consumed every time the brain switches tasks. This is why cell-phone talkers are a half-second slower to hit the brakes and get in more wrecks.
Workplaces and schools actually encourage this type of multi-tasking. Walk into any office and you’ll see people sending e-mail, answering their phones, Instant Messaging, and on MySpace—all at the same time. Research shows your error rate goes up 50% and it takes you twice as long to do things.
When you’re always online you’re always distracted. So the always online organization is the always unproductive organization.
#5: Repeat to remember.
The human brain can only hold about seven pieces of information for less than 30 seconds! Which means, your brain can only handle a 7-digit phone number. If you want to extend the 30 seconds to a few minutes or even an hour or two, you will need to consistently re-expose yourself to the information. Memories are so volatile that you have to repeat to remember.
Improve your memory by elaborately encoding it during its initial moments. Many of us have trouble remembering names. If at a party you need help remembering Mary, it helps to repeat internally more information about her. “Mary is wearing a blue dress and my favorite color is blue.” It may seem counterintuitive at first but study after study shows it improves your memory.
Brain Rules in the classroom. In partnership with the University of Washington and Seattle Pacific University, Medina tested this Brain Rule in real classrooms of 3rd graders. They were asked to repeat their multiplication tables in the afternoons. The classrooms in the study did significantly better than the classrooms that did not have the repetition. If brain scientists get together with teachers and do research, we may be able to eliminate need for homework since learning would take place at school, instead of the home.
#6: Remember to repeat.
It takes years to consolidate a memory. Not minutes, hours, or days but years. What you learn in first grade is not completely formed until your sophomore year in high school.
Medina’s dream school is one that repeats what was learned, not at home, but during the school day, 90-120 minutes after the initial learning occurred. Our schools are currently designed so that most real learning has to occur at home.
How do you remember better? Repeated exposure to information / in specifically timed intervals / provides the most powerful way to fix memory into the brain.
Forgetting allows us to prioritize events. But if you want to remember, remember to repeat.
#7: Sleep well, think well.
When we’re asleep, the brain is not resting at all. It is almost unbelievably active! It’s possible that the reason we need to sleep is so that we can learn.
Sleep must be important because we spend 1/3 of our lives doing it! Loss of sleep hurts attention, executive function, working memory, mood, quantitative skills, logical reasoning, and even motor dexterity.
We still don’t know how much we need! It changes with age, gender, pregnancy, puberty, and so much more.
Napping is normal. Ever feel tired in the afternoon? That’s because your brain really wants to take a nap. There's a battle raging in your head between two armies. Each army is made of legions of brain cells and biochemicals –- one desperately trying to keep you awake, the other desperately trying to force you to sleep. Around 3 p.m., 12 hours after the midpoint of your sleep, all your brain wants to do is nap.
Taking a nap might make you more productive. In one study, a 26-minute nap improved NASA pilots’ performance by 34 percent.
Don’t schedule important meetings at 3 p.m. It just doesn’t make sense.
#8: Stressed brains don't learn the same way.
Your brain is built to deal with stress that lasts about 30 seconds. The brain is not designed for long term stress when you feel like you have no control. The saber-toothed tiger ate you or you ran away but it was all over in less than a minute. If you have a bad boss, the saber-toothed tiger can be at your door for years, and you begin to deregulate. If you are in a bad marriage, the saber-toothed tiger can be in your bed for years, and the same thing occurs. You can actually watch the brain shrink.
Stress damages virtually every kind of cognition that exists. It damages memory and executive function. It can hurt your motor skills. When you are stressed out over a long period of time it disrupts your immune response. You get sicker more often. It disrupts your ability to sleep. You get depressed.
The emotional stability of the home is the single greatest predictor of academic success. If you want your kid to get into Harvard, go home and love your spouse.
You have one brain. The same brain you have at home is the same brain you have at work or school. The stress you are experiencing at home will affect your performance at work, and vice versa.
#9: Stimulate more of the senses.
Our senses work together so it is important to stimulate them! Your head crackles with the perceptions of the whole world, sight, sound, taste, smell, touch, energetic as a frat party.
