Lawsagna

"Mandala: The Perfect Circle" Program at Rubin Museum Of Art

Rubin Museum of Art in New York City will soon host "Mandala: The Perfect Circle" - a series of events dedicated to the mandala:

The mandala, one of Himalayan Buddhism's most ubiquitous symbols, is created as an artistic aid for meditation. Depicting a realm that is both complex and sacred, the mandala is a visualization tool meant to advance practitioners toward a state of enlightenment.

Mandala: The Perfect Circle will explore the various manifestations of these objects, simultaneously explaining their symbolism, describing how they fulfill their intended function, and demonstrating their correlation to our physical reality...The exhibition will also display different types of mandalas, including paintings, three-dimensional works, portable mandalas, and ritual objects that are related to mandala ceremonies.

The programs and events that will take place between August 14, 2009 and January 11, 2010 include among other things a "collection of classic films that explore mazes, keys, and passwords as metaphors for the labyrinthine puzzles of our existence," a problem-solving scavenger hunt that "sends math enthusiasts on a tour of Chelsea inspired by the geometric construction of the mandala," and music concerts inspired by the mandala.  Click here for more information.

People in a Good Mood See More

When we are in a positive mood, our visual cortex takes in more information, while negative moods result in tunnel vision, according to a recent University of Toronto study.

In my previous post on "Positivity," I wrote about Barbara Fredrickson's research indicating that positive emotions tend to broaden our focus, enabling us to discover more tools and solutions to life's challenges and ultimately making us more resourceful. 

Now, the University of Toronto study shows that good moods also create such broad focus for our perceptual experience.  In the article "People Who Wear Rose-colored Glasses See More, Study Shows," ScienceDaily reports:

The researchers first showed subjects a series images designed to generate a good, bad or neutral mood.  Subjects were then shown a composite image, featuring a face in the centre, surrounded by "place" images, such as a house. To focus their attention on the central image, subjects were asked to identify the gender of the person’s face.  When in a bad mood, the subjects did not process the images of places in the surrounding background.

However, when viewing the same images in a good mood, they actually took in more information — they saw the central image of the face as well as the surrounding pictures of houses.  The discovery came from looking at specific parts of the brain — the parahippocampal  "place area" —  that are known to process places and how this area relates to primary visual cortical responses, the first part of the cortex related to vision.

The researchers suggest that good moods help us see more in our environment, but the downside is that the broad focus can distract us from critical tasks that require narrow focus, such as operating dangerous machinery.  In contrast, bad moods limit our ability to integrate information that is outside our immediate attention. 

Body Movements Can Influence Problem Solving

Directed movements of the body can, outside of conscious awareness, guide higher-order cognitive processing, according to a new study, conduced by University of Illinois psychology professor Alejandro Lleras with Vanderbilt University postdoctoral researcher Laura Thomas.  PhysOrg reports:

In the study, the researchers asked study subjects to tie the ends of two strings together. The strings dangled from ceiling rafters and were so far apart that a person grasping one could not reach the other. A few tools were also available: a paperback book, a wrench, two small dumbbells and a plate. Subjects were given a total of eight, two-minute sessions to solve the problem, with 100 seconds devoted to finding a solution, interrupted by 20 seconds of exercise.
...
Some subjects were told to swing their arms forward and backward during the exercise sessions, while others were directed to alternately stretch one arm, and then the other, to the side. To prevent them from consciously connecting these activities to the problem of the strings, the researchers had them count backwards by threes while exercising...

The subjects in the arm-swinging group were more likely than those in the stretch group to solve the problem, which required attaching an object to one of the strings and swinging it so that it could be grasped while also holding the other string. By the end of the 16-minute deadline, participants in the arm-swinging group were 40 percent more likely than those in the stretch group to solve the problem.

"By making you swing your arms in a particular way, we're activating a part of your brain that deals with swinging motions," Lleras said. "That sort of activity in your brain then unconsciously leads you to think about that type of motion when you're trying to solve the problem."

Neuroscientist Antonio Damasio said, "The mind is embodied, not just embrained."  This study demonstrates once again the important link between our mind and body, or "embodied cognition."

You can think on your feet quite literally.  So, next time you feel stuck trying to solve a problem, start moving.  Your body may guide your brain to an unexpected solution.  

This study is described in the article "Swinging Into Thought: Directed Movement Guides Insight in Problem Solving" by  Alejandro Lleras and Laura Thomas, appearing in an upcoming issue of Psychonomic Bulletin & Review.  To read the full report and watch the videos of the problem-solving and exercise sessions, click here.

Music as medication

Music can entertain, shift our mood, relieve stress, promote cognitive development, make us better at recognizing emotion in sound, and now scientists search for evidence that music can heal, according to The New York Times article  "Composing Concertos in the Key of Rx" by Matthew Gurewitsch:

But could music ever take its place as medicine?

