background preloader

Hack Your Brain to Use Cravings To Your Advantage

Hack Your Brain to Use Cravings To Your Advantage

Death by Caffeine - StumbleUpon We’ve used the very latest research to determine what’s appropriate for your body weight. See more about your daily caffeine limits. Recommendations for caffeine levels are different for aged 18 and under. The calculator is intended for use only by adults over 18. Sure are. On the result, click on the item for more detailed caffeine information. Yes. A lethal dose is based on the amount of the caffeine in your system at one time. By using this calculator you agree to our terms of use. Depression Is Linked to Hyperconnectivity of Brain Regions, a New Study Shows Paralympian Oscar Pistorius broke down in court once again during his turn on the witness stand, as he remembered the night that he shot his model girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp. The public has waited for over five weeks for a glimpse into the mind of South African Paralympian Oscar Pistorius, who is currently in the witness box in Pretoria’s North Gauteng High Court to provide evidence and defend himself in the murder trial of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, whom he shot and killed on Valentine’s Day last year. The six-time gold medalist was scheduled to be sworn in at the beginning of March, but the trial was postponed due to the illness of one of the judge’s assessors. The moment everything changed Sobbing uncontrollably after hours of exhaustive testimony on Tuesday, Pistorius detailed the events proceeding the moment that he put four bullets through his bathroom door, killing his 29-year-old girlfriend. “She rolled over to me and said ‘Can't you sleep, my baba?’” ‘Besotted’ with Reeva

Brain Research Bulletin - Effects of mindfulness meditation training on anticipatory alpha modulation in primary somatosensory cortex Abstract During selective attention, ∼7–14 Hz alpha rhythms are modulated in early sensory cortices, suggesting a mechanistic role for these dynamics in perception. Here, we investigated whether alpha modulation can be enhanced by “mindfulness” meditation (MM), a program training practitioners in sustained attention to body and breath-related sensations. Highlights ► Mindfulness meditation training is associated with improved attentional processing. ► We examined whether 8-weeks of MM training enhances attentional modulation of alpha rhythms in SI. ► After training, MM modulation of alpha rhythms up or down in response to a somatic attentional cue was faster and greater than the control group and the MM pre-training baseline. Keywords Mindfulness; Meditation; Alpha rhythm modulation; Attention; MEG; Alpha rhythm; Somatosensory cortex; Anticipatory Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc.

The best detox foods to look great - StumbleUpon Having a diet rich in detox foods will naturally help your health. But some of those foods are especially good to make you look great. Eating more of the detos foods below will not only improve your look but also support your body to detox naturally and flush out environmental toxins as well as metabolic waste. Losing weight Artichoke: One of the best detox foods for your liver, artichokes are also low in calories and contains compounds that can help lower your cholesterol levels. Lemon: Adding some lemon juice and zest to your drinking water will supply your body with over 30 detox compounds. Pink grapefruit: Grapefruit is so potent at natural detoxification that it often removes some drugs and medicines too quickly for them to act. Other detox foods that can help losing weight: pineapple, celery and chili peppers. Radiant skin Watermelon: Packed with detox nutrients and water, watermelon is also very rich in lycopene, an antioxidant that boost your skin resistance to sun damage.

I Am Not My Brain - Jerry DeNuccio My patience, always a dwindling and, I’ve come to think, nonrenewable resource, has, at long last, been thoroughly tried—tried and convicted of aggravated aggravation with skepticism aforethought. What was it that shanghaied my forbearance and drove me to this illicit state? A book. Yes, a book, the very thing that typically flash freezes my patience, preserves it, makes it a cryonic fugitive unpinned from tick-tock sweep-handedness of time. And what was this offending book? None other than David J. Linden, a neuroscientist at Johns Hopkins, asserts that certain experiences “activate an anatomically and biochemically defined pleasure circuit in the brain.” Linden effectually reduces human beings to brain biochemistry, to neural substrates whose components fire in response to external experiences. And this is where my patience wears molecule-layer thin, for Linden’s book is seamlessly sutured to the human reductiveness that characterizes so much of the neuroscientific discourse.

Modern parenting may hinder brain development, research suggests Social practices and cultural beliefs of modern life are preventing healthy brain and emotional development in children, according to an interdisciplinary body of research presented recently at a symposium at the University of Notre Dame. "Life outcomes for American youth are worsening, especially in comparison to 50 years ago," says Darcia Narvaez, Notre Dame professor of psychology who specializes in moral development in children and how early life experiences can influence brain development. "Ill-advised practices and beliefs have become commonplace in our culture, such as the use of infant formula, the isolation of infants in their own rooms or the belief that responding too quickly to a fussing baby will 'spoil' it," Narvaez says. The United States has been on a downward trajectory on all of these care characteristics, according to Narvaez. Instead of being held, infants spend much more time in carriers, car seats and strollers than they did in the past.

Wild Mood Swings - Surf the web on a whim. (C) Sean McManus - StumbleUpon <p style="font-size:x-large;">Oh no! You don't have Javascript enabled. Please <a href=" Javascript now</a> or the only moods you'll experience will be boredom and frustration.</p><hr noshade> Pick your mood, click the button and Wild Mood Swings will open an appropriate website in a new window. What is Wild Mood Swings? It's a simple game and online web experience: you select a mood from the pull-down list, click on 'take me away' and it'll whisk you away to an appropriate site. Each time you reload the page or click the shuffle moods link, the moods are sorted into a different order, adding an additional element of serendipity. What do I need to work it? Some of the links will take you to sites that require the Flash plug-in or Chrome browser. If it's not working, it's possible you have a pop-up blocker installed that is stopping Wild Mood Swings from opening your destination site in a new window. Why was it developed? When was it launched?

