Science of the SpiritS


Life Preserver

How to develop emotional resilience and why everyone should do it

Mark Sisson
Mark's Daily Apple
Thu, 31 Mar 2016 00:00 UTC
resilience tree sign ocean
Job stress, social conflict, illness (sometimes serious illness), financial hardship, our children's struggles, a move across country, a divorce, a death of a loved one...they're all events that can test our mental fortitude or—in more extreme cases—leave us emotionally adrift. Some people turn into a puddle during a critical emergency, while others jump in the middle of it to save the day. Yet, watch those same people face a protracted struggle like the death of a spouse or a child, and the one who managed the momentary crisis may have a much harder time. Adversity varies and challenges us in different ways. But our ability to endure and bounce back from stress, struggle, and loss is what emotional resilience is all about. What can our ancestors' examples teach us about psychological hardiness and mental fortitude?

Genuine resilience demands a deep level of acceptance—the acceptance that even if some things in life shake or shatter us, that's not the end of our story. Just as our physical bodies are vulnerable and resilient, so are our mental selves. We can survive a horrible car accident with damage to multiple organs and limbs—and still heal to a large, if not complete, extent. We can suffer a stroke—and more or less regain full functioning as other parts of our brain take over tasks previously handled by the damaged section. In the same way, we can recover from great emotional damage.

Let me be clear though. I would argue that emotional resilience isn't about pushing down feelings or living in denial. There's a mammoth-sized gap between being forbearing and simply unfeeling. Resilience isn't seated in an original sense of inviolability, but in a commitment to and capacity for healing and continuing. Think adaptability rather than invulnerability.

Comment: Feeling and working with one's emotional states is tantamount to personal growth and development. Today, we can see the effects on society of people not doing this en masse, through emotionally numbing pharmaceuticals and antidepressants, mind altering drugs, alcoholism, and chronic dissociation through various means, and the results aren't good.

Taking on the challenge of feeling one's emotions and working with them, as well as working on developing one's capacity for empathy, isn't easy and can often be painful. But those who undertake such a task reap the benefits of creating a rich and meaningful life for themselves, and also for those around them. Society as a whole also benefits from such undertakings since, like the cells in a body, society is comprised of "cells" of individual people and when those "cells" are functioning well, then the "body" (society) can function well too.

Éiriú Eolas is a simple and powerful tool to aid this process, and be learned quickly and easily. In addition, the reader may also be interested in the book Life is Religion: 12 Daily Exercises for Mind, Body, and Soul

life is religion book cover
© Quantum Future Group


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Gem

Skills and character traits that are hard to find during a crisis

Brandon Smith
Alt-Market
Fri, 01 Apr 2016 01:48 UTC
boss vs leader
I have never lived through a national scale crisis and like most people, I hope I never have to. That said, with the growing instability present in the state of the world today it would be rather foolish to assume that the near future holds nothing but fairy dust, unicorns and gumdrops. Preparation is a necessity.

Many Americans cannot yet relate to the concept of full spectrum crisis, but most of us have at least experienced localized disasters. In order to understand what a national emergency might look like, one simply needs to examine the microcosm of localized disasters and then imagine the same exact problems but magnified 1,000 times.

From my personal experience with local crises, I can say that the worst threat comes not from the event itself, but the ways in which people choose to deal with the event. That is to say, for smart, courageous and prepared people with the right traits and skills, there is no such thing as a crisis. For stupid people who overestimate their abilities or who let fear dominate their thinking, any crisis becomes an insurmountable moment of utter terror.

The right people in the right place at the right time — no crisis. The wrong people in the right place at the right time — total destruction. Therefore, the key to surviving any crisis is to have the right people in place, and to be well away from the wrong people.

The question is, who are the right people? How do we identify them? And, how do we examine ourselves and determine if we are ready or unready? Here are some of the increasingly rare character traits and skills that make a crisis manageable for any community.
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Alarm Clock

Children spend less time outside than the average prisoner

Carey Wedler
Activist Post
Wed, 30 Mar 2016 14:29 UTC
children playing
Prisoners the world over are characteristically defined by their inability to move freely. Inmates at the Wabash maximum security prison in Indiana, however, were recently shocked to learn about one group that enjoys less time outdoors than they do: children.

