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For over 27,000 years

stories has been one of our most fundamental communication methods.

Our brain on stories: How our brains become more active when we tell stories

We all enjoy a good story,

why do we feel so much more engaged when we hear a narrative about events?

we listen to a powerpoint presentation with boring bullet points, a certain part in the brain gets activated.

It's in fact quite simple. I

Broca's area and Wernicke's area

language processing parts in the brain, where we decode words into meaning.

things change dramatically.

how delicious certain foods were, our sensory cortex lights up. If it's about motion, our motor cortex gets active:

but any other area in our brain that we would use when experiencing the events of the story are too.

A story can put your whole brain to work.

can have the same effect on them too.

The brains of the person telling a story and listening to it can synchronize, says Uri Hasson from Princeton:

By simply telling a story, the woman could plant ideas, thoughts and emotions into the listeners' brains."

Evolution has wired our brains for storytelling—how to make use of it

hy does the format of a story, where events unfold one after the other, have such a profound impact on our learning?

We are wired that way.

While we are busy searching for a similar experience in our brains, we activate a part called insula, which helps us relate to that same experience of pain, joy, or disgust.

We think in narratives all day long,

We make up (short) stories in our heads for every action and conversation.

In fact, Jeremy Hsu found [that] "personal stories and gossip make up 65% of our conversations."

henever we hear a story, we want to relate it to one of our existing experiences.

metaphors work so well with us.

story, if broken down into the simplest form, is a connection of cause and effect.

John Bargh

We link up metaphors and literal happenings automatically. Everything in our brain is looking for the cause and effect relationship of something we've previously experienced.

ou mention the same story to him, as if it was your idea?

According to Uri Hasson from Princeton, a story is the only way to activate parts in the brain so that a listener turns the story into their own idea and experience.

tell them a story,

According to Princeton researcher Hasson, storytelling is the only way to plant ideas into other people's minds.

Write more persuasively—bring in stories from yourself or an expert

multitasking is so hard for us.

ask for quotes from the top folks in the industry or simply find great passages they had written online.

The simple story is more successful than the complicated one

easy to convince ourselves that they have to be complex and detailed to be interesting.

the simpler a story, the more likely it will stick.

Using simple language as well as low complexity is the best way to activate the brain regions that make us truly relate to the happenings of a story.

xchanging stories with those of experts.

educe the number of adjectives or complicated nouns in a presentation or article

Our brain learns to ignore certain overused words and phrases that used to make stories awesome.

divide their lives into chapters and to recount key scenes, such as a high point, a low point, a turning point or an early memory

interesting patterns

driven to contribute to society and to future generations, he found, are more likely to tell redemptive stories about their lives, or stories that transition from bad to good.

contamination story

less “generative,” or less driven to contribute to society and younger generations. They also tend to be more anxious and depressed

defined by growth, communion and agency.

edit, revise and interpret the stories we tell about our lives even as we are constrained by the facts

psychotherapist’s job is to work with patients to rewrite their stories in a more positive way.

this form of therapy is as effective as antidepressants or cognitive behavioral therapy.

we as marketers need to understand how we can adapt it to social media and digital technology.

The brain is so fascinating. It has been the focus of science and mystery alike trying to understand how it works including why it seems so wired for storytelling.

One thing we know is that large amounts of data or information with no context cannot be easily remembered;

The human brain can only hold about seven pieces of information for less than 30 seconds, which means, your brain can only handle a 7-digit phone number

omething interesting and relevant needs to happen in a lecture or presentation every 10 minutes so that the audience pays attention and remembers what you say

Hearing information told in the narrative from another person helps to reach the old brain, triggering emotion as we imagine ourselves in the story reacting and feeling.

Repeat to remember

ure data with no context is extremely difficult for the brain to put into long term memory –

thinking about fantasy first prepares us for situations that may come up in real life, narrative provides context.

The ‘old brain’ in humans is driven by basic primitive instincts such as hunger, sex and fight-or-flight are also intrinsically tied to emotion. 

The old brain does not understand numbers or abstract terms, like “integrated approach” or “comprehensive solution” which are an evolutionary part of our new brain

he old brain is influenced by beginnings and endings like in a simple story structure with patterns we can recogniz

It is important to not only recognize the history behind storytelling but explore why it is so prevalent across centuries, cultures and mediums

hearing a story in narrative about a specific situation actually helps us prepare for when this situation potentially happens to us.

share information with each other and will continue no matter what the medium.

We want stories to be memorable so they can easily be shared with others creating word of mouth.

He seems calm, even normal

his IQ is over 140

The subjects rate whether the picture is a moral violation on a scale of 1 to 5. Kiehl says most psychopaths do not differ from normal subjects in the way they rate the photos: Both psychopaths and the average person rank the KKK with a burning cross as a moral violation. But there's a key difference: Psychopaths' brains behave differently from that of a nonpsychopathic person. When a normal person sees a morally objectionable photo, his limbic system lights up. This is what Kiehl calls the "emotional circuit," involving the orbital cortex above the eyes and the amygdala deep in the brain. But Kiehl says when psychopaths like Dugan see the KKK picture, their emotional circuit does not engage in the same way.

He notes that alcoholics have brain abnormalities. Do we give them a pass if they kill someone while driving drunk?

Neuroscience and neuroimaging is going to change the whole philosophy about how we punish and how we decide who to incapacitate and how we decide how to deal with people

Just like DNA, he believes brain scans will eventually be standard fare. And that, he and others say, could upend our notions of culpability, crime and punishment.

"These (simulations) are intended to expose the recruits to combat conditions to teach them that they can trust their training, that they can actually do their jobs, perform first aid, execute whatever orders they're supposed to be executing, under combat condition," he said. "It also introduces them to fear and stress under combat conditions."

who tosses volunteers out of airplanes with sensors all over their bodies to try and understand why combat veterans develop PTSD.

Parodi has found that some people possess an optimal fear response, which she calls the "warrior brain" — meaning they think clearly during a stressful period and once the stressful period ends, their fear response returns back to normal.

"As far as to the application to preventing PTSD, I think what the military ultimately wants to do is to be able to develop and incorporate into their training program, similar to what the SEALS are doing, where you can expose recruits to stressful situations," he said. "But you also want to arm them with the psychological tools — that they need to recognize, that they need to function at maximum capacity during the stressful situation. And when it ends, they need to put it behind them and move on."

But the current treatment has a success rate of just 40 percent.

But the medications were a problem.

conscious decision to stop taking his medications.

tranquilized his creativity.

The client was a brilliant artist and this was a significant part of his identity. 

He had a great deal of difficulty tolerating crowds of people and noise.  But his art returned.

His art gave his life purpose and meaning

They valued his art and understood this was the price he paid to express it.

noncompliant

entrepreneurs are risk takers

GABA neurons help dopamine neurons calculate reward prediction error.

it sheds new light on how behaviors can be reinforced,

new theories or treatments for addiction.”

handles most of our emotions and “no brainer” decisions.

e automatic pilot brain does a good job of steering the ship of self.

First, it was designed to protect us from danger and it frequently overreacts without thinking with unnecessary fear or anxiety.

reates stories to explain informatio

umps to conclusions

ery egocentric view

strong attachments to money, material objects, and people that it is reluctant to let go of.

owered dopamine levels might give us time to stop and think.

ast experience of similar patterns

willing to educate ourselves as new information becomes available