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Brainstorm: The Power and Purpose of the Teenage Brain | Dan Siegel | Talks at Google — Transcript

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0:02RON: All right, welcome to authors
0:05at Google here in Los Angeles.
0:08Normally we begin author events with reading
0:10a short bio of the speaker downloaded from the internet
0:14or emailed to us by a publicist.
0:16Well, I encourage everyone to google Dr. Daniel Siegel
0:20and read about the schools he attended
0:21and books he published.
0:23It is perhaps a better use of the short time allotted
0:26for introduction to explain why it is so exciting to have
0:31Dr. Siegel here at Google talking about adolescence.
0:36The other day, a friend of mine said
0:38this about his 16-year-old son.
0:41Two years ago, he said, we were best buddies.
0:43Now all I am to him is a driver and an a ATM machine.
0:49Another friend offered the following pearl of wisdom.
0:52Yes, teenagers want nothing to do with you,
0:55and they can't wait to leave home.
0:57But don't worry.
0:58They'll be back when they're 23.
1:01These two quotes are typical of how the grownup world views
1:05adolescents as inaccessible, a great big black hole,
1:09a terrible thing we need to get through
1:11as best we can until a grownup emerges on the other side
1:14and we can finally breathe a huge sigh of relief.
1:18Grownups and adolescents find each other frustrating and
1:21infuriating.
1:22I suspect that some of you are parents
1:25who came to this talk hoping for tips
1:27on how to handle their teenagers.
1:29And yes, Daniel Siegel's book "Brainstorm"
1:33provides a richness of insight and practical advice
1:36to meet that need.
1:37But what makes this book truly revolutionary
1:40is its insistence that adolescence is not a problem
1:45to be tackled but an opportunity,
1:48an amazing opportunity to be cultivated and celebrated.
1:51Those same brain changes that can cause so much anguish
1:55have the potential, if correctly understood,
1:58to not only be a source of great satisfaction
2:00but in fact to quote from the book,
2:02"they can enable adolescents to go on and lead
2:05great lives of adventure and purpose."
2:09Reading the book, you discover that the aggravation normally
2:12associated with adolescence is an unnecessary cost
2:16of how we deal with it.
2:18Furthermore, hallmarks of adolescence
2:19are youthful energy, creativity, passion, original thought,
2:24and a panache for social connectivity.
2:27These are resources that are now wasted on a gargantuan scale.
2:33A better understanding of the brain
2:35can allow adolescents to make use of these gifts
2:38towards the making of a better society and a better world.
2:41Ladies and gentlemen, Daniel Siegel.
2:46DANIEL SIEGEL: Thank you, Ron.
2:47That was beautiful.
2:49Thank you, Ron.
2:50That was really beautiful.
2:51Can you hear me all right?
2:52AUDIENCE: Yep.
2:53DANIEL SIEGEL: Great.
2:53Well, it's an honor to be here with you at Google.
2:56This is my fourth Google campus that I'm visiting.
2:59And this one is local, so it's an easier trip for me.
3:02So it's really great to be here.
3:04What I'm going to do is give you a short overview
3:09of the ideas in "Brainstorm: The Power
3:11and Purpose of the Teenage Brain"
3:13and look at some myths about adolescence
3:16and what are the actual truths.
3:19And by understanding the truths, we actually
3:22empower adolescents and adults who
3:24care for adolescents or actually any adult who
3:27once was an adolescent to actually reclaim
3:31a certain aspect of celebrating this period of life.
3:35So we'll then take time for a discussion.
3:38Because if it's like past experience I've had at Google,
3:41it's really great to actually make
3:42this more interactive in a discussion period.
3:46So I'll leave time for that too.
3:48So first let me just check with you.
3:49How many of you have adolescents at home right at this moment?
3:54OK, so there's probably a sense of urgency then.
3:57How many of you have younger kids
3:59at home and you're getting ready for them
4:01to turn into adolescents?
4:02Great, and how many of you once were adolescents?
4:05Anyone?
4:06Great, so that's pretty much everyone.
4:08So for myself, I come from a background where
4:11basically I trained in science and biochemistry
4:15and then went on to medicine and then became a psychiatrist
4:18after training initially in pediatrics and then
4:20adult psychiatry, became a child and adolescent psychiatrist.
4:24And then when I was trained in research,
4:27I was really beginning at the period which
4:30was called the decade of the brain, 1990.
4:34And so it became an incredible opportunity
4:36to actually take the science of the brain
4:38and try to apply it to practical clinical use in psychiatry.
4:43And so I worked to help create a field called
4:46interpersonal neurobiology.
4:48And that field basically takes all the different disciplines
4:51of science and puts them together into one framework.
4:55And so we have now 36 textbooks that I've
4:58edited in that series.
5:00And just to show you just some examples,
5:03these are other books besides the "Brainstorm" book.
5:05This is basically just so you know
5:06where the science we're about to talk about comes from.
5:09This is a graduate school textbook
5:10that I wrote called "The Developing Mind," which
5:13basically takes all these different fields of science
5:15and combines them into one.
5:17If you like non-linear books, this book,
5:20"The Interpersonal Neurobiology Pocket Guide"
5:23is actually written in a non-linear way.
5:26So especially if it's on a tablet,
5:28you can bounce around wherever you feel like going
5:30and learn all about this field.
5:32And if you have younger kids, a book I wrote with my student
5:36now colleague, Tina Payne Bryson,
5:38"The Whole-Brain Child," will talk
5:40about a lot of what we're talking
5:41about now applied to younger children.
5:43So in my own case, I have not just
5:48worked in the field of interpersonal neurobiology
5:51but also have worked at home with my partner and wife,
5:54Caroline Welch, where we were deeply
5:57trying to raise our kids, who are now almost 20 and 24.
6:00In fact, our son is traveling around the world,
6:02and just two days ago I got back from spending
6:05two weeks with him after not seeing him for a year.
6:08And it's true.
6:09When they get in their mid-20s, there's this wonderful change.
6:12And it was an incredible opportunity.
6:14And these kids in their 20s that we have are still adolescents.
6:17So the first myth I want identify
6:20is that people use the term adolescents
6:23synonymously with the term teenager.
6:26And that's just not true.
6:29The adolescent period can be defined
6:31as a period between childhood and adulthood.
6:35And there was a debate a while ago,
6:37should we just get rid of the term adolescence?
6:39Is it meaningless?
6:40Is there just childhood dependency and then
6:42adult responsibility?
6:44But it turns out that not just in people who live on the West
6:47Coast or people who are human beings but actually
6:50many mammals have an adolescent period, which
6:53is distinct from childhood and distinct from adulthood.
6:57So it isn't just we that have this period.
6:59Now, what is this period all about?
7:01Well, it's not just about having a number that
7:03begins with teen, like 19, or 18, or 17.
7:07It turns out that there are changes
7:09in the brain that we didn't know about before 15 years ago
7:13that identify that the adolescent period is more
7:16than just going through puberty, which
7:18is sexual maturation, which now begins, by the way,
7:23much earlier than it ever has.
7:25And the period following puberty,
7:28which is the adolescent period generally--
7:29it doesn't always work that way--
7:31but this period of, if you will, a developmental time when
7:37you're not just dependent on adults
7:39but you're not just working with adult responsibility
7:42of raising a family or having work.
7:45This period between has a certain purpose and power to it
7:51that we never really understood before.
7:53So for many adults, even when you just
7:56approach the teenage years, you say, oh my gosh.
7:58My kid is going to be a teenager.
8:00I don't know what's going to happen.
8:01You have a lot of trepidation.
8:03And what we're about to do is identify the myths
8:05that when you understand them you
8:07can have celebration, not trepidation.
8:10And what are the basic ways that the brain
8:13is changing that can identify these myths and clarify them?
8:17So the first thing is that the adolescent period is not
8:19just the teenage years.
8:20That's the first myth.
8:22That changes in the brain happen between around 12 years of age
8:28more or less-- a little bit younger in girls,
8:30a little bit older in boys, but it's around the same --
8:33just around now before the teenagers begin.
8:37And it ends in the mid-20s.
8:40And the ending is of what?
8:42It's actually of a period of brain change
8:45that's called remodeling.
8:47So this remodeling period is happening into the mid-20s.
8:52And by understanding the nature of the remodeling,
8:55we actually can understand a lot about what
8:58adolescents go through.
9:00So let's just review very briefly the brain in general.
