How Your Body and Mind Work
Unlock the fascinating biology and psychology behind how you think, feel, and react every day. Discover why your brain takes mental shortcuts, how your organs communicate silently, and where your body's strangest design quirks came from.
Like Duolingo, but for How Your Body and Mind Work. Tomo turns the whole topic into a game you play five minutes a day, until it actually sticks.
28 levels across 4 sections, about 56 minutes end to end, roughly 11 days at five minutes a day. It moves through Decoding Your Immediate Reactions, Regulating Daily Energy and Emotion, Rewiring Memory and Behavior, and The Evolutionary Blueprint Underneath. It starts from scratch.
Free forever · No credit card · iPhone & Android
Key ideas in How Your Body and Mind Work
- Tiny muscles pull hair follicles upright, which in furry mammals traps a layer of air for warmth
- Erect fur makes an animal appear larger to deter potential predators when scared
- Modern humans retain the reflex even though our sparse body hair no longer keeps us warm or scares threats
- Chilling the palate triggers nearby blood vessels to suddenly expand in an effort to keep warm blood flowing toward the brain
- The sudden swelling of these vessels stimulates local nerve pathways, which the brain interprets as pain in the forehead or temples
- Pressing your warm tongue against the roof of your mouth helps relieve brain freeze faster
- Yawning draws in cool ambient air and alters blood flow to cool down a slightly warm brain
- Research has debunked the traditional belief that yawning is triggered by low blood oxygen or high carbon dioxide
- Contagious yawning relies on social mirror neurons and empathy pathways to keep a group coordinated and vigilant
- As the body transitions into sleep, muscle tone abruptly drops and relaxes
- The drowsy brain sometimes confuses this rapid relaxation with the feeling of physically tumbling or falling through space
- In response to the false fall signal, the brain fires an involuntary muscle spasm to protect the body and reorient balance
- A hiccup begins with an involuntary spasm of the diaphragm muscle, which pulls air sharply downward into the lungs
- Almost immediately after the spasm, the vocal cords snap tightly shut
- The sudden slamming shut of the vocal cords cuts off the rush of air, producing the classic 'hic' sound
- The brain does not work like a passive video recorder; it actively predicts what is out there using prior context
You've tried the other tabs
Thirty open tabs. Four facts you actually kept.
You watched. You nodded. By Sunday it was gone.
One answer, then back to scrolling.
Eight weeks. You meant to finish. You didn't.
Tomo gives How Your Body and Mind Work the Duolingo treatment: levels, streaks, and quick quizzes that test what you just learned. That game loop is what the tabs above never had, so it's the one you actually finish.
Here's what playing it feels like
A real question from this course. Take your best guess.
When a furry animal gets chilly, what do its tiny hair muscles do to help it stay warm?
Get it right to open this lesson and 27 more in the app.
Where How Your Body and Mind Work takes you
- 1
Decoding Your Immediate Reactions
- Everyday Bodily Quirks Explained
- Catching Your Brain's Shortcut Glitches
- 2
Regulating Daily Energy and Emotion
- Operating the Sleep and Alertness Engine
- Navigating Stress and Calming Circuitry
- Reading the Gut-Brain Connection
- 3
Rewiring Memory and Behavior
- How Memories Form, Shift, and Solidify
- Rewiring Habits and Behavioral Loops
- 4
The Evolutionary Blueprint Underneath
- Inside the Body's Immune Defenses
- Evolutionary Mismatches and Anatomical Flaws
4 sections · 9 units · 28 levels. Built to play, not to enroll.
Tomo is in ChatGPT
Tomo is also a ChatGPT plugin: the same playable courses, built and played inside your chat.
Add Tomo to ChatGPT- What to ask
- “Make me a Tomo course on black holes.” “Turn this chat into a Tomo course.”
- What you get
- Quick questions with instant feedback, hearts and stars, ready to play in about a minute.
- Where it goes
- No sign-up to start. Connect your Tomo account and your streak carries on in the app.
You pick the voice
How Your Body and Mind Work is taught in the Bestie style: your friend who just gets it. Want a different feel? In the app you can spin up the same topic in any of Tomo's teaching styles. Same facts, totally different vibe.
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Start How Your Body and Mind Work today.
Download Tomo, search How Your Body and Mind Work, and play your first lesson in under a minute.