Happy Holidays!
I've recorded this brief video message to thank you and wish you a great holiday season and a fantastic New Year, filled with joy, love and prosperity.
December 21, 2009
December 17, 2009
December 08, 2009
December 04, 2009
November 30, 2009
November 12, 2009
How To Think Clearly Under Pressure
About a week ago, I was at a seminar conducted by David Rock, the author of the recently published book "Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long."
It was an engaging and thought-provoking presentation that challenged many of our typical work habits that we think serve us well. One of the insights had to do with thinking clearly under pressure. We've all been there: when we need to come up with a solution fast in stressful circumstances, and our mind "freezes." There's an explanation for that.
The prefrontal cortex, the brain region implicated in planning complex cognitive tasks, decision making, and moderating correct social behavior, is easily overwhelmed. We can process just about seven pieces of information in our conscious mind at any given moment. The more data we have to deal with, the harder it becomes to think clearly.
In addition, our frontal lobes consume lots of energy. When we experience strong negative emotions, as when we are angry or under stress, the glucose goes to the amygdala in the limbic system of the brain, triggering the "fight or flight" mode. The prefrontal cortex doesn't have enough energy to think clearly anymore. That's how our mind "freezes."
On top of that, our brain is more attuned to negative information and tends to perceive anything unfamiliar as a threat. Uncertainty is a threat. Change is a threat. Loss of face is a threat. This response has good evolutionary reasons, it helped our predecessors survive. Most of the threats in our daily life, however, are not "life or death" scenarios, but the brain is wired to react to them as if they were that serious. With all that negativity bias of the brain and the limited capacity of the prefrontal cortex, how can we think better under pressure? The following three steps may help.
It was an engaging and thought-provoking presentation that challenged many of our typical work habits that we think serve us well. One of the insights had to do with thinking clearly under pressure. We've all been there: when we need to come up with a solution fast in stressful circumstances, and our mind "freezes." There's an explanation for that. The prefrontal cortex, the brain region implicated in planning complex cognitive tasks, decision making, and moderating correct social behavior, is easily overwhelmed. We can process just about seven pieces of information in our conscious mind at any given moment. The more data we have to deal with, the harder it becomes to think clearly.
In addition, our frontal lobes consume lots of energy. When we experience strong negative emotions, as when we are angry or under stress, the glucose goes to the amygdala in the limbic system of the brain, triggering the "fight or flight" mode. The prefrontal cortex doesn't have enough energy to think clearly anymore. That's how our mind "freezes."
On top of that, our brain is more attuned to negative information and tends to perceive anything unfamiliar as a threat. Uncertainty is a threat. Change is a threat. Loss of face is a threat. This response has good evolutionary reasons, it helped our predecessors survive. Most of the threats in our daily life, however, are not "life or death" scenarios, but the brain is wired to react to them as if they were that serious. With all that negativity bias of the brain and the limited capacity of the prefrontal cortex, how can we think better under pressure? The following three steps may help.
- Become aware of the strong negative emotions and how they affect your thinking. Self-awareness is the most important brain optimization tool. Without it, you are prone to repeat the same patterns over and over again because the brain likes to conserve energy, predict your typical responses, and activate them automatically.
- Label the negative emotion you are experiencing. Studies have shown that labeling emotions with just a word or two reduces their effect. Say the label out loud if you can.
- If your emotions are triggered by a specific situation, try to reframe it in a less threatening way for the brain. Your interpretation needs to make sense, and it must be believable to you. One more thing. You have just a few seconds to reframe before the prefrontal cortex experiences the energy drain. Not a lot time, I know, but it's worth practicing if you want to learn how to think clearly under pressure. Remember: things are rarely as good or as bad as they seem.
November 05, 2009
October 29, 2009
October 28, 2009
October 12, 2009
How to deal with difficult people, rejections, and negative opinions of others
How do you deal with difficult people? Are you bothered by conflicts, rejections, or negative opinions of others? Most of us are. Somehow, it's hard to stay detached and let go. Some of us spend much time reflecting on past conversations, thinking of what was said, and how it was said, and what it meant.