One expert who is betting that it will is Vera Brandes, the director of the research program in music and medicine at the Paracelsus Private Medical University in Salzburg, Austria. “I am the first musical pharmacologist,” Ms. Brandes said last fall in Vienna. In that capacity she is developing medication in the form of music, dispensed as a prescription. To market the product line, she helped found Sanoson (sanoson.at), a company that also designs custom music systems for medical facilities.
...

In a pilot study, which in 2008 received a citation at the annual scientific meeting of the American Psychosomatic Society in Baltimore, Ms. Brandes and international associates investigated the effects of music on patients suffering from hypertension for which no organic cause can be found.

“Conventionally hypertensive patients are treated with beta blockers, which suppress their symptoms,” Ms. Brandes said. “Music can address the psychosomatic root causes.”

According to her study, listening to a specially designed music program for 30 minutes a day, five days a week, for four weeks, patients experienced clinically significant improvements in heart-rate variability, a major indicator of autonomous nervous function. In her next study Ms. Brandes will subject these findings to a full-fledged clinical trial.

Click here to read the full article.

Watch your reactions: a Zen parable

I came across this Zen parable in the Yoga Journal article "Living on the Edge" by Ezra Bayda: 

On the first day of a four-day meditation retreat, a student went in to see the Zen master with whom he'd been studying for many years. Sitting at the teacher's feet, he asked, "Can you tell me how I'm doing in my practice?" The Zen master thought for a minute, then said, "Open your mouth." The student opened his mouth, and the teacher peered in and said, "OK, now bend your head down." The student bent his head down, and the Zen master looked into his hair, then said, "OK, now open your eyes really wide." The student opened his eyes, and the Zen master glared into them and said, "You're doing fine." Then he rang his bell.

Because the teacher rang his bell, the student had to leave. The next day, he returned, quite perplexed by what had happened the day before. "I asked you how I was doing in my practice yesterday," he said, "and you made me open my mouth, bend my head, and open my eyes. What did all that have to do with my practice?" The Zen master bowed his head in thought. Then he said, "You know, you're not really doing very well in your practice, and the truth is, I am not sure you are ever going to make it." Again he rang his bell.

The student walked out. You can imagine how confused and angry he felt. The next day he went back, still fuming, and said, "What do you mean, I'm not going to make it in practice? Do you know that I sit in meditation for an hour every day? Sometimes I sit twice a day. I come to every retreat. I have really deep experiences. What do you mean I'm not going to make it?" The master just sat there, apparently thinking. Then he said, "Well, maybe I made a mistake. Perhaps you're doing pretty well after all." And again he rang his bell.

On the last day of the retreat, the student went back to see his teacher, utterly exhausted. He felt distraught and confused, but he was no longer fighting it. He said to the master, "I just wanted to know how I was doing in my practice." This time, the teacher looked at him and with no hesitation, in a very kind voice, said, "If you really want to know how you're doing in your practice, just look at all of your reactions over the last few days. Just look at your life."

The wisdom of this Zen parable seems to apply to so many life questions:
How am I doing in my business?  How am I doing in my relationships?  How am I doing as a parent?  Our reactions are often the first indicators of how things really are. 

"How the city hurts your brain" by Jonah Lehrer

Jonah Lehrer, the author of "How We Decide," discusses the perils and benefits of city life as they relate to the brain in his article "How the city hurts your brain ...And what you can do about it" in The Boston Globe:

"Now scientists have begun to examine how the city affects the brain, and the results are chastening. Just being in an urban environment, they have found, impairs our basic mental processes. After spending a few minutes on a crowded city street, the brain is less able to hold things in memory, and suffers from reduced self-control. While it's long been recognized that city life is exhausting -- that's why Picasso left Paris -- this new research suggests that cities actually dull our thinking, sometimes dramatically so."

But the urban environment has its positive sides too, including creativity and innovation:

"Recent research by scientists at the Santa Fe Institute used a set of complex mathematical algorithms to demonstrate that the very same urban features that trigger lapses in attention and memory -- the crowded streets, the crushing density of people -- also correlate with measures of innovation, as strangers interact with one another in unpredictable ways. It is the 'concentration of social interactions' that is largely responsible for urban creativity, according to the scientists."

One of the ways to mitigate the negative effects of city living is to spend more time in natural settings that can restore and replenish our mental energy.  Click here to read the full article.

And check out the Urban Mindfulnes blog for tips on how to stay mindful in the city.

Kinesthetic Intelligence: Learning through Dance

Many cultures value dance as a form of non-verbal communication.  What can we learn through dance?   Is it possible to use dance for self-improvement to gain deeper knowledge of ourselves as we dance or others as we watch their performance? 

I was intrigued by the post "The brain dancer: How about a little movement in your mediation? Just a little?" at Brains on Purpose.  (As a former ESL instructor, I had fun watching the kinesthetic representation of regular and irregular verbs in the video.)   I also happened to be reading the article "A Nonverbal Language for Imagining and Learning: Dance Education in K–12 Curriculum" [PDF] by Judith Lynne Hanna at the time.  She writes:

"Drawing from movements in everyday life, dance stylizes movement with a degree of conventionality or distinctiveness. A multichanneled system, dance is embodied cognition that can convey declarative, procedural, and emotional knowledge, apart from co-occurring with speech or being an element of a sign language."

Judith Lynne Hanna describes six symbolic devices to encode meaning through dance:

"Concretization is movement that produces the outward aspect of something, such as a warrior dance displaying advance and retreat battle tactics. An icon represents most characteristics of something and is responded to as if it actually were what it represents. For example, a Haitian dancer manifesting through a specific dance the presence of Ghede, the god of love and death, is treated by fellow Haitians with genuine awe and gender-appropriate behavior—as if the dancer were actually the god himself. A stylization encompasses arbitrary and conventional gestures or movements, such as a ballet dancer pointing to his heart as a sign of love for his lady. A metonym is a motional conceptualization of one thing representing another of which it is a part, such as a romantic duet representing an affair. The most common way of encoding meaning in dance is through metaphor, the expression of one thought, experience, or phenomenon in place of another that it resembles.  Illustrative of joining different domains are contrastive movement patterns for men and women referring to their distinct biological and social roles. Actualization is a portrayal of one or several of a dancer's usual roles, such as a woman who performs in a dance for mothers, to convey her maternal role."

If we were to use the above devices to encode, for example, the meaning of an interpersonal conflict through dance, what would it look like?  Perhaps, we could explore the conflict as follows:

Concretization:  Use movement to express the development of the conflict and its effects on the lives of the conflicting parties.

An icon:  Represent the other side, or dance in the opposing party's shoes.

A stylization:  Express the feelings about the conflict through gestures and movement.

A metonym:  Convey the most important thing about the conflict though movement.

A metaphor:  Use a kinesthetic metaphor to represent the conflict.

Actualization:  Embody your typical role or your desired role in the conflict.    

What could we learn from this "conflicted dance" activity?  Among other things, we could learn to:

• Express ourselves non-verbally;
• Process our own assumptions, ideas, judgments about the conflict kinesthetically;
• Develop empathy to the movement and body language;
• Explore metaphoric associations;
• Read non-verbal clues;
• Use our body as a guide in making decisions;
• Heighten sensory perception;
• Release emotions through dance;
• Induce emotions through dance;
• Evoke the memory of an emotion through dance.

And it can be a fun workout and stress-relief activity too.    

Is there anything on your mind that makes you feel stuck?  Perhaps, you can explore your challenge through dance.

Tim Brown: "The powerful link between creativity and play" (TED VIdeo)

Tim Brown, the CEO of the "innovation and design" firm Ideo, talks about the relationship between creative thinking and play at the 2008 Serious Play conference.

Emotional improv for interpersonal intelligence

I am a big fan of the the Thiagi Gameletter.  If you are in the learning business, you should definitely check it out.  Their mission is to "increase and improve the use of interactive, experiential strategies to improve human performance in an effective, efficient, and enjoyable way."  The November issue was dedicated to improv activities, including the improve game "Emotional Meeting" by Kat Koppett.  Since I am on the lookout for the awareness-building practices for multiple intelligences, I found, that activity was a great example of such awareness practice that engaged interpersonal intelligence.  You can read the full description of the activity in the gameletter, but here's its brief summary:

"Four people roleplay having a meeting. They enter the room one at a time with a different emotional attitude. Each time a new person enters, everyone takes on this person's emotional attitude. When the individuals leave, in reverse order, the remaining group reverts to the previous emotion."

Some suggested emotions and attitudes to play with include joy, anger, fear, and ambition. 

This activity can reveal a lot about the effect of our emotions on other people and on team performance. 

In your everyday interactions, do you notice when you take on other people's emotions?  How does it affect your actions and reactions?

Related post:  Mindfulness in Movement

Mindfulness in Movement

If you want to bring more mindfulness into your daily life, consider matching your mindfulness practices to your dominant intelligences.  According to the theory of multiple intelligences developed by Dr. Howard Gardner, professor of education at Harvard University, and discussed in his book "Intelligence Reframed: Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Century," there are eight different intelligences that describe the ways people relate to information.   Your preferred ways to process information are your strengths or dominant intelligences.

As I mentioned in my earlier post, I begin with the bodily-kinesthetic intelligence today and proceed with the rest of the intelligences in the upcoming posts.

We engage our bodily-kinesthetic intelligence when we express ourselves through movement and use movement to process information.  If you have a strong bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, it may be easier for you to concentrate when movement is involved.  There are many ways to develop awareness through movement.  In fact, many types of physical exercises can help you get into the zone, a state of mind where you feel focused, your senses are heightened, and time tends to disappear.  So, you can choose whether you want to do yoga or rock climbing to practice mindfulness in movement.  Your physical sensations, your breath, the rhythm of the movement, the flow of energy through your body are all good anchors for your attention that can help you get beyond the mental noise.  Sometimes, simply being mindful of your posture and remembering to relax your shoulders or do a few shoulder rolls can be a centering technique that can teach you to pay attention to your body signals.  Here are a few more examples of kinesthetic practices:

Yoga offers an excellent way to strengthen your mind body connection.  We are often concerned with changing, toning, shaping, sculpting, building our bodies.  Yoga allows us to experience our bodies and learn to respect their needs.  Focusing on the breath, movement and physical sensations helps to quiet the swirl of thoughts in the head and develop better awareness.

A meditative walk not only gently introduces even the most sedentary folks to a more active lifestyle, it can also calm the nerves and clear the mind.  You can gain more self-awareness, energy, relieve stress, improve your body image and your mood – all while walking.   As you walk, train your attention by noticing your breath and bodily sensations or observing the surroundings.  You can also try walking the labyrinth.  Here's how Daniel Pink describes his labyrinth walk in his book "A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future" :

"This labyrinth, which I walked one morning not too long ago, is composed of four-inch by four-inch brick squares.  Eight concentric circles, formed from similarly sized white squares, orbit a center space that's roughly two feet in diameter.  Along the outer edge a few squares have single words stamped onto them: Create, Faith, Wisdom, Believe.  Visitors often choose one of these words, and then repeat it, like a mantra in meditation, as they circle to the center.  I began my labyrinth walk by heading left and walking down the first ring.  As I looked around, I saw a few Medical Center buildings on one side and a parking lot on the other.  Nothing transcendent about this.  It felt as if I was simply walking in a circle.  So I started again.  To avoid distractions, I looked down.  I focused my sight on the two curving lines that formed the outline of my path, and I began walking – as slowly as I possible could.  The lines curled around me.  And after a while it felt a bit like driving on a long empty road.  I didn't have to pay much attention, so my mind slipped to a different place – and that had an unexpected calming effect."

Dancing is another great way to practice mindfulness by noticing how your moods, ideas, and emotions are expressed through movement.  I have to admit that I am biased here because Latin ballroom dancing got me moving throughout college, helped me manage the stress of law school, and allowed me to meet my most wonderful friends for years, including my husband.   Dancing is an excellent tool of self-expression.  Even if it's just you alone in the room, turn on the music that speaks to you and try expressing what you feel at the moment through movement.  No specific structure or choreographed routines – just your emotions flowing through your body.  

Hobbies that require you to work with your hands, such as pottery, woodworking, knitting, or cooking, make it easier to focus your mind on the process and away from nagging thoughts. 

The rhythmic movement of prayer beads in prayer, meditation, or simply during the repetition of affirmations can also be helpful to people with dominant kinesthetic intelligence. 

Do you have any kinesthetic or tactile habits, such as pacing the room when you need to think things over, tossing up a pen, playing with a stress ball?  Next time, use these habits as reminders to take a few moments for yourself and clear your head by focusing on the movement. 

What kinesthetic practices help you to be more mindful?

Awareness practices for multiple intelligences

How do you stay centered when the waves of life come crashing against you?  It's not easy.  We all know how hard it is not to get caught up in a negative whirlpool when we feel threatened, attacked or snubbed.  But it is worthwhile to remember that you can build resilience and inner peace to withstand turbulent times.  When you are able to center yourself, you take power away from difficult people and circumstances.  You are able to respond consciously, as opposed to projecting your own anger, doubt, frustration and letting the emotional whirlpool twirl and spin you around.  

Much like you build your core muscles through targeted exercise routines over time, you can strengthen your center of awareness through consistent practice.  It's like going to a mind gym.  The real test to your mindfulness is not how long you can meditate, but rather how you can take what you learn through meditation and apply it to your daily interactions.  Similarly, the purpose of this mind workout is to empower yourself and develop confidence that you can constructively handle whatever comes your way.  

Recently, I've been working with some of my coaching clients on the ways to match awareness practices to their dominant intelligences.  I will be sharing some ideas for awareness practices for each type of the multiple intelligences in the upcoming posts.  In the meantime, what helps you stay centered in challenging situations?  I’d love to read your comments.

Personal productivity and mind body connection

In our fast-paced world, maintaining focused energy is one of the biggest personal productivity challenges.  Much of the energy drain happens due to the sense of mental overwhelm and frequent information overload.  This sense of overwhelm and inability to cope effectively with the daily flow of information, interactions, and distractions is a significant cause of stress and decrease in productivity for many people.

What stops you from having focused mental energy right now?  Here's a list of common energy drainers and stressors.  Do you see anything that applies to you? 

•    Lack of focus
•    Mental clutter;
•    Mindless distractions;
•    Fear of uncertainty;
•    Pessimistic attitude;
•    Self-criticism;
•    Unrealistic expectations or beliefs;
•    Information overload;
•    Perfectionism;
•    Low self-esteem;
•    Procrastination;
•    Negative self-talk;
•    Overwhelming negative emotions;
•    Resistance;
•    Misalignment between your life purpose and everyday actions;
•    Poor diet;
•    Insufficient physical activity;
•    Lack of sleep;
•    Toxic home or work environment;
•    Lack of social support.

Now, picture the power of the focused energy and how it could transform your life.  Imagine what it feels like to be so absorbed by the task that nothing else matters.  Certain practices enable us to maintain clear focus and add more energy to our days.  Here’s what you can do to boost your energy and personal productivity. 

1. Stop multitasking to avoid the "sprinkler effect."
   If you are easily distracted by thoughts buzzing in your head as you are trying to concentrate on a project, you are not alone.  Mental noise and distractions create energy leaks.  I call it the "sprinkler effect."  Just like the sprinkler cuts through the stream of water dispersing it, distractions dissipate our energy.  Our focus and perception diminish when it happens.  Think of all the distractions throughout your typical day:  a phone rings, an urgent email pops up, somebody interrupts your train of thought, etc.  A common response is to multitask, but multitasking doesn't work.  Our brains cannot do parallel processing if it requires conscious awareness. Multitasking is really a rapid task switching.  The more complex and unfamiliar the tasks are, the longer it is going to take to switch between them.  Multitasking causes the sprinkler effect. 
2. Pay attention:  awareness = mental "White Space."
   We can experience more focused energy if we practice mindfulness and give our full attention to the present moment.  As we cultivate awareness, we gain the state of clarity, or the mental "white space."  In art and design, the concept of "white space" refers to the absence, or nothingness, that makes the content stand out.  White space creates balance.  Similarly, when we are truly present and aware, our perception is heightened.  We notice things we wouldn't otherwise.  We experience more insights.  We respond to situations as they arise without stress or worry generated by mental clutter.
3. Chop up your projects and your work days into chunks.
   Create a sequence of specific, measurable steps to complete your current project.  Set milestones and deadlines to keep track of your progress.  Then, divide your work day into chunks of uninterrupted time when you can focus on your scheduled tasks and eliminate distractions.       
4. Verbalize distractions:  pour your disruptive thoughts onto paper.
   When you feel bogged down by persistent, negative thoughts, write them all down and set the time when you will review the list.  Writing thoughts down decreases their negative influence on the mind.  When your scheduled time comes, review the list and determine which thoughts actually deserve your time and energy.  Develop a habit of verbalizing your fears, doubts, and concerns.
5. Practice WOW: "Witness Ordinary Wonders."
   Present is the only thing that we ever experience, but how much time do we spend projecting our present fears and beliefs into the future or holding on to the constructs from the past that don't serve us well?
   
   It takes practice to be present, but it can be done with any activity, no matter what it is and how small it may seem.  This is about your mental attitude, and not the attribute of the activity itself.  Here's what you do:
   
   Each day, take time to choose an ordinary thing from your surroundings or a simple activity that you normally do almost on auto-pilot.  Approach it as if you have never seen or done it before – with the beginner's mind.  Think of a child who has not learned a label of your chosen item or action and is trying to figure it out.  What new aspects of this familiar object or activity do you notice?  What piques your curiosity?
6. Befriend your emotions, even the negative ones.
   It's natural and human to experience the whole range of emotions.  What's important is how we process those emotions in our minds and our bodies.  There are constructive ways to deal with negative emotions.  You don't want to bottle them up because you will end up with emotional and energetic imbalances.  Instead, you want to let yourself experience the emotion, just be with it for some time and observe.  Recognizing negative emotions, labeling them, and paying attention to the physiological responses these emotions produce in your body may help to counteract their effect.
7. Don't resist, accept:  stewing is worse than doing.
   Do you ever feel so overwhelmed and exhausted by all of the things you need to do that you can only complain and procrastinate instead of taking action?  All this time, you are building resistance.  Many people can relate to this experience.  Resisting and complaining sap your energy.  Whenever you feel the build-up of resistance, you want to stop and think about how you can move from resistance to acceptance.  My earlier post on 5 ways to procrastinate with purpose can help you prepare for action. 
8. Get excited!
   Don't wait for the next holiday to start a celebration.  Make a list of five things that you are excited about today.  What brings you joy when you just think about it?  We all should have something to celebrate each day.  This is a good exercise to do in the morning to begin your day on a positive note.
   