Michael Taft: Hardwired for the Mystical? The gap between atheists and the religious seems at times to be an impossible divide, almost as if believers and non-believers come from different species. What separates the secular from the sacred? An "Ask the Brains" question on the Scientific American site recently inquired as to any differences between the brain of an atheist and the brain of a religious person. Andrew Newberg, the director of research at the Myrna Brind Center of Integrative Medicine at Thomas Jefferson University and Hospital in Philadelphia, responded that, yes, in fact, there are some small but perceptible differences between the brains of believers and non-believers. Newberg is a pioneer in the field of "neurotheology," the study of how the brain approaches faith. For example, the frontal lobe of the brain governs reward, attention and motivation. But the effects of religion may also pertain to the present day. All of which leads us to an interesting point, in terms of the future of humanity.

I Scourge the Body Electric, by Brian Pessaro The light on my alarm clock says 5:30 a.m. I rub my eyes with disbelief that I’m up at such a godforsaken hour. I stand in front of my dresser for what seems like eternity as I struggle against my desire to crawl back under the covers. In the end, I conquer… sort of. In the darkness of our bedroom from beneath the comforter comes the voice of my half-asleep wife, “Don’t even think about resetting your alarm. The first mile of my run is always the slowest, but by the second I’m warming up and finding my groove. I’m sure many people, even non-joggers, could relate to what I’ve just described. Back upstairs in the bathroom, I stand naked outside the shower door. Because I’m still hot with sweat, the initial burst of water is a shock, but I get used to it. Tempting though it is to rush through the words and be done with it, I force myself to say them at a normal pace. Corporal mortification received a lot of press recently thanks to The Da Vinci Code.

Abs Diet: Oblique Exercises | Mens Health - StumbleUpon Working your obliques is crucial to having the strong, lean body you want. Try these 6 exercises to strengthen your core and bulletproof your obliques. Oblique V-Up Lie on your side with your body in a straight line. Fold your arms across your chest. Keeping your legs together, lift them off the floor as you raise your top elbow toward your hip. 10 repetitions each side [ Beginner ] Hold a pair of lightweight dumbbells over your head, in line with your shoulders, with your elbows slightly bent. Saxon Side Bend 6–10 repetitions on each side [ Beginner to intermediate ] Stand while holding a dumbbell with both hands in front of your midsection. 10 repetitions each side [ Intermediate ] Two-Handed Wood Chop Stand while holding a dumbbell in both hands next to your right ear. Hold a medicine ball or basketball in front of you. 10 repetitions each side [ Intermediate to advanced ] Raise your torso off the floor, with your left forearm on the floor for balance.

Rewiring Your Brain for Healthy Empathy: Acquiring a Voltmeter In the scheme of "rewiring your brain for love," one of the benefits of mindfulness practice when it comes to relationships could be thought of as acquiring a voltmeter -- that quality of empathy that allows you the ability to accurately read the voltage between you and your partner. Unfortunately, many people don't "do" empathy in a way that supports a healthy relationship. I've posted below an introduction to different levels of empathy, and how they can serve or undermine your relationships, which I hope you'll find useful. Acquiring a Voltmeter: Empathy (Excerpt from Chapter 8 of ) Insight into your own inner workings, and having a coherent narrative about how you came to be you, are incredibly important for healthy relationships -- and when you put those together with being empathic? Wow. Now you got it goin' . Like lots of other people, for too many years I had empathy all wrong. Mostly, I thought being empathic was about tuning in to others, getting what they were feeling.

5 Ways To Hack Your Brain Into Awesomeness | Cracked.com - StumbleUpon Much of the brain is still mysterious to modern science, possibly because modern science itself is using brains to analyze it. There are probably secrets the brain simply doesn't want us to know. But by no means should that stop us from tinkering around in there, using somewhat questionable and possibly dangerous techniques to make our brains do what we want. We can't vouch for any of these, either their effectiveness or safety. All we can say is that they sound awesome, since apparently you can make your brain... #5. So you just picked up the night shift at your local McDonald's, you have class every morning at 8am and you have no idea how you're going to make it through the day without looking like a guy straight out of Dawn of the Dead, minus the blood... hopefully. "SLEEEEEEEEEP... uh... What if we told you there was a way to sleep for little more than two hours a day, and still feel more refreshed than taking a 12-hour siesta on a bed made entirely out of baby kitten fur? Holy Shit!

Debunking the Right-Brain Creativity Myth What's the Latest Development? The idea that creative people are somehow 'right-brained' is a myth, according to recent research completed at the University of Southern California. In a study, a group of subjects were given a creative task—rearranging a circle, a C and an 8 to create a new image—and non-creative task—mentally fitting together geometric shapes to form a square or rectangle. What's the Big Idea? While the left hemisphere of your brain is typically thought to control mathematical and logical processes, it is essential to solving creative problems, as well. Photo credit: shutterstock.com

Related: