How Language Seems To Shape One's View Of The World "It's on the left," he says. "No, it's southeast of here," she says. iStockphoto hide caption itoggle caption iStockphoto "It's on the left," he says. "No, it's southeast of here," she says. iStockphoto Lera Boroditsky once did a simple experiment: She asked people to close their eyes and point southeast. She says the difference lies in language. If you want to learn another language and become fluent, you may have to change the way you behave in small but sometimes significant ways, specifically how you sort things into categories and what you notice. Researchers are starting to study how those changes happen, says Aneta Pavlenko, a professor of applied linguistics at Temple University. If people speaking different languages need to group or observe things differently, then bilinguals ought to switch focus depending on the language they use. Based on her research, she started teaching future language teachers how to help their English-speaking students group things in Russian.
Mindfulness Exercises - Mindfulness Techniques That Work These easy mindfulness exercises are simple enough for anyone to try, and yet they are an extraordinarily powerful method for developing self awareness. Mindfulness is awareness of the present moment. It’s living here and now. Through mindfulness, you are freed from becoming entangled in thoughts of your past, and you are freed from worrying about the future. In the here and now, everything just is...and there is great peace in that. But how to stay in touch with this moment, especially when your mind keeps running away from you like it so often does? These mindfulness techniques are an important part of learning how to practice mindfulness. Exercise 1: One Minute of Mindfulness This is an easy mindfulness exercise, and one that you can do anytime throughout the day. This mindfulness exercise is far more powerful than most people give it credit for. Keep in mind that this mindfulness exercise is not a contest or a personal challenge. Exercise 2: Conscious Observation
What Happens When A Language's Last Monolingual Speaker Dies? : Code Switch A portrait of Emily Johnson Dickerson by artist Mike Larsen. Courtesy of the Chickasaw Nation hide caption itoggle caption Courtesy of the Chickasaw Nation A portrait of Emily Johnson Dickerson by artist Mike Larsen. Courtesy of the Chickasaw Nation Emily Johnson Dickerson died at her home in Ada, Okla., last week. "This is a sad day for all Chickasaw people because we have lost a cherished member of our Chickasaw family and an unequaled source of knowledge about our language and culture," Chickasaw Nation Gov. Dickerson, 93, was one of about 65 people fluent in the Chickasaw language, which has seen its number of speakers shrink from thousands since the 1960s. "Chickasaw was the dominant language in Chickasaw Nation, both prior to and following removal [when Chickasaw people were forced to relocate to Indian Territory*]," says Joshua Hinson, director of the Chickasaw Language Revitalization Program. "She lived like our ancestors did a long time ago," Hinson says.
What It's Like To Live With Borderline Personality Disorder I was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder at the age of 14. Relationships feel impossible, my brain never stops running and my stress is magnified. I find it very difficult to distinguish who I actually am and who my mental illness wants me to be. For the first time in my life, I’m sharing my story of borderline personality disorder with the public. I want to relate to those who suffer with me, educate those who misjudge me and help those who want to love me. What is Borderline Personality Disorder? While the name is a bit misleading (and most experts generally agree), BPD is “a pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships, self-image and affects and marked impulsivity beginning in early adulthood and presenting in a variety of contexts as indicated by five or more of the following:” 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. Long story short, it’s very hard for those with BPD to have successful and healthy relationships and stable confidence levels. Relationships Survival Plan
Interview: Scott Stossel, Author Of 'My Age Of Anxiety' : NPR Atlantic magazine editor Scott Stossel has countless phobias and anxieties — some you've heard of, others you probably haven't. "There's a vast encyclopedia of fears and phobias," he tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross, "and pretty much any object, experience, situation you can think of, there is someone who has a phobia of it." Stossel's own fears include turophobia, a fear of cheese; asthenophobia, a fear of fainting; and claustrophobia. Stossel says he wrote the book to help him understand and find relief from — or redemption in — anxious suffering. Interview Highlights On suffering from emetophobia, or a fear of vomiting The fear of vomiting, which for me is one of the most original and most acute of my fears, is actually fairly common. Both in terms of the duration of the time that I've suffered from it and its intermittent acuteness, [it's] the emetophobia [that causes the most suffering]. ... itoggle caption Michael Lionstar/Courtesy of Knopf Michael Lionstar/Courtesy of Knopf ...
