A Video Presentation by Jill Bolte Taylor at TEDxYouth@Indianapolis

Our brain is made up of cells and every ability we have is the product of those cells. What is going on during our teenage years that accounts for the way teenagers feel, think and behave? This presentation will focus on the neurological transformation of the brain that occurs during the teenage years.

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Transcript:
0:14 thank you everyone
0:17 client brought for you know
0:19 a human brain
0:20 so there's is
0:22 real human brain
0:24 and when i look at this brand i reminded
0:28 that we are neuro circuitry
0:31 we are narrow secretary in every ability we have
0:35 we have because we have fails that perform that function
0:39 we know more about the human brain than we've ever known before and we've
0:42 learned things in the last ten to twenty years
0:45 most of your life span
0:47 that has completely shifted the way neuroscientists think about this organ
0:51 an our relationship with them
0:54 when i was in school back in the eighties we were taught that the brain
0:57 cells you're born with
0:58 or the brain cells you're gonna die with
1:00 and you're not going to get any more along the way
1:02 we do know that our brain is capable of growing some noon around
1:06 and this is an arrow genesis
1:08 e are capable of growing noon around particularly in response
1:13 to toma
1:14 in addition there are plasticity is the ability of our brain cells
1:18 to rearrange who they are communicating with
1:21 and what this means is that the brain it walked in with this morning
1:24 is not identical to the brain that you're going to take home with you
1:27 tonight
1:28 in addition we understand that we are capable
1:31 of mindfulness mindfulness is our ability to absorb
1:34 serve the narrow circuitry were running inside of our heads
1:38 but on top of simply observing in our narrow circuitry
1:42 we are capable of changing or thoughts
1:45 and changing our brain
1:47 we have the ability to pick and choose
1:50 what's going on
1:51 inside of our heads
1:54 so with typically run three types
1:57 of narrow circuitry
1:59 we think thoughts
2:01 we stimulate emotions and feelings oceans
2:04 and we're on physiological responses to what we are thinking and what we are
2:08 feeling
2:10 i have to utility
2:11 to think that thought
2:14 stimulate an emotional circuit
2:17 and then run a physiological response
2:21 to what i'm thinking
2:24 from the market i think i thought that stimulates my anger circuit
2:27 to the time that i run my physiological response where i don't know richter
2:32 aniline into my blood stream
2:34 it flashes through me and flushes out of me from the beginning of the font to the
2:39 time where my blood is clean
2:41 that chemistry
2:42 takes less than ninety seconds
2:45 and i call this the ninety second
2:47 now how do you have the ability
2:49 tuesday angry for longer than ninety seconds
2:54 what you're doing is you are rethinking thought
2:57 that is restate relating the anger circuit
3:00 which is restating a lady in the physiological response
3:03 and we can stay mad for days
3:06 now the bottom line is
3:08 caballero circuitry we are in a row circuitry
3:11 and my zero circuitry is my hero circuitry
3:15 you do not have the ability to stimulate and trigger my started trait
3:20 without my permission
3:22 you cannot make me angry
3:24 in less i stick my traitor out there create accounts on and stimulate
3:29 minero secretary
3:31 if i get power to trigger minero circuitry
3:34 and i have given you my power
3:36 and if i give you my power then i've become vulnerable to you
3:40 through manipulation through advertising through marketing
3:44 through peer pressure
3:45 and through the years
3:47 bottom line is
3:49 we are neuro circuitry
3:52 we are this incredible celebrating filled with these beautiful beautiful
3:56 cells
3:57 so how does that work
3:59 so stipulations streams and her sensory systems
4:03 it integrates and organizes is a passes up the spinal cord
4:06 names for the outer portion of our brain
4:08 the cerebral cortex
4:10 the cerebral cortex is divided into two different groups of cells
4:14 or outer layers for a higher cognitive thinking
4:17 and our inner layers
4:19 for emotion
4:21 so information streams enter our sensory systems
4:24 and i a bus directly for the in our group of cells
4:27 of our limit system
4:29 and the seller olympic system are asking the question moment by moment
4:33 amma
4:34 i cities
4:36 amma high st
4:38 i don't feel safe when enough of the information streaming in through the
4:41 centuries system steals familiar
4:44 when the world feel some hillier my mate
4:46 dot com
4:47 and i feel safe
4:49 now the interesting thing is that hasn't nation com c_n_n_ its t_v_ late
4:54 smuggling its system
4:56 system and says that information throughout my nervous system
5:00 including a higher cortex
5:03 means is that although uh... many of us may think of ourselves as thinking
5:06 creatures who feel
5:08 but politically we really are feeling creatures who flee
5:12 we are feeling creatures who thing
5:14 and this become significant in the way we live
5:17 in the external world
5:19 so intimation streams then it goes straight to the middle of the amid ellis
5:23 says how much feel some eliot feel sommelier
