Science of the SpiritS


Coffee

Understanding the inner workings of your brain can improve your productivity and quality of life

Dr. Mercola
Mercola.com
Sun, 10 Jan 2016 00:00 UTC
brain
The human being is the only animal that has a reflective brain, yet most of us sabotage it every day, and in doing so, we limit our productivity and well-being. Dr. Theo Compernolle is a Belgian physician with about three decades-worth of experience in clinical psychiatry, neuropsychiatry, and neurology.

His book, "Brain Chains: Discover Your Brain, to Unleash Its Full Potential In a Hyperconnected, Multitasking World," reveals how to distinguish between the reflexive and the reflective brain, and how understanding the inner workings of your brain can dramatically improve your productivity and quality of life.

In the last year, I've read about 150 books or so, and "Brain Chains" is clearly one of the top 10 books I've read. It has my strong endorsement and recommendation, because it provides so many useful tips, and it's so well written.

Comment:

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Family

The "Science of a Meaningful Life": Top ten findings for 2015

Jason Marsh, Kirra Dickinson, Kira M. Newman, Jill Suttie, Jeremy Adam Smith
Greater Good Science Center
Mon, 11 Jan 2016 03:26 UTC
keys psychology
More than a decade after Greater Good first started reporting on the science of compassion, generosity, happiness—what we call "the science of a meaningful life"—the research in our field is acquiring ever more nuance and sophistication. New studies build on and even re-interpret findings from previous years, particularly as their authors use more exacting methods, with bigger and broader data sets, and consider additional factors to explain prior results.

These nuances are clearly reflected in this year's list of our Top 10 Insights from the Science of a Meaningful Life—the fourth such list compiled by Greater Good's editors. Indeed, many of this year's entries could be described as "Yes, but" insights: Yes, as prior findings suggest, being wealthy seems to make people less generous, but only when they reside in places with high inequality. Yes, pursuing happiness makes you unhappy, but only if you live in an individualistic culture. Yes, Americans are less happy than they used to be, but only if they're over the age of 30. The caveats and qualifications abound.

And these are not just signs of academic hair splitting. Instead, they demonstrate that researchers are sharpening their understanding of the actual causes, consequences, and current state of humans' social and emotional well-being. And that, in turn, means that Greater Good is able to report on the practical implications and potential applications of this research with greater confidence and detail than ever before.
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Battery

Three powerful ways to cleanse and recharge your energetic body

Ryan Mandell
Waking Times
Thu, 07 Jan 2016 18:06 UTC
energy
© Unknown
After the holidays, I, like most people, found myself feeling incredibly drained. Whether it was the socializing, the food or the travel, it had all resigned me to the couch in a pseudo-catatonic state. While it's easy to think this is because of all the hustle and bustle, the truth is that it's because my energetic body had been depleted due to the myriad of activities I had been engaged in as a result of not just my traveling, but daily life as well.

In fact, it's incredibly easy for your energetic body to become disturbed and imbalanced due to the intensity and disharmony of our modern way of living. We are constantly bombarded by harmful electromagnetic fields from wifi signals, computers, cell phones, cars, power lines and smart meters, among many other things, which greatly interfere with our energetic body. These can pollute our energetic sheath with disruptive frequencies that cause us to feel stressed out, tired and drained. Also, eating GMO and pesticide-laden, non-organic food interferes with the body's ability to maintain the integrity of our energetic field, also known as our aura. And finally, being around negative people, often called 'energy vampires', also drains us energetically. They feed off of our body's subtle energy, which, as you may have guessed, collects in the energetic body as well.
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People

The chameleon effect: Why do we mimic other people?

Rachel Nuwer
Brain Decoder
Tue, 05 Jan 2016 19:15 UTC
cats
© shutterstock
As a student, Elena Kurzius often caught herself imitating a conversation partner's accent or way of speaking. "I felt a little awkward and strange when I noticed myself doing that," she says. Curious, she began researching the tendency, which she soon found had a name: the chameleon effect.

First described in 1999, the chameleon effect refers to the unwilling and unconscious ways that we adapt our behaviors to match those of our partner's. "Although it's everywhere and happening all the time, we hardly notice it," Kurzius says. "I wanted to know why we function this way, because I wanted to characterize myself and find out why I do it."

Now a psychologist at the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg in Germany, those questions have motivated Kurzius' research ever since. As she and others have discovered, positive behaviors and those that facilitate cooperation—including smiling, laughing and nodding—are the ones most often mimicked. But the chameleon effect may also extend to posture, foot shaking, accents, speech rhythm and more.
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Magic Wand

Lucid dreaming: Unraveling the mystery of consciousness?

Dan Denis & Giulia Poerio
Medical Press
Thu, 07 Jan 2016 00:30 UTC
lucid dreaming
© Shutterstock
We spend around six years of our lives dreaming - that's 2,190 days or 52,560 hours. Although we can be aware of the perceptions and emotions we experience in our dreams, we are not conscious in the same way as when we're awake. This explains why we can't recognise that we're in a dream and often mistake these bizarre narratives for reality.

But some people - lucid dreamers - have the ability to experience awareness during their dreams by "re-awakening" some aspects of their waking consciousness. They can even take control and act with intention in the dream world (think Leonardo DiCaprio in the film Inception).

Lucid dreaming is still an understudied subject, but recent advances suggest it's a hybrid state of waking consciousness and sleep.