   Next, list five things that you are grateful for or people you would like to thank.  Notice any shifts in your emotional state once you have competed the exercise. Expressing gratitude for things that go well is a sure way to cultivate positive emotions.  Positive psychology studies have linked feelings of gratitude to emotional well-being.
9. Have a clear vision.
   When Michelangelo was asked how he created the sculpture of David out of the block of marble, he said:  "I simply chipped away everything that wasn't David."  You can chip away at marble, but you won't create David unless you have a clear vision. Know what your "David" is. 
10. Eliminate inconsistent goals:  don't try to be in two places at the same time.
    Prioritize and eliminate inconsistent goals.  The goals we set often compete for our time, effort, and resources.  It’s important to know the priority of your goals and check for conflicting objectives.  You may be as passionate about visiting Italy as you are about visiting Brazil, but you can't be in two places at the same time.  You must choose.
11. Use the three "Energize-Rs" to supercharge your days:  rhythms, rituals, and routines.
    Paying attention to the changes in your energy patterns throughout the day is a first step towards bringing more energy into your life.  You can do it with the help of the three "Energize-Rs":  Rhythms, Rituals, and Routines.  Here's the link to my post on these three powerful "Energize-Rs."
    
12. Embrace uncertainty, just like you would do in a casino.
    How comfortable are you with uncertainty?  What stops some people from pursuing their dreams and their mission is fear of the unknown.  Interestingly, uncertainty can actually add to our motivation.
    
    Do you ever wonder how people can spend hours pulling a lever of a slot machine?  It is the uncertainty of the reward that keeps them interested.  The anticipation of uncertain rewards has been linked to the increased production of the neuromodulator dopamine, which is responsible for a focused attention and more pleasurable experience.  Imagine what would happen if you were to get a regular salary for pulling the same lever but no chance of a random win. You’d be bored to death very soon.  The uncertainty of the reward keeps the excitement alive.
13. Practice bodily awareness: think on your feet.
    We all have bodily-kinesthetic intelligence that enables us to learn through movement.  Our body can also guide us in making decisions if we are attuned to our physiological responses.  When you are evaluating your options, listen to your body.  If your breathing is full and open, your muscles are relaxed, and you sense pleasant spaciousness in the chest or head, you may be moving in the right direction.  On the other hand, if your muscles become tense, especially in the shoulder and neck area, you have a "pit" in the stomach, or your attention is scattered, your body may be telling you that something is amiss. 
14. Don't let toxic words poison your body.
    Avoid negative conversations as you eat because the chemicals your brain sends through your body in response to the negative emotions or stress affect your digestion, and you need nutrients for sustainable physical energy.  Don't let toxic words poison your body and block your energy flow. 
15. Open an account at the Bliss Bank.
    Start feeding healthy, energizing images to your mind and you will feel more energized yourself.  Consider opening an account at the "Bliss Bank."  The Bliss Bank is a collection of small things that can cheer you up quickly.  It can be pictures of your kids or your pets, a souvenir from your favorite place, a song or an image.  Your Bliss Bank should be easily accessible at home, in your office, and your car so that you could draw from it whenever you felt sad, stressed out, or simply needed to recharge.
16. Use the power of visualizations: if you don't like what your eyeballs see, use your mind's eye to create whatever you want.
    The images we create in our mind's eye can be as real to our brain as the ones we see with our eyeballs.  Athletes use the power of visualizations and mental rehearsal to train, and so can we to boost our energy.  What could you imagine right now that would help you feel energized?
17. Tune up:  listen to music and healing sounds.
    Music elevates dopamine levels, those "feel good" molecules.  If you think of it, music delivers many of the benefits that people often try to get from food:  stress relief, comfort, energy, pleasure, etc.  So, let's start using music and movement to bring more energy, joy, and vibrance into our lives.
    
    Ayurveda, a system of medical knowledge that originated in India more than 5,000 years ago, explains healing sounds as rhythms and vibrations found in nature that resonate with our bodies.  Spending more time outdoors and listening to natural sounds of wind, waves, leaves, and birds can have a harmonizing effect on your body and mind.
18. Embrace your "wild" side: spend more time in nature.
    We’ve all probably experienced the peace and clarity that nature can bring about.  We don’t need to go far to have the benefits.  Take your pressing problem for a walk in the park.  If you enjoy gardening, remind yourself of the need to love and nurture yourself as you water and nurture your plants. 
19. Hang out with people who can lighten up the room.
    Sometimes, all we need to do to get energized is to talk to certain people. 

