Post It to Your Brain

I credit a funny story for the fact that my children have never choked on a small game piece. 

Children like to put things in their mouths. From a very young age all the way up to adolescence, kids love chewing and sucking on things like lollipops, gum, toothpicks, and all sorts of inanimate objects.

As the parents of four kids, I’m very happy that my wife and I have never had to deal with a child choking on something that shouldn’t have been in their mouths.

For this, I have to thank my brother. 

My children have always loved stories about the silly things my brother and I did when we were growing up. One of my favourite stories was when my brother and I were playing a game called Pente. The game has lots of small, smooth glass playing pieces. While we were playing, my brother had one of the pieces in his mouth and he’d move it around as he strategized his next move. The click click click sound of the game piece hitting my brother’s teeth annoyed my mom, who was making dinner in the nearby kitchen. 

“Get that piece out of your mouth!” she told him repeatedly, followed by, “you’d better not swallow it!”

As we continued to play, the click click click suddenly stopped. And my brother, who was usually pretty animated, became noticeably subdued. My mother didn’t notice, but I did. While I was trying to figure out what was wrong, he was ever-so-quietly trying to clear his throat. He looked like a goose trying to honk with no sound coming out. The clicking sound was now replaced with the sound of forced air.

The Pente piece had obviously slipped down far enough that he could just try to get it back up his throat. But it wasn’t working. What was funny was that he was far more worried about my mother finding out than swallowing the piece!

In the end, he did swallow the piece and got into a lot of trouble, having to help my mom search through his poop to see if it went all the way through. 

This story made a big impression on my kids. While some of their friends have had scares with choking or swallowing something they shouldn’t have put in their mouths, mine haven’t. Whenever they hear about kids swallowing things, they like to bring up the story of my brother and the Pente piece. 

That’s the power of stories. Not only do they have the ability to entertain and connect with us emotionally, they are also easily remembered. 

There’s some brain science to explain why this is.

According to a study in the Harvard Business Review, hearing a story can cause our brains to release oxytocin—the brain chemical connected to generosity, love, and trust. This makes us feel empathy for the people involved in the story.

“Stories with emotional content result in a better understanding of the key points a speaker wishes to make and enable better recall of these points weeks later,” researchers in the study say. 

“When the brain detects an emotionally charged event, the amygdala releases dopamine into the system,” says John Medina, molecular biologist. “Because dopamine greatly aids memory and information processing, you could say it creates a Post-It note that reads, ‘Remember this.’”

Good stories have the ability to effectively convey a message that resonates with people, and has them remember it. Whatever message you want to tell the world—from politics, to social issues, to justice at work, to health and safety (such as not putting things in your mouth)—stories are a great way to connect with people, and share what you have to say.