INTRO: 

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Welcome back to Brain Matters, a podcast where we explore anything and everything related to the brain and learn how we can improve YOUR life.

In our last episode, we talked with Dr.Cate Schultz about play — and why play is not just childish or unproductive. Today, we’re moving from play to brain health. We’ll explore how students can use science, data, and even their own stress signals to better understand their brains and bodies.

What happens to students who track their heart rate, notice their stress, try yoga or meditation, and then look at the data like scientists? And what can that teach us about motivation, learning, and the idea that our brains can change?

 

Vivian: Hi Cate, how do you think high school students like could implement that and are there like resources for teachers to implement them easily or like templates that they can enforce?

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Cate: That's a good question. I mean, I don't know the extent of everything in this out there, I'm sure there's a lot. But I also, I do think that moving beyond play like actually a lot of my research in the last two years has not been on play. It's been on science education more largely, and I have the opportunity.

I've been working on this like NIH funded project called Brain Healthy, and it teaches high school students, and now we've expanded a middle school, but we actually started with high school, about their brain health. But we use hands-on methods, so they become scientists, because they in a non-invasive way. They get to track, they have basically like very similar to a fit bit.But they get to track their heart rate, but they also get to track their stress, and they get to see how it changes. Like if they do yoga, they get to do yoga as a class for fifteen minutes, and then see how that changes, and then they learn about data science by plotting the data, and being like, huh wow, that's great.We had a reduction in our stress on average, but it seems like this one person totally had an increase like I wonder why. That's an outlier? What's an outlier? So it facilitates dialogue about both healthy skepticism in science, but also like scientific literacy, but we also do interviews with the students at the end of every time the schools implement that's part of the research aspect of Education research. And the interesting thing that we've found from the interviews is that all the kids love the hands-on part. Any part that's less hands-on is not mentioned in the interview, but they all love getting to track their own data, and that's not necessarily play. I don't think I would define that as play, but I would define it as something that's as you were saying earlier like much more hands-on, ideas that hopefully they would take away this information and be like, maybe I should, you know, do a few minutes of breathing exercises before I take my big ACT test or whatever it might be and then we had like one student saying and I was like, wow you're like a poster child for the program, but that he's a big basketball player, and he said that he didn't realize how stressed he was all the time even though he feels that he's always operating like that high level, but he started meditating, and now he makes all of his free throes. And I was like good for you, like that's awesome. I was a big free-throat kid in high school too, but like, I can't do it anymore and he was like yeah maybe you should try this meditation thing, which is great. So I think that there are ways to make education more interactive. It just again, it requires a lot of work from a lot of people and a lot of resources often.

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Vivian: I think I need to try that meditating. So is Brain Healthy like kind of like a program you implement at certain high schools and then you take that research? Or is it like a class?

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Cate: Yeah, so it's, we teach health teachers. So we have health teachers that we worked with in New York this year, and they come, we come to them.We do like a professional development session, which is like a three day workshop where we teach them how to teach it? And like how, because a lot of them are health teachers by training, not data science teachers by training, and even though it's you know, developmentally appropriate data science, it's still a little bit outside of their normal field, which is the cool thing of like teaching students that like science isn't just or as you said, are you still freaking physics? But it's also like health related data matters too and might be more accessible. And then they implement it with their classes at a time that works for them. In the past it's been like one or two months, depending on the school schedule, but we're kind of working on a shorter version so that some teachers have more ability to do at least the most interesting parts. Because a lot of teachers have a lot of curriculum, they have to do, like obviously sci-sid is really important, so you just need to make sure you have time for both.

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Vivian: Yeah. Would you guys consider expanding it to like an in-person thing, where like students themselves can choose to go to these programs? or like an online course for teachers.

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Cate: I think yeah, that's like our goal is to publicly disseminate it once we have research of what works, what doesn't, but the reason why it's like implementation right now is because like we're collecting data from students on works and what doesn't. And so we're also collecting data on like, do they show demonstrable increases in data science skills? Do they understand more about like the brain basis of healthy behavior? Do they feel more confident? So we want to make sure that we're editing it in response to student and teacher feedback before we like make it distributed and say this is research back because you want to make sure that you actually have, like true evidence for your claims.

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Vivian: Okay, so you're still in that kind of the development phase right now. 

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Cate: Yeah, I mean, it's been developed.We're in the implementation phase and data collection phase, I actually just like, we have one school that we work with that's pretty low income, and they don't have computer or wifi access at their school. So, we had all of the assessments and surveys physically and so we're working on in putting that manually, so obviously that takes a little bit of more time, but it's definitely worth it to be able to work with that school. That seems like they've been really able to benefit from it and the kids are great when I met them. So, yeah, we're just in the analysis phase right now, and finishing up it. Most schools are like wrapping up for the semester. We plan to do like one more year of that and then, go on to the next thing.

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Vivian: Cool, this is kind of different, but I know it's because like a lack of technology, but I feel like the pencil to paper thing, it's like, it's so much better than the technology, you're like typing online.I feel like, but we all transition to technology in the computer now so.