Smell is unusually effective at evoking memory. If you're tested on the details of a movie while the smell of popcorn is wafted into the air, you'll remember 10-50% more.
Smell is really important to business. When you walk into Starbucks, the first thing you smell is coffee. They have done a number of things over the years to make sure that’s the case.
The learning link. Those in multisensory environments always do better than those in unisensory environments. They have more recall with better resolution that lasts longer, evident even 20 years later.
#10: Vision trumps all other senses.
We are incredible at remembering pictures. Hear a piece of information, and three days later you'll remember 10% of it. Add a picture and you'll remember 65%.
Pictures beat text as well, in part because reading is so inefficient for us. Our brain sees words as lots of tiny pictures, and we have to identify certain features in the letters to be able to read them. That takes time.
Why is vision such a big deal to us? Perhaps because it's how we've always apprehended major threats, food supplies and reproductive opportunity.
Toss your PowerPoint presentations. It’s text-based (nearly 40 words per slide), with six hierarchical levels of chapters and subheads—all words. Professionals everywhere need to know about the incredible inefficiency of text-based information and the incredible effects of images. Burn your current PowerPoint presentations and make new ones.
#11: Male and female brains are different.
What’s different? Mental health professionals have known for years about sex-based differences in the type and severity of psychiatric disorders. Males are more severely afflicted by schizophrenia than females. By more than 2 to 1, women are more likely to get depressed than men, a figure that shows up just after puberty and remains stable for the next 50 years. Males exhibit more antisocial behavior. Females have more anxiety. Most alcoholics and drug addicts are male. Most anorexics are female.
Men and women handle acute stress differently. When researcher Larry Cahill showed them slasher films, men fired up the amygdale in their brain’s right hemisphere, which is responsible for the gist of an event. Their left was comparatively silent. Women lit up their left amygdale, the one responsible for details. Having a team that simultaneously understood the gist and details of a given stressful situation helped us conquer the world.
Men and women process certain emotions differently. Emotions are useful. They make the brain pay attention. These differences are a product of complex interactions between nature and nurture.
#12: We are powerful and natural explorers.
The desire to explore never leaves us despite the classrooms and cubicles we are stuffed into. Babies are the model of how we learn—not by passive reaction to the environment but by active testing through observation, hypothesis, experiment, and conclusion. Babies methodically do experiments on objects, for example, to see what they will do.
Google takes to heart the power of exploration. For 20 percent of their time, employees may go where their mind asks them to go. The proof is in the bottom line: fully 50 percent of new products, including Gmail and Google News, came from “20 percent time.”
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Brain RulesCurrent income
If the investment is on the house that we live in ourselves, there is no current income. This is one of the main negatives about the house that we live in. In a financial cash flow perspective given by Robert Kiyosaki, it is not an asset. Because the house is cash flow negative owing to the maintenance activities and tax that we have to pay for it.
Rent from a house or commercial property is a good source of current income. Although at current bank rates the rent from a house is generally only about ½ of the loan EMI, the catching up happens only after the loan is closed. A 1000 square feet house will cost conservatively about Rs 2500/- per square feet (in B class cities like Coimbatore, Kolhapur, Guntur, etc) leading to the house value of Rs 25 lakhs. A loan for 80 per cent of the value (Rs 20lakhs) at current interest rates (9 per cent) and 15 years term will require an EMI of about Rs 20,300. The rent for the same house in the mentioned cities may not top even Rs 10,000.
If we had 5 per cent yearly increment on the rent as part of the agreement with the tenant, the rent will be equal to the EMI in the 14th year.
Another aspect of the real estate property which requires attention is that the cost of maintenance also keeps growing. For example, Akash had to spend Rs 35,000 for a sump rework in a house build by his grandfather. The original cost for the construction of the house itself was only Rs 30,000 including the compound wall, and a fountain in 1967.
So a fully paid up rental property is an asset with good current income otherwise financially it is a liability.