9:04Let's talk about how the brain interacts
9:06with culture, and family life, and interaction with peers.
9:12And let's look at then why a child's experience may be
9:15different from an adolescent's, which may be different from
9:18an adult's.
9:19So Ron was really nice to actually come
9:23early this morning and tape underneath your chair a model
9:27of the brain that you get to take home with you.
9:29So if you reach underneath your chair with your arm
9:32and then pull your arm out, you'll
9:34notice there's a hand attached to your arm.
9:39And this is a handout for you for today.
9:42If you fold your thumb in the middle of your hand
9:45and fold your fingers over the top,
9:47this brain would be oriented in your hand like that.
9:49My daughter says, never say it's a handy model of the brain,
9:52but it is.
9:53It's very handy because it actually
9:55is a pretty good example of how the brain is structured.
10:00So before we get to the details, let's
10:02give the first very brief overview of brain
10:05anatomy, function, and development.
10:08Genes play a very important role in how
10:11the basic cells of the brain, the neurons,
10:12will link up to each other.
10:14And even the supportive cells, the glial cells,
10:17oligodendrocytes and astrocytes will perform functions
10:20that we don't even understand.
10:21It's a big, big mystery, but the parts we do understand
10:25are these.
10:26That the way neurons get connected
10:29influence how you think, how you feel, and how you behave.
10:35So thinking, feeling, behavior is a part of our mental life.
10:38So in this way, we say that the structure of the brain
10:42influences its function, and the function of the brain
10:46influences in part mental life.
10:50So when we say an adolescent's mental life is changing,
10:53right away we need to think in part that's
10:55due to what's going on in the body
10:57and in particular what's going on in the brain.
10:59So for a child basically what happens is this.
11:02In utero-- and I don't want to shock anyone--
11:05but the sperm and egg get together,
11:07and they form a single cell being
11:09that then becomes 2 cells, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, et cetera.
11:14It gets bigger and bigger and bigger
11:16until it starts to specialize in its function.
11:19Some of those cells will come from the outside
11:21and become the neural tube as they invaginate inward.
11:24And that's important because the nervous system, which
11:26is this neural tube, starts as skin cells.
11:30And in fact the skin is the interface
11:32of the outer world and the inner world.
11:34And your nervous system, including your brain,
11:37is always about the interface of the inner and the outer.
11:40And that becomes extremely important in understanding
11:42adolescence.
11:43That the nervous system is basically fancy skin cells,
11:46if you will, that are always about saying,
11:48what's going on inside?
11:49What's going on outside?
11:50How do I bring those two together?
11:53So what happens in utero is that this nervous system
11:58within the body is developing a lot influenced by genes
12:01and also of course the stress of the mom, chemicals
12:05that the mother may ingest.
12:06Smoking, drinking, different things
12:08can affect the way this nervous system is going to grow.
12:11At birth, when we come now to the structure of the brain,
12:15let's take a look at it.
12:16Basically it's oriented like this.
12:18The neural tube, the spinal cord in your back,
12:21will be represented by your wrist.
12:23The clump of neurons that collects up in the head
12:25that we'll just call the brain has three major parts
12:28that change a lot in adolescence,
12:29so we need to review them to understand adolescence.
12:31If you lift up your top area-- try this out
12:33so you can go with me.
12:34Lift up your thumb area.
12:36The first area is the brain stem.
12:38And this is the area that regulates basic bodily
12:42processes like what's going on in the heart, the lungs,
12:45the intestines.
12:46And it also has clusters of neurons
12:48that control the reactive states of the four F's
12:52that you may be familiar with.
12:53Some of them, fight, flight, freeze, and faint.
12:59So usually people say fight, flight,
13:00but it's actually two other ones in addition.
13:02Fight, flight, freeze-- tightening your muscles
13:05when you're scared-- or fainting where
13:06you're totally collapsing.
13:08So those areas are regulated by the brain stem,
13:11very old, 300 million year old.
13:13So it's called the old reptilian brain.
13:15And then if you come now up in evolutionary terms
13:19and also growing in utero is the secondary area
13:22of the brain called the old mammalian brain.
13:24You'd have two thumbs for it to be a perfect model.
13:27The thumb represent the limbic area.
13:30200 million years, it has regions that you're probably
13:33familiar with called the amygdala, the hippocampus,
13:35the hypothalamus, and other regions as well.
13:38The limbic area has five big functions.
13:40And we're going to review them briefly
13:42because to really understand adolescents,
13:45we need to understand what's going on in the limbic area
13:47and how it communicates with the brain stem and the body.
13:51So here are the functions.
13:52And I'm going to just point out how it develops
13:55and then what changes in adolescence so you
13:57can understand it.
13:59The first thing to say is that this limbic area
14:01is going to interact with what's above it, the cortex,
14:04we'll talk about later.
14:06And what's below it, the brain stem and the body.
14:09So it's like a way station that allows
14:12all these different inputs to be coordinated.
14:15So if you're thinking about what you do at Google
14:17and how you're influencing the sharing of energy
14:19and information across humanity, in many ways
14:22the limbic area is going to serve this kind of function
14:24of pulling these different things together.
14:27So the limbic area is important in working with the brain
14:30stem and the body in creating emotion.
14:34So when you feel a big feeling, a big emotion,
14:36which adolescents feel more of, it's
14:39coming from the body, the brain stem, and the limbic area.
14:43And because those are all below this higher area, the cortex,
14:46it's called the subcortical source of emotion.
14:50Which is why when computer programmers think
14:52about creating emotion in a computer,
14:55I always discuss with them, well,
14:57you probably need that computer to have a body.
15:00Because to really really have emotions,
15:02you need a heart, lungs, intestine, muscles, bones,
15:06hormones to have a true experience
15:08of what we experience as humans.
15:10So the body comes up all sorts of channels, the first layer
15:14of this spinal cord called lamina 1.
15:16The 10th cranial nerve, all the body input
15:18comes up to the brain stem and the limbic area,
15:20and we get an emotion that way.
15:22And then it pops up into our higher areas
15:24where we have consciousness, the cortex.
15:27So these subcortical things in adolescence are more robust.
15:31There's a kind of emotional spark in adolescence.
15:34So if you compare a 10-year-old to a 14-year-old,
15:37they're very different not just that they've
15:39accumulated four more years of life.
15:41But these subcortical areas are just more active.
15:44And we'll talk about why that would be a good thing soon.
15:47OK, so emotion is number one.
15:48Number two is motivation.
15:51The limbic area works with the brain
15:52stem to motivate people to do different things.
15:55And of course, the motivation of a 14-year-old,
15:58as any middle school teacher will tell you,
16:00is very different from a 10-year-old.
16:02That's because the limbic area is changing dramatically
16:05for very important and good reasons.
16:07Then when parents don't understand them,
16:09they clamp down on what's happening to the adolescent
16:12instead of supporting them.
16:14And what the "Brainstorm" approach
16:16that we're going to talk about can do
16:18is change our whole cultural conversation
16:21so we recognize what's happening in the brain and support
16:24adolescents rather than try to imprison them.
16:27The third thing the limbic area is involved in
16:29is called appraisal.
16:30Appraisal, and I don't know what the computer equivalent would
16:33be, but appraisal is basically where
16:34you're evaluating the significance of something
16:38happening.
16:39So the first layer of appraisal says,
16:42is this thing happening something
16:43I should invest energy and time in?
16:46Like right now I'm appraising my voice is getting hoarse,
16:49so I'm going to get my water bottle that my daughter gave me
16:51before she went away to school.
16:57And now my limbic area will appraise
16:58how did my voice sound?
16:59And it sounds better, so I put this down.
17:02So that would be an appraisal.
17:03I'm paying attention to something.
17:05The second thing is, is the thing
17:06I'm paying attention to good or bad?
17:08And if it's good, how do I get more of it?
17:10If it's bad, how do I get less of it?
17:12And those are basic appraisal functions of the limbic area.
17:16So that's number three.
17:17Number four is different kinds of memory
17:19are mediated through the limbic area.
17:21We won't talk about that, but the hippocampus
17:23plays an important role in creating
17:25factual memory or autobiographical memory
17:28rather than just kind of the visceral memory
17:30that you have called implicit memory.
17:32And number five is attachment.
17:35This becomes extremely important in adolescence.
17:38Attachment is what we have as mammals.
17:40This is the old mammalian brain.