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Cate: Yeah and I don't even know the extent to which technology and AI and everything changes education now like I think. When I was in high school, AI was not a thing, but maybe it was, but it was not a thing that I was accessing.

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Vivian: Yeah, I don't know, I feel like it's I really saw it, because like in high school. It's like we're exploding, like everybody uses it now, and it's just like kind of normalized. So some students are able to treat failure like getting a bad grade or making a mistake as part of the learning process, while others completely shut down aren't able to take it as well. Why do students react so differently to the same kind of step back, and are we able to train ourselves to respond to failure in a healthier way?

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Cate: That's a good question I feel like, to be honest, I think that in my experience you have to get a little bit comfortable with rejection. It might be like a bold statement, but I think that like, and this is just anecdotal, this is a research back, but I think that like, if you are never getting shot down or rejected from something and everything that's different than failure, then maybe you aren't trying hard enough, like maybe you aren't in a challenging enough environment. Obviously, I was pretty, I was very intimidated by the prospect of applying to graduate school straight out of undergrad, but I was like, I had a few other options of what I think I would be interested in as a career, I was like maybe I'll work in pediatric science education at the hospital for another year or two if I don't get in. But my like mentors and amazing people I'd worked with in England everything we're like might as well apply I mean like you have to handle the application fee and that's pretty much it and like the time, you have to pour into it, but I was like, I'm twenty one at the time of applying,But I might as well try, and I think that if you don't try, then you'll never know. So I think that like I didn't get into every graduate school I applied to, I think most people don't, but I also think that it was like a really positive learning experience, and I'm really grateful that I got into the ones I was able to, and I loved in college. I think that our education program is great and my Ph.D program specifically has been really rewarding. I think that what you talked about is like how students react differently. Actually, it's funny, I just substitute taught a class for my adviser like a few weeks ago that was about anxiety and academic contexts, and which is basically what you're asking, so you told me this question, I was like, oh perfect I have something I can say about it. 

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But anxiety has both trait and state components, which means like obviously people can be somewhat predisposed or just you know you've heard people be like, well she's an anxious person, and obviously like that's true to a certain extent. So maybe we'll have a higher base anxiety than others, but also most people I think when they take the SAT,.and they have to pay to take those SAT, are a little bit stressed about taking those right. So there's both components in certain environments that are going to cultivate higher anxiety than others. But in terms of this retraining, there's a suspicious cycle where often students are really anxious about something, are so anxious that they don't have positive studying habits. So if you're like super overwhelmed, oh my god, oh my god, there's so much content in physics for me to memorize. I'm never going to be able to do it. You have all these negative attributes, self attributions that you're like, I am not the kind of person who can succeed in physics, then you're not going to. It's a little bit like growth versus fixed mindset, if you learned about that?

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Vivian: I think I've heard about it.

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Cate: Yeah. I actually applied to work with her. I think she might retire soon, but Carol Whack did it, and it's like the growth mindset is that like.I might not be great at this right now, but I feel like I can grow this skill and fixed mindset is like I'm not good at this and I never will be. That's an oversimplification of very complex multi years of research,  but if you feel like you're really overwhelmed, you have these negative attributions, and you're just like there's so much content, you end up either like surface level browsing everything, you know you don't and you can probably like I even have this like look back at experiences where you did this and you're so overwhelmed.You didn't know what to study, you didn't engage in the best study habits. So you didn't really prepare as well as you could have despite how anxious you were, then you get to the test, you're so anxious again because it's the test, and you have a really really hard time remembering what you poorly retained in the first place, so then you do valuing on the test, and then you get your test score and you're like wow, I didn’t know about the test, I'm never going to be able to do well again. And then, it kind of reiterates this cycle, but if you can break the cycle and be like, you know what? I might not understand this conjuring now, but I'm going to break it up, I'm going to get through as much chunks as I can in quality, and engage in like study strategies that have been proven to help like explaining it to other students, like writing out your thinking, like diagramming, like really being thoughtful and so just like looking at your notes and crying. Then like, it is really helpful. That's why I think that's sort of what we're talking about in the class. I know one of their exam questions was like: does the anxiety of state and treat components? It was like, yeah, it does, but also like it's malleable like you don't have to be like stuck as an anxious person forever and obviously it differs by person and I think some people need more support than others, but I think that overall like we can retrain ourselves to respond to how a failure in our healthier way being like I didn't get this this time, but that doesn't mean that I'm doomed for life. And I think that that happens a lot like some of the research I do in my two labs. And some of the research that I do in the other lab is a lot about gender gaps in sensor stem. And stuff like that, a huge part of that is like math in Anxiety. So I think that,Yeah. I hope that answered your question. 

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Vivian: yeah I feel like validated because I feel like this year I try to say I try to be more like, just embrace it like I'm just trying to like embrace it and it's like. It is what it is, and I feel like that really helped, and I feel like what you said wasn't a controversial like hot take at the beginning?About like you thought you learned to fail because I feel like personally, I've taken so many risks this year and I've never gotten so many rejections at the same time. I feel like I like gain so much as well, so yeah.

