2017年8月6日

Summary

Why are some people so amazingly good at what they do？They always dazzle us with their amazingly incredible results.There are always some sorts of exceptions around .

Why can not I do as good as them even if really I work hard？Facing the vast differences,we naturally come to conclude  that this sort of person is born with gentic gift----he is gifted.

Yes ,it's true.Not only us,the normal people,but also the neuroscientists believed that our brains' circuits were fixed,which hints a cruel truth--no amount of practice would help if you didn't have the genes to start with.

Thanks to the great scientific process and the neuroscientists,we can “see” what on earth happened in the brain today.

Our brain is like a muscle in nutshell, and it could change to somewhere we want it  to with our beliberate practice.

The author offers a detailed investigations of the posterior hippocampi of london cabbles and the visual cortex of blinds to testify how our brain is incredibly adaptable  in response to our purposeful practices.

The brain's structure and function are not fixed ,and they change in response how we use them. In other words ,we can say that  the brain can be shaped in the way we desire through deliberate practice.

What a breakthrough！

Then what is deliberate practice？How can we do it？

Everyone know the importance of work-hard. When we run into the wall,we never give up ,on the contrary, we insisit on and even try harder.But it's not the effctive way of practice.We might call it as “naive practice” ,which is mainly just doing someting repeatedly,and expecting that the repetition alone will improve our performance.

But naive practice cannot lead to any  improvement  once we reach the level of acceptable performance automatically ,one the contrary,the automated abilities gradually deteriorate in the absence of deliberate practice.

So we should turn to purposeful practice,which is charactered  with well-defined,specific goals,focused,good feedback and getting out of comfort zone.

In fact most of us are wandering about in our comfort zones day to day.Before getting to the ultimate point we usually stop ,then turn around.However ,the truth is :if you never push yourself beyond your comfort zone,you will never improve.Getting ou of  your comfort zone means trying to do someting that you  couldn't do before.

We are not short of “try harder”,but short of “try differently”.

But purposeful practice is only the basic of beliberate practice,and it has its own limitations.

The most powerful and effective way to improve one's abilities in every area is deliberate practice.

The human body has a preference for stability ,and the technical term for this is “homeostasis”,which means the tendency of a system----any sorts of system of living creature ------to act in a way that maintains its own stability.

The body and the brain have the same feedback mechanisms  in reponse to the outer pushing to maintain the stability.

If you run fast ,your body's all sorts of systems and your cells are not happy with the varied affaires,they will response by calling up some different genes or more complicated things to get out of the formal comport zone to mantain its “homeostasis”-----go into the next comport zone.Your physical force has  improved  a lot.

So is the brain. Brain changes in respose to mental challenges.Push it hard enough and for a long enough,the brain will respond by changing in ways that make that push easier to do.

Regular training leads to changes in the parts of the brains that are challenged by the training .The btain adapts to these challenges by rewiring itself in ways that increase its ability to carry out the functions required by the challenges.

But there are a few details that are worth noting.

First, the training has a larger effects  in the younger people.Second,developing certain parts of the brain by prolonged training will come at the cost of another parts of brain.Finally Stop training ,and they can go away.

Afterall we can think about ourselves in the broadest sense ,----our goal it not to reach our potential but to built it ;to expand it ,to do things possible that were not possible before.

In this sense ,learning is no longer just a way of fulfilling some genetic destiny;it becomes a way of taking control of yourdestiny and shaping your potential in ways taht you choose.

中文感悟

上节作者通过跟踪观测伦敦出租车司机大脑中的海马体以及对盲人及视力不好的中老人的训练以及测试，发现有目的的练习确实让人类的大脑部分发生了很显著的变化，大脑就像我们人体的肌肉一样，也会长大的。

为什么会这样的呢？多少年以来，不仅普通老百姓，就连从事脑神经科学研究的科学家也持这样的观点，大脑的回路是固定的，后天的训练或练习只是让本来人脑就有的潜能发挥到最大，如果你的脑子里没有具备某种天赋的脑回路，那么后天的努力于事无补。

但是随着科学的巨大发展，我们发现事实并不是这样，人脑就像我们的身体一样对于外界的持续不断的练习会有回应，继而不断调整，然后达到一个更高的水平。

人类的身体有一种偏爱稳定性的倾向，所有这些全都不是完全静态的。技术上的术语是“体内平衡”（homeostasis），它意味着一个系统以一种保持其自身稳定性的方式来行动的趋势。比如你跑步，你的整个身体系统都会感受到这种变化，你的呼吸会加快，你的血流速度会改变，当你的运动超过某种界限后，你的身体就会感觉的很不舒服，你原有的平衡已然被打破，你身体的微观部分比如你的身体细胞，细胞的某种基因，等等这些微观的变化非常复杂，总之你的身体被迫走出舒适区，你身体内部的一些变化正在努力达到适应新一轮的体内平衡。所以足够努力地锻炼，并且保持足够长的时间，那么，身体将以各种方式来改变，使得那种努力变得更容易。你会稍稍变得更强壮一些，身体也变得更协调一些。

人的大脑和身体上的这种适应能力一样，从事智力型的训练活动，能够触发大脑结构的变化。作者通过观察小提琴手，科学家等的大脑变化给我们论证了人脑的这种适应能力。经常性的训练会使大脑中受到训练挑战的区域发生改变。大脑通过自身重新布线的方式来适应这些挑战，增强其接受那些挑战所需的能力。然而，对大脑的训练还是有几点值得注意，1.年轻人的大脑，儿童和青少年的大脑，比成年人的大脑更具适应能力，因此，年纪越小，训练产生的影响也越大。2.通过超长时间的训练来发展大脑中的某些部位，可能得付出一些代价，大脑在其他部位的能力可能会相对弱化。3.由训练引起的智力变化需要继续保持。如果停止训练，它们便开始消失。

当我们了解了人体和大脑超强的适应能力之后，我们就可以从完全不同的视角来看待我们自己，这会让我们考虑一种全新的学习方式。

传统的学习方式不是专门用于挑战体内平衡的，这种学习只是发挥你的内在潜力，同时也意味着你可以发展某一特定的技能或能力，而不用走出你的舒适区太远。然而，对于刻意练习，我们的目标不仅仅是发掘自己的潜能，而且要构建它，从前不可能做到的事情变得可能做到。这就要求挑战体内平衡，走出你的舒适区，并迫使你的大脑或身体来适应。学习不再是完成遗传的方式，而是变成了一种控制你自己命运的方式，一种按按照你选择的方法构筑潜力的方式。

我想这也是这本书带给我们的最大的勇气吧。我们可以掌握我们自己的命运，我们可以按照我们的选择发展我们的天赋。天赋并不是遥不可及，它其实就在于你自己。

单词部分

1.catch n.[可数名词, 常用单数形式] a hidden difficulty or disadvantage 隐藏的困难；暗藏的不利因素

But there is a catch :once the comensatory changes have occurred--....

The catch is what is problem caused him so unhappy.

2.burnout n.精疲力竭；劳累过度 also burn-out. If someone suffers burnout, they exhaust themselves at an early stage in their life or career because they have achieved too much too quickly.

Pushing too hard for too long can lead to brunout and ineffctice learning.

Many students have burnout after taking exams.

3.upkeep  n.维修；保养；养护 The upkeep of a building or place is the work of keeping it in good condition.

The cognitive and physical changes causedby training requires upkeep.

The upkeep of a big house is very expensive.