I notice how my 4-year-old daughter is learning her social skills. When she comes back from her playschool, she now likes to talk about who her friend is and who isn't, and who is "mad" at whom. Their friendships and preferences come and go, and their little disagreements and disappointments with one another are easily forgotten. It's all light-hearted at this point. Interestingly, it is in this tender age, before our cognition is fully developed, when we form many of our subconscious brain maps and beliefs. And as we grow, these subconscious beliefs may make it more difficult for us to forget, forgive, and move on.
The good news is that we can change our reactive patterns. We cannot control other people's behavior, so the best approach is to learn to manage our own responses. It becomes easier if we understand how our brain responds to perceived threats. Because so many of our beliefs are subconscious, as adults, we may not even be aware of what pushes our buttons and why. We may just notice that we become defensive, stressed, or self-critical. If the brain recognizes something as a threat, it activates the amygdala, which is part of the limbic system of the brain, responsible for the emotional control and memory of our emotional reactions. The limbic system can process something as a threat even before the stimulus reaches conscious awareness, triggering the "fight or flight" response. Our body is then flooded with cortisol, and the decision-making and rational parts of the brain shut down to mobilize our resourced for the attack or retreat.
In addition, the brain evolved to be sensitive to status and authority, i.e. how we look relative to someone else. As a result, we tend to worry about what others think of us.
Sometimes, just understanding these "quirks" of the brain and becoming aware of what's happening to us in the moments when our buttons are pushed can be helpful. Reframing the situation to lessen the threat is also helpful. We can change the brain's processing of our usual triggers if we consciously choose a behavior different from what we tend to do. In other words, we can create new neural pathways in the brain with better responses. So, once we become aware of what's happening, it helps to switch our mind to something that produces positive emotions fast and can reward the brain with the "feel good" molecules, like dopamine. The quicker we can replace the negative reaction with a positive one and the longer we can sustain the positive, the easier it will be for the brain to rewire itself.
Next time you have to deal with negative reactions, difficult people, or explosive situations, start practicing this "reframe-switch-sustain" approach. A similar process was used by psychiatrist Jeffrey Schwartz to treat obsessive-compulsive disorder patients and described in his book "Brain Lock: Free Yourself from Obsessive-Compulsive Behavior."
Finally, it's good to remember that our brains are social and mirror emotional responses. We have the power to manage our own reactions and help others step out of their trigger points if we engage with love, kindness, fairness, and support.
October 07, 2009
September 29, 2009
September 23, 2009
September 17, 2009
Fortune Cookie
Laugh at annoyances,
Smile at provocations,
Breathe through the frenzy,
Be grateful for all life lessons.
September 10, 2009
If you want to improve focus, ask these two questions
"What we call thinking is also a process whereby psychic energy gets ordered. Emotions focus attention by mobilizing the entire organism in an approach or an avoidance mode. Goals do it by providing images of desired outcomes. Thoughts order attention by producing sequences of images that are related to each other in some meaningful way."
~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, "Finding Flow"
~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, "Finding Flow"
Back in the fall of 1997, I was getting ready to apply to law school. As part of the application process, I had to take the LSAT exam. All I remember about the day of the exam now is that it was beautiful and sunny, and I didn't look forward to spending most of it in a classroom full of agonizing law school applicants, like myself, trying to figure out logical patterns and compose essays. The rest is murky in my memory right now. What I also remember is that a couple of months later, I got a big yellow envelope in the mail, and I was very anxious to open it because I expected to see the results of my test. To my surprise, the envelope didn't have my LSAT score. Instead, it had a letter stating that I had an option of retaking the exam if I wished because something had happened during the test. Apparently, a car alarm went off nearby while the exam was in progress, and the noise lasted for a while and distracted a number of test-takers. They complained to the organization that administered the LSAT, which resulted in the option to retake the whole exam. Interestingly, I didn't remember hearing any car alarm during the exam. I wasn't distracted by it - it simply didn't register in my mind. Nevertheless, I had a decision to make whether to take the LSAT again, in which case it would override the score of the earlier exam, and of course, I had no idea how I did on the first test. I didn't want to take it again, so I opted out. Fortunately, I did all right the first time around, so I didn't come to regret my decision.
You may be wondering by now why I am telling you this story, and I promise, it is relevant to what I am about to share with you. The reason I was able to tune out the noise during that exam is not because I can focus so well or because I have hearing difficulties. More likely, it was because I incidentally tapped into the secret ingredient of focus power. If this ingredient is present, your ability to focus increases significantly. When it's absent, your mind may be looking for a distraction or preoccupied with worry, doubt, or anxiety.