5:25 and i feel calm when i feel called the cells right next to that the hippocampus
5:30 they turned on and they are capable of learning and memory
5:34 helluva said the building should start to shake
5:37 building starts to shake your made allowed those unfamiliar unfamiliar
5:40 alert alert self-preservation you bought out the door
5:43 you sat down near the campus in you don't care what i have the same thing
5:48 a great example about the relationship between the a make or in the hippocampus
5:52 his test anxiety
5:54 we don't know what it feels like to have that not inside of our bali and then i
5:57 thought let's get right now brains feel like they've been expired does get and
6:00 it is more than a million miles an hour on alert alert
6:04 milligauss
6:05 but this is great here is that her pork higher cortical thinking
6:09 i have to bilities consciously sharon
6:13 cap other circuit that i can run hike intercom on higher particle mine
6:17 i can bring my mind to the present moment i can look around take their
6:21 pictures i can see things i'm safe and i'm not
6:24 diet is just an example i prepared for this after he's now in miami
6:29 still i would just far enough
6:31 so that i can says that information in my hippocampus
6:34 then i can answer the questions
6:36 so this is what's going everything that has anything to do with anything is our
6:40 relationship
6:41 between me and made a lot
6:43 in the hippocampus
6:44 now this is really important news big news big news briefing
6:48 my generation and generations before me we
6:51 did not know about the ninety second rule and we did not understand the
6:54 neural circuitry of the brain
6:56 so are you have to do
6:57 with open up the newspaper and you will see
6:59 someone is killed someone because someone from a deluxe
7:03 was on a work
7:04 ryan somedays divorcing somebody because somebody did not feel safe
7:09 everything has something to do with the amanda and i think we should all wear
7:12 shirts that say
7:14 i left my and make the law
7:16 pileup my when they do
7:22 so what's going on with the teenage brain
7:25 how do you do you have had
7:27 apparent or adults say something to eat is something like this to you in the
7:31 last year's
7:33 don't recognize any martyred bible angel
7:37 i mean you know that
7:38 yet that the biological reason for that
7:41 how many of you had a parent or don't say something like
7:44 destiny is a lot to do this all the time i thought you only supply isn't if a
7:48 step in a very look at what's going on
7:52 there's a biological
7:53 and for that
7:55 do you have had a parent or adults say something to you like
7:59 he'll just really not very comfortable with your friends
8:04 yeah there's a reason for in fact we are biology
8:08 so what's going on when we are born
8:11 we are born with twice as many neurons as were ever going to use isn't that
8:15 nice we are born with an abundance of cells
8:18 next two to three years the neurons that are stimulated
8:21 will connect with other neurones in a row secretary
8:24 and the cells that are not stimulated they will die away
8:29 excatly years
8:31 ten years or so pretty much about me right it's all about me little joanne
8:36 and i got this new body and i'm trying to figure out how to get the body to
8:39 work in
8:40 eventually it's going to cost given jump in
8:42 don't worry about
8:44 communication and they learn
8:46 willfully south from background salmon
8:48 how to make sound and had placed me neon sounded
8:52 don't socialize with real people my size and
8:55 and then my siblings and then the adult world and magical about need right now
8:59 permanent eliminate school
9:02 about communication and only about
9:04 spelling and reading and writing in
9:06 italy about mathematics an abstract thinking
9:09 and if i'm lucky i'm gonna get exposed a
9:11 to music in the arts in and and technology all kinds of interesting
9:16 things that'll stimulate me but ultimately it's it's all about me
9:20 also all
9:22 corporate
9:23 obligation to our species as a biological creature
9:26 is reproduction
9:28 saucer powell we'll have to get ourselves out of that week
9:32 into that
9:35 thank you can
9:37 ride so i don't
9:38 is that during the pre puberty years the brain goes through what we call
9:42 an exit grants
9:43 but the danger connections inside are burning
9:46 and in any sort of people if you don't couple years right before puberty hits
9:50 i'd really really smart a like real sponges for information
9:53 they're curious about everything in you know anyone to know how anyone in a wine
9:57 anne just what i understand it all in
9:59 and their bodies are prepared for t ready
10:01 and then puberty calms and priori come several
10:05 major she s
10:06 one of the first one since we're going to go through a mate
10:09 physical growth spur right
10:11 and let me go through
10:12 their physical prosperity
10:16 and jazz right
10:17 pages in this matter
10:18 as well so are left the island
10:22 alert area just a minute
10:23 arafat
10:25 and then on top
10:27 they were going to have our hormonal systems
10:30 are gonna start flowing through our body and with that
10:33 are gonna come up with them
10:34 its planes now think that
10:38 mac there's going to be what we call april
10:43 eight percent of this error
