5 Scientific Ways to Instantly Brighten Your Day | Charlie Houpert How nice would it be to push a button and instantly feel happy, uplifted, and fun? Turns out you can. Or at least exert the same amount of effort for the same results. Recent studies are upending the age-old belief that emotions just happen to us. In fact, its just the opposite. We often choose which emotions we'll experience. If you'd like to choose happy more often, here are five concrete things you can do in less than 20 minutes that have scientifically shown to change your brain chemistry and your perspective. Move your body Extensive scientific research shows that our body language shapes what we think and how we feel. What is a "power pose"? Practice gratitude exercises What do you focus on when you're feeling bad? All the good stuff in your life? Want to appreciate your life, ward off Hedonic Adaptation, and be happier? Simply taking a moment to focus on five things you ARE happy with is enough to feel much happier in minutes. Tell someone you love how you feel Take a walk outside Smile
Why Art Therapy is Good for the Alzheimer's Brain Art therapy has proven a powerful tool for treating Alzheimer’s. More than giving patients something pretty to look at it or an exercise to keep them busy, it stimulates the brain. It stirs memories and can bring language back into the life of someone who struggles to speak. “A picture is worth a thousand words,” an adage demonstrated over and over through the success of art therapy on Alzheimer’s patients. Studies show that art therapy gives back to Alzheimer’s patients, in some part, what the disease has taken away. Research published in the Canadian Journal of Neurological Sciences examined how Alzheimer’s patients recall events through artwork. Hecht couldn’t recall time on a clock or name common animals. In interviews with Hecht’s researchers, Medical Daily reports how art allows Alzheimer’s patients to bypass language. Although experts agree that art therapy won’t cure Alzheimer’s, it provides a sense of accomplishment and completion.
16 Things I Wish They Had Taught Me in School I am 28 now. I don’t think about the past or regret things much these days. But sometimes I wish that I had known some of things I have learned over the last few years a bit earlier. Because some of these 16 things in this article a teacher probably spoke about in class. Some of it would probably not have stuck in my mind anyway. But I still think that taking a few hours from all those German language classes and use them for some personal development classes would have been a good idea. So here are 16 things I wish they had taught me in school (or I just would like to have known about earlier). 1. This is one of the best ways to make better use of your time. So a lot of what you do is probably not as useful or even necessary to do as you may think. You can just drop – or vastly decrease the time you spend on – a whole bunch of things. And if you do that you will have more time and energy to spend on those things that really brings your value, happiness, fulfilment and so on. 2. 3. 4. 5.
All machine and no ghost? The philosophy of mind is concerned with fundamental questions about consciousness - about its existence and nature. The science of psychology is concerned with its empirical workings - how one mental thing leads to another, basically. The former is a branch of metaphysics, the latter of dynamics. The central defining property of the mind is consciousness, so philosophy of mind is concerned with the existence and nature of consciousness: what is consciousness, why does it exist, how is it related to the body and brain, and how did it come into existence? These are big, difficult questions. Try to imagine a world with no consciousness in it, just clashing quanta in the void and clumps of dead, insensate matter (the way our universe used to be); now add consciousness to it. We can distinguish five positions on consciousness: eliminativist, dualist, idealist, panpsychist and mysterianist. At this point the idealist swooshes in: ladies and gentlemen, there is nothing but mind!
Five Powerful Ways Abusive Narcissists Get Inside Your Head | Self-Care Haven Photograph by Photographee.eu via Shutterstock. Five Powerful Ways Abusive Narcissists Get Inside Your Head by Shahida Arabi In popular culture, the term “narcissistic” is thrown about quite loosely, usually referring to vanity and self-absorption. People who meet the criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder or those who have traits of Antisocial Personality Disorder can operate in extremely manipulative ways within the context of intimate relationships due to their deceitfulness, lack of empathy and their tendency to be interpersonally exploitative. It’s important in any kind of relationship that we learn to identify the red flags when interacting with people who display malignant narcissism and/or antisocial traits, so we can better protect ourselves from exploitation and abuse, set boundaries, and make informed decisions about who we keep in our lives. Watch out for the following covert manipulation tactics when you’re dating someone or in a relationship. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
The Brain Is Made of Its Own Architects | Mind & Brain In the 1940s, the Nobel prize–winning neurobiologist Roger Sperry performed some of the most important brain surgeries in the history of science. His patients were newts. Sperry started by gently prying out newts’ eyes with a jeweler’s forceps. He rotated them 180 degrees and then pressed them back into their sockets. The newts had two days to recover before Sperry started the second half of the procedure. He sliced into the roof of each newt’s mouth and made a slit in the sheath surrounding the optic nerve, which relays signals from the eyes to the brain. If Sperry had performed this gruesome surgery on a person, his patient would have been left permanently blind. Their vision, he wrote, “was not a blurred confusion.” The experiment revealed that nerve cells, or neurons, possess a tremendous capacity for wiring themselves. The neurons in the eyes of Sperry’s newts regrew their axons, eventually linking up to neurons in the vision-processing region of the brain.