So, would you like to know how to turn your mind into a laser beam? Getting the secret ingredient right is not always easy but well-worth a try. It was discovered by psychologist Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi and described in his book "Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience"
The best moments usually occur when a person's body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile….Such experiences are not necessarily pleasant at the time they occur. The swimmer's muscles might have ached during his most memorable race, his lungs might have felt like exploding, and he might have been dizzy with fatigue – yet these could have been the best moments of his life.
Csikszentmihalyi calls this state of engagement "the flow." If you want to have a better chance to be absorbed in an activity, ask yourself the following two questions:
• Is this too easy for me?
If it is, you will likely become bored quickly and lose focus. Your brain will look for something else to attend to.
• Is this too difficult for me?
If the activity is too hard, your brain will view it as a threat, triggering strong emotions. In this case, you lose concentration because you feel anxious, stressed or full of doubt.
The magic happens when you get it right, when you are challenged and stretched by what you are doing, but your mind perceives it as doable.
That's what probably happened during my LSAT test. I had practiced and believed I could do it, so it was a challenge that matched my skills, which helped me stay focused.
As you go about your days, ask yourself the two questions above and remember that your power to focus lies somewhere in the middle between "too easy" and "too hard."
September 01, 2009
TED Talk: Dan Pink on the surprising science of motivation
Daniel Pink, the author of "A Whole New Mind"
Autonomy: The urge to direct our own lives.
Mastery: The desire to get better at something that matters.
Purpose: The yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves.
Mastery: The desire to get better at something that matters.
Purpose: The yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves.
August 20, 2009
The best smell for your brain: the science of olfaction and emotion
What comes to mind if I ask you to imagine that you are at the following places:
- a bakery,
- a candle store,
- a hospital,
- a rose garden,
- a perfume counter?
One of your associations is likely to be the sensation of smell because all of the places above have strong aromas. Does it feel like you can almost smell them? Those aromas can quickly change your moods and emotions, and evoke memories. Why do odors play such a significant part in our emotional regulation?
The sense of smell is the only one of the five senses directly linked to the limbic system – the center of emotions in the brain. According to "Essential Oils Desk Reference,"
Alan Hirsch, M.D., F.A.C.P., the founder and neurological director of The Smell & Taste Treatment and Research Foundation, explains this quick connection between odors and emotions in his interview for the medical journal Alternative & Complementary Therapies [PDF]:
What makes the sense of smell unique among the senses is that the brain reacts positively or negatively to an odor before identifying the source of the odor. That is, a person encounters a pleasing smell and his or her reaction is one of pleasure. Then, a second later, the person figures out that he or she had smelled lilacs. Visually, one sees a picture of a tree or a cow and first identifies the subject, and then determines whether or not he or she likes the picture. This is the opposite of the sense of smell; with smell emotional reaction comes first.
As we all know, smells can also transport us into the past. In one of his studies, Dr. Hirsch discovered the number-one odor to evoke childhood memories. Can you guess what it is?
We looked at 989 people from 45 states and 39 countries, and found that the number-one odor that made people nostalgic for childhood was baked goods. After that, it depended on when and where they grew up. If they grew up on the East Coast of the United States, the smell of flowers made people nostalgic for childhood. In the South, it was the smell of fresh air; in the Midwest, the smell of farm animals; and in the West it was the smell of meat cooking or meat barbecuing.
It turns out that environmental smells affect our behavior. In the same interview, Dr. Hirsch reports that people drive more aggressively on days when there is bad smell of air pollution, causing an increase in motor-vehicle accidents. Bad environmental odors tend to promote aggression, impede learning, and encourage school kids to misbehave.
I don't know about you, but I am about to diffuse some peppermint oil to improve my environment. It helps with task performance by increasing concentration, enhances athletic performance [PDF], and curbs appetite [PDF]. Smells good to me!
Related Posts:
Do you smell success?
Want to be a better problem-solver in your dreams?