17:42Attachment is where, as a kid, you rely on another person,
17:46your parent usually, an attachment figure,
17:49to give you four S's.
17:51They see you.
17:53They keep you safe.
17:55They soothe you.
17:57And they give you an internal feeling of security
17:59if you have the first three.
18:01So being seen means someone identifies
18:04what's going on beneath your behavior.
18:06Not just seeing your body move, but thinking
18:09about your feelings, identifying what you're thinking about,
18:12what has meaning for you, what your needs are.
18:14That's what I mean by being seen.
18:16Safe means two things.
18:18They protect you from harm, and they aren't a source of terror.
18:22And if they are, they repair that rupture very quickly.
18:25Because any parent can lose it, but if you lose it as a parent,
18:28and I talk about this in a book I wrote
18:30called "Parenting from the Inside Out" with Mary Hartzell.
18:34If you lose it and don't make a repair,
18:36your child will have a very negative outcome
18:38in their attachment category that they developed.
18:41And that's explored in all these different books
18:44and in "Brainstorm" too.
18:46So safe means not being a source of terror
18:49and also protecting your child from danger.
18:53So if you are seen, and if you are safe,
18:57and if when you're distressed you're soothed-- that is,
19:00I have a really uncomfortable feeling.
19:02I'm just a kid.
19:03I don't know how to get this feeling to feel better.
19:06It just feels bad, whether I'm sad,
19:08angry, frightened, whatever it is.
19:11I go to this other person, my attachment figure.
19:13They do something with me.
19:14They hug me.
19:15They talk to me.
19:16They just listen to me and hear my story.
19:19And I feel better.
19:20An attachment figure soothes the person who's attached.
19:25OK, so what's so important about this in adolescence?
19:28And it's what you said before, Ron.
19:30When you're a kid and you're distressed,
19:33who do you go to for soothing?
19:37Your parents, your attachment figure.
19:39But when you're an adolescent, who do you tend to go to?
19:42Your peers, and that is a healthy, natural change
19:47that if a parent is not aware that this is going to happen,
19:50they start feeling left out and rejected
19:51and think there's something wrong.
19:53When in fact it's something right,
19:55because overall what the adolescent is preparing to do
19:59is to leave home.
20:02So picture this.
20:04Just so you can understand the attachment shift,
20:07just imagine this scenario.
20:09You're in bed.
20:12You're sleeping really deeply.
20:15The light comes streaming in through the closed blinds
20:18of your window, and someone comes in your room.
20:21Let's say it's your mom.
20:23Someone who loves you like crazy gives you
20:25a kiss on the forehead and says, good morning sweetie.
20:30And you begin to rouse, and she goes,
20:32what would you like for breakfast?
20:35And you go, I'll have some oatmeal, mom.
20:37And she shouts down to your dad, so-and-so would like oatmeal.
20:41And so your dad starts preparing oatmeal.
20:43You come downstairs.
20:44You have your pajamas on.
20:45You have your oatmeal.
20:46You then get dressed.
20:48Maybe you watch a little TV or you
20:50start getting ready for school.
20:52Then you go off to preschool.
20:54And at preschool, you play with friends,
20:56and you learn how to share, and you have a snack,
20:58and maybe you come home for lunch.
21:00You're getting a little tired, so you take a nap.
21:03And then you play some more out in the yard.
21:07And then you have another snack, and then
21:09you dance around with your mom, or your dad,
21:12or who's ever there.
21:13And then you get a little hungry,
21:14so they make you dinner.
21:15And then you're getting a little tired.
21:17You get in the bathtub.
21:18They scrub you down.
21:20And then they put you in bed, give you a massage,
21:22read you a story, and sing you a song.
21:24And you fall off to sleep.
21:27Now, if you kept the same child mind
21:30that was soaking that in that the majority of kids
21:32actually get-- maybe not everyone--
21:33but who in their sane mind would leave that?
21:38Right?
21:39Now, I know a lot of adults who are trying to get that back
21:41from their partners, which is probably a good idea.
21:45But as an adolescent, if you think about it,
21:47nature's got to do something to the brain to say,
21:50I know that's a pretty good setup you got.
21:53But I need you to go from the familiar home,
21:57where you're comfortable and where you're safe,
22:03to try something that's unfamiliar, that's
22:06uncomfortable, that's uncertain instead of certain,
22:09and that's potentially unsafe.
22:11So what are you going to do if you're
22:14nature to make sure that this kid when he's 55 years old
22:18isn't still living at home?
22:22You've got to do something to this brain.
22:23That's what we're going to look into the details.
22:25So part of it is you make the emotions revved up.
22:27Because emotion in many ways is evoking motion.
22:32It gets the being with the emotion to do something.
22:35That's what really emotion is all about, evoking motion.
22:38So we know that's going on.
22:40The limbic area attachment is changing,
22:43so it says, hey, I'm not going to turn to my parents anymore.
22:46I'll use them as an ATM machine and a driver.
22:48But they're not going to be my source of support.
22:51They're not going to be my homies anymore.
22:53I'm going to find some other people with whom
22:55I turn to when I need support, because they're getting ready.
22:58So this is very, very important.
23:00Now, if you bend your fingers over the top,
23:02this is the cortex.
23:04This is the outer bark of the brain.
23:07That's what cortex mean.
23:08It's sometimes called the neo-mammalian cortex.
23:10So the limbic area is the old mammalian brain,
23:13200 million years old.
23:14The cortex is the new mammalian brain.
23:16The frontal area would be from your last knuckles forward,
23:19is the largest in primates.
23:21And the front of the front area is the most elaborated
23:24in human beings.
23:25It's called the prefrontal cortex.
23:26It's what you hear about all the time.
23:28It's why we have such big foreheads compared
23:30to our ape cousins.
23:32We have this very elaborated prefrontal cortex.
23:35So the frontal area in general allows
23:36you to think, conceive of things, program,
23:39think about history, think about coming here to a meeting,
23:42and bringing lunch, and making sure you
23:44get to the next appointment on time, all this stuff.
23:46So the frontal area is really important.
23:48And this is the area that matures last.
23:51So what happens in this adolescent brain
23:53is basically this.
23:55In utero, the brain stem is well developed.
23:58The limbic area is partially developed.
24:00The cortex is based undeveloped at birth.
24:03What this means is that once the baby is out,
24:06interactions with the world in addition to genes
24:09will influence the way neurons connect to each other.
24:12So neurons firing leads to neurons rewiring.
24:17And Eric Kandel won the Nobel Prize for this in 2000
24:20showing that when you get neurons to fire off,
24:23they actually activate genes in a way that
24:25gets them to increase their connections to each other,
24:28increase even their myelin, which
24:31is like a sheath that increases the speed of interconnection
24:35among the neurons the way they communicate with each other.
24:37100 times faster and 30 times shorter
24:42refractory period, resting period between firings.
24:45So 100 times 30 is 3,000.
24:47When you've myelinated neurons, you basically
24:50are allowing them to be coordinated and efficiently
24:53communicating with each other 3,000 times more.
24:56So when you watch people do the Olympics,
24:58those Olympic athletes have been practicing something
25:00for so many hours, they've laid down myelin.
25:04Because skill building is based on myelin growth.
25:08So here's what happens in childhood.
25:11For the first dozen years, more or less, this brain
25:14is like a sponge.
25:15It just soaks in adult knowledge,
25:17soaking in, soaking in, soaking in.
25:21But then nature does something really interesting.
25:24Instead of just having the neurons build
25:26their synaptic connections with each other pretty progressively
25:30throughout childhood, once the switch happens--
25:33and this is only something we've known for the last 15 years.
25:36The studies at my university, UCLA,
25:38and also National Institute of Mental Health,
25:40we've studied kids across the developmental period
25:43and have found the following shocking findings.
25:48The remodeling that no one expected to be happening-- we
25:51just thought the brain would continue to grow new stuff,
25:54and people thought it was raging hormones
25:56that would drive an adolescent mad, which
25:58is a second myth we're going to bust right now.
26:01The changes in adolescence are not due to raging hormones.
26:04Puberty happens, and hormones rise.
26:06But I don't even know what a raging hormone would be.
26:09Hey, I' a hormone, and I'm really mad.
26:11What does it mean to be raging hormones?
26:13It's not from raging hormones, but everyone believes that.
26:16And of course, if it is raging hormones,
26:18there's absolutely nothing you as a parent or you
26:20as an adolescent can do about it.