• Who are those people with vibrant, positive energy in your life?
• How can you limit your interactions with people who drain you? 
• How can you strengthen your support system?
  
  Taking personal responsibility for your energy also has an effect of attracting more people with positive energy into your life.  Do you know people who can lighten up the room with their presence?  Everybody wants to be around them.  With little practice and conscious choices, you can be that person.

What are your best personal energy management practices?

My video of positive affirmations

How selective are you when it comes to the images that appear in front of your eyes, sounds that you hear, words that you use?  What we feed to our senses affects our perceptions, emotions, and vibrations.  We don’t always have a choice of blocking negative signals, and there is no need to, as long as we have tools to counterbalance the undesirable effects with strong positive messages that help us stay centered, peaceful, and aware.  Visualizations, vision boards, meditation, affirmations are all helpful techniques to bring balance and clarity to our hectic lives. 

Yesterday, I created a brief video of positive affirmations.  I had lots of fun doing it and hope you enjoy it too.  Here it is...  

Using multiple intelligences for health and wellness

Yesterday, I led a session on bridging the gap between information and transformation at “My Ultimate Mind-Body Makeover” event organized by Master Coach, NLP Practitioner and Audio Author Sue Stebbins, the founder of Successwaves.  We discussed the topic of information imbalances and the ways to correct them by engaging multiple intelligences.

We may not think of ourselves as information, but that's what we are:  the cells in our bodies contain information about who we are, what traits and predispositions we have.  The information is also all around us.  It comes to us through a variety of channels:  text, images, people, experiences, dreams, insights, feelings, emotions, etc.  Our reality is, in essence, defined by the combinations of information:  what information we choose to recognize and what information we ignore, how we access and interpret this information, and how we integrate it into the knowledge we already possess.  

Have you ever played with kaleidoscopes - those tubes of mirrors with loose colored beads?  You turn and shake them, and the same stones form different colorful patterns reflecting off the mirrors.  Our minds can be like kaleidoscopes.  We receive the same pieces of information, but they get reflected off the mirrors of our experiences, attitudes, beliefs, and form our own, unique patterns of understanding.

Learning is about taking in information, making it your own, and using it to function well in the world.  I wonder if a person who only uses some information channels but not others is at risk of information imbalances.  For example, as lawyers, we have been trained to rely on our cognitive skills to solve problems and ignore our gut feeling and intuition in favor of critical thinking and analysis.  An unfortunate consequence is that we often stop recognizing the intelligence of our bodies.  The disengagement from the wisdom of our bodies manifests itself in addictive behaviors, compulsive eating, prolonged stress, anxieties, and a multitude of other health and mental issues.  The good news is that this body intelligence is always present and available to us, but we have to re-learn how to access it and interpret its messages.  Engaging multiple intelligences can help open up some of those underused information channels.  Here are some examples:

1. Use your bodily-kinesthetic intelligence to take time throughout your busy day to notice how your body feels.  Think on your feet:  let your body guide you when you need to make a decision.  If you experience muscle tension, a "pit" in stomach, or a sudden headache, perhaps, your body is telling you that you are moving in a wrong direction. 
2. Use your logical-mathematical intelligence to rebel against your own limiting thinking.  Flip your assumptions, mock the established thinking patterns, and come up with fresh, powerful, energizing ideas. 
3. Use your linguistic intelligence to build a healthier vocabulary and ban toxic words that poison your body.  Avoid negative conversations when you eat because the chemicals your brain sends through your body in response to the negative emotions and stress affect your digestion.
4. Use your spatial intelligence to practice stress-reducing visualizations.  Here’s the one I like to use.  Close your eyes and imagine that you are near the ocean.  As you are walking along the shore, you feel the softness and warmth of the white sand under your bare feet.  And with each step you take, your worries and anxieties just dissipate into the sand.  You feel peaceful and relaxed…  
5. Use your musical intelligence to listen to natural sounds of wind, waves, leaves, birds, etc. to harmonize your body and mind.
6. Use your naturalist intelligence to explore how a certain concept that’s relevant to you is played out in nature.  BEAUTY, BALANCE, PURPOSE, HARMONY are all good candidates.  For example, if you want more balance in your life, you can explore how nature manifests it.
7. Use your intrapersonal intelligence to learn what brings you joy and energy and do more of it!
8. Use your interpersonal intelligence to strengthen your support system and share your curiosity, humor, creativity, and appreciation with others.

Related post:  For suggestions on how multiple intelligences can be used in law school, read 8 times smarter : learning with multiple intelligences.

8 times smarter : learning with multiple intelligences

Today I offer yet another approach to reviewing – I’ll call it “transformations.”  The idea is to transform the material presented in one format into a different format and engage your multiple intelligences in the process.  Here are some examples:

Linguistic intelligence.  Make a list of the most challenging concepts and then write a coherent paragraph on each of them as if you are explaining the concept in an article.  Find the most efficient ways to describe legal tests, rules, standards, so that you don’t have to waste time and words when you take an essay exam. 