Orientation Series: 21 Steps to Becoming a Better Learner: Memorizing
To learn more about essential oils: http://www.smartessentialoils.com
August 14, 2009
August 12, 2009
August 10, 2009
July 31, 2009
July 23, 2009
July 17, 2009
July 02, 2009
Yawn, smile, and simplify
"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication."
~ Leonardo da Vinci
I was reading my Sunday paper last weekend and saw a cartoon depicting two birds sitting on a wire. They were watching the third bird that was about to fall down and was struggling to hold on to the wire. The caption read "You're overthinking this, Phil."
Do you sometimes complicate things excessively? I am guilty of it, I'll admit. Here's a related belief that comes up in coaching: we distrust simple solutions. If something is too easy, it can't be the answer. Are you familiar with that kind of thinking? Yet, simple practices can be very effective in producing remarkable results.
Take an example of recent neuroscience discoveries in the area of brain health. A few weeks ago, I was at a workshop conducted by Mark Robert Waldman, co-author of "How God Changes Your Brain: Breakthrough Findings from a Leading Neuroscientist."
Do you know, for example, that a simple act of yawning improves alertness and concentration, optimizes brain metabolism, lowers stress, and increases memory recall among other things? Now, that's what I call brain efficiency. So, yawn on purpose. In fact, do it right now. Take a deep breath and get yourself into the yawning mood. If you have people around, that's even better because yawning is contagious. It can even improve group cohesiveness because it helps people synchronize their behavior with others.
If you are tired of yawning, smile. Smiling stimulates brain circuits that strengthen empathy and a positive outlook on life. Even if you don't feel like smiling, try it anyway. You'll give a signal to your subconscious that you are happy, and it can improve your mood.
Yawn, smile, and simplify! That's today's lesson.
June 23, 2009
June 22, 2009
June 14, 2009
June 03, 2009
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,"
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.
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.
May 29, 2009
Want to be a better problem-solver in your dreams?
Have you ever been caught daydreaming or doodling in class, during a lecture or at a business meeting? While others could interpret it as a sign that your mind was meandering aimlessly instead of paying attention, neuroscientists now provide us with the evidence to the contrary. It turns out that the daydreaming mind continues to solve problems, and doodling actually helps remember things better. The advice to 'sleep on it' isn't a bad idea either.
According to a recent University of British Columbia study, activity in numerous brain regions increases when our minds wander. Daydreaming activates both the brain's "default network," which is linked to easy, routine mental activity and the "executive network" - the brain areas associated with high-level, complex problem-solving. The findings support the notion that daydreaming, which can occupy as much as one third of our waking lives, allows us to shift our attention from routine tasks to work through more important problems in our lives. You may not be able to accomplish an immediate goal if you daydream, but you can come up with a creative solution to a life challenge.
If you feel the urge to daydream during a boring presentation and want to improve your concentration, try doodling. It may seem contradictory to the common perceptions, but doodling while listening can keep you on track with a boring task and help you remember details better. In a recently published study, subjects given a doodling task while listening to a dull phone message had a 29% improved recall compared to their non-doodling counterparts.
In addition, nighttime dreams can also help you solve problems. A study conducted by the University of Alberta and the University of Montreal of 470 psychology students revealed that dreams that occurred six to seven days after the remembered event often reflected "interpersonal interactions, problem resolution and positive emotions." These findings suggest that people continue to work through personal difficulties in dreams.
Sleep psychologists claim we have about six dreams each night during rapid eye movement sleep (REM sleep). We often forget our dreams, but there are things we can do to recall dreams better and capture any creative ideas that emerged in the dream state:
- If you've been working on a problem for a while, bring it back into focus right before you fall asleep. Think about a question related to your problem that you'd like to get an answer to in your sleep.
- When you awake, don't get up immediately. Instead, lie quietly as you reflect on your dream. If you have trouble remembering your dreams, try waking up thirty minutes earlier.
- Have a dream journal next to you bed so that you could promptly record any thoughts that came to you after you woke up. Don't censor, just write down anything that comes to mind. Your ideas are often triggered by your dream even if you can't remember the dream exactly. After all, the contemporary scientific method was first reveled to René Descartes in his dream, which he promptly recorded in his dream journal.
- You can later go over your dream journal again to see if any patterns, ideas, or insights emerge from your dream entries.
