Science of the SpiritS


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ACT FAST: The framework to change your emotional state when it feels out of control

Dave Navarro
Rock your day
Mon, 27 Dec 2010 16:35 UTC
changing moods
When you have major changes going on in your life, or you're just frustrated about where you are, it's easy to get trapped in a cycle of depression, bad moods and frustration. I know, I've been there ... and when I'm not careful, I still get there more than I want to.

But when I've had a particularly hard time, I hit these moments where I'm in a foul mood, or I'm just feeling paralyzed, and I'm just stuck. Sometimes I just stew in that and stay there, but sometimes I actually get intelligent and pull my way out of it.

I'm going to outline the framework that I've been using successfully to really get myself resourceful and motivated (and in a better mood) when I'm feeling stuck. Hopefully it will help you, too, and if you do I truly hope you'll share it with others.

First Up: Using A Framework To Escape From Paralyzing Situations

When we feel bad, it's hard to "feel good" again. You can't just wish yourself better, and when you're in a stuck place, you don't generally have the mental energy to pull out. Willpower doesn't help, and "positive thinking" sure as hell doesn't help. But falling back on a framework of steps does help, because we humans function well when we have a set of steps to follow.

The reason for this is that steps take the emotion out of our situation and give us direction to simply act. Duck and Cover. Stop, Drop, and Roll. When you know with certainty what to do next, you're in a much stronger position to take action, even when you're panicking. (And it doesn't have to be words, either - just think of Lamaze breathing, which expectant mothers practice well ahead of time so they can slip back into it during the stress of labor.)

Comment: In the end, it's only you who can truly change how you feel. Sometimes emotions take over, and it feels as though we cannot escape, that's not the truth, you can change them!

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Info

Study finds: Worrying you might get hurt is worse than knowing you will

Rachel Feltman
Washington Post
Tue, 29 Mar 2016 17:23 UTC
crying baby
© iStockIt's just more stressful. (iStock)
Sometimes scientific studies reaffirm things we already knew based on good ol' common sense. You can look at those studies and be all, "Ugh, lol, duh, #wasteofmoney," or you can say, "Wow, huh, I guess maybe now we can try to get to the root of all these human experiences we take for granted."

This is one of those studies.

Published Tuesday in Nature Communications, the experiment found that having a 50 percent chance of receiving a painful electric shock was actually more stressful than having a 100 percent chance of receiving one.
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Vader

The road to pathocracy: Why ponerology is important to solve the world's problems

James G. Long
American Thinker
Sat, 02 Aug 2014 15:50 UTC
There are three primary mental disorders. Insanity (psychosis) is a thinking disorder and has been recognized since ancient times; insanity rarely causes a problem for anyone but the afflicted person and immediate family and associates. Insane school shootings are mercifully infrequent. Mood disorders (depression, bi-polar) were only clinically described in the late 19th century by Dr. Henry Maudsley, and again, mood disorders rarely cause a problem for anyone but those who suffer from the affliction and immediate family and associates.

Ted Bundy
© unknownMost people's knowledge of psychopathy extends only to high profile serial killers like Ted Bundy. Such cases should be labelled "failed psychopaths" in light of the field of ponerology.
The last of the major mental disorders, psychopathy, was clinically described only in 1941 by Dr. Hervey Cleckley. Psychopathy is complex and counterintuitive, and understanding has been very slow, even though some psychologists credit (debit?) psychopaths with starting WWII and with creating the 2008 worldwide financial meltdown, in addition to the many serial murder cases that attract wide attention. The Western understanding of psychopathic mental disorders is only now beginning to attract serious attention by the general public and that would seem to be entirely appropriate given the high associated costs of psychopathic behaviors.

Largely unrecognized is that there was an active but clandestine psychopathy study group operating behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War. The apparent last survivor of this group died in 2007, and it is an amazing story.

Dr. Andrew Łobaczewski was a Polish psychologist in the mental health field during the Cold War, working particularly with psychopathy. Dr. Łobaczewski was in the last class of psychology students before the Soviets imposed Pavlovian concepts on psychological studies within Poland. Dr. Łobaczewski labored under very trying circumstances, facing ideological resistance, censorship, official repression, and prison. A group of like-minded mental health workers behind the Iron Curtain produced a body of knowledge similar to and in some cases more comprehensive than that of Western psychologists, particularly the works of Dr. Hervey Cleckley in the USA as updated by Dr. Robert Hare in Canada. Dr. Łobaczewski's group found it necessary to maintain anonymity, and some members of the group were unknown to others while keeping up a correspondence through a chain of personal contacts. At least one member of the group died under mysterious circumstances.
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Clipboard

Does handwriting make you smarter?

Robert Lee Hotz
The Wall Street Journal
Mon, 04 Apr 2016 02:08 UTC
class
© blogs.terrapinn.com
Laptops and organizer apps make pen and paper seem antique, but handwriting appears to focus classroom attention and boost learning in a way that typing notes on a keyboard does not, new studies suggest.