Mindfully Managing Emotions | Susie Wolbe Our emotions are always with us. Reacting to our thoughts, our encounters and everything around us, often our emotions seem to have a life of their own. When confronted with something we find unpleasant or unkind, we may politely smile, rant and rave, scream and cry or simply walk away. As Zig Ziglar once said, "It's not what happens to you that matters. It's how you respond to what happens to you that makes a difference." In order for you to respond, rather than give a knee-jerk reaction, try some of these strategies: Look for three good things each day. Now, it's your turn. It's just waiting for you.
What teens really want to know about sex On the first day of my Sexuality and Society class, I don’t pass around anatomy drawings. I don’t hand out pamphlets about safer sex, although those are stacked on a table near the door. Instead, the first thing I do is establish ground rules. People should speak for themselves, laughter is OK, we won’t ask “personal history” questions, and we’ll work to create a community of peers who care about and respect one another. I’m all about context. In the back corner of my classroom is an old shoebox with a hole cut into the top of it. Here are some actual questions from students and my answers to them. Why is sex so good? There are two ways to answer this question. A part of the body that brings sexual pleasure when stimulated is called an erogenous zone. The second reason sex feels good is that humans have developed the emotional capacity to feel love, intimacy, and passion. While pleasure can exist without these emotions, it is much more significant when they are present.
How To Keep Everyone At Arm’s Length And Never Enjoy An Authentic Human Connection: An Essential Guide It can be hard living as a wholly insecure, broken person drowning under the pressures of an endless parade of perceived failures . . . and that’s why I’m here to help! If you're trying to avoid a balanced life filled with love and real connections with others, I'm here to let you know—you can realize this fantasy! You have agency! In the past few years, I’ve found other ways to live (just to keep things fresh—variety being the spice of life and all), but this blissfully tortured existence used to be mine and it seems like a waste to let two and a half decades of exacting expertise go down the tubes. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. - Eat everything in sight. - Run—but propel yourself only out of self-hatred. - Pair a six-pack with a painkiller! - Fumble around with a coworker—your impending awkward interactions in the wake of the hook-up will only give you more fodder and failures to fixate on. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.
Schizophrenia Revealed To Be 8 Genetically Distinct Disorders Just over 1 percent of the American population has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, a severe mental disorder that causes debilitating symptoms including paranoid delusions, auditory hallucinations, and impaired social behavior. A new study has revealed that schizophrenia is not one disease, but eight disorders with genetically distinct causes. This could dramatically change how schizophrenia is diagnosed and treated. To identify the genetic roots of schizophrenia, Cloninger’s team analyzed the genomes of 4,200 individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia and 3,800 controls. They were then able to sort the schizophrenic patients by symptom type and severity and compare SNPs. “Genes don’t operate by themselves. Previous studies have found weak affiliations between individual genes and schizophrenia, though it was hard to reproduce the results. Read this next: What Are Gravitational Waves?
Difference between Bipolar Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder | Bipolar Beat Recently on our Facebook Page, Vicky posted the following: I was diagnosed bipolar II at the age of 20 but because bipolar type II is so similar to borderline personality disorder its difficult. I have had two diagnoses of bipolar type II and one of BPD. What exactly is the difference between bipolar II disorder and borderline personality disorder? Some time ago, we did a two part series on the differences in diagnosis and treatment of bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder, starting with “Borderline Personality and Bipolar Disorder Differences Part I: Diagnosis.” Because this question continues to arise, I think it important to revisit this topic, focusing on the differences that should be considered in making these diagnoses. How and When the Mood Symptoms Develop Bipolar disorder, including bipolar II, is a condition in which emotional and behavioral patterns emerge that are different from the person’s typical or baseline self. Timing and Pattern of Mood Symptoms
Our Use Of Little Words Can, Uh, Reveal Hidden Interests Katherine Streeter for NPR One Friday night, 30 men and 30 women gathered at a hotel restaurant in Washington, D.C. Their goal was love, or maybe sex, or maybe some combination of the two. The women sat at separate numbered tables while the men moved down the line, and for two solid hours they did a rotation, making small talk with people they did not know, one after another, in three-minute increments. I had gone to record the night, which was put on by a company called Professionals in the City, and what struck me was the noise in the room. What were these people saying? And what can we learn from what they are saying? That is why I called James Pennebaker, a psychologist interested in the secret life of pronouns. About 20 years ago Pennebaker, who's at the University of Texas, Austin, got interested in looking more closely at the words that we use. For those of you like me — the grammatically challenged — function words are the smallish words that tie our sentences together. The.