Finally, if you want your dreams to be more positive, try smelling something pleasant while you sleep. German researchers used specific volatile odorants with a negative or a positive smell ("rotten eggs" versus "roses") to stimulate subjects during sleep. When the unpleasant odor was used, the subjects reported that the emotional coloration of the dream was predominantly negative. When they smelled the pleasant odor, their dreams had a positive coloration.
Related post: Take a nap
May 19, 2009
May 07, 2009
Life Metaphors: An Exercise in Creative Thinking
Life can feel like a roller coaster - the highs and the lows, the fear and the exhilaration - all coming in rapid succession. Life can also be like an airplane - always self-correcting to stay on course. To Albert Einstein, "Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving."
What would be a good metaphor for you to describe the way you experience life right now?
When we think in metaphors, we directly compare unrelated or dissimilar objects and situations. Metaphorical thinking has benefits beyond the poetic and aesthetic value of metaphors. Metaphors can improve our understanding and help us solve problems.
Metaphors expand meaning by transcending the literal and structural interpretation. The whole meaning is greater than, and often different from, the sum of its parts. According to research led by V. S. Ramachandran, director of the Center for Brain and Cognition at the University of California, San Diego, a region of the brain known as the angular gyrus is at least partly responsible for the human ability to understand metaphors. The angular gyrus is strategically located at the crossroads of areas specialized for processing touch, hearing and vision.
Metaphors reveal subtle patterns that can otherwise fall beyond our perceptive powers. But beware: because of their ambiguous, emotive and nonlinear nature, metaphors can confuse as well as illuminate. Be patient with yourself and the process. The idea is to probe and peel the layers and be open to what you may find.
To experience the creative power of metaphors, do the following exercise, adapted from the book "Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques"
1. Think of a challenge or a choice you are facing.
2. Instead of describing it in words, browse some old magazines, newspapers or catalogs and cut out images that symbolize your challenge or choice.
3. Move your pictures around, exploring different patterns and associations. Continue until they form a collage.
4. Look at your collage and search for clues, insights and new ideas related to your challenge or choice. Ask yourself the following questions:
a. What is my challenge/choice like?
b. What does it remind me of?
c. What aspects of my challenge/choice are revealed through the collage?
d. What can I learn from this?
April 21, 2009
April 02, 2009
Mind illusions and portion control
"Habits are basic and foundational aspects of our mental lives. Without habit, there is no calculation, no speech, no thought, no recognition, no game playing. Only a creature with habits like ours could have anything like a mind like ours. But habits, at least many of them, are situational or environmental. A habit is like a trail laid down by our own repetitive action. A habit is not merely a disposition to act or an automatic or unthinking tendency; it is a responsiveness to the environment in which we find ourselves. If the trail is paved over or if familiar landmarks are removed, our habits can frequently be extinguished."
~ Alva Noë, "Out of Our Heads: Why You Are Not Your Brain, and Other Lessons from the Biology of Consciousness"
~ Alva Noë, "Out of Our Heads: Why You Are Not Your Brain, and Other Lessons from the Biology of Consciousness"
How much of what you do is in response to things that are happening around you, your immediate
environment? A couple of days ago, I was putting together a collage of colorful
images of fruits, vegetables, and herbs for my Ultimate Mind-Body Makeover
coaching class. One of the images was a picture of mint plants forming
a bright green carpet. Later, when I went to get some tea for myself,
guess what kind of tea I chose… That's right, I chose mint tea. So, how
does our environment influence our daily actions and decisions?
Studies on habit formation reveal that as much as 45 percent of what we do every day is habitual, that is, we act almost without thinking usually because of subtle cues in our environment, such as "a specific location or time of day, a certain series of actions, particular moods, or the company of specific people." For example, you may experience the urge to check your e-mail if you feel stuck in your current task. Similarly, you may want to grab a cookie if you feel upset or bored.
On occasion, those cues in our environment can trick our minds into behaving in a way that is inconsistent with our goals and we may not even realize it. Here are a few examples of mind illusions related to the issue of portion control.
You may have heard that it is helpful to use smaller plates if you want to eat less. The following experiment illustrates this point. If you cut a sandwich into two same-size portions and you put one half of the sandwich on a small plate and the other half on a large plate, you will create an optical illusion. People will perceive the half-sandwich on the small plate as bigger than the half-sandwich on the large plate. Moreover, if they eat the half-sandwich on the small plate, they will feel fuller compared to eating the sandwich on the large plate. Thus, physical objects around you can affect your appetite.
