Yr 8 Life Skills – Reflection

During these past few weeks, I have learned about; neuroplasticity, training your brain, resilience, and happiness. I have learned that the brain is not a fixed muscle and can be trained to do more. In the video by Todd Samson, I learned that the more that you make your brain do something such as memorise a deck of cards, playing chess on several different boards with your eyes closed and improving the general thinking speed of the brain just by repetition and using your brain a lot. The brain is a muscle the more you use it and train it the stronger it gets and the better it is at what you want it to do. Bodybuilders do this every day to build and maintain all their muscles, they use mineral and protein supplements that help them build their muscles, in the same way, some foods help your brain. The main ones are green leafy vegetables such as kale, spinach, and broccoli, then its fatty fish (fish that have lots of omega 3 fatty acids). To maintain this habit, you need lots of perseverance and grit. This leads me to the next part, grit is something that keeps you going. It makes sure that you don’t stop, it’s a kind of motivation that doesn’t stop. Grit is when you push yourself to do something and you don’t pull out once it gets difficult, it’s a mantra at the back of your mind that says don’t stop, don’t give up, but it’s all subconscious. This is also a part of resilience. Resilience is like grit but not the same, resilience is bouncing back after the struggle but grit is having consistent effort at something even through the struggle. People aren’t born with grit or resilience, but some people develop grit and resilience quicker than others. You can build up your resilience and grit just like you can build up the muscles in your body and the muscle that is the brain. The last part of this life skills section is happiness. Happiness is the state of wellbeing and contentment. It is a satisfying or pleasurable experience, for some people this means everyday life but for others, it is quite hard to achieve happiness. The easiest way to achieve happiness though is to get rid of all hatred for someone or something. This allows for the most pleasurable life that one can have. It makes every moment of your life so much better; hatred ruins the chance to enjoy life with others because you will be more concerned about the person that you show hatred for. It is best to live with no hate for anyone or anything. This is what I have learned during these past few weeks in Life Skills