Republic of the Philippines

Department of Education
Region X
DIVISION OF CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY
2 Raboca Drive, Suntingon, Bugo, Cagayan de Oro City
Tel. No. 8526088, bugonhs@gmail.com,

Subject: PERSONAL DEVELOPMET LESSON# : 5

MODULE 5: THE POWER OF MIND

Reading: BRAINPOWER: COMPLEX ORGAN CONTROLS YOUR EVERY THOUGHT AND MOVE
The answer involves thought, as in "I want to get on the Internet"; movement — pressing the computer's power button
and grasping a mouse; memory—like
How did you get here?
No, no, no! It's not a question about your conception or birth.
How did you get here? On this page. Reading this story.
The answer is a lot more complex than, "My teacher told me to read it" or "I clicked on it by

recalling how to use a browser or a search engine; and word recognition such as "Brainpower" and an understanding of its
meaning.
In short, the answer involves a wrinkled, pinkish-gray, three-pound organ that is primarily composed of fat and water and goes
by the name of brain.
You got to this article because that jelly-like mass topping off your spinal cord fired electrical signals to your hand telling it how
to move. You got to this article because your brain stored information about using a computer and the definition of words that
you learned years ago. You got to this article because your brain is working.
Keep reading to find out how it functions, if it repairs itself and if the effects of drug use are permanent.

THE POWER TO ACT

The brain has three major parts -- the cerebrum, the cerebellum and the brain stem. The brain stem
connects the spinal cord and the brain. It controls functions that keep people alive such as breathing, heart rate,
blood pressure and food digestion. Those activities occur without any thought. You aren't telling yourself, "Inhale.
Exhale. Inhale." You're just breathing.
Things are different in the cerebellum. That region controls voluntary movement. When you want to lift your
fork, wave your hand, brush your hair or wink at a cutie, you form the thought and then an area in the cerebellum
translates your will into action. It happens so quickly. Think about how little time passes between your desire to
continue reading this sentence and the time it takes your eyes to move to this word or this one. It seems automatic,
but it isn't.
Neurons, the basic functional units of the nervous system, are three-part units and are key to brain function.
They are comprised of a nerve cell body, axon and dendrite, and they power the rapid-fire process that turns
thought into movement.
The thought moves as an electrical signal from the nerve cell down the axon to a dendrite, which looks like
branches at the end of nerve cells. The signal jumps from the end of the dendrite on one cell across the space,
called a synapse, to the dendrite of another cell with the help of chemicals called neurotransmitters. That signal
continues jumping from cell to cell until it reaches the muscle you need to wave, wink or walk.
The cerebrum is the largest of the three brain sections, accounts for about 85 percent of the brain's weight,
and has four lobes. The lobes-frontal, parietal, temporal and occipital -- each have different functions. They get their
names from the sections of the skull that are next to them.
The parietal lobe helps people understand what they see and feel, while the frontal lobe determines
personality and emotions. Vision functions are located in the occipital lobe, and hearing and word recognition
abilities are in the temporal lobe.
A CRITICAL AGE
Because the brain's healthy functioning is essential to living and determines quality of life, doctors
emphasize protecting the organ from injury and chemical abuse.
There is a consensus among researchers that brain cells regenerate throughout life, said Doug Postels, a
pediatric neurosurgeon in New Orleans, but that new growth happens very slowly after a certain age.
"The size of the brain doesn't increase much after 3," Postels explains.
During the first three years of life, the brain experiences most of its growth and develops most of its potential
for learning. That's the time frame in which synaptogenesis, or the creation of pathways for brain cells to
communicate, occurs.
Doctors generally accept that cut-off point for two reasons, Postels said. First, in situations where doctors
removed parts of the brains of patients younger than 3 to correct disorders, the remaining brain sections developed
to assume the role of the portions those doctors removed. But when physicians performed the same surgery on
older patients, that adaptability function did not occur.
Second, "We know from experiments that if you deprive people of intellectual stimulation and put them in a
dark room, that it produces permanent changes in the brain," Postels said. "That occurs most dramatically before
age 3. After that age, it's impossible to ethically do a study."

prohibit such research on people because of the potentially harmful outcome.

Drug damage
Because so little recovery occurs to brains damaged after age 3, the effects of drugs and alcohol on the
brain might be lasting.
Doctors know what inhalants, steroids, marijuana, cocaine and alcohol do to the brain when people use
them. "The question scientists can't answer now is if the damage is permanent," said Sue Rusche, co-author of
"False Messengers," a book on how addictive drugs change the brain.
Inhalants, such as glue, paint, gasoline and aerosols, destroy the outer lining of nerve cells and make them
unable to communicate with one another. In 1993, more than 60 young people died from sniffing inhalants,
according to National Families in Action, a drug education center based in Atlanta.
Studies have found that marijuana use hinders memory, learning, judgment and reaction times, while
steroids cause aggression and violent mood swings.
Ecstasy use is rising among young people, Rusche said, and scientists have found that drug destroys
neurons that make serotonin, a chemical crucial in controlling sleep, violence, mood swings and sexual urges.
While doctors and scientists know about some effects drugs have on the brain, they don't have a full picture,
Rusche said.
"When people start using a drug, the scientists know nothing about it. These people are volunteering to be
guinea pigs," said Rusche, who is co-founder and executive director of National Families in Action. "Once enough
people take it, scientists apply for grants and start studying it. People are inventive. They find new drugs or new
ways to take old drugs-like crack from cocaine.
"There's a lot we won't know about until later," she said. "The classic example is cigarettes.
We allowed people to smoke for 100 years before we knew about all the horrible things that
nicotine will do. Source: Christy Oglesby, CNNfyi Senior Writer, December 5, 2000 from
http://edition.cnn.com/fyi/interactive/news/brain/structure.function.html

