William James on Habit by Maria Popova “We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never to be undone. Every smallest stroke of virtue or of vice leaves its never so little scar.” “We are what we repeatedly do,” Aristotle famously proclaimed. “Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” I found this interesting not merely out of solipsism, as it somehow validated my having had the same breakfast day in and day out for nearly a decade (steel-cut oats, fat-free Greek yogurt, whey protein powder, seasonal fruit), but also because it isn’t a novel idea at all. When we look at living creatures from an outward point of view, one of the first things that strike us is that they are bundles of habits. James begins with a strictly scientific, physiological account of the brain and our coteries of ingrained information patterns, exploring the notion of neuroplasticity a century before it became a buzzword of modern popular neuroscience and offering this elegant definition: Donating = Loving Share on Tumblr
the-weird-scary-and-ingenious-brain-of-maria-bamford.html?smid=fb-nytimes&WT.z_sma=MG_TWS_20140723&bicmp=AD&bicmlukp=WT Photo Maria Bamford has a mantra of sorts, and here it is: Do the work. Three words, three syllables. An easy, orderly thing. She tells it to herself when she wakes up in the morning, whether it’s at her bungalow in a middle-class neighborhood on the outskirts of Los Angeles or at a Holiday Inn in Boston or a Marriott in Bloomington, or any of the other highway-side hotels she hits for one night before moving on. It should be simple, even if it’s not. The first time I met Bamford, one evening in May, she was at a theater in Boston, about to step in front of an audience of roughly 600 people. You would think that stage fright, at this point in her career, wouldn’t be an issue. Continue reading the main story Video In her work, she describes having done stints at inpatient psychiatric units and also the diagnosis she received a few years ago of Type-II Bipolar, an increasingly recognized variant of bipolar disorder. The audience was now applauding. Continue reading the main story
Required watching for any TED speaker: The science of stage fright One thing can strike fear into the heart of the fiercest warrior, the most powerful CEO and the smartest person in any given room: having to speak in public. The thought of it makes the palms sweat, the heart beat faster and the limbs start to shake. An estimated 75% of people have a fear of speaking in public, and it’s something that nearly everyone who takes the TED stage must work hard to overcome. This TED-Ed lesson, the science of stage fright, just might help. In the lesson — which is taught by educator Mikael Cho and directed by animator Robertino Zambrano of KAPWA Studioworks — looks at stage fright not as an emotion, but as a physiological response. “Humans are wired to worry about reputation. The lesson explains exactly what happens in the body before speaking in public and, of course, gives suggestions on how to calm stage fright. Over on the TED-Ed blog, animator Zambrano shares what shaped the imagery for this very cool lesson.
Skipping breakfast makes you fat, yes. Not exactly - Health & Families - Life and Style - The Independent For some nutritionists, this idea is an article of faith. Indeed, it is enshrined in the U.S. Dietary Guidelines, the federal government’s advice book, which recommends having breakfast every day because “not eating breakfast has been associated with excess body weight.” As with many nutrition tips, though, including some offered by the U.S. Dietary Guidelines, the tidbit about skipping breakfast is based on scientific speculation, not certainty, and indeed, it may be completely unfounded, as the experiment in New York indicated. At 8:30 in the morning for four weeks, one group of subjects got oatmeal, another got frosted corn flakes and a third got nothing. “In overweight individuals, skipping breakfast daily for 4 weeks leads to a reduction in body weight,” the researchers from Columbia University concluded in a paper published last year. Loading gallery Breakfast at Smithfield 1 of 7 This year, as the U.S. Observational studies in nutrition are generally cheaper and easier to conduct. S.
The Secret to Breaking Out of Our Most Destructive Habits This file illustration photo shows a functional magnetic resonance image (fMRI). US researchers have published incredibly detailed images of the human brain as part of an international project aimed at uncovering how brain architecture influences personal Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol is one of my all-time favorite stories, as it’s been for millions of others since it was written in 1843. However appealing this view of human transformation may be, the reality is that it distorts what we now know about the foundation of lasting change. I began clinical practice some 25 years ago, firmly committed to what might be called Christmas Carol therapy. Mattie showed up for an appointment that was actually intended for her husband, Patrick, who’d completed therapy with me five months earlier. In therapy, Patrick relived his ghosts of times past, including when he’d witnessed traumatic scenes of his drunken father battering his mother. Habits Rule Patrick, Round II 1. 2. 3. 1. 2. 3.
