Science of the SpiritS


Question

Does anyone really know what that generic term, mindfulness, really means?

Dr. Nicholas Van Dam & Professor Nicholas Haslam
Pursuit
Wed, 11 Oct 2017 14:32 UTC
mindfulness workshop
© Getty ImagesA mindfulness workshop in Germany but the concept itself is ill defined.
You've probably heard of mindfulness. These days, it's everywhere, like many ideas and practices drawn from Buddhist texts that have become part of mainstream Western culture.

But a review published in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science shows the hype is ahead of the evidence. Some reviews of studies on mindfulness suggest it may help with psychological problems such as anxiety, depression, and stress. But it's not clear what type of mindfulness or meditation we need and for what specific problem.

The study, involving a large group of researchers, clinicians and meditators, found a clear-cut definition of mindfulness doesn't exist. This has potentially serious implications. If vastly different treatments and practices are considered the same, then research evidence for one may be wrongly taken as support for another.

At the same time, if we move the goalposts too far or in the wrong direction, we might lose the potential benefits of mindfulness altogether.

Comment: As with many ancient practices, mindfulness or meditation, can become corrupted and watered-down losing their original benefits.

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People

Who you spend time with will tell you who you are

Ryan Holiday
Medium
Sat, 09 Dec 2017 20:09 UTC
three women
© unsplash
Who do you spend time with?

How do they make you who you are?

James Altucher calls this your 'scene.' As Jim Rohn put it, you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. As my dad told me once as a kid, "Ryan, you become like your friends."

Or as Goethe famously said it better and earlier (about 170 years before any of them), "Tell me with whom you consort with and I will tell you who you are." And before him, Seneca wrote to a friend:
Choose someone whose way of life as well as words, and whose very face as mirroring the character that lies behind it, have won your approval. Be always pointing him out to yourself either as your guardian or as your model. There is a need, in my view, for someone as a standard against which our characters can measure themselves. Without a ruler to do it against you won't make crooked straight.
The fact is, the people we surround ourselves with help set the baseline for what we think is ok, what we think is possible and what we're exposed to.
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Bullseye

Six toxic thoughts that successful people avoid

Dr. Travis Bradberry
Linkedin
Tue, 12 Dec 2017 11:17 UTC
lost in thought
© Getty Images
Your self-talk (the thoughts you have about your feelings) can make or break your career. When you make a mistake, they either magnify the negativity or help you turn that misstep into something productive.

Negative self-talk is unrealistic, unnecessary, and self-defeating. It sends you into a downward emotional spiral that is difficult to pull out of.

All self-talk is driven by important beliefs that you hold about yourself. It plays an understated but powerful role in success because it can both spur you forward to achieve your goals and hold you back.
"He who believes he can and he who believes he cannot are both correct." -Henry Ford
TalentSmart has tested the emotional intelligence (EQ) of more than a million people and found that 90% of top performers are high in EQ. These successful, high EQ individuals possess an important skill-the ability to recognize and control negative self-talk so that it doesn't prevent them from reaching their full potential.

These successful people earn an average of $28,000 more annually than their low EQ peers, get promoted more often, and receive higher marks on performance evaluations. The link between EQ and earnings is so direct that every point increase in EQ adds $1,300 to an annual salary.

When it comes to self-talk, we've discovered some common thoughts that hold people back more than any others. Be mindful of your tendencies to succumb to these thoughts, so that they don't derail your career:

Comment: See also:

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Snakes in Suits

Strange new trait discovered associated with psychopathy


PsyBlog
Mon, 11 Dec 2017 10:07 UTC
psychopath
© Unknown
This strange sign could help you spot a psychopath.

Psychopaths find it hard to tell the difference between simple odours like fish and oranges, research finds.

The finding comes from 79 non-criminal psychopaths whose smelling capabilities were tested.

Each was checked out for psychopathic traits: how much they manipulated people, whether they had erratic lifestyles, how callous they were and their criminal tendencies.

They were then given various common smells to identify, such as coffee, fish, orange, apple, peppermint, banana and liquorice.

Comment: Interesting set of scents they chose. They are all quite distinct from each other and not something that would be easily mistaken under normal circumstances. See also:

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Cupcake Choco

Declining mental health? Turkey's girls and women struggle with body image

Riada Asimovic Akyol
Al-Monitor
Sun, 10 Dec 2017 00:01 UTC
turkish women
© REUTERS/Murad SezerWomen use their cellphones as they travel on a ferry over the Bosporus in Istanbul, Turkey, July 4, 2017.
The death of 35-year-old Ozge Seker in October shortly after her weight loss surgery has put the spotlight on risky gastric sleeve surgery in Turkey. Her death, due to complications and infection, has brought to the surface the ugly reality of the many unreported deaths all over the country following this type of surgery. While the promotion of this medical intervention as a shortcut for losing weight has become big business, the public is not sufficiently aware of the risks of such gastric surgeries and seems blinded by the media's reports of celebrities' overnight weight loss.