10:45 elections inside of our great
10:46 we literally lou
10:48 loose half our minds
10:50 literally lose half our minds
10:53 how has that fee
10:55 paraphernalia stonov
10:57 anyway is to be interested in the space
11:00 at i guess the looked like something i guess the quick
11:07 in the top
11:08 and then on top of it
11:10 polygons itenary you work on it
11:13 and three separate
11:15 karun
11:16 and when that comes out brash ad
11:18 by p_l_o_ level apparatus that
11:22 there are a biological re
11:24 since
11:25 for the teenage
11:27 raisers biology underline everything you're feeling everything you're
11:31 thinking everything
11:33 you are experiencing
11:35 the last portion of the brain to come totally online
11:38 is the prefrontal cortex
11:40 and the prefrontal cortex is responsible for things including
11:44 our ability to plan ahead
11:46 it's our impulse control
11:48 it's our ability dot understand the consequences of our behavior
11:52 and it's the appropriateness of our behavior so when our parents are looking
11:57 at
11:57 s and are bigger than they are and they don't you know what the familiar for
12:01 everyone in the house right
12:03 attched the link
12:06 ats by prefrontal cortex iag
12:09 t ere's that biological reason other people
12:11 pete though what wonderful thing about the teenage years
12:15 if you have literally lost half your mind
12:17 which have have you kept
12:18 you kept path
12:20 that you're going to use you're going to walk you're going to talk you're going
12:23 to socialize you're going to do these things
12:25 my best advice to any teenager
12:28 is whatever you're good at when you're young do you want to do in your twenties
12:31 forties and eighties
12:33 duet throughout your teenage years
12:35 eight years is the time for you to tend the garden of your mind it sure
12:39 opportunity for you to pick and choose
12:41 hello and how you want to be when you get older
12:45 we technically become biological adults at the age of twenty five it's on the
12:49 long bonds in our bodies start growing long we are darts development is over
12:55 and the brain is now established
12:57 my advice to all parents
12:59 he's given live to twenty five
13:03 if you can't belive teller twenty five
13:05 anjali teenagers
13:07 capable live
13:09 tell twenty-five natural have buried the beautiful
13:12 cells inside here brain it's a twenty five and then you'll have this gorgeous
13:16 adult brain do you get to figure out
13:18 what you want to do it later
13:24 so bottom line here as we are feeling creatures
13:26 who think we are feeling creatures who think
13:30 living in the left brained dominated society
13:33 where we value what we think
13:35 over what we feel
13:38 and where we reward people
13:40 for what we do rather than for who we are
13:43 we care about them e rather than the week
13:46 we focus on personal gain rather than computed community we care about profits
13:51 rather than people
13:52 we strive for a start here other than equality we see differences rather than
13:57 similarities
13:58 we are competitive rather than compassion that we are judgmental rather
14:01 than forgiving
14:03 we are very left brain persons right brain
14:06 but we know that we have a choice
14:08 i left brain dot at society is using up our natural sources and we are key dean
14:13 up the planet
14:14 we are in the middle of a major global crisis
14:18 on top of this are left brained on it society as a hero in ourselves value
14:24 we are in pain because the world does not care about what we feel that we are
14:28 excited about what we do and what we can
14:31 date which is not the basis of our biology
14:34 we're in the middle of a major mental health crisis where at least twenty five
14:37 percent
14:38 of the people in the states
14:40 are suffering from some type of serious mental illness and then you throw on top
14:44 of that a whole bunch of people who have addiction we are in pain and so what do
14:49 we do
14:51 mascara pain with all kinds of things that we can get addicted to and
14:55 partially and it's just not very healthy for these gorgeous cells inside of our
14:59 brain
15:00 it's brain is at the most vulnerable time of our existence
15:06 highs it is this time for planting the seeds and francine who and how you want
15:11 to be in the world
15:14 experience my stroke and i lost my left brain
15:17 and i shifted into the consciousness of my right mind where i felt peace and
15:21 euphoria
15:22 what do you think the courage to come back
15:25 was that i pictured a world that was still a bit with beautiful
15:28 peaceful compassionate loving people
15:31 i pictured a world filled with people who
15:35 that they could pick and choose who and how they wanna be in the world
15:38 hero
15:39 or that population you know one of those people
15:42 the ability to pick and choose to
15:44 and how you want to be in the world
15:47 i believe that those of you who are willing
15:50 to create a conscious relationship with your brain
15:54 european leaders who will help guide humanity back toward mental health
15:59 and you will be in a game changers will help bring our planet
16:02 back to balance
16:07 as your brain
16:09 this is your brain this is your instrument
16:13 this is your tool
16:15 and this use your power
16:20 what do you doing