Fixed vs. Growth: The Two Basic Mindsets That Shape Our Lives By Maria Popova “If you imagine less, less will be what you undoubtedly deserve,” Debbie Millman counseled in one of the best commencement speeches ever given, urging: “Do what you love, and don’t stop until you get what you love. Work as hard as you can, imagine immensities…” Far from Pollyanna platitude, this advice actually reflects what modern psychology knows about how belief systems about our own abilities and potential fuel our behavior and predict our success. One of the most basic beliefs we carry about ourselves, Dweck found in her research, has to do with how we view and inhabit what we consider to be our personality. The consequences of believing that intelligence and personality can be developed rather than being immutably engrained traits, Dweck found in her two decades of research with both children and adults, are remarkable. For twenty years, my research has shown that the view you adopt for yourself profoundly affects the way you lead your life.
The science of willpower: Kelly McGonigal on sticking to resolutions It’s the second week in January and, at about this time, that resolution that seemed so reasonable a week ago — go to the gym every other day, read a book a week, only drink alcohol on weekends — is starting to seem very … hard. As you are teetering on the edge of abandoning it all together, Kelly McGonigal is here to help. This Stanford University psychologist — who shared last year how you can make stress your friend — wants you to know that you’re not having a hard time sticking to a resolution because you are a terrible person. Perhaps you’ve just formulated the wrong resolution. McGonigal has, for years, taught a course called “The Science of Willpower” through Stanford’s Continuing Studies program and, in 2011, she spun it into a book, The Willpower Instinct. The TED Blog spoke to McGonigal this week about how willpower is often misunderstood, and what we each can do to improve it. First question: why is willpower such a struggle? It’s a great question. Yes! Yes.
How Long It Takes to Form a New Habit by Maria Popova Why magic numbers always require a grain of empirical salt. “We are what we repeatedly do,” Aristotle proclaimed. “Could the young but realize how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state,” William James wrote. But how, exactly, do we rewire our habits once they have congealed into daily routines? When he became interested in how long it takes for us to form or change a habit, psychologist Jeremy Dean found himself bombarded with the same magic answer from popular psychology websites and advice columns: 21 days. In a study carried out at University College London, 96 participants were asked to choose an everyday behavior that they wanted to turn into a habit. This notion of acting without thinking — known in science as “automaticity” — turns out, perhaps unsurprisingly, to be a central driver of habits. It’s like trying to run up a hill that starts out steep and gradually levels off.
The Psychology of Getting Unstuck: How to Overcome the “OK Plateau” of Performance & Personal Growth by Maria Popova “When you want to get good at something, how you spend your time practicing is far more important than the amount of time you spend.” “Any sequence of mental action which has been frequently repeated tends to perpetuate itself,” William James wrote in his influential meditation on habit, ”so that we find ourselves automatically prompted to think, feel, or do what we have been before accustomed to think, feel, or do, under like circumstances.” As we’ve seen, one of the most insidious forms of such habitual autopilot — which evolved to help lighten our cognitive load yet is a double-edged sword that can also hurt us — is our mercilessly selective everyday attention, but the phenomenon is particularly perilous when it comes to learning new skills. In the 1960s, psychologists identified three stages that we pass through in the acquisition of new skills. Color restoration of archival Einstein photograph by Mads Madsen The Mozart family on tour: Leopold, Wolfgang, and Nannerl.
The metamorphoses of the self-employed And so it continues. Yesterday’s labour market statistics showed that the self-employment figures are up once again. Close to 75,000 more people became self-employed in the last 3 months of this year, which means we’ve seen an increase of around 340,000 over the last 12 months alone. A report we published a few weeks ago takes a closer look at who these people are, why they’re starting up in business, and what being self-employed means to them personally. While we dug much deeper than most – for example, by creating a typology of self-employed ‘tribes’ – it still feels as though we only scratched the surface of this group. A common theme that came up time and again in our interviews with business owners was that it took around 2 years for their venture to finally ‘begin working’. But it is not just the business that changes, it is also the self-employed themselves. Not every business owner will experience metamorphoses like these, of course. How do we do this?