26:21I'm walking around in this body, and I
26:23got these hormones that are raising out of control,
26:25so of course I don't know what I'm doing.
26:27I've got raging hormones.
26:29But if it's the brain, no matter how that brain is changing,
26:33we now know what you do with your mind can change
26:36the function and even the structure of your brain.
26:39So the empowerment that we're about to talk about
26:41is profound.
26:44It clarifies what the myths are, but the truths
26:47turn out to be liberating.
26:49So the first thing that was found which shocked everyone
26:53was that the brain, instead of to continue
26:55to develop synaptic connections, actually
26:58starts destroying them.
27:00It's called pruning.
27:02The brain starts to eliminate not only
27:04the synaptic connections that were laid down, some of them,
27:06but it actually starts destroying neurons themselves.
27:09You get less synaptic connections, the connections
27:12among neurons, and even less neurons.
27:15And everyone was going, wow, what's going on?
27:18And then as the adolescent years progressed,
27:21a second part of remodeling happened.
27:23Because the first is you're getting rid of basically
27:25connections you don't need.
27:27The second thing that's part of remodeling
27:28besides the first part, pruning, is
27:31that you start to lay down myelin in a big way.
27:34So the adolescent brain is going to become
27:37more specialized by getting rid of circuits it doesn't need
27:40and then more efficient in its coordination and balance-- more
27:44integrated, if you will-- by taking the remaining
27:47connections and allowing them to be 3,000 times better
27:50at communicating with each other.
27:52So the second dozen years of life, of course
27:55you continue to learn with laying down
27:56new synaptic connections.
27:57But you're going from being a generalist of a child
28:00to a specialist of an adolescent.
28:04Now, what this means for an adolescent--
28:06and I wrote the "Brainstorm" book for both adolescents
28:08and adults to read-- for the adolescent reading it,
28:11I say to them directly, because there
28:13is no book, for anybody there's no book written
28:15about these brain changes for the general public.
28:18There's nothing.
28:19And I wanted something to be available for my own kids,
28:22or their friends, or people I work with.
28:24I'm an adolescent psychiatrist.
28:25So an adolescent themselves could read this
28:28and know from the inside out what's going on.
28:30When you go around to high schools, which
28:32I'm doing a lot lately, I say, what
28:34have you been taught about the brain?
28:35And this is what the kids say, whether it's
28:387th grade or 12th grade, nothing.
28:40They've been taught nothing about their brain.
28:42I mean, there are exceptions in charter schools now,
28:44but for the most part, people are not taught anything
28:46about their brain, which is amazing because we know a lot.
28:50And when you know about the brain,
28:52you can do something about its function and structure,
28:55even if you have genetic risks going on,
28:58as we're studying at UCLA.
29:00So here's the deal.
29:03Remodeling in the adolescent brain
29:04takes place starting around 12, and it goes on to the mid-20s.
29:09This is why I say adolescence doesn't end when the 19 year
29:13birthday follows the year and you turn 20.
29:17It doesn't end.
29:18It's the mid-20s.
29:20So this adolescent period of remodeling
29:22is happening all through the mid-20s.
29:24Now, that's really interesting, because it
29:26means that they're going to be continuing changes.
29:28So let's review some of these basic myths.
29:31We said number one, adolescence is more than the teenage years.
29:34Number two, we said that this period of time
29:39is a time when the brain is changing,
29:41and it's not raging hormones that
29:43lead to the significant changes of adolescence.
29:45It's actually brain remodeling.
29:47A third myth that you may have heard,
29:50which is what was said in the introduction,
29:52is many adults and therefore the adolescents
29:56who are hearing the adults say this approach
29:59adolescence with unbelievable trepidation instead
30:03of celebration.
30:05And this trepidation is that, oh my god,
30:07it's going to be a horrible period I've just
30:09got to get through.
30:10And what I want to urge you to consider
30:12is that in fact, what I'm about to outline
30:15suggests just the opposite.
30:18It's a period you can cultivate well
30:20if you understand what's happening in the brain.
30:22And when you understand what's happening in the brain,
30:25you can actually build these circuits
30:27and make them stronger intentionally.
30:31So it's not a period to just get through.
30:33It's actually period to celebrate and cultivate.
30:36So that's a third myth.
30:37A fourth myth is that the adolescent period
30:40is a period of risk, which is true.
30:42That's not a myth, but only because adolescents
30:45are impulsive.
30:47And I want to describe one thing that nature
30:49does beyond impulsivity.
30:51So early teenage years, it's true.
30:54Adolescents do not have a space between an impulse
30:57and an action as much as they will later on.
31:01But here's the story that is kind of shocking as a parent.
31:03And for those you who have younger kids,
31:05I don't want to scare you, but this is just the truth.
31:08Adolescents are three times more likely during the period
31:1212 to 24 to be seriously injured or die from preventable causes.
31:19Even though their body is much stronger than any other time,
31:23not only stronger in muscle strength,
31:25but if you get an infection, it's
31:27better to be an adolescent.
31:28You can fight it better than a kid can, a child,
31:30or better than an adult can.
31:32So they have stronger bodies but three times
31:34more likely to get seriously hurt or die.
31:37Now, why is that?
31:37Part of it is impulsivity.
31:39That part is true.
31:40But it turns out there's something else that
31:42has been discovered that blew everybody away too.
31:45And it has a weird name, but it's
31:46called hyper-rational thinking.
31:49And if you think about it this way,
31:51hyper-rational thinking is driven by two processes.
31:54One is a limbic process.
31:55We talked about the limbic area having
31:57an evaluative system that works.
32:01And the evaluation of the limbic area during adolescence
32:03is very different from adulthood and different from childhood.
32:06And basically nature did this, said, OK,
32:10let's say I'm an adolescent who's 19 years old.
32:14And my parents-- and sadly this is a true story,
32:17but I'm going to get inside the head of the kid, which we don't
32:19know-- my parents give me a car that's really fun to drive.
32:24And I think driving this car 100 miles an hour
32:27down Wilshire Boulevard is going to be really cool.
32:33Now, for me to take the risk of doing
32:35that, which on the one hand, you could say, well,
32:38if you're trying to get this kid ready to experience
32:41the unfamiliar, the uncomfortable, the uncertain,
32:44and the dangerous, to leave home,
32:47you got to do something to the brain
32:49to get me to do dangerous things, which
32:51is basically true.
32:53If I don't take risks I'm never going to leave home.
32:56So I got to take risks.
32:57So it takes this evaluative circuit and says,
32:59what's the upside of doing that?
33:01Well, the upside is my friends will think I'm cool,
33:03which is great because I want to have friends,
33:05because having friends will keep me alive.
33:07So that's good.
33:08And it'll be really exciting.
33:09Because I was playing these video games driving
33:11100 miles an hour.
33:12That was fun.
33:13So this car will be just like an elaboration
33:15of the video game I was playing.
33:18And what's the downside of that?
33:22I could run into somebody.
33:23I could get killed.
33:23I could kill somebody.
33:25So what happened to me when my son was one,
33:26so a long time ago now, is my favorite professor
33:30was pulling out of his house, and he
33:33was run over by a 19-year-old driving
33:3695 miles an hour on a surface street not far from here.
33:40And he was just killed instantly.
33:42And I felt terrible obviously for my professor,
33:44for his family, for the whole field.
33:46He was a major figure in our discipline.
33:49But for the kid, he's not a bad kid.
33:52He had what was called hyper-rational thinking.
33:54He got the idea of driving 100 miles an hour.
33:57He actually planned it.
33:58This wasn't impulsive.
34:00And he knew about the dangers.
34:01This is the thing, another myth.
34:03Adults say, well, adolescents just don't know.
34:05Let's just inform them of the dangers.
34:07But actually they know about dangers.
34:09Their limbic area just skews the balance that says, yeah,
34:12I know about that.
34:13But this would be so much fun.
34:14They just don't care about the danger.
34:18So what I suggest in the book, and there
34:19are exercises called mindsight exercises teaching about seeing
34:22your own mind clearly or other people's mind,
34:25is if that kid had had an internal compass that
34:28wasn't driven by his limbic area and cortical
34:31processing of information but instead--
34:34and this is now we're just beginning to learn about
34:36this-- literally there are Parallel Distributed
34:40Processors-- PDP processors-- around the intestine
34:44and around the heart.
34:45The intrinsic nervous system of the heart
34:48and the nervous system around the intestines
34:51are PDP processors.
