Ep 106: Teen Brain Hacks

Malin Gutestam, author of Brain Tools for Teens, shares what she has learned from decades of working in education. There are a few simple tactics that every teen can employ to make their brain work for them--and Malin tells us what parents can do to help.

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Full show notes

When your teen is cranky, rude, anxious, or just stressed out, it’s hard not to ask yourself, what’s making them act this way? You may start to worry that it was by something you did...or wonder if there’s something you should be doing! Parenting is one of the world’s toughest jobs, and even when you’re doing your best it can feel as though your teen’s problems are somehow linked to your parenting.

The truth is, however, these behaviors could be caused by something far out of your control. Teenager’s moods are affected by so many things: the amount of sleep they get, how much time they spend on their screens, whether or not the person they have a crush on talked to them at school...the list goes on. There’s countless small forces that shape teens’ behavior in big ways, and by looking at research into how teens operate mentally and physically, we can uncover how these forces accumulate to shape teens’ behavior.

Our guest this week is Malin Gutestam, a researcher and educator who has worked extensively with adolescents to uncover how teens can not only improve their mood but also find success in their endeavors. She’s the author of Brain Tools for Teens, a guide to teen psychology and biology that focuses on helping teens understand their own form and function to increase performance on everything from academics to athletics. The book is chock full of well-researched advice about how teens can be happy, healthy, and learn effectively.

One key idea Malin focuses on is the value of educating teens about the science of their own minds and bodies. For example, if we simply tell teens to sleep more, they’ll likely just end up staying awake until midnight playing Minecraft yet again. But if we can teach them how sleeping more will allow them to lead a more productive and happy life, they might be more likely to tuck themselves in by ten pm.

In the episode, Malin discusses the psychological occurrences that can cause teens to act up, and explains some of her research on the value of sleep, and mindfulness.

The Science Behind Your Teen’s Stress

It can sometimes feel as though your teen lives in a melodrama, when they turn every small event into a spectacle of emotion. While you may think they’re just being theatrical, there’s actually some science behind why they have such intense reactions to seemingly insignificant stuff.

Malin explains in the episode how the brain’s prefrontal cortex, which analyzes our surroundings for potential threats, is not quite developed fully until humans reach adulthood. That means for teenagers, telling the difference between a serious concern and a minor blip is not as easy as it is for adults.

This also means teens are more likely to get overwhelmed by all the things in their lives that threaten them or stress them out, and they're not always the best at solving problems. In the episode, Malin discusses steps you can take to help them work through their feelings when they’re making mountains out of molehills.

She also shares how we can help our teens take their seemingly negative stress and use it positively. Physiologically, the nervousness we feel when we have an important test is the same sensation we experience when we’re about to sing for a crowd or jump out on the soccer field. In our conversation we discuss how teens can channel their anxiety into something more positive and productive.

When it comes to regulating emotions and improving performance, there’s another very important physical factor: sleep.

How Sleeping Leads to Success

We all know that sleeping more helps us have more energy, but what scientific ideas about sleep can we share with our kids to help them understand it’s value? One thing Malin speaks thoroughly about in the episode is sleep’s connection to memory.

When we sleep, our body shifts through the day’s memories, like you might shift through shows on Netflix--and just like you might use your remote to save a show to watch for later, the brain stores some memories as useful for the long term. Your brain keeps important information ( a due date for a new project, the name of someone you met, or maybe even a memorable moment with a friend) and ditches the mundane stuff (what you had for breakfast, the songs you heard on the radio as you drove to the store).

This process, known as “consolidation,” is super valuable when it comes to tests and examinations. Malin discusses how a good night’s sleep can lead to better scores on an evaluation. However, if we fail to get adequate rest, we can mess up this consolidation process--leading us to perform poorly when it comes to retaining information.

Now, whether we’re a developing teen or a fully grown adult, we’ve all stayed up late trying to stuff information into our brains-to “cram” before the next day. Malin explains how, although we think this may help us achieve greater results on our exam, our lack of sleep is actually severely detrimental to our memory.

Malin offers a great solution to this problem in the episode. She also talks at length about how not sleeping affects metabolism, and therefore mood. If teens can get more sleep, they can enter their day with more energy, but in order to truly thrive, they’ll have to learn how to harness that energy and use it to better themselves. This is where Malin dives into the importance of self awareness.

The Transformative Power of Self Awareness

Although there are varying definitions of the term “self awareness”, Malin uses it to describe the ways we pause, slow down, and reflect during our daily lives. Teens these days have got a lot of distractions--they carry around tiny computers in their pockets and can conjure up anything they think of with just a quick google search--but with the right techniques, they can find ways to center themselves and return their focus back to what’s important.

Because she knows that teens (and parents) are pretty busy, she suggests short little exercises that can help promote self awareness and tranquility. She cites some of her research, a brief study about how mindfulness can help teens improve their focus during exams. In the study, adolescents who were about to take a math test were told to close their eyes and focus on their breathing for a full minute. At the end, a majority of the teens said this short activity greatly improved their focus.

Malin suggests implementing this in your family in small, accessible ways. For example, before eating together, try taking a minute to close your eyes and just breathe, bringing your thoughts back to your breath when you start to get carried away by your anxieties or distractions.

Although it may seem a little out of the ordinary to sit with your family in silence, it’s a nice way to incorporate reflection and mindfulness into your day and--bonus points--can help you eat mindfully instead of shoveling food into your mouth (which we all tend to do occasionally, especially when we’re busy or stressed). When we prioritize self awareness, we further our own well-being, and allow ourse...