40 Ways to Feel More Alive “I don’t believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive.” ~Joseph Campbell As I write this, I am two hours away from my first weekly acting class in Los Angeles. I frequently said I wanted to do it, along with painting classes, which I’m starting next week, but I always made excuses not to start either. I was too busy. The list went on and on, but I realized the last two were the big ones for me. Also, I hesitate to give large amounts of time to hobbies I have no intention of pursuing professionally. I realized last month, however, that I want to prioritize more of the things that make me feel passionate and excited—and not just occasionally, but regularly. I don’t know if these classes are “leading” anywhere. That’s what it means to really feel alive—to be so immersed in the passionate bliss of this moment that you don’t think about yesterday or tomorrow. Say Something You’ve Been Meaning to Say 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
Free Online Course Materials | Brain and Cognitive Sciences 25 Great Motivational Quotes You've Never Heard Of inShare66 63Probably my most read post ever was the 20 Greatest Motivational Quotes of All Time. So much so that I expanded the post and wrote a book with the 50 greatest quotes in that is now sent free to my new newsletter subscribers. Sign up in the box on the left if you want a copy. As I was trawling some quotes the other day it struck me how many amazing ones there were that I’d never heard before and I thought it would be cool to collate the best for your perusal. Now of course I realize that you may well have heard of one or two, but I genuinely hadn’t (except one), so please don’t give me a hard time or point out that you knew 18 out of 20 and thus I’m a philistine and deserve a damn good thrashing. 1. Too many people when coming under attack crumble when instead they could view that attack/criticism as a way to grow and mature and come back stronger. 2. You know that, right? 3. This may almost seem anti-motivational, but it really isn’t. 3b. Yes, yes and thrice I say yes. 4. 5. 6.
How to Trick Your Brain for Happiness This month, we feature videos of a Greater Good presentation by Rick Hanson, the best-selling author and trailblazing psychologist. In this excerpt from his talk, Dr. Hanson explains how we can take advantage of the brain’s natural “plasticity”—it’s ability to change shape over time. gobyg There’s this great line by Ani Tenzin Palmo, an English woman who spent 12 years in a cave in Tibet: “We do not know what a thought is, yet we’re thinking them all the time.” It’s true. In recent years, though, we have started to better understand the neural bases of states like happiness, gratitude, resilience, love, compassion, and so forth. Ultimately, what this can mean is that with proper practice, we can increasingly trick our neural machinery to cultivate positive states of mind. But in order to understand how, you need to understand three important facts about the brain. Fact one: As the brain changes, the mind changes, for better or worse. Fact two: As the mind changes, the brain changes. 1. 2. 3.
30 Challenges for 30 Days Did you know that it takes 30 days to form a new habit? The first few days are similar as to how you would imagine the birth of a new river. Full of enthusiasm it gushes forth, only to be met by strong obstacles. The path is not clear yet, and your surroundings don’t agree. So, take a moment to reflect on the question ‘Who do I want to be in 5 years?’ Check out this short TED talk first to get inspired: Now pick one or more challenges and stick with them! However, be cautioned, picking too many challenges at the same time can easily result in a failure of all of them. #1 Write a I-Like-This-About-You note/text/email each day for someone (Easy) This is the perfect way to let someone else know you care. #2 Talk to one stranger each day (Hard) This is a great one to cure approaching anxiety. #3 Take one picture each day (Hard) This one gets harder nearing the end of the challenge because at one point you will run out of the easy shots. #5 Take a 30 minute walk each day (Easy) We recommend:
Tinnitus discovery could lead to new ways to stop the ringing Neuroscientists at the University of California, Berkeley, are offering hope to the 10 percent of the population who suffer from tinnitus – a constant, often high-pitched ringing or buzzing in the ears that can be annoying and even maddening, and has no cure. iStock photo Their new findings, published online last week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggest several new approaches to treatment, including retraining the brain, and new avenues for developing drugs to suppress the ringing. ”This work is the most clearheaded documentation to this point of what’s actually happening in the brain’s cortex in ways that account for the ongoing genesis of sound,” said Michael Merzenich, professor emeritus of otolaryngology at UC San Francisco and inventor of the cochlear implant, who was not involved with the research. “As soon as I read the paper, I said, ‘Of course!’ “Two million Americans are debilitated by tinnitus; they can’t work, they can’t sleep.