The second example explains why all-you-can-eat buffets cause people to eat more. Researchers investigated how variety influenced consumers' quantity perceptions. "Does a bowl with both red and blue candies seem to have more or less than a bowl with only one color candy?" they asked. It turns out that we tend to underestimate portions if there is greater variety. People poured larger portions when there was variety of food without realizing it.
You don't even need to go to a magic show to experience the power of mind illusions in your daily life.
What triggers hide in your immediate environment? How can you eliminate or minimize those that sabotage your goals?
March 30, 2009
March 26, 2009
March 24, 2009
March 18, 2009
March 13, 2009
Barbara Fredrickson and Sharon Salzberg on "Positivity"
Last Sunday, I attended the discussion between neuro-psychologist Barbara Fredrickson and meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg as part of the Brainwave series at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York City. The topic was how positive thinking influenced the mind. Specifically, they talked about the effects of lovingkindness meditation practice on positive emotions and about the results of Dr. Fredrickson's research, described in her new book "Positivity: Groundbreaking Research Reveals How to Embrace the Hidden Strength of Positive Emotions, Overcome Negativity, and Thrive."
The conversation began with the question about the roles of positive and negative emotions. Psychologists have known for a long time that negative emotions are so salient and effective in seizing our attention because our survival has depended on them. The fear of a tiger, the disgust at the sight of rotten food - those negative emotions have been there to protect us. But why do we need positive emotions and how can we experience them more often? This is the inquiry of the positive psychology.
Dr. Fredrickson's research points out 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. When we experience negative emotions, our focus is narrow. This tunnel vision precludes us from switching perspectives and seeing creative solutions. Positive emotions let our minds open, or "bloom." In Dr. Fredrickson's study, the lovingkindness meditation practice has been shown to increase the frequency of positive emotions. In the lovingkindness mediation, you gather your attention around words and phrases of love and peace that you repeat rhythmically and direct to yourself and others. Those participants who saw a bigger increase in positivity from the start of the program also showed more benefits after three months of practice. In the long term, positive emotions result in more resilience and life satisfaction.
All emotions are transient. The point is not to try to be positive all the time, but rather to increase the frequency of positive emotions. Dr. Fredrickson discovered that experiencing positive emotions in a 3-to-1 ratio with negative ones makes people more resilient and creative in meeting life’s challenges and achieving their goals. You can find out your ratio and get other online tools at Dr. Fredrickson's website http://www.positivityratio.com. As Sharon Salzberg beautifully said, what counts is the willingness "to begin again," to redirect the mind towards more positive alternatives.
An interesting question was raised during the Q&A about the cross-cultural variance with regard to positivity. Culture influences what we consider a positive experience. For example, in cultures where individualism is praised, people feel positive when they stand out and accomplish something on their own. In collective cultures, feeling connected to a group, fitting in, may be more important to increase positive emotions. Reflecting on my own cross-cultural experiences, I wonder if the broad focus also facilitates cultural adjustment. It would be interesting to see studies on this.
March 12, 2009
March 03, 2009
February 25, 2009
Brainwave at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York City
Between February 21 and April 23, 2009, The Rubin Museum of Art will host its second annual Brainwave, which "explores the intersection of mind and matter with nearly fifty different events, including discussions with some of the world's premier artists and neuroscientists." Here are just some of the offerings:
Twelve-time Grammy Award winner Paul Simon has a conversation with Daniel J. Levitin, the neuroscientist credited with fundamentally changing the way that scientists think about auditory memory.
Meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg meets with neuropsychologist Barbara Fredrickson to engage in the effects of positive psychology.
Stephen Mitchell celebrates the publication of his The Second Book of the Tao
with a conversation on the psychology of the Taoist philosophy with neurobiologist and SUNY Professor John Kubie.
What is consciousness? To mark the publication of Alva Noë's new book, Out of Our Heads: Why You Are Not Your Brain, and Other Lessons from the Biology of Consciousness, Alva Noë sits down with artist Eric Fischl to talk about how streams of consciousness work.