34:52You know about PDP right?
34:53So PDP can process information.
34:56It doesn't do it with logical reasoning.
34:59It's not a logical formula.
35:01But it has a deep source of wisdom.
35:04And what initial findings suggest
35:07is that kids who are in touch with literally what
35:10their gut is telling them and what their heart is telling
35:12them would choose not to drive a car that fast.
35:16Even though their cortex would say,
35:18yeah, that sounds like a great idea.
35:19What's wrong with it?
35:20And their limbic area skew would say, yeah, that sounds cool.
35:22100 miles an hour, you can do it.
35:24You did it in the video game.
35:25Why can't you do it in a car?
35:25It's the same thing really.
35:26Steering wheel, gas pedal, what's the problem?
35:29Your gut would tell you something
35:30doesn't feel right about this.
35:33And I am choosing not to do it.
35:35Because adolescents have a natural, as you can see,
35:38push against the status quo of adults.
35:41So if an adult policeman says, the law is
35:43you have to go 35 miles an hour down Wilshire,
35:47or to your parent says, hey, you could have this car,
35:49but don't drive fast.
35:50There's a part of an adolescent brain which
35:53is literally programmed from millions of years of evolution
35:56to say, I don't care about that.
35:59I know about what they said, but I don't care about it.
36:03Even to the point where you probably know this study,
36:05but let's say kids who are going to pick up smoking.
36:09They learn to smoke usually during adolescence.
36:12So they figured out, how can we get adolescents not to smoke?
36:14And what did they do?
36:15They showed them pictures of graveyards
36:17to scare them and say, look, if you smoke,
36:19this is what your lung is going to look like.
36:22It's going to have big holes in it, cancer, black,
36:24all this stuff.
36:26No drop in smoking.
36:28They said, look, it's not good.
36:29It's not even so cool to smoke, no drop in smoking.
36:33So what would you do if you're a creative advertisement person
36:36to try to make adolescents not pick up smoking
36:40or if they picked it up stop it?
36:43You could have the parents smoke and they'd say I wouldn't.
36:45It's like that.
36:46It's just like that, exactly.
36:48So they did something like that.
36:49They said, hey, hey, did you know
36:51that those really rich adults who own the cigarette companies
36:57know it's going to get your body addicted,
36:59and they're stealing your money and laughing all the way
37:02to the bank because they want to get
37:04you to be addicted to this crap?
37:07And the kids stopped smoking.
37:09They said, I'm not going to let the adults do that to me.
37:11It was brilliant, absolutely brilliant.
37:13Because they understood the whole thing.
37:15Now, speaking of addiction we've talked
37:16about hyper-rational functioning of the cortex and limbic area.
37:21The second reason kids are doing risky behavior
37:23is really important to identify, and it
37:25relates to addiction too, is there's
37:27a circuit that's distributed up from the brain
37:29stem, the limbic area of the cortex called the reward
37:31circuit.
37:32You've probably heard about this because it's in the news a lot.
37:35It's driven by a neurotransmitter.
37:37The chemical allows the neurons to communicate
37:39with each other called dopamine.
37:40And what nature has done with the reward circuit
37:44is basically some studies suggest
37:46dropped the baseline levels of dopamine
37:49and raised the release level.
37:50And you could say, why would you do that?
37:52Well, partly the reason to do that is
37:54one of the major things that gets dopamine to be released,
37:57which this adolescent would be more driven to
37:59because they're kind of bored because their baseline is low
38:02and they want to do something, one
38:03of the major things that releases it is novelty.
38:07Novelty, doing something new gets the dopamine released.
38:10So you want to do something new and create something new,
38:13always be challenged.
38:14That's fantastic.
38:15So that's another way that nature
38:17gets a kid who's now an adolescent to do risky things
38:21and feel kind of, let's see, without trying something.
38:24And when parents realize this, and the beautiful thing
38:26about the book is now that it's out, is when parents read this
38:29and they have their adolescents read it,
38:30people are going to understand, OK,
38:32there's a natural drive to push toward novelty.
38:34And you can do it in a constructive way
38:36or just say, oh, that's bad.
38:37And then the adolescent will do things
38:39that are really dangerous.
38:40So there's a way of building in healthy novelty exploration.
38:44So those are the two ways, hyper-rational cortical limbic
38:49functioning and changes in the dopamine reward circuitry.
38:52Now, sadly, just to make sure we talk about some downsides
38:56here, because the dopamine system
39:01is the number one system involved in anything that you
39:03can get addicted to, whether it's video games, or gambling,
39:08or high sugar content foods, or cocaine, or heroin, or alcohol,
39:15every single one of those things that you
39:16can get addicted to captures your dopamine circuit.
39:21This is why we believe adolescents are absolutely
39:25the most vulnerable to become addicted.
39:27If you're going to become addicted to something
39:29in your life, it's most likely to happen during this period,
39:32likely because of this dopamine change.
39:34So we want to try to understand that, not just ignore it,
39:37and do something positive to support it.
39:40So let me summarize all these brain
39:42changes in the following four elements.
39:46We're going to look at the upside and downside.
39:48And then I want you to think about these four elements
39:50I'm about to talk about and how they relate to your life now
39:54an adult-- because I'm looking around.
39:56I think most people are adults.
39:57There may be a couple of adolescents in the room--
39:59but also to remember your own adolescence.
40:03OK, so, I'm kind of an acronym addict.
40:05So luckily this forms an acronym.
40:07And if you had to ask yourself the question, what
40:10is the essence of what Dan said, or what's
40:12the essence of adolescence?
40:13It spells the word essence.
40:15So this is useful.
40:17So let's review what we just covered.
40:18So this is going to be a review of all this stuff,
40:20and it's going to look at the upsides and downsides of each
40:24of these four things.
40:26The first is E-S, Emotional Spark.
40:29We've said that the subcortical regions, the body, the brain
40:33stem, and the limbic area, nature
40:35has made more active in an adolescent.
40:38And this has the downside with this more motion
40:41is that adolescents can be moody.
40:43They can be irritable.
40:44As one adolescent told me to write in the book,
40:46sometimes we feel one way.
40:48Sometimes we feel another way, and chill out.
40:50They want the adults to know not take it so personally.
40:53These emotions are big, and they're hard.
40:55It can be really disorienting to have so many big emotions going
40:58on.
40:59And that's a natural part of evoking motion
41:02that nature's created.
41:03It isn't a problem unless we make it a problem.
41:05Now, some kids can get depressed.
41:07They can develop all sorts of disorders.
41:09In fact, the pruning process is one reason
41:12we believe that all of the major psychiatric disorders
41:15like schizophrenia, or depression, or manic depressive
41:18illness have their onset in adolescence,
41:21because the pruning is carving away vulnerable circuits.
41:24We didn't understand that before,
41:26and now we believe that's the major mechanism.
41:28The good news is we can reverse that in many ways.
41:32So early intervention can be really important.
41:34But anyway, the first thing is emotional spark.
41:37What's the upside of that?
41:38This is a period where life becomes on fire,
41:41and you feel passionate about something.
41:43You really care about something.
41:44And this passion fuels a sense of vitality.
41:48And the sad thing is many adolescents
41:50get crushed by adults' response at home
41:54and adults' response in school and in society.
41:57And so this is really sad, because then of course
41:59you will get demoralized and feel
42:02disempowered and disenfranchised.
42:04So the opportunity, for example here in an organization
42:08like Google, is to think about how
42:10to shift the culture of conversation about adolescents.
42:13And it's a huge opportunity to change the way we
42:16as a culture approach this period of time.
42:19So E-S, emotional spark.
42:21S-E, Social Engagement, the adolescent, as we said,
42:26because of these limbic changes, is
42:27driven to be more with peers than their parents.
42:29And that's healthy.
42:30That's normal.
42:31That's fine.
42:32Adolescents need their peers to survive out in the world.
42:37Peer group membership is important.
42:39What's the downside?
42:40If you give up morality for membership,
42:44then peer pressure will crush your internal sense of values.
42:48So membership is really important.
42:50Parents need to realize that.
42:51So when a kid comes to you and says,
42:52I need to go to this party.
42:54Joe and Sammy are all going, and I got to go.
42:56I got to go.
42:57You need to understand when your adolescent feels like it's
42:59a matter of life and death, that's from millions of years
43:02of evolution that tells them if they're not
43:04a member of a group, they are likely to die.