Comment: Dream-enhancing with wild herbs

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Flashlight

Becoming aware of our cognitive distortions is the first step in the process of change

Emily Waters
PsychCentral
Tue, 05 Jan 2016 00:00 UTC
coginitive distortions, irrational thinking
Psychiatrist Aaron Beck, the founder of cognitive-behavioral therapy, laid the foundation for the following cognitive distortions. While we all engage in them from time to time, they become a problem when they bleed into our daily lives, causing depression, isolation, and anxiety.

Pay attention to how many times you employ these distortions on a daily or weekly basis. Once you are aware that you do, you can make the effort to consciously reduce the frequency with which you engage in them.

Overgeneralization

You have one or two negative experiences and think everything in the future will play out that same way. Ironically, in a self-fulfilling prophecy, you will this to happen, confirming your erroneous convictions.

Shoulda, woulda, coulda

You live in a "should" world — "I should have done this, so that this wouldn't have happened." Let it go. Things unfolded in a particular way for a reason. Tell yourself you will do better next time.

Comment: Despite assuring ourselves that we are rational and intelligent beings, we often become prey to distorted thinking and emotions of which we are completely unaware:

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People 2

Social bonds improve physical and mental well-being at every stage of life


Science Daily
Mon, 04 Jan 2016 00:00 UTC
friends
The more social ties people have at an early age, the better their health is at the beginnings and ends of their lives, according to a new study from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The study is the first to definitively link social relationships with concrete measures of physical well-being such as abdominal obesity, inflammation, and high blood pressure, all of which can lead to long-term health problems, including heart disease, stroke and cancer.

"Based on these findings, it should be as important to encourage adolescents and young adults to build broad social relationships and social skills for interacting with others as it is to eat healthy and be physically active," said Kathleen Mullan Harris, James Haar Distinguished Professor at UNC-Chapel Hill and faculty fellow at the Carolina Population Center (CPC).

The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, builds on previous research that shows that aging adults live longer if they have more social connections. It not only provides new insights into the biological mechanisms that prolong life but also shows how social relationships reduce health risk in each stage of life.

Comment: Other research has highlighted the detrimental effects of loneliness and isolation, and the importance of companionship and the support of others on our mental and physical health:

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Hearts

Healing trauma: An Indigenous Australian approach

Jonathan Davis
upliftconnect.com
Mon, 20 Jul 2015 18:45 UTC
healing trauma

The Healing Power of Listening in Stillness

People have always experienced pain, and in the vast span of time before the colonial expansion of western culture, indigenous cultures weren't without their methods of dealing with trauma.

For centuries we've largely ignored the wisdom of those among us who are still directly connected to ancestral ways of knowledge. As our modern lifestyle collides with the fact that our Earth is not capable of supporting our current way of life, we are finally starting to look to those who once lived in a state of indefinite sustainability and abundance, for a way forward.
"In order to have sustainable community you have to make sure the people are sustainable. This means healing trauma." -Jarmbi Githabul, Narakwal / Githabul Custodian
What is Dadirri?
"Dadirri is inner, deep listening and quiet, still awareness. Dadirri recognises the deep spring that is inside us. We call on it and it calls to us. This is the gift that Australia is thirsting for. It is something like what you call 'contemplation'." -Miriam-Rose Ungunmerr-Baumann, Ngangiwumirr Elder
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Butterfly

Healing the wounds of emotional incest

Paul Dunion, Ed.D., LPC
Huffington Post
Mon, 04 Jan 2016 13:41 UTC
emotions, healing
Unlike wounds resulting from physical or sexual abuse, where the invasive energy is blatant, the wounding energy of emotional incest is stealthy and very difficult to track. The intrusive psychic energy of the perpetrator is packaged in care and attention. It can be quite challenging to break into this care package and reveal the expectations and needs of affiliation, control, love and understanding on behalf of the perpetrator. Being robbed of one's childhood hardly goes noticed as the child feels so good about being chosen in a special way by an adult. The child is invited to act as if they are capable of being in an adult relationship.

Emotional incest often takes place with either a single parent or a parent whose spouse is not emotionally available. It can also happen with any trusted authority figure, e.g., clergy, coach, teacher, club leader or relative. There are a number of ways that emotional incest impacts development.
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Hourglass

Slowing down the perceived passage of time helps you live longer and better

Mark Sisson
Mark's Daily Apple
Wed, 30 Dec 2015 00:00 UTC
nature walk
I'm 62. I'm supposed to have a big belly. I'm supposed to be taking at least four prescription drugs a day (PDF). I'm supposed to be lining up for the early bird special at the Denny's on Lincoln. I'm not supposed to be lifting weights, sprinting, and beating younger guys at Ultimate Frisbee. I shouldn't be snowboarding, starting exciting new business ventures, or going shirtless in the Southern California sun without sunblock. I'm supposed to be set in my ways, not open to new evidence. I'm supposed to be remembering my younger, better days as time slips away and I descend ever more rapidly into frailty, financial insolvency, and death. Time is supposed to speed up as I age, not slow down.

Isn't that the conventional wisdom? Whenever a person gets old, or even "old," they complain about the growing rapidity of time. Weeks seem shorter. The endless summers of childhood become one or two sweaty months of having to wear work clothes in 90 degree weather. The holidays come and go before you realize it. Time used to go slow enough that you could run out of things to do and actually get bored. Now, most people complain about not having the time to do the stuff they claim to want but never really pursue.

As you all know, I'm committed to living well over living long. I'll take a long life, but I'm more interested in compressing my morbidity—the end-of-life inability to take care of oneself and appreciate the good things this world offers. If a long life means being hooked up to life support for the last ten years, I'll pass.

An important piece of living well as you age that most never consider is taking advantage of the fact that time perception is entirely a construction of the brain. By slowing down the perceived passage of time, you seemingly have more of it and live longer—and better.
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