everyone's born with the same brain right all brains have 100 billion neurons so why are some brains more capable than others some people are able to focus more be more creative While others procrastinate struggle with everyday tasks why is there so much difference the good news is that because of neuroplasticity anyone at any age can learn skills that can make them as good as anyone else and that is what we are going to talk about in today's video hi everyone I'm DR sidhart warrior I'm a neurologist and welcome back to my YouTube channel where we talk about neuroscience and everything if you haven't subscribed to it yet consider doing so you will find more such videos on your timeline and that'll only benefit you so if you've been following my channel you already know that the prefrontal cortex in your brain is the most evolved part of the brain and it is responsible for some very important tasks like planning your future or sustained attention or even calculating the risk of something bad happening to you so if you want to train your brain to become more productive you are actually training your prefrontal cortex so let's understand five things that your prefrontal cortex does and how you can improve each one of them number one is goal directed Behavior the prefrontal cortex are specifically a part called a frontop polar area in the PFC is responsible for planning ahead this part has the job of planning what you will do later and also predicting how will you do it and the key word here is prediction the better you are able to predict your own behavior the stronger your prefrontal cortex gets a simple way to do this is to add a timer to all your to-do lists and predict how much time will it take for you to complete a particular task the second thing that your PFC does is pattern recognition your PFC has the job of quickly analyzing a situation breaking it down into smaller parts and putting it together to understand a situation in its own way how you can practice this is by playing games like jigsaw puzzles Rubik's Cube and even games like Sudoku and solving crossword puzzles Studies have found that older people who solve Sudoku and crosswords have a later onset of memory problems like dementia and Alzheimer's disease the third thing that your PFC does is language there's an area in the PFC called broadcast area which is responsible for figuring out what words you are going to use and what will you say the way to make this area stronger is to practice speech and writing I've made a video already on how you should Journal so if you want to see that you can check it out here but today I'm here to tell you that the act of journaling or writing down your thoughts is a way to strengthen your broadcast area so the more you speak up out complex things the more you teach other people or the more you write abstract thoughts the stronger the language area becomes and the stronger your PFC becomes the fourth thing that your PFC does is inhibition or in other words it develops the ability to say no now remember that the lyic system which is the old part of your brain is constantly chasing after something that is pleasurable or running away from things that it considers as a harm in other words it is constantly trying to sway your attention from your goal now the only way that the PFC can stick to its path is if it develops the ability to say no now the good news is that the ability to say no is a neural network just like anything else the more you practice saying no the easier it becomes so practice saying no to small things to everyday things for example go to a supermarket take a walk and don't buy anything and come out or the next time you feel like binge eating something eat one chip and put the packet away practice saying no to yourself more and more and you will see how much more in control you feel and finally the fifth thing that your PFC does is movement your prefrontal cortex has two movement areas one is the visual eye field which controls where your eyes will go and the other is the primary motor cortex which controls the rest of your body's movement the more you practice these two movements the strong stronger your PFC gets so how do you control your eye movement a simple eye exercise is the candle test put a candle in front of you and gaze at the flame and do not let your eyes move or flicker away from it the longer you're able to hold your gaze the stronger your attention networks become there's a yogic meditation practice called trataka meditation which talks about the exact same thing try it out and tell me how long you are able to maintain your Gaze on the candle flame when it comes to your body's movement and your primary motor cortex all forms of physical exercise helps build those networks now here's a very important point that I wanted to share with you all movement is based on dopamine spikes now you know that dopamine is the pleasure or motivation chemical so here is a very simple hack for anytime you feel that you are low on motivation just get up walk for a minute swinging your arms and come back and sit and see if your motivation level has changed what happens is just by the act of movement the dopamine levels in your brain go up and you will feel more motivated than you did before I call this the kickstarter strategy I compare it to kickstarting a scooter that wouldn't have started otherwise just by moving you get more motivation try it out and tell me if this works for you so these are five different training techniques for you to try at home to strengthen your prefrontal cortex I hope this video was useful if you liked it hit the like button subscribe to the channel it means a lot to me and I will see you guys in the next one bye everyone take care