43:08They're not just making that up.
43:09It's not just west Los Angeles culture or something like that.
43:13It's in their genes.
43:14Now, that doesn't mean you need to let them go to the party.
43:17Or if they say, I need to wear a certain-- well, not
43:18these shoes, but a certain kind of shoe or I'm
43:21not going to fit in, it's a life and death matter.
43:23That's how it feels.
43:24You can accept the feeling even if you don't purchase the shoe.
43:29So that's a really big step in increasing the communication
43:32across the generational divide.
43:35Now, the upside of social engagement
43:37is that every research study, every single one
43:41on your medical health, on your mental health, on how long
43:45you live and your happiness, without exception,
43:48every single one show that the number one
43:50factor is supportive relationships.
43:54You begin to learn to move away from your family
43:57and develop these social networks of support
43:59in adolescence.
44:00So these are skills that can last a lifetime
44:02and be incredibly positive.
44:03So social engagement is S-E.
44:05What's N?
44:06So E-S, emotional spark, S-E, social engagement,
44:09N is Novelty.
44:11Novelty, as we said, the dopamine system change
44:14gets you to try new things.
44:15The downside of it, you can do risky things,
44:18and you have unfortunately this increased risk of getting hurt.
44:22Right?
44:23What's the upside?
44:24The upside is novelty is exciting.
44:26It allows you to be driven to try new things,
44:29to do new things, to take risks, to be brave,
44:31to be courageous, to live with this kind of sense of gusto.
44:33And that's great.
44:36So we have to learn to manage this novelty-seeking drive.
44:39And finally C-E, what is it?
44:41C-E is Creative Explorations.
44:44The creative exploration of the adolescent brain
44:48is to try to push against the adult status quo.
44:51And nature has designed this from a large evolutionary point
44:57of view for the following reason.
44:59Basically as a child, you're the sponge
45:01soaking in the adult world.
45:04As adults, you figure out what the world is like,
45:06and you try to find your niche in it.
45:09You go home.
45:09You're tired.
45:10You want to collapse.
45:11You watch TV, in a modern times.
45:14If we did not as a species have the adolescent period of time,
45:19we would never be as adaptive as we
45:22are to an ever-changing world.
45:25You need to have a continual source of individuals,
45:29children now turned adolescents, who
45:31approach the status quo and say, I don't buy it.
45:35I don't buy this.
45:36I'm not going to settle for this.
45:37I am going to try to create a new world.
45:39I am going to adapt to the world that's here
45:41and make my own world.
45:42So if you think about art, and if you think about music,
45:46and if you think about science, and if you
45:49think about technology, you know that all the major innovations
45:53primarily come from adolescent minds.
45:57Now, think about it.
45:59That's creative explorations.
46:00Now, what's the downside of it?
46:01The downside of creative exploration is as a child,
46:04you just say, hey, this is the world I'm being given.
46:07I'm learning to a deal with it, learning
46:08to deal with it, fine, fine, fine.
46:10But then when you get to be an adolescent, you go, hey.
46:13This world I'm being given, it's kind of not so good.
46:17In fact, it sucks.
46:19In fact, I've got to try to change it.
46:21And that's a burden, and it can be disorienting.
46:23It can be frightening.
46:24So we need to realize, especially
46:25in these days when so much information is being shared,
46:28and as you probably know-- I don't remember the ratios.
46:30You can tell me-- we get information now in a week--
46:35I think it's a week time, right?--
46:37that is more information than 100 years ago,
46:40people would get in a lifetime.
46:41I think that's the ratio, something like that.
46:43So think about an adolescent who's
46:45just emerging from childhood who was built on the net, right?
46:49Who's soaking in all the stuff, and their brain's
46:52being flooded by all the changes that
46:53are going on in Somalia, in the Ukraine, in the whole world.
46:56Everything is blowing up, and people are killing each other.
46:59I mean, it is overwhelming.
47:02But 100 years ago, it was nothing like that.
47:03We have this longer period of adolescence now, of course,
47:06because adolescence used to be a lot shorter, a couple years.
47:08Now it's a dozen years or more.
47:11So we have this long period of adolescence,
47:13and what's happening now is adolescence is being filled
47:16with this stuff at a time when they realize
47:19they are going to be responsible for this world
47:20and they don't just accept it as is.
47:22So that's the downside.
47:23What's the upside?
47:24Creative explorations allows us to create a new world.
47:27So what I do when I speak to schools,
47:29and I want to have you consider this,
47:31is if we change the cultural conversation
47:34around adolescence, two big things can happen.
47:37Number one for adolescents themselves,
47:40if we change the way the curriculum addresses this--
47:43and now there's a province up in Canada, a school district here
47:46in the United States, and in a couple
47:48individual schools in the US too where
47:50we're thinking about making a "Brainstorm" approach
47:52to middle school and high school.
47:53You would say, instead of doing the same old thing you'd
47:56do for a younger child, you would
47:58say, let's build on the emotional spark, the passion,
48:00and have kids approach, let's say, the world's problems
48:04of what they feel really compelled
48:06to really try to improve.
48:08Famine, violence, climate change, then I
48:12say, OK, then what would you do with social engagement?
48:15That's the emotional spark piece.
48:16The social engagement, instead of having
48:18to compete with each other, where you say,
48:20hey, do the best on the spelling bee.
48:22Get the best grades.
48:23Get the best SAT scores so you can get in the best college
48:26so you can get in the best graveyard.
48:28That's basically what we're telling them really.
48:33But instead, we are a collaborative species.
48:36And not much is done in school to build
48:39on our collaborative nature that's inherent to adolescents.
48:43So what if you say, OK, instead of competing with each other,
48:46if you have a competitive streak that's beautiful,
48:49let's compete with the world's problems.
48:52And let's get together in groups of collaborative nature
48:54where we know from studies collective intelligence rises
48:57above individual intelligence every time.
49:00So let's have you actually build with each other
49:02so that when you beat the competition, everybody wins.
49:07That's the kind of setup which would be win-win.
49:10And I'll bet you that when you allow the adolescent mind that
49:13moves towards novelty and has creative explorations built
49:16into these millions of years of evolution,
49:18I'll bet you you're going to find solutions
49:20to some of these world problems that we adults have never
49:23been able to solve.
49:24These are some of the world's most pressing problems,
49:26and there's an untapped resource of incredible creativity
49:30and courage.
49:31So that's for the adolescents.
49:32It's an incredible opportunity to empower them.
49:34And in the "Brainstorm" book, I have these mindsight exercises
49:37that allow the adolescent or the adult reading the book
49:40to actually build the integrative fibers of the brain
49:43than are the basis of well-being,
49:45emotional intelligence, and also the basis of innovation
49:47that they can actually build them.
49:48So that's for the adolescent.
49:50The final thing I want to say is think about it
49:52for your own life.
49:53How many people do you know as adults
49:57who made it through adolescence but they lost their essence?
50:03They lost their emotional spark.
50:05They've lost social support, social engagement.
50:08They don't do new things in their life,
50:10and they aren't creatively challenging their mind
50:12with creative exploration.
50:14And they've lost the essence of living a vital life.
50:16When I was writing this up, I went, oh my gosh,
50:20because I'm very familiar with a field called neuroplasticity,
50:22which is how we as adults keep our brain continually
50:26growing strong throughout the lifespan.
50:28And in a book called "Mindsight" I
50:30show you how you do that even with someone in their 90s.
50:33So we know that for sure.
50:34What you do in your mind can keep your brain strong.
50:38If you had to pick the top four aspects of life that
50:42will keep your brain growing strong and even
50:45being integrated, it would be emotional spark.
50:49Keep passion in your life for what you do.
50:52Social engagements, keep your social connections,
50:55the network of support really strong.
50:57Novelty, give your brain new things it does.
51:00Try new activities.
51:02And creative explorations, challenge your mind
51:04in ways that are not just the status quo
51:06but really keep you pushing the boundaries.
51:09Emotional spark, social engagement,
51:10novelty, creative explorations, exactly what
51:12we need as adults too.
51:14And then I realized, wow, maybe some adults
51:17I've seen over these 25 years of being in practice,
51:21maybe they're angry at their adolescents.
51:25Outside of their awareness but deep in their hearts,
51:28they know this adolescent has an essence that they themselves
51:32have lost.