Capital appreciation
Real estate appreciates in capital - particularly the land. The building generally depreciates. Recently the National Housing Bank launched the Residex, an index which will track the capital appreciation of real estate house properties. The data is updated for 3 years now. Over a period of time, the index can be used as a good measure for the capital appreciation of housing properties.
A key aspect of the capital appreciation is that, it can be realised only when it is sold. And generally the house that we live in is the last of the assets that we sell. This has to be factored in before we make the house the largest investment in our lives.
The capital appreciation of the house can favorably be used in the form of a mortgage loan for business purpose or in the form of a reverse mortgage post retirement. The land that cost Akash's grandpa Rs 100/- per cent, is today worth Rs 600,000/- per cent. This is at a compounded annual growth rate of 23 per cent. Other property locations (grandsons) may or may not be so fortunate.
Risk
The risk with real estate is that it can go down sharply. The current worldwide economic turmoil is because of real estate prices dropping more than the expectation. The other risk is related to its liquidity itself.
Real estate prices in India do not have a formal/scientific basis for quoting. Brokers are the key pins holding the structure together. The same property may be quoted at different prices by the same broker for selling and for buying. The difference in amount goes to the broker this, apart from their consulting fees. The pity is that often the difference is more than the profit for the owner of the property itself.
The other risk is that only a portion of the sale price may be registered, the rest is paid as 'grey or black money'. Accepting such deals are counter-productive when we go for the selling as we have to bear the brunt of extraordinary capital gains.
The situation is changing but very slowly for comfort.
Liquidity
Real estate is probably the most illiquid of all common investment avenues. If there is an urgency to sell a property the value could drop drastically. Selling at 'market price' is counted in number of months not days.
Tax treatment
Real estate attracts capital gains tax. The advantage is that we can use indexation benefits to our advantage. The indexation index is announced every year by the Income tax department. This is a number which links the inflation to property values. By using indexation, we can estimate the true appreciation of the real estate after adjusting for inflation.
The tax on the sale of the only house or agricultural property can be brought down to zero by reinvesting the sale proceeds in a new house or agricultural property. The capital gains can also be invested in low interest yielding capital gains bonds.
Convenience
Real estate has a low level of convenience. It requires a large corpus for investment leading most of us to take up loans. Here are a few smart marketing companies that sell land in installments. However the overall cost for such deals is very high compared to one time payments.
The decision after buying a property cannot be reversed quickly or economically. The cost for registration, brokerage charges and taxes prevent us from getting rid of a wrong purchase quickly.
Summary
Traditionally, real estate has been the major investment avenue across the world. The trend is not due for a change as the capital appreciation is good. However the points to be thought about are that:
Capital appreciation can be enjoyed only when the property is sold or when the value is unlocked through a mortgage loan or reverse mortgage.
The house that we live in is not a financial asset as it has negative cash flow.
Rent proves to be a stable and reliable source of income especially in Bangalore. This however is only applicable to properties that are free from loans.
Overall convenience is low for real estate
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No one wants it, yet it's the body's way of getting your attention when something is wrong. There is pain that is tolerable and that you can work through, perhaps the result of moving furniture a day or two before, and then there is body pain that you need to sit up and listen to. A person should know that minor pains that are constant could be a sign of something serious. Millions of people out there don't always stop to listen to what their body is saying and end up suffering adverse consequences later.
Learning the difference, and especially knowing which more common pains you need to be on guard for, will ensure that you will not regret having missed the signs when you develop a more complicated condition later on.
Here are the pains you mustn't ignore:
1. Worst and occasional headache
It may be a sign of brain tumour or brain haemorrhage which require an immediate medical attention. If the headache is accompanied by a cold, it might be a sign for a sinus headache. In either case, it's always better to get it checked out. You're also advised to check your thyroid.
Perhaps most people get headaches at some point in their lives, so this is not a definite sign of brain tumours. You should mention it to your doctors if the headaches are: different from those you ever had before, are accompanied by nausea/vomiting, are made worse by bending over or straining when going to the bathroom.