Reading: YOU CAN GROW YOUR INTELLIGENCE

New Research Shows the Brain Can Be Developed Like a
Muscle
Many people think of the brain as a mystery. They don’t know
much about intelligence and how it works. When they do think
about what intelligence is, many people believe that a person
is born either smart, average, or dumb—and stays that way
for life. But new research shows that the brain is more like a
muscle—it changes and gets stronger when you use it. And
scientists have been able to show just how the brain grows
and gets stronger when you learn. Everyone knows that when
you lift weights, your muscles get bigger and you get stronger.
A person who can’t lift 20 pounds when they start exercising
can get strong enough to lift 100 pounds after working out for
a long time. That’s because the muscles become larger and
stronger with exercise. And when you stop exercising, the
muscles shrink and you get weaker. That’s why

people say “Use it or lose it!” But most people don’t know that
when they practice and learn new things, parts of their brain
change and get larger a lot like muscles do when they exercise.
Inside the cortex of the brain are billions of tiny nerve cells, called neurons. The nerve cells have branches
connecting them to other cells in a complicated network.
Communication between these brain cells is what allows us to
think and solve problems.
When you learn new things, these tiny connections in the brain
actually multiply and get stronger. The more that you
challenge your mind to learn, the more your brain cells grow.
Then, things that you once found very hard or even impossible
to do—like speaking a foreign language or doing algebra—
seem to become easy. The result is a stronger, smarter brain.
How Do We Know the Brain Can Grow Stronger?
Scientists started thinking that the human brain could develop and change when they studied animals’ brains. They
found out that animals who lived in a challenging environment, with other animals and toys to play with, were
different from animals who lived alone in bare cages. While the animals who lived alone just ate and slept all the
time, the ones who lived with different toys and other animals were always active. They spent a lot of time figuring
out how to use the toys and how to get along with the other
animals.
These animals had more connections between the nerve cells in
their brains. The connections were bigger and stronger, too. In
fact, their whole brains were about 10% heavier than the brains
of the animals who lived alone without toys. The animals who
were exercising their brains by playing with toys and each other
were also “smarter”—they were better at solving problems and
learning new things.
Even old animals got smarter and developed more connections
in their brains when they got the chance to play with new toys
and other animals. When scientists put very old animals in the
cage with younger animals and new toys to explore, their brains
also grew by about 10%

The Key to Growing the Brain: Practice!

From the first day they are born, babies are hearing people
around them talk—all day, every day, to the baby and to each
other. They have to try to make sense of these strange
sounds and figure out what they mean. In a way, babies are
exercising their brains by listening hard. Later, when they
need to tell their parents what they want, they start practicing
talking themselves. At first, they just make goo-goo sounds.
Then, words start coming. And by the time they are three
years old, most can say whole sentences almost perfectly.
Once children learn a language, they don’t forget it. The
child’s brain has changed—it has actually gotten smarter.
This can happen because learning causes permanent
changes in the brain. The babies’ brain cells get larger and
grow new connections between them. These new, stronger connections make the child’s brain stronger and
smarter, just like a weightlifter’s big muscles make them strong.

The Real Truth About “Smart” and “Dumb”.

No one thinks babies are stupid because they can’t talk. They just haven’t learned how to yet. But some people will
call a person dumb if they can’t solve math problems, or spell a word right, or read fast—even though all these
things are learned with practice. At first, no one can read or solve equations. But with practice, they can learn to do
it. And the more a person

learns, the easier it gets to learn new things—because their brain “muscles” have gotten stronger! The students
everyone thinks as the “smartest” may not have been born any different from anyone else. But before they started
school, they may have started to practice reading. They had already started to build up their “reading muscles.”
Then, in the classroom, everyone said, “That’s the smartest student in the class.” They don’t realize that any of the
other students could learn to do as well if they exercised and practiced reading as much. Remember, all of those
other students learned to speak at least one whole language already—something that grownups find very hard to
do. They just need to build up their “reading muscles” too.

What Can You Do to Get Smarter? Just like a weightlifter or a basketball player, to be a brain athlete, you have to
exercise and practice. By practicing, you make your brain stronger. You also learn skills that let you use your brain
in a smarter way—just like a basketball player learns new moves. But many people miss out on the chance to grow
a stronger brain because they think they can’t do it, or that it’s too hard. It does take work, just like becoming
stronger physically or becoming a better ball player does. Sometimes it even hurts! But when you feel yourself get
better and stronger, all the work is worth it!
Source:http://schools.nyc.gov/NR/rdonlyres/

Note: Maintain a personal journal

You may use these questions as you write in your journal:
1. How do you find this day? What are the positive things that happened? What are those things that made you irritated or upset?
2. As you reflect the ups and downs of your day, what may be the greatest lesson you can learn from them? What actions have you done
well and what actions you can do better?
3. What do you really want in life? What do you want to achieve for yourself, your family, your community, and your country?
4. As you close the day, what are the small and big things you are thankful of? Who are the people that made your day extra special?