A global survey conducted on children's time outdoors quickly became an ongoing campaign called "Dirt is Good" after the findings showed a concerning lack of outdoor playtime among children aged five to twelve. The results of the survey, commissioned by British laundry company Persil and conducted by an independent market research firm, revealed ⅓ of British children spend 30 minutes or less outside every day — and that one in five does not play outside at all on an average day. The researchers surveyed 12,000 parents spanning 10 countries: the United States, Brazil, U.K., Turkey, Portugal, South Africa, Vietnam, China, Indonesia, and India.

Comment: Read more about the importance of reconnecting children with the outside world

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Rainbow

Intentional mind-wandering can promote creative thinking and problem solving

Jeremy Dean
PsyBlog
Thu, 31 Mar 2016 00:00 UTC
mind wandering, daydreaming
There are two types of mind wandering — each with a different experience.

Mind wandering tends to be seen in a negative way, but zoning out on purpose can help creative thinking and problems solving.

Now a new study identifies a vital difference between intentional and unintentional mind wandering.

It reveals how intentional mind wandering feels different from accidental mind wandering.

Comment: Taking time out for mind-wandering or daydreaming can broaden your attention and help to make creative connections between ideas, which does not happen when you are over-focused on a problem. Creative people often use daydreaming as 'creative incubation', knowing from experience that the best ideas come seemingly out of the blue when our minds are elsewhere.

Spacing out and goofing off can open the door to creativity

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Hearts

Successful dying: researchers define the elements of a 'good death'

University of California - San Diego
eurekalert.org
Wed, 30 Mar 2016 15:06 UTC
Holding hands
© UCLan
For most people, the culmination of a good life is a "good death," though what that means exactly is a matter of considerable consternation. Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine surveyed published, English-language, peer-reviewed reports of qualitative and quantitative studies defining a "good death," ultimately identifying 11 core themes associated with dying well.

The findings are published in the April 2016 issue of the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.

The research team, headed by senior author Dilip Jeste, MD, Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Neurosciences and director of the Sam and Rose Stein Institute for Research on Aging at UC San Diego School of Medicine, focused on three groups of stakeholders: patients, family members (before or during bereavement) and health care providers.

"This is the first time that data from all of the involved parties have been put together," said Jeste, who is also associate dean for healthy aging and senior care at UC San Diego School of Medicine. "Death is obviously a controversial topic. People don't like to talk about it in detail, but we should. It's important to speak honestly and transparently about what kind of death each of us would prefer."

The literature search culled through 32 qualifying studies. It identified 11 core themes of good death: preferences for a specific dying process, pain-free status, religiosity/spirituality, emotional well-being, life completion, treatment preferences, dignity, family, quality of life, relationship with the health care provider and "other."
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Sun

The surprising ways weather affects our mood and behavior

Dr. Mercola
Mercola.com
Thu, 31 Mar 2016 00:00 UTC
child sunny weather, mood
Weather can be sunny, stormy, dreary or unpredictable but then so, too, can your mood. The way you feel on any given day may actually be intricately tied to the weather forecast in ways science is only beginning to understand.

Many people are now aware that spending time outdoors on a sunny day, and allowing the sun to shine on your bare skin, is necessary for your body to produce vitamin D, which also plays a role in serotonin production.

Serotonin, the brain hormone associated with mood elevation, rises with exposure to bright light and falls with decreased sun exposure. This is one reason why bright-light therapy is so effective for treating people with seasonal affective disorder (SAD), which is sometimes referred to as 'winter depression.'

This is only the tip of the iceberg, however. A sunny day can make you feel inexplicably happy, but only if you can frolic outdoors. People who are stuck indoors on a sunny day may feel their mood plummet, and the weather also has significant (and often subconscious) effects on behavior and more.
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Family

Birds of a feather do flock together, according to latest study


Science Daily
Tue, 29 Mar 2016 18:31 UTC
group dynamics
© bst2012 / FotoliaA new study on group dynamics found that individuals were likely to join groups containing members with similar physical traits -- including levels of attractiveness. The researchers also discovered that attractive women were the most likely to be placed in the physical center of social groups.
New psychology research led out of New Zealand's University of Otago is backing up the old saying that "birds of a feather flock together." The findings emerged after researchers used high-definition video cameras on the roof of a large covered stadium to track and analyze how strangers formed groups.