Why don't we eat fish guts for breakfast? Professor Paul Rozin is the leading authority on the olfactory senses of taste and smell. Here he sits down with noted chef Mario Batali to explore the edges of taste. Are we hardwired to find some things disgusting, or are these distastes acquired?
Pay attention! In her book Rapt
, author Winifred Gallagher grapples with a number of provocative questions, including "Can we train our focus?" and "What's different about the way creative people pay attention?" Here she talks to performance artist Laurie Anderson about how the quality of our lives depends largely on what we choose to pay attention to.
Best-selling author Daniel Goleman discusses his new book, Ecological Intelligence, and what it means to be "green," including unearthing the hidden environmental consequences of what we make and buy.
Meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg meets with neuropsychologist Barbara Fredrickson to engage in the effects of positive psychology.
Stephen Mitchell celebrates the publication of his The Second Book of the Tao
with a conversation on the psychology of the Taoist philosophy with neurobiologist and SUNY Professor John Kubie.What is consciousness? To mark the publication of Alva Noë's new book, Out of Our Heads: Why You Are Not Your Brain, and Other Lessons from the Biology of Consciousness
, Alva Noë sits down with artist Eric Fischl to talk about how streams of consciousness work.Why don't we eat fish guts for breakfast? Professor Paul Rozin is the leading authority on the olfactory senses of taste and smell. Here he sits down with noted chef Mario Batali to explore the edges of taste. Are we hardwired to find some things disgusting, or are these distastes acquired?
Pay attention! In her book Rapt
, author Winifred Gallagher grapples with a number of provocative questions, including "Can we train our focus?" and "What's different about the way creative people pay attention?" Here she talks to performance artist Laurie Anderson about how the quality of our lives depends largely on what we choose to pay attention to.Best-selling author Daniel Goleman discusses his new book, Ecological Intelligence, and what it means to be "green," including unearthing the hidden environmental consequences of what we make and buy.
Click here to read the full list of "Meetings of the Minds." I plan to attend and blog about at least some of these events.
February 18, 2009
February 12, 2009
February 10, 2009
February 05, 2009
Learning to learn from Joshua Waitzkin, a champion in chess and martial arts
SharpBrains offers a thought-provoking interview with Joshua Waitzkin, a champion in chess and martial arts and the author of "The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance."
I am able to compete at the highest levels because I have cultivated an approach to learning and performance that maximizes my strengths, tackles my weaknesses through the prism of my strengths, dissolves crippling false constructs and divisive mental barriers, and allows me to express myself through my art in as unhindered a manner as possible.
…
Growth only really comes at the point of resistance, but that is the moment that we tend to stop. Because it hurts. Whether we are confronting our psychological foibles or our physiological limits, it is much easier to turn back from the challenge than to push through the discomfort. I think digging deeply into ourselves, pushing our limits, is a muscle that can be cultivated like any other -- incrementally. If we embrace these outer limits of our ability as something malleable that can expand with training, and if we embrace the discomfort of these moments of growth, then we start to love the richness of the self-discovery. The discomfort becomes exquisite. Learning becomes life.
…
I have learned that in those rare moments of truth in our lives, we have to be willing to let go of the comfort of our knowledge, our preparation, our sense of control, and we have to flow with an improvisational spirit that embraces chaos, turns adversity to our advantage, and digs into our deepest reservoirs of energy and creativity. Our relationship to the learning process, in my opinion, should be one that prepares us for that freedom under pressure - or more truly, that liberates us to live every moment with that openness to unexpected beauty. Learning and peak performance aren't about control or memorization or perfection - they are about something much deeper, something more essentially human.
…
Growth only really comes at the point of resistance, but that is the moment that we tend to stop. Because it hurts. Whether we are confronting our psychological foibles or our physiological limits, it is much easier to turn back from the challenge than to push through the discomfort. I think digging deeply into ourselves, pushing our limits, is a muscle that can be cultivated like any other -- incrementally. If we embrace these outer limits of our ability as something malleable that can expand with training, and if we embrace the discomfort of these moments of growth, then we start to love the richness of the self-discovery. The discomfort becomes exquisite. Learning becomes life.
