Unlocking the Adolescent Mind: Insights from Dr. Siegel

[Music] the Adolescent period is absolutely amazing people often give it a negative approach saying oh it's a time where adolescents are going to lose their mind or they're just immature or raging hormones drive them crazy these are all not only wrong but they're myths that mislead us and actually disempower us whether we're adults or adolescents they actually give us the wrong message and they make it so there's nothing we can do so what is actually the truth the truth is that instead of raging hormones what's happening is we have remodeling in the brain in ways we never could have predicted we Now understand two big things are happening in the brain things you as an adult can support Adolescence in developing well and if you're an adolescent you actually can use this to help your brain grow in an optimal way what are those two things the brain is pruning itself so imagine that in childhood you're growing like a tree and establishing all these branches and all these leaves are growing in the brain that means connections among the basic cell the neuron called synapses are being established and you're soaking in the knowledge of the world and that's beautiful the tree is just growing growing growing but then what happens that surprised everyone is the brain begins to prune itself you start carving away some of those leaves some of the smaller branches even some of the larger branches and the reason for pruning is to specialize the brain while the child is developing in ways that are really generalized learning everything they can about everything they can an adolescent is going to begin to find their passion to actually find things they like things they really love doing and to drive their development in that way so pruning is actually a use it or lose it principle underneath it that if you don't use something you're going to lose it so if you like sports or like dancing or like music do do those things so you continue to establish those circuits the second thing that happens in the remodeling adolescent brain is myin formation myin is a healthy sheath that allows connected neurons to communicate with each other in a much more effective way how it's a 100 times faster the signal that's sent down a neuron to communicate with another neuron 100 times faster and after it fires off it's 30 times shorter the resting period that happens 30 * 100 is 3,000 so when you've put down milin you've made your neurons communicate 3,000 times more effectively that's a great thing now the great thing too is that you as an adolescent can actually use the focus of your attention to be aware of your emotions aware of other people to be engaging in activities to be doing things with your thoughts that actually reinforce the parts of your brain you want to hold on to so the good news about the remodeling story is that a field called neuroplasticity how the brain responds to experience shows us that what you do with your mind can change the activity and therefore the structure of your brain so if you then come up with the statement that the ultimate goal of brain remodeling is to make an integrated brain to differentiate areas that's the pruning and myelinate them that's the linkage when you increase differentiation and Link AG you make the brain more integrated and an integrated brain is the pathway toward well-being and you can do mindsight exercises these are exercises that increase Insight empathy and integration and if you do them as an adolescent and you can also do them as an adult you'll actually increase the integration of your brain as your brain is growing not just during adolescence but throughout the lifespan and what's the outcome of integration when integration is made visible it's kindness and compassion and so what we see through adolescent development is that our relationships become built on connections that are deep and filled with honoring each other's vulnerability that's kindness and supporting connections that are compassionate filled with a sense of caring about other people and wanting to help them this is the kind of world we can build as we move through life and support each other in our development [Music]

Channel: randomactsofkindness

Views: 860,256

Keywords: random acts of kindness, kindness, Kindness in the Classroom

Id: 0O1u5OEc5eY

Length: 4min 36sec (276 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 05 2018