51:34So what I say to the adult very gingerly who's
51:35also reading the book so they won't just toss it in the trash
51:38can, I say, look, if this essence
51:42is something you would like to get back, if you follow
51:45these exercises too, you can get it back too.
51:48It's never too late to revive your essence.
51:51I know for a fact you can take someone even in their 90s
51:54and revive it.
51:55And so when we do this then, the exciting thing
51:57is everybody wins.
51:59You improve the relationship between adults and adolescents.
52:02You'll tap into an incredible resource
52:04of innovation, courage, and creativity
52:06in the adolescent group.
52:08You'll allow the adult who's lost their essence
52:11to get really revived.
52:13And so everybody wins.
52:15So the exciting thing is getting this change
52:17in the cultural conversation for adolescents and adults
52:20out in the world.
52:21And the great news is if we do that, there's
52:24this incredible opportunity to actually make
52:26this world a better place for all of us to live.
52:29So thank you so much for your attention,
52:30and we have time for discussion.
52:32Thank you.
52:37AUDIENCE: You talked about pruning
52:38and then the myelin growth stage.
52:41Do you know when those two stages tend to occur?
52:43DANIEL SIEGEL: Yeah, they're a little different male
52:45and female.
52:46So female starts about a year and a half sooner than males.
52:50And when you watch the path, they happen differently.
52:52But basically, it's the first few years is a lot of pruning,
52:56and the pruning sort of comes down.
52:58And then the myelination, which is the white matter
53:00or the brain, is increasing later on.
53:01So if you saw a graph, it would be
53:03kind of overlapping like that.
53:05So the first two, three, four years, a lot, a lot of pruning.
53:08And then you see the following years a lot of myelination.
53:12And the myelination goes on into the 20s.
53:14Now, here's the thing.
53:16This is sort of a myth, but it's just a misconception.
53:19People say, oh, the prefrontal cortex is just immature.
53:22That's why adolescents are immature.
53:24And I really think we should stop using the word immature.
53:28Because immature applies you are one
53:30place only because you're getting
53:31ready to go somewhere else.
53:33I think the adolescent period is a period where you're basically
53:36growing these integrative fibers throughout the brain.
53:38And so the brain is becoming more integrated.
53:40And the prefrontal cortex is like a profound integrative
53:44area that's just making sure all the other regions that
53:47are growing.
53:47So you really have to look at specific areas,
53:49and they're a little different male and female.
53:51But if you look at the graph, you can see it that way.
53:55And I can refer you to some papers.
53:56AUDIENCE: And one follow-up based
53:59on that is should you be doing something different
54:02as a parent during those different stages?
54:04Or do you kind of consider that all part of adolescence?
54:07DANIEL SIEGEL: You mean pruning and myelination?
54:09AUDIENCE: Yeah.
54:09DANIEL SIEGEL: Well, they go together.
54:10But here's the way I would think about it.
54:12I would think that, and what I would say to the adolescent
54:15as a parent of an adolescent is, it's a use it
54:18or lose it principle.
54:19So I'd say to a kid who's into music, if you really like music
54:24and you're 12, 13 years old, pruning happens.
54:28And basically nature is going to say,
54:30if you're not using a certain circuit, dump it.
54:34You don't need it.
54:36So this period of adolescence, I say to my adolescents,
54:38is, if you really like music, just exposure yourself
54:41to a lot of music.
54:42Play a lot of music.
54:43Do music.
54:43That's great.
54:45Do it.
54:46Because this is the time your brain
54:47is going to be specializing.
54:49I would let them know that.
54:50Same thing with athletics, same thing with anything.
54:53That's a good time to do something.
54:54The myelinating is by practice, you actually lay down myelin.
55:00And so I would just say that and then back off.
55:01So it isn't like you say, you should be doing this.
55:03You should say, this is information you should have,
55:06and you make your decision.
55:07That's a very different thing than saying,
55:09let's avoid pruning.
55:10Let's avoid-- every morning.
55:11And some adolescents have told me
55:13they're a little worried about the pruning.
55:15And so you want to say, you can use your mind
55:17to keep those circuits going.
55:19Yeah.
55:22AUDIENCE: I find it fascinating about the PDP
55:28process in your heart or gut.
55:31In that sense, you mentioned the example the adolescents are
55:36actually know from those part that the danger, the risk.
55:40DANIEL SIEGEL: Yes.
55:41AUDIENCE: So what's the practical implication?
55:43DANIEL SIEGEL: So the practical thing is this-- yes, very good.
55:46So you have your intestines, and you have your heart.
55:48And they're going to process information.
55:51There is a pathway from these PDP processors up lamina 1,
55:56layer one of the spinal cord, and up the 10th cranial nerve,
55:59the vagus nerve.
56:00You don't need to remember.
56:01If you want to know those details, they're there.
56:03But anyway, they're basically very limited pathways
56:05that come up.
56:06They come up into the brain to a very specific area called
56:09the anterior insula and the anterior cingulate.
56:13For most people, the way you get the processing
56:16that goes on there into the part of the brain, this cortex
56:21that's going to make ultimate decisions, go, no go.
56:25Do I do it?
56:26Do I not do it?
56:27Let's say for the driving, you can
56:29have the processing going on.
56:30But the pathway to this prefrontal decision-making
56:33circuit is not well developed.
56:35So even though their gut would be processing don't do it,
56:39their cortex would never receive the signal.
56:42So in the book, I teach exercises
56:44where we know how to increase the anterior insula
56:49activity and size.
56:51And I put them in the book.
56:52Literally we now know-- this is the amazing thing-- we now
56:55know if you do this exercise, you will stimulate the-- I
56:59call it SNAG-- Stimulate Neuronal Activity Growth.
57:01You're going to SNAG the anterior insula
57:04so that when you stimulate to grow studies
57:06show it will not only fire.
57:08You get it to fire.
57:10Neurons which fire together wire together is the fun statement.
57:13And you get it to grow.
57:14Then that kid-- we need to do the studies,
57:17but this is what I suggest in the book
57:18because all the research points in this direction--
57:21is that the person who has that kind of mindfulness,
57:24that kind of reflection, that kind of interoception
57:26is what it's called, they will allow the wisdom of the body
57:31to influence the cortical circuits of decision.
57:34Does that make sense?
57:35So you're basically strengthening--
57:36I don't know if the computer analogy-- you're strengthening
57:39the PDP processing in one region that's
57:41geographically separate from another.
57:43And you're laying down the cables
57:45and so that it reaches the ultimate decision--
57:49because this doesn't make decisions.
57:51This makes decisions what the body is going to do.
57:53This doesn't do that.
57:54So we want to have this have literally--
57:56and what I teach the adolescent reading is I say,
57:59this is how it works.
58:00Your cortex is vulnerable because it's hyper-rational.
58:04You want to let your own wisdom, not your parents' rules,
58:08not the law, because of course you're pushing against those.
58:11You want to let your own wisdom be your guide.
58:13I call that an internal compass.
58:16That's how you develop it.
58:18AUDIENCE: I'm curious what you were saying about the drastic
58:21link-
58:21DANIEL SIEGEL: Come right up to the mic so we can hear.
58:23AUDIENCE: Curious about the drastic lengthening
58:25of the adolescence period.
58:26You were saying it used to be a couple years,
58:27and now it's like a dozen years.
58:29I assume that cultural factors would have a big part of that.
58:32But adolescence, as you're defining it,
58:33is really biological processes.
58:35So what are the interactions there?
58:37DANIEL SIEGEL: Yeah, it's a great question.
58:39So let me just lay out the facts as we know them.
58:45The external marker that we use from let's say 150 years ago
58:49is the onset of puberty.
58:52So puberty had its onset around 15 or 16 years of age
58:56150 years ago across many cultures.
58:59And for girls, it was about a year, year and a half
59:02before boys.
59:02So there's a little bit different male female
59:04difference.
59:05And then girls would actually get married and settled
59:09down around two years later in terms of raising a family.
59:13And boys would be maybe two or three years later.
59:15So for a female, the adolescent period was about two years.
59:18For males, about 3 1/2, 4 years.
59:20That was basically 150 years ago.
59:23What has changed now is that puberty
59:27just as a marker, rough marker, has come from 15 or 16 down.
59:31And now some girls are having the beginning
59:33of their menstrual cycle around 11, 10, some even 9
59:39for reasons we don't understand.
59:40It looks like it's related to nutrition.
59:42Boys it's coming down early about a year and a half
59:44later in terms of development of sexual maturation.
