Brain, Body & Wellbeing Science

Body signals include heart beating fast, tight tummy or chest, feeling hot or shaky, tiredness, hunger, thirst — each tells me something specific.+2 more

My body gives me information about how I feel before I think about it.

I can complete a rubric-assessed oral or written explanation task that names at least three body signals and what each typically indicates, and describes in my own words what sleep and food do for the body and brain.

The fight-flight-freeze response: when the brain detects a threat, the heart beats faster, breathing quickens, muscles tense, and the body prepares to defend, escape, or stay still.+2 more

My body's stress response happens automatically to protect me, and my habits run as a repeated loop — neither is a choice in the moment.

I can complete a rubric-assessed written or oral explanation that describes what happens in the body during a fight, flight, or freeze response, and explains the three parts of the habit loop using my own example.

The amygdala is a threat-detection region; when it fires strongly, it reduces activity in the prefrontal cortex, making clear thinking harder during stress.+3 more

Specific brain structures have specific functions, and my brain changes in response to what I repeatedly practise or experience.

I can complete a rubric-assessed written explanation that describes how the amygdala and prefrontal cortex interact during a stressful moment, explains neuroplasticity in my own words with a concrete example, and describes how the habit loop explains behaviour change at mechanism level.

Core neuroscience vocabulary: amygdala, prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, basal ganglia, hypothalamus, pituitary, adrenal glands, cortisol, dopamine, autonomic nervous system (sympathetic and parasympathetic branches).+3 more

Stress, emotion, attention, and habit are not separate domains I can work on one at a time — they operate as an interdependent system where a change in one affects the others.

I can complete a rubric-assessed written explanation that uses accurate neuroscience vocabulary to describe how stress, emotion, attention, and habit interact as a system, and explains the role of the HPA axis in the stress response.

Allostatic load: cumulative wear on the body from repeated or chronic stress-system activation; long-term effects include immune suppression, cardiovascular risk, and mental-health effects.+3 more

Understanding a mechanism is useful only if I can apply it — applying neuroscience means evaluating claims made in its name, not just restating the system.

I can complete a rubric-assessed written evaluation of a specific wellbeing intervention (mindfulness, exercise, breathwork, sleep-hygiene, or similar), explaining its proposed mechanism, summarising what the evidence suggests about its effectiveness, and articulating what it would and would not change in the stress-emotion-attention-habit system.

Affective neuroscience is a developing field with unresolved debates (e.g. discrete-emotion vs. constructionist theory; cross-cultural generalisability of emotion categories).+3 more

Neuroscience is a developing field with unresolved debates, and the gap between research findings and popular application is often large — mature wellbeing literacy includes knowing where the science is solid, contested, or simply unknown.

I can construct a rubric-assessed critical essay on a contested claim in wellbeing science that identifies where the evidence is strong, where it is uncertain, where popular accounts have oversimplified or misrepresented research, and states my reasoned position with specific evidence.