Okay, so this module is all about using simple brain science to help you to become a more effective language learner. So before we begin, I just want to say that I'm not a neuroscientist, I'm not claiming to be an expert in these things. I what has helped me over time is to understand my brain a bit more. So they've understood how my emotions control my learning how I can leverage my brain to perform more optimally. And to just have a general better experience of life when I realized more about what's happening in my day to day. So in this video, we're going to talk about the rats area of your brain and the amygdala of your brain.

So the red area is basically a bundle of nerves that our brainstem that helps us to filter out our reality. So just to give a practical example of that, because that can sound quite esoteric. Give a practical example in language learning. When you learn a new word, no matter how difficult you may appear to be once you assimilate that, you'll tend to notice that word again within a few days. For a few weeks, that's what happened to me in fringe happen to be a lot of different times, but I just kind of ignored it. I didn't really pay attention to that.

I later found out as I move forward and learning more about the mind in the brain, that is a part of the brain called the RAD area, which actually does this for us. So it'll filter out our reality according to what we believe. So let's This is how it ties into the growth mindset. If you believe you're somebody who can get better language, truth, practice, repetition and dedication, then that's your belief. And that's what's going to filter out your reality. So you're gonna see you're gonna find the resources, the people, the situations, which will help you to grow with the growth mindset.

If on the other hand, you've got a fixed mindset and you believe you can do the language you're always procrastinating, then the rather your of your brain is going to also filter out the world according to that belief and give you that experience. So for somebody who believes in the law of attraction, for me, it's a combination of what you focus on and the action you take day to day there has to be that balance there. So this will explain a bit more the law of attraction if it's something that you believe in. On a brain level, this is how things are playing out, when it comes to the amygdala, this under and helps me to understand my irrational emotions and fears. So when I go into a situation and talking to a new person new language, I'll often find that I panic a little bit inside, I'd become a bit self conscious.

And the amygdala helps me to explain why these irrational fears come up. It makes is basically an element size part in the brain, in the limbic system that will help you to survive in stressful situations. It's quite a complex thing, but we're going to simplify it, basically, it'll put you into fight or flight mode. So when you're in fight or flight mode, in a situation that you perceive to be stressful, the amygdala will start firing and that's when you'll start hyperventilating and that's when blood rushes to all your extremities rather than staying in your brain and it's Always preparing yourself to either fight or flight is a very basic human instinct. It's a little bit out of whack today. Because our environment has changed quite a lot.

We're no longer being surrounded by predators such as lions and stuff that could eat us. But we still got this hard wiring of our brain from from the past. And it does serve a purpose today does keep us safe. But it's, it can be overstimulated, I found in my own experience that when I didn't understand that there was a part of my brain that dealt with this, that I thought it was just me, I thought that I was the one having anxiety and overwhelmed the situations. And it was just me. But when I started looking at the amygdala, I said, understanding more about this is a neurological biological part of everybody's brain.

And this explains why I'm feeling nervous and anxious in situations that I logically tell myself that I shouldn't be. So when it comes to the amygdala, what I found is that breathing in the moment when you panic If you come back to your breath, if you focus on your breath, what tends to happen is that you're more back into the present moment and are able to listen better. So as a language learner that is brilliant. Because you can listen to the other person when you're panicked, and you're up in your head, if you're not listening to their parts, and you've got no hope at all. So the best case scenario is to come back to your wrist, at least start listening to the person, so you got more control of the situation again. So I found the best way to start doing that is to start practicing in situations outside of actually speaking the language.

So you can either do meditation, or you can focus on your breath, your breathing. So I got two recommendations. Two things I've tried out over the last few years is one thing called keto ear clip that I use to actually practice my reading day to day. So there's an app that goes with it, I'll put a link in one of the documents. And the other thing I would recommend, there's some meditation app. So I'm gonna put all these into a document, the keto ear, along with some meditation app recommendations.

I'd recommend if you've never tried meditation before, to start small, do about three minutes, two minutes a day. Do consistently and just see over time how it's helping you don't have any expectations just go with it. So that's basically it. That's the rather the brain that's amygdala. That's how an awareness of the both of them can help you to focus on what you want and also to connect your breathing in moments of panic and overwhelm when you're speaking a new language to new people. So I hope that's helpful.

On the next video, we're going to talk about deliberate practice and muscle memory. So see you then