59:48And roughly, it's not exactly the same
59:50because you can have someone delay puberty who actually
59:52has started adolescence in the brain.
59:54This is why we know they're not exactly the same thing.
59:56But as a rough estimate, then this stretch
59:59then where now you have people starting the adolescent period
1:00:03around 12, more or less, they're not
1:00:05assuming adult responsibilities.
1:00:07And also the brain is remodeling way into the mid-20s.
1:00:09So this is definitely culturally dependent.
1:00:11If we could do these same scans on people from Papua New
1:00:14Guinea, maybe they'd have a two-year period.
1:00:18We'd have to look at that.
1:00:19There's a center that we've been running for 10 years called
1:00:21the Center for Culture, Brain, and Development.
1:00:23And just to respond to your really important big question,
1:00:26culture shapes the timing of brain development.
1:00:31But the periods that we go through
1:00:34seem to be biologically built in.
1:00:36The question is their onset and their offset
1:00:39may be culturally determined.
1:00:41AUDIENCE: So it's almost like the adult responsibilities
1:00:43kind of clamps down on this process and terminates it.
1:00:46DANIEL SIEGEL: Well, that would be the interesting thing
1:00:48to study subcultures where people do settle down,
1:00:50get married.
1:00:51And we don't have enough brain scans to see yet.
1:00:56Absolutely, that may be what happens.
1:00:58And of course what we know is that it's a cyclical thing.
1:01:03What I write about, which gets people
1:01:05very interested in this whole thing,
1:01:08is that the mind is not just about brain activity.
1:01:11It's about what happens in a culture too,
1:01:13like what's shaped by our information
1:01:15sharing in the internet, for example,
1:01:17and what's shaped across media and stuff like that.
1:01:19So mental processes are both cultural.
1:01:22That is they're relational, how we share information.
1:01:25And they're embodied.
1:01:26They're what's happening throughout the whole body.
1:01:29So when you look at it that way and the developing mind
1:01:31kind of explorers this, then you realize, half of the story
1:01:34is the body.
1:01:36The other half is our relational world of information sharing.
1:01:39And so they influence each other.
1:01:41Yes, and we can do one more question?
1:01:43Yeah, great.
1:01:45AUDIENCE: There's a book I read a while back
1:01:46called "Hold Onto Your Kids" by Gabor Mate.
1:01:49DANIEL SIEGEL: Yes.
1:01:49AUDIENCE: Are you familiar with it?
1:01:51DANIEL SIEGEL: I know Gabor, yeah, yes, I'm
1:01:52familiar with it.
1:01:53AUDIENCE: So the basic premise I took away
1:01:54from that was that the attachment of adolescents
1:01:58to peers should not be encouraged but really
1:02:02redirected to the parents instead,
1:02:04whereas you seem to say that peer attachment is actually
1:02:08the norm and actually desirable for adolescents.
1:02:11And how do you feel that parents should approach this?
1:02:15DANIEL SIEGEL: Yes, thank you for pointing that out.
1:02:17So first of all, what happens in modern culture is-- and there's
1:02:23a very important question you were raising--
1:02:25is that adolescents have a natural push away.
1:02:30In all cultures we've been able to study,
1:02:32so in our center, the Center for Culture, Brain, and Development
1:02:35at UCLA, we looked at all cultures
1:02:37that have been studied.
1:02:38And every culture has an adolescent period
1:02:40where the adolescents push against adults.
1:02:42Now, it could be in subtle ways like if you're
1:02:45in a society where they're weaving from the top down,
1:02:49well, you're going to weave from the bottom up.
1:02:51That's your so-called pushing away.
1:02:54But in every society we're able to study, there's a push away.
1:02:58Now, in most societies except ours,
1:03:02there are non-parental adults who
1:03:05serve important mentor relationships guiding
1:03:09the development of adolescents.
1:03:11That's extremely important.
1:03:13But it's not the parent.
1:03:16So where I would disagree the Gabor,
1:03:19and we had a talk about this recently at a meeting up
1:03:21in British Columbia, I don't agree that it's unhealthy,
1:03:29as he points out, for adolescents
1:03:30to push away from their parents.
1:03:32I don't agree with that at all.
1:03:34What I do agree with is the sentiment
1:03:36that adolescents should be launched into the world
1:03:38without any adult involved with them.
1:03:41The challenge we have in this culture,
1:03:43as you've seen from what happened at Penn State
1:03:45and what happens in some religious organizations,
1:03:47is when you get a non-family member adult, sometimes even
1:03:51a family member, involved that's not a parent involved
1:03:55in an adolescent's life, there's abuse that goes on.
1:03:58So understandably, we as parents are
1:04:01very concerned about when you see an adult starting
1:04:04to take on a mentor role with an adolescent boy or girl.
1:04:08So I don't have an easy answer to this.
1:04:10But the general issue is adolescents need each other.
1:04:14They need to have attachment with each other.
1:04:16It's extremely important for their development.
1:04:18And if you look at the work of Susan Harter, H-A-R-T-E-R,
1:04:21I think the research absolutely bears that out.
1:04:24They should be becoming attached to each other.
1:04:26It's a natural part of millions of years of evolution
1:04:29that that's a natural thing.
1:04:31Should they push away completely from adults, their parents
1:04:34including?
1:04:34Not at all, so that I agree with Gabor.
1:04:36For sure, they shouldn't push away completely.
1:04:39So the balance would be how we as a society
1:04:42can figure out how do you have some kind
1:04:45of institutionalized mentor program
1:04:48where you have non-parental adults who
1:04:51are an active part of the essence
1:04:53of adolescence supporting and adolescent's growth?
1:04:55So I think we need to get our minds all together
1:04:58saying, how are we going to invent this,
1:05:00minimizing the risks.
1:05:01Because abuse is a serious risk.
1:05:03I mean, just look at what would happen in these things
1:05:06I'm talking about.
1:05:07So we need to do it in a safe way,
1:05:08but we absolutely need it, because our culture basically
1:05:10lacks it.
1:05:11And in that sense, it's really true.
1:05:13We need to keep adults involved in adolescents' lives
1:05:17but also support them in having attachments with each other.
1:05:20Does that make sense?
1:05:21Yeah, good, thank you.
1:05:25RON: I have one final question.
1:05:27DANIEL SIEGEL: Yes.
1:05:28RON: This is Google, and outliers are kind of the norm
1:05:33here, so I would like to ask--
1:05:39DANIEL SIEGEL: That's why I feel so at home at Google.
1:05:41RON: This onset at 12 and ending at 24,
1:05:44what's the variability on that?
1:05:46DANIEL SIEGEL: Yeah, so first of all, saying it ends at 24
1:05:50is an estimate of when the remodeling generally
1:05:53seems to come to some kind of completion.
1:05:56But the brain continues to change throughout the lifespan.
1:05:58So what I would say is this.
1:06:00I would say adults who can hold onto their adolescent essence
1:06:06are going to live the most vital kind of life.
1:06:10And if you mean by an outlier that you're
1:06:12kind of thinking outside the box,
1:06:14and pushing the limit of things, and all that's
1:06:17a part of adolescent creative explorations and novelty,
1:06:20that's a beautiful thing.
1:06:22And so the number 24 doesn't mean adolescence should end.
1:06:26So a lot of these talks, people come to me,
1:06:28I think I'm still adolescent.
1:06:29I go, good for you.
1:06:30So seriously, I mean, it's a funny thing.
1:06:34The word adolescence has in some connotations
1:06:39a negative spin, like, oh, you're just adolescent.
1:06:43What I hope we can do-- literally we as a society--
1:06:47is change the cultural conversation
1:06:49where you realize the essence of adolescence
1:06:50is actually the essence of adulthood.
1:06:53And we shouldn't let it go.
1:06:55And we should support people who make the outliers really
1:06:58be filled with inspiration for everyone.
1:07:02RON: Thank you.
1:07:02Maybe the natural follow-up question
1:07:04is, do you have people come up to you
1:07:05and say, my spouse is an adolescent,
1:07:08and what can I do about that?
1:07:10DANIEL SIEGEL: Yes, I do.
1:07:12But that could be a lot of fun.
1:07:16RON: Thank you.
1:07:17Thank you very much.
1:07:18Thank you very much, and we'll continue the conversation
1:07:20outside, have book signing.
1:07:22Thank you.
1:07:23DANIEL SIEGEL: Thank you.

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