They found that individuals were likely to join groups containing members with similar physical traits -- including levels of attractiveness. The researchers also discovered that attractive women were the most likely to be placed in the physical center of social groups.

These are the first findings from a unique social psychology experiment using Forsyth Barr Stadium in Dunedin, New Zealand as a giant laboratory. The study appears in the journal PLOS ONE and involved researchers at the University of Otago; the University of Oxford, UK; the University of Maryland, USA; and Dunedin company Animation Research Ltd (ARL).

Comment: Opposites don't attract: We're hard-wired to seek out similarity in relationships

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TV

Television and the social and intellectual dumbing-down of young children

Phillip Schneider
Waking Times
Mon, 28 Mar 2016 17:50 UTC
baby watching tv
It is common for parents to feel that their children are spending too much time in front of the television set. According to a Canadian study, children who watch an excessive amount of television exhibit a multitude of negative side effects including poor language and social skills, and increased bullying.

The 2013 study was set out to determine whether or not viewing television at 29 months (about 2.5 years) was associated with school performance at 65 months (about 5.5 years).

The study, which was conducted on 991 girls and 1,006 boys with parent and teacher reported data, came to this conclusion:
"Increases in total time watching television at 29 months were associated with subsequent decreases in vocabulary and math skills, classroom engagement (which is largely determined by attention skills), victimization by classmates, and physical prowess at kindergarten. These prospective associations, independent of key potential co-founders, suggest the need for better parental awareness and compliance with existing viewing recommendations put forth by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP)."

Comment: This information should be common sense, but alas....

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Family

The way we move our bodies is a signature of our inherent personality traits

Carolyn Gregoire
Huffington Post
Thu, 24 Mar 2016 05:04 UTC
body movement research
© Patrick Aventurier via Getty Images Infrared cameras are used to study body movements at Euromov research center at Montpellier University in France. A new study suggests that people who display similar behavioral characteristics tend to move their bodies in the same way.
The way we move can offer a surprising level of insight into our personalities, according to new research.

A team of European researchers recently found that each of us has an "individual motor signature" — and this signature forms a blueprint for mapping out subtle differences in our movements compared to others, Dr. Krasimira Tsaneva-Atanasova, a professor of mathematics for health care at the University of Exeter in England and a co-author of the research, told The Huffington Post.

While the mechanics of human movement on a broad level has been well-studied, scientists have paid less attention to individual differences in movement, until now.

"We show that different individuals have different motor signatures," she said. "In other words, individuals could be classified based on the way they move."

Namely, the extent to which your movements are similar to another person's can determine how easily you can coordinate with that person and how similar your behaviors are.
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Quenelle

Grammar Nazi, friend or foe? Why typos and spelling mistakes bug people

Robert Cormack
linkedin
Mon, 28 Mar 2016 16:06 UTC
grammar nazis
John F. Kennedy was a notoriously bad speller. His wife, Jackie, was a very good speller, and frequently pointed out his mistakes, something First Ladies are supposed to do when their husbands show signs of illiteracy.

John's tawdry writing was a constant source of embarrassment for Jackie. She was a stickler, he wasn't. They argued a lot about spelling and typos which, apparently, drove Kennedy into the arms of other notoriously bad spellers like Marilyn Monroe.

It's interesting that all of Monroe's lovers were bad spellers (except Arthur Miller, who was pretty good, but as Monroe's maid revealed, Miller spent more time writing than giving Marilyn the business, whereas, Kennedy spent more time giving Marilyn the business than writing).

Martha Gellhorn, third wife of Ernest Hemingway, wasn't crazy about Ernie's spelling and typos, either. She called him "Bug" which might suggest his spelling 'bugged' her.

Hemingway wasn't as bad as Kennedy, but he was still pretty sloppy. Editors frequently chastised him for his typos and spelling mistakes. He responded by telling them that's what they were paid to do.
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