The 10-Second Brain Hack Scientists Want You To Try

The brain is a highly complex part of the body. Rather than being a unified organ, the anatomy of the brain might surprise you because it's divided into sectors that each have their own distinct function. Coordination between these sectors is important but doesn't always happen by default. To get the coordination started, scientists suggest a brain hack that only takes 10 seconds.

Let's start with why impulsive reactions occur — from saying something in the heat of an argument to spending more than you intend during a sale. In the brain's limbic system, the amygdala is responsible for those impulses because it activates automatically, mostly unconsciously, within milliseconds. The prefrontal cortex is the sector of the brain responsible for self-control, logical analysis, and planning. However, it takes longer to activate and requires conscious thought. That's when a 10-second pause can be beneficial, helping you avoid impulses that you would regret later.

In a study published in Cognition and Emotion, researchers found that people who pause after a negative evaluation aren't as angry as those who don't pause. They concluded that this pause essentially short circuits strong emotions before they can develop. Another study published in Communications Psychology found that introducing a short delay of five to 15 seconds while couples are in conflict reduced aggression. Although the length of the required break didn't impact the results, couples who elected to take a longer break exhibited even less aggression. Both of these studies indicate that waiting just 10 seconds when a potentially impulsive situation arises gives the prefrontal cortex time to activate and prevent regrettable reactions.

Along with helping prevent impulsiveness, the 10-second brain hack is a way to increase your intelligence or ability to learn a new skill. It's similar to using spaced repetition to make exam time a breeze, which is an evidence-based method to improve your memory by reviewing information in intervals.

Researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) conducted a study of healthy volunteers and published the results in Current Biology. During learning and memory experiments, the volunteers typed a series of numbers as many times as possible for 10 seconds, rested for 10 seconds, and repeated the cycle 35 more times. The accuracy of the number typing significantly improved as the experiment progressed. After looking at the brain waves and reanalyzing the data, the researchers discovered that the volunteers' skills primarily improved during the resting period rather than the active typing period. Additionally, the improvement was greater at the end of the experiments than the next day after the volunteers had a full night of rest.

Another NIH study published in Cell Reports focused on mapping brain activity while healthy volunteers learned a new skill to find out why short breaks are the key. Using a proprietary computer program to analyze the volunteers' brain waves, the researchers discovered that the brain replayed the activity during the 10-second breaks. These replays occurred in the sensorimotor regions and about 20 times faster than the volunteers actually completed the tasks. At the same time, there was some activity in the hippocampus and entorhinal cortex as well, suggesting that these three regions are communicating and that waking rest is an even more powerful tool for learning new skills quicker.