2. Pain or discomfort in the chest
Pain or discomfort in the chest may be a sign of a heart attack or pneumonia. Many people with chest pain fear a heart attack. However, there are many possible causes of chest pain. Some causes are mildly inconvenient (such as heartburn, reflux, GERD etc), while other causes are serious, even life-threatening. Take note that heart conditions are typically linked to discomfort in the chest, but not pain. The discomfort associated with heart disease could also be in the upper chest, throat, jaw, left shoulder or arm, or abdomen and might be accompanied by nausea.
Too often people delay because they misinterpret it as heartburn or GI distress. Because of the risk of a heart attack, seek emergency professional medical attention immediately for any type of chest pain or chest tightness.
3. Pain between shoulder blades or in lower back
Although pain between the shoulder blades may signal that there is something wrong with the tissues, joints, ligaments or muscles around and within the shoulder region, it is not however always the case. Pain between shoulder blades or in lower back may indicate severe medical problems or conditions in the other organs of the body. It may be a sign of arthritis, heart attack or abdominal problems. Gallbladder disease may also manifest in the form of pain between shoulder blades or under the right shoulder blade. This may oftentimes be accompanied by vomiting. It may also be caused by liver cancer and oesophageal cancer (cancer in the oesophagus) due to an abnormal growth of cells.
4. Severe abdominal pain
Abdominal pain is pain that you feel anywhere between your chest and groin. Abdominal pain causes can range from extremely severe life-threatening conditions (such as acute appendicitis, abdominal aneurysm), to various less serious conditions (such as heartburn, reflux, gastroenteritis etc). Any symptom of abdominal pain needs prompt professional medical advice.
Severe abdominal pain may be a sign of intestinal blockages, stomach ulcers or pancreas and gallbladder problems. Intense attacks in your abdominal part, turning your face very pale, accompanied by vomiting, sweating and nausea could be due to stones in the gallbladder.
5. Repeated back pain
Repeated back pain may be a sign of a spine problem, internal organ problems, or a preliminary sign of slip disc.
6. Calf pain
Calf muscles are located at the back of lower leg. Calf pain is generally self-induced and is caused due to too much of exercise or lack of following proper methodology in exercise, especially related to stretching. However, sudden calf pain can be a sign of arterial insufficiency. This means that the arteries can't supply the calf with enough blood. Sometimes, this means you may have atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries, which needs close monitoring and sometimes medication.
One of the lesser known dangers is deep vein thrombosis (DVT), a blood clot that can occur in the leg's deep veins. It can be very serious if the clot breaks away from the calf and travels elsewhere causing pulmonary embolism (a clot in the lungs), which could be fatal. Sometimes there's just swelling without pain. If you have swelling and pain in your calf muscles, see a doctor immediately.
7. Burning sensation in feet/legs
A burning foot may be mild and local and easily treatable or it may indicate a more serious general medical problem that needs further investigation. In some cases, the problem may be so painful that it interferes with a person's sleep.
Burning feet can occur simply because of mechanical overload at the end of a long day, especially in those who are on their feet all day or are overweight. Infections, such as athlete's foot or fungal infection, also can cause burning feet. These problems can be easily remedied. But burning feet can also be a preliminary sign of peripheral neuropathy (nerve damage), perhaps due to diabetes or exposure to toxins. In these cases, burning feet require prompt medical attention.
8. Painful urination
Painful urination (dysuria) describes any pain, discomfort, or burning sensation during urination, usually felt in the urethra (the urinary outlet of bladder) or perineum (the area surrounding genitals). It is most often caused by an infection somewhere in the urinary tract, especially in women. In men, urethritis and prostate conditions are more frequent causes of painful urination. The location of pain or burning during urination is important to distinguish urethral pain from bladder pain or kidney pain.
The pain and the blood in your urine are also symptoms of bladder cancer, the fourth most common cancer in men. There's a 90 percent chance of fixing it if this disease is caught early.
The aches and pains are not the only problems that a person should notice. Experts also advise to never ignore petty things like fatigue or shortness of breath. Every time you encounter an abnormality in your health, talk to your doctor immedia
tely.
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