Dopamine is a feel-happy brain chemical. When we’re happy, dopamine runs around, keeping us that way. Lots of things cause our brains to make it.

Our anger has fizzled. A new chemical takes over. Dopamine (doh-pah-meen) is the main one. There are others, but dopamine is the happy chemical.

It’s the one that makes you smile.

What happens in our brains when we’re happy? Glad you asked. Happiness is your friend. It lets your brain do all sorts of beautiful things.

Introducing: the hippocampus. Your amygdala is always ready to put you in fight, flight or freeze mode. The hippocampus is the brain part that lets in new memories. It helps call up old ones.

Last time, we saw that your brain can work quickly. Like, it’s fast. Supersonic fast. When it’s humming, it can out-think supercomputers.

Add in your human emotions; you’ve got the world’s best thinking machine. Speaking of emotions, let’s look at how they work in our brains.

Your brain stores everything that makes you you—all of your learning, memories, and whole life. You can shape yourself into any type of person you want to imagine–musician, writer, sportsperson, dancer, builder, scientist. 

I spent the holidays watching people water ski.

Let’s have a re-cap of the school term.

HYour brain rewards you whenever you achieve something, no matter how small. You finally balanced on your bike. You nailed that dance step. You felt good, right? Good moods are essential for learning and remembering. 

One of the best things about our brains is their skill at remembering things. Most likely, you have lots of memories. They can be simple memories or brain pictures.

I hate love this. Our feelings affect how we learn.

There is good news about practising.

We learn best if we create habits of learning.

How’s your practice going? Are you sticking with it?

You know, I bet you practise lots of things.

Repeat to remember–remember to repeat

Practicing a skill is a great way to remember and get better at it.

Remember those hard working monks in the Middle Ages? Slaving away all day writing out the Bible by hand. One letter after another, one word at a time.

Think about a terrific story you’ve read. Or a story that someone read to you. Now think about a great movie you’ve watched.

Yew, that’s a bit creepy. But stay with me. Writing always comes before reading. If no-one wrote anything, there’d be nothing to read.