Logical-mathematical intelligence.  Play with fact patterns and causalities.  Start by analyzing a hypothetical, and once you have your solution, change the facts.   Ask “what if” and observe how the changes in the fact pattern influence the outcome.  List all the assumption you make as you are analyzing the situation.  Verbalize every step in your argument. 

Musical intelligence.  Create musical jingles or rhymes to aid your memory.  Record yourself speaking on the subject:  your voice will reinforce the retention.

Spatial intelligence.  Pick a topic in your outline and rearrange it into a flow chart or a table.  Create a mind-map of what you have read. 

Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence.  Listen to legal opinions while walking around campus.  Do some repetitive movements as you study: you can juggle, do squats, pace around your room.  If you feel creative, try molding a piece of clay as you are learning a concept.  Here are more tips for kinesthetic learners.

Interpersonal intelligence.  Participate in a study group.  Explain the concept you are learning to somebody who has never studied law, answer their questions. 

Intrapersonal intelligence.  Be a reflective learner.  Take time to figure out what works best for you and capitalize on your strengths.  Ask yourself:

• On the scale 1 to 10, how well do I understand this topic?
• What are the most challenging aspects of the material?
• What can I do to learn it better?
• What resources help me most?
• How do I know that I have done enough?

Naturalistic intelligence.  Are there any similar laws, principles or categories that you can observe in the natural world?

8 ways to learn

What was the last time you saw a picture in a law textbook?  I can hardly remember any.  Studying law in a traditional law school setting emphasizes verbal and logical activities: words and reasoning.  However, there are at least six other ways that people can relate to information, according to the theory of multiple intelligences developed by Dr. Howard Gardner, professor of education at Harvard University.  (See Gardner, Howard. Intelligence Reframed:  Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Century.  New York:  Basic, 2000. ) These intelligences are:

• Linguistic intelligence.  People with a highly developed linguistic intelligence are good with words and languages, they can express themselves well and use words as a preferred way to remember information.  To continue with my cooking analogy, food enthusiasts with a high linguistic intelligence who aspire to become a show host at the Food Network can now apply for a new season of the Next Food Network Star. 
• Logical-mathematical intelligence.   People with a highly developed logical-mathematical intelligence are good at detecting patterns, reasoning deductively and thinking logically. Those are the molecular gastronomy chefs from my previous post.
• Musical intelligence.  People with a highly developed musical intelligencer are good at recognizing and composing musical pitches, tones, and rhythms.  These people think in sounds and are often sensitive to the sounds in their immediate environment.  How about creating menus to go with your favorite operas? Food historian Francine Segan wrote a new book of musical meals: The Opera Lover's Cookbook. 
• Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence.  People with a highly developed bodily-kinesthetic intelligence are good at expressing themselves through movement.  Body movement helps them to process information.  The Japanese cooking art of Teppanyaki “on the grill” comes to mind, where chefs cook delicious meals on the tabletop right in front of the guests while skillfully sending metal spatulas and eggs into the air.   
• Spatial intelligence.  People with a highly developed spatial intelligence are good at recognizing and using spatial patterns.  They tend to think in pictures and use them to retain information.  Have you seen what some of the pastry chefs cook up?
• Naturalist intelligence. People with a highly developed naturalist intelligence are good at recognizing, categorizing and drawing upon certain elements in nature.   Perhaps, organic chefs come from this category.
• Interpersonal intelligence.  People with a highly developed interpersonal intelligence are good at relating to people and understanding their motivation, intentions and emotions.  Would you like a personal chef, anyone?
• Intrapersonal intelligence.  People with a highly developed intrapersonal intelligence have a good awareness of their own motivations, desires and feelings.  They tend to engage in self-reflection and self-analysis.   Could that be me in the kitchen? 

Why is this important? 

First, if we can figure out what kind of learners we are and how we process information, we can determine out strengths and weaknesses and predict our biggest challenges in the learning process.   

Second, we can adjust our own studying patterns to rely more on our strengths.  For example, if you suspect that you are really strong on spatial intelligence, you may want to include some pictures, charts, mind maps in your outline for better recall.
 

Third, we may decide to work on some of our weaknesses more if overcoming them is really important for success.  For example, we can pay more attention to our writing and get help if needed. 

Last but not least, we can decide how we want to use our strengths in the practice of law.  Are you great with clients because you have a high level of empathy?  A skillful use of body language may convey trustworthiness to a jury in a courtroom.  If you are sensitive to sound patterns, you may be able to “read” people better at the negotiation table by paying attention to their voice pitch and intonation. 

Anything else you can add to the list?