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Cate: That's awesome I mean it's good that you're putting yourself out there because like, we wouldn't be chatting if I didn't get a cold email from someone I didn't know in Braintree.

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Vivian: Yeah, I feel like I've met some of the cool people and I feel like really seem like wow people are so interesting. Oh, also side note, I know you went to Boston College right? You go right now.

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Cate: Yeah, I've been in graduate school at BC.

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Vivian: I went to a college tour and it's like, is unrelated, but the little houses around BC are so cute.

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Cate: The mods?

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Vivian: Yeah.I don't know what they're called, but yeah.

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Cate: I never lived in the Mod. I live off campus with other adult women, but the Mods are very cute, the seniors live in mods and from what I've learned from undergrads I've worked with is that they're a hot commodity like everyone wants to be in them. There's like a lottery system and they get awarded. And they yeah the party ends up in the Mods I think.

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Vivian: Wow, because I thought it was just like in a suburban-like neighborhood, that's why I looked like that, wait that’s cool.

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Cate: Yeah, only undergraduates live there.

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Vivian: Oh okay. Okay so, this is kind of related to what we just talked about. So like some students, they want to improve, but after failing a few times, it can be really hard to like to try again because they feel disappointed. So how can students rebuild that confidence to try again, because sometimes we like it's hard to just accept it.

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Cate: I think yeah we kind of touched on this, but I think that like adopting new study strategies is always beneficial like I think that maybe it's important to like try something that you haven't been comfortable with in the past.Because there's always new ways to learn and grow, and I think that like learning doesn't stop when you're not undergrad, obviously I'm still in a program where I'm taking a lot of classes at a higher level than I was before, but even so like I'm learning more about myself like best note taking strategies and stuff like that. So I think that just like realizing that learning in your methods of learning, don't have to be or shouldn't be like static.

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Cate: Yeah, I know everybody learns differently because there's like people who are kinesthetic like reading or like visual type of learners. What personally worked for you best or like, has worked?

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Cate: It was a good question, I think I'm a little bit like, as you can see, a yapper,  so I actually find that like sometimes like practicing presentations like I'm a fast talker, that's something that like I continue to work on throughout my life, because I've had the blessing through a lot of these amazing research projects have been on of like presenting in a lot of conferences and I still like have my friends being like slow down slow down, and it's like it's an important thing to learn, even though I could jump down this call when I was like make sure you're speaking slowly enough that people actually hear the individual words that you say. And so I think that for me I do thrive up with like, when you're challenged to explain something to someone else, I think you realize the gaps of what you do and do not know, and what you are and aren't able to explain like I think that, a positive thing that's been in a lot of my Ph.D. classes is that like they're two and a half hours long, which is rough, but in that a lot of times, they have students that they have to sign up to teacher component, and like the lesson I teach is always the lesson I best retain, because I'm like in order to like faithfully and also confidently, be able to explain something your peers like you need to actually understand it inside and out and so you don't have to be teaching a class to do that like you can like practices your family or your friends. And I also am a big diagrammer like I do a lot of errors. In undergrad, I was a big fan of the whiteboards in the library. So I like, I did that.

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Vivian: Yeah cool, okay so, I know our 30 minutes is kind of up. So I want to ask you one last question.What is one thing young people should understand about how motivation works in the brain?

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Cate: I think sort of what you're talking about before. Not just on hokey or anything, but I think that it's like your brain is malleable, like neural plasticity is the buzzword, but like I don't know, you could somehow integrate that into the title. Neural plasticity is like your brain can change, and that's why we teach a lot in the Brain Healthy program is like the reason why exercise in yoga and meditation and healthy sleep. All these things that you know should practice what I preach type thing in this program, but like your brain can change and your body can change, and that's not like a bad thing, it doesn't even make something wrong with you beforehand, but it's like, you're not stuck just because somethings hard and also like, I found Calculus super hard in high school, it was so overwhelming, even Pre-Calculus I thought was challenging. But I think that you know not having this constant negative attribution like mindset, and sort of trying to push yourself to be like, I'm someone who knows how to persevere, and this is pushing me down, but like I'm gonna get through it, is something really good and you can rewire your brain to like have those resilience like sort of conceptualizations of your current experiences.

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Vivian: Yeah, I like trying to make myself think like sometimes challenges are fun because if everything was easy then it was just like whatever.

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Cate: Exactly! Some things have to be hard. You know, like Heartbreak Hill. It's called Heartbreak Hill for a reason in the Boston Marathon, but then you're like, what an awesome thing to have all my friends and family cheering for me as I try to get up this hill. I'll get to see the BC people when I go down it, so exactly like embrace the challenge a little bit.

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OUTRO

So the next time you feel stressed, unmotivated, or stuck, don’t immediately assume that something is wrong with you. Pause and ask: what is my brain and body telling me?

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Maybe it’s sleep. Maybe it’s movement. Maybe it’s taking a few deep breaths before a test, a game, or a difficult conversation. As Cate reminds us, the brain is malleable. Neuroplasticity means your brain can change, and you are not stuck just because something feels hard right now.

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See you next time on Brain Matters!

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