…
I have learned that in those rare moments of truth in our lives, we have to be willing to let go of the comfort of our knowledge, our preparation, our sense of control, and we have to flow with an improvisational spirit that embraces chaos, turns adversity to our advantage, and digs into our deepest reservoirs of energy and creativity. Our relationship to the learning process, in my opinion, should be one that prepares us for that freedom under pressure - or more truly, that liberates us to live every moment with that openness to unexpected beauty. Learning and peak performance aren't about control or memorization or perfection - they are about something much deeper, something more essentially human.
Click to read the full interview with Joshua Waitzkin at SharpBrains.
January 21, 2009
January 14, 2009
Krishnamurti on education
I came across this quotation today from Krishnamurti's "The Function of Education" in Think on These Things
"Surely, education has no meaning unless it helps you to understand the vast expanse of life with all its subtleties, with its extraordinary beauty, its sorrows and joys. You may earn degrees, you may have a series of letters after your name and land a very good job, but then what? What is the point of it all if in the process your mind becomes dull, weary, stupid? So, while you are young, must you not seek to find out what life is all about. And is it not the true function of education to cultivate in you the intelligence which will try to find the answer to all these problems. Do you know what intelligence is? It is the capacity, surely, to think freely, without fear, without a formula, so that you begin to discover for yourself what is real, what is true."
January 07, 2009
Learn a language in 2009 and improve your brain
As a linguist by training, I have always liked learning new languages. In fact, English is not my native language, Russian is. I started truly learning English when I was in high school and added a few more languages later while studying linguistics. After reading "The Bilingual Brain" in the Society for Neuroscience Brain Briefings, I am considering adding a new language to my 2009 resolutions:
"Parlez vous francais? Sprechen Sie Deutsches? Hablas español? If so, and you also speak English (or any other language), your brain may have developed some distinct advantages over your monolingual peers. New research into the neurobiology of bilingualism has found that being fluent in two languages, particularly from early childhood, not only enhances a person’s ability to concentrate, but might also protect against the onset of dementia and other age-related cognitive decline."
Those who start learning languages at an early age benefit the most.
"In fact, being bilingual may give children an advantage at school. Bilingual preschoolers have been found to be better able than their monolingual peers at focusing on a task while tuning out distractions. A similar enhanced ability to concentrate—a sign of a well-functioning working memory—has been found in bilingual adults, particularly those who became fluent in two languages at an early age. It may be that managing two languages helps the brain sharpen—and retain—its ability to focus while ignoring irrelevant information."
I am glad I am raising my daughter bilingual (English and Russian), and we'll be adding Spanish soon.
Adults benefit from learning languages as well. There are many misconceptions surrounding adult language learning, especially about the "critical period" hypothesis that argues that the brain is too rigid to learn after puberty, making second language acquisition more difficult for adults. Current neuroscience research into the competitive nature of brain plasticity offers a different explanation. The skills we practice compete for our brain map space. In his book "The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science,"
"As we age, the more we use our native language, the more it comes to dominate our linguistic map space. Thus it is also because our brain is plastic—and because plasticity is competitive—that it is so hard to learn a new language and end the tyranny of the mother tongue.
But why, if this is true, is it easier to learn a second language when we are young? Is there not competition then too? Not really. If two languages are learned at the same time, during the critical period, both get a foothold. Brain scans, says Merzenich, show that in a bilingual child all the sounds of its two languages share a single large map, a library of sounds from both languages."
But why, if this is true, is it easier to learn a second language when we are young? Is there not competition then too? Not really. If two languages are learned at the same time, during the critical period, both get a foothold. Brain scans, says Merzenich, show that in a bilingual child all the sounds of its two languages share a single large map, a library of sounds from both languages."
This can also explain why learning a language as an adult is quite possible and much easier if you immerse yourself in the environment where that language is spoken, or if you otherwise have a strong need or desire to learn it, for example, when your close friends, your spouse, or your co-workers speak a different language. If you put enough attention into it, it will happen. It is, to a large extent, an issue of priorities, time, and motivation.
What language are you learning this year?
January 03, 2009
"How the city hurts your brain" by Jonah Lehrer
Jonah Lehrer, the author of "How We Decide,"
"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.
December 31, 2008
A Happy New Year!
People tend to underestimate how strong, resilient and resourceful they are. Trust yourself to be your Best in 2009.
Happy holidays! I wish all of you a happy, healthy and prosperous 2009!
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