The Steady glossary22 terms
Termsin plain words.
The words behind the advice. A short definition to get your bearings, a little more context when you want it.
Memory & learning
Making it stick. Keeping it with you.
Neuroplasticity
Your brain physically changes with what you do, at any age. Slower after childhood, but it never stops.
Read moreHippocampus
The brain's map-maker and memory filer. Helped by walking and learning, smaller in people under long stress.
Read moreConsolidation
The brain turning a fresh, fragile memory into a lasting one. Much of it happens while you sleep.
Read moreBDNF
A protein that helps brain cells grow and connect. Exercise raises it in your blood. What it does in your head is harder to show.
Read moreCognitive reserve
How much wear your brain can take before it shows. Built over years of demanding things, not by an app.
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Focus & drive
Starting, choosing, staying with it.
Dopamine
Not the pleasure chemical. The wanting chemical. It fires for the chance of something, not the thing.
Read morePrefrontal cortex
The front of the brain. Planning, holding back, keeping things in proportion. Works worse when you're short on sleep.
Read moreHabit
A behaviour your brain runs on autopilot when it sees a cue. Built by repetition, not by wanting.
Read moreWorking memory
The brain's desk. About four things fit on it. Everything else falls off or has to be written down.
Read moreEffort cost
What an action feels like it will cost you. Dopamine helps set the price. In animals, less of it made everything cost more.
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Stress & mood
The alarm. The loop. The way back.
Cortisol
The main stress hormone. Useful in the morning and in emergencies, a problem when it never comes down.
Read moreAmygdala
The brain's smoke detector. Fast, crude, and it can't tell a bear from an email.
Read moreThe brake (parasympathetic system)
The half of your nervous system that slows things down. Long exhales and cold water switch it on.
Read moreRumination
Going over the same thing again and again without getting anywhere. Feels like thinking. Isn't.
Read moreLanguishing
One researcher's word for the flat middle. Not depressed, not doing well either.
Read moreHomeostasis
The body's thermostat. Many dials, each held in a narrow range, each pushed back when it drifts.
Read moreAllostasis
The body moving its own settings, ahead of a demand and under long stress. Useful, and it costs.
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Sleep & rhythm
The timing behind a good night.
Body & connection
Hormones, closeness, and the claims around them.
Oxytocin
Sold as the cuddle hormone. It does rise around touch and sex. That it's what bonds you to someone hasn't been shown.
Read moreVasopressin
The bonding hormone, if you're a prairie vole. In people the evidence is thin.
Read moreTestosterone
The main male sex hormone. Genuinely low levels are a diagnosis made from symptoms and repeated morning blood tests, not from an advert.
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