Nationwide debate sparked by Seker's death led to a swift response from the Ministry of Health. On Oct. 20, it released a statement explaining new criteria for gastric sleeve surgery, aiming to minimize the risk of such medical procedures. But the circumstances of Seker's death, including that she weighed only 78 kilograms (172 pounds) prior to it, alarmed the public. "Have we all become nuts about our body image?" wrote Ayse Arman, daily Hurriyet columnist and one of the most popular female journalists in the country. She continued, "What is the big deal if she was seven or eight kilos heavier than what she idealized? At least she would be alive today."

Comment: This article seems to be taking the same tack that many media do confronted with the issue of body-dysmorphia - blame the media, blame consumerism, blame men. While there certainly are issues of being surrounded by perfect bodies constantly (which affects men as well as women), clearly the issue is multi-faceted.

Part of the issue, rarely addressed, is that the same problem leading to rising obesity rates is also leading to poorer mental health - the foods we eat. As more and more nations begin adopting the Western diet of crappy processed food, picking up the low-fat mantra, they increasingly become subject to the diseases of civilization - including declining mental well-being. It seems its more a question of overall health; as waistlines tend to grow in concert with a tendency to obsess over appearance. "Self-confidence" and "body positivity" movements aren't going to help a whit if your brain isn't functioning properly, due to a diet filled with crap.

Take away the SJW veneer of fat-shaming, sizeism and micro-aggressions and you'll see that there's a very real physiological issue at play; one that could be solved, at least on the individual level, if we're willing to put aside the victim mentality and examine it head-on.

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Bullseye

There's more than enough time, when you use the time you have constructively

Benjamin P. Hardy
Thrive Global
Mon, 11 Dec 2017 21:39 UTC
Time
Have you ever been so busy that you struggled to notice the needs of those around you? Even those most dear to you?

Even worse than being over-busy is being distracted by things with little or no value - like mindlessly surfing the web when your child wants to play.

Without question, there are countless things we could do at any moment of our lives. What do we choose to do with our moments? What does that say about us?

How can you learn to truly use the time you have, so that looking back each day you will be proud of who you were and how you lived?
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Bulb

You aren't stuck in the Crowd, you ARE the crowd

David Cain
Raptitude
Mon, 11 Dec 2017 21:40 UTC
crowd
© Borna Bevanda
For almost ten years I had a job that required incessant driving. I crossed the city by every possible route, often under time pressure. During one of the countless CBC radio interviews I absorbed during that period, the topic turned to coping with rush hour traffic. Someone on the panel offered a novel concept:

"You're not stuck in traffic, you are the traffic."

Luckily, I was stuck in traffic at that moment, so I had plenty of time to ponder the thought.
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Clipboard

Australian study says most people aren't in severe physical pain when they die receiving palliative care

Kathy Eagar, Sabina Clapham & Samuel Allingham
The Conversation
Sun, 10 Dec 2017 13:19 UTC
dandelion
© Dawid Zawiła on UnsplashSymptoms of an illness usually improve the closer a person gets to dying.
Many people fear death partly because of the perception they might suffer increasing pain and other awful symptoms the nearer it gets. There's often the belief palliative care may not alleviate such pain, leaving many people to die excruciating deaths.

But an excruciating death is extremely rare. The evidence about palliative care is that pain and other symptoms, such as fatigue, insomnia and breathing issues, actually improve as people move closer to death. More than 85% of palliative care patients have no severe symptoms by the time they die.

Comment:

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Books

Why are smart people more prone to anxiety?


PsyBlog
Sun, 10 Dec 2017 10:36 UTC
fear and anxiety


The reason high intelligence and anxiety are correlated.

Intelligence and anxiety may have evolved together as mutually beneficial traits, research finds.

This may help to explain why people with high intelligence also tend to have higher levels of anxiety.

The benefit may be that intelligence allows people to better imagine what might go wrong.

Worriers tend to keep out of danger so that their genes are the ones carried forward into the next generation.

Comment: See also: Study finds intelligent people are more at risk of mental illness

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Books

Storytelling is a more valued skill amongst some hunter-gatherer tribes

Ed Yong
The Atlantic
Mon, 11 Dec 2017 01:53 UTC
Among Filipino hunter-gatherers, storytelling is valued more than any other skill, and the best storytellers have the most children.

Agra preparing a fire
Agra preparing a fire
Once upon a time, the sun and moon argued about who would light up the sky. They fought, as anthropomorphic celestial bodies are meant to do, but after the moon proves to be as strong as the sun, they decide to take shifts. The sun would brighten the day, while the moon would illuminate the night.

This is one of several stories told by the Agta, a group of hunter-gatherers from the Philippines. They spend a lot of time spinning yarns to each other, and like their account of the sun and moon, many of these tales are infused with themes of cooperation and equality. That's no coincidence, says Andrea Migliano, an anthropologist at University College London.

Comment:

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