Students who took handwritten notes generally outperformed students who typed their notes via computer, researchers at Princeton University and the University of California at Los Angeles found. Compared with those who type their notes, people who write them out in longhand appear to learn better, retain information longer, and more readily grasp new ideas, according to experiments by other researchers who also compared note-taking techniques.

"The written notes capture my thinking better than typing," said educational psychologist Kenneth Kiewra at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, who studies differences in how we take notes and organize information.

Ever since ancient scribes first took reed pen to papyrus, taking notes has been a catalyst for the alchemy of learning, by turning what we hear and see into a reliable record for later study and recollection. Indeed, something about writing things down excites the brain, brain imaging studies show. "Note-taking is a pretty dynamic process," said cognitive psychologist Michael Friedman at Harvard University who studies note-taking systems. "You are transforming what you hear in your mind."
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TV

Porn, hacking the habit loop

Brett McKay
ArtOfManliness
Thu, 09 Oct 2014 00:00 UTC
how to quit porn
It's been interesting to watch this series unfold this week. Though I knew it would be controversial, I wasn't sure what to expect and how much interest there would actually be in the topic.

As it happened, the posts received massive amounts of traffic. And while there was definitely vocal opposition to the arguments I laid out, these were fewer in number than I expected. This may be partly chalked up to the fact that AoM's readership tends to skew more traditional and religious (even though we actively welcome men from all backgrounds) - guys who are likely more interested in this topic than the general population. But I also have to think that there are tons of men - conservative and liberal alike — that aren't completely happy with the role of porn in their lives, for whatever reason. I've long felt that there are a bunch of things in our culture towards which the media relentlessly presents a viewpoint that supposedly everyone shares, and people don't feel comfortable publicly admitting that it just isn't working that way in their own personal lives. I think the idea of porn use as harmless and casual is one of those things.

At any rate, if you're reading this post, you or someone you know is trying to quit porn and are looking for some help in doing so. Here's the good news: in the vast majority of cases, you don't need expensive rehabs or retreats to rid your life of porn. As I mentioned yesterday, in reading a boatload of books and countless blog and forum postings on "porn addiction recovery," I discovered that most of the advice given is the exact same advice therapists and cognitive psychologists offer to someone who's trying to change a bad habit as innocuous as swearing or fingernail biting. Sure, there are a few differences, but overall, quitting porn is just like quitting pretty much any other bad habit.

Comment: Also see This is Your Brain on Porn

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Info

Dr. Gabor Maté: The stress-disease connection, addiction & the destruction of American childhood


Democracy Now
Tue, 25 Dec 2012 10:39 UTC
Dr. Gabor Mate
Today, a Democracy Now! special with the Canadian physician and bestselling author, Dr. Gabor Maté. From disease to addiction, parenting to attention deficit disorder, Maté's work focuses on the centrality of early childhood experiences to the development of the brain, and how those experiences can impact everything from behavioral patterns to physical and mental illness. While the relationship between emotional stress and disease, and mental and physical health more broadly, is often considered controversial within medical orthodoxy, Maté argues too many doctors seem to have forgotten what was once a commonplace assumption, that emotions are deeply implicated in both the development of illness, addictions and disorders, and in their healing.
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Hearts

Self-validation: How to accept your internal experience

Karyn Hall Ph.D
Psychology Today
Sat, 12 Jul 2014 10:24 UTC
happy woman
Validation means to express understanding and acceptance of another person's internal experience, whatever that might be. Validation does not mean you agree or approve. Validation builds relationships and helps ease upset feelings. Knowing that you are understood and that your emotions and thoughts are accepted by others is powerful. Validation is like relationship glue.

Self-validation is accepting your own internal experience, your thoughts and feelings. Self-validation doesn't mean that you believe your thoughts or think your feelings are justified. There are many times that you will have thoughts that surprise you or that don't reflect your values or what you know is true. You will also have feelings that you know aren't justfied. If you fight the thoughts and feelings, or judge yourself for having them, then you increase your emotional upset. You'll also miss out on important information about who you are as a person.

Validating your thoughts and emotions will help you calm yourself and manage your emotions more effectively. Validating yourself will help you accept and better understand yourself, which leads to a stronger identity and better skills at managing intense emotions. Self-validation helps you find wisdom.

Comment: Self-compassion and validation are important for our mental well being, and practicing these skills everyday can teach us to love ourselves for all of who we are. Which, by extension, allows us to better understand and be more accepting of others.

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Wine n Glass

Teen addiction can be reduced through service to others


Science Beta
Fri, 01 Apr 2016 21:55 UTC
zen image
Teenagers with serious alcohol and other drug problems have a low regard for others. At least, if you are going by the high rates of driving under the influence and having unprotected sex with a history of sexually transmitted disease, research shows.

The findings also showed that these adolescents are less apt to volunteer their time helping others, an activity that she has been shown to help adult alcoholics stay sober.

Developmental psychologist Maria Pagano, PhD, of Case Western Reserve University, had a major challenge in designing this study.

Comment: More on the benefits of helping others.

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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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