Science of the SpiritS


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Rationally-based brains are physically different from emotionally-based brains


Science Daily
Thu, 18 Jun 2015 00:00 UTC
rational brain, emotional brain
© olly / FotoliaIllustration. Rationally-based brains are physically different from emotionally-based brains, according to new research.
Researchers at Monash University have found physical differences in the brains of people who respond emotionally to others' feelings, compared to those who respond more rationally, in a study published in the journal NeuroImage.

The work, led by Robert Eres from the University's School of Psychological Sciences, pinpointed correlations between grey matter density and cognitive and affective empathy. The study looked at whether people who have more brain cells in certain areas of the brain are better at different types of empathy.

"People who are high on affective empathy are often those who get quite fearful when watching a scary movie, or start crying during a sad scene. Those who have high cognitive empathy are those who are more rational, for example a clinical psychologist counselling a client," Mr Eres said.
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Butterfly

Being there: How to lend support to someone going through a tough time

Margarita Tartakovsky, M.S.
World of Psychology
Wed, 17 Jun 2015 00:00 UTC
helping hand, support
© Shutterstock
When someone is struggling, we might be at a loss for how to help. We want to reach out. But we're worried we'll do or say the wrong thing. So we don't do anything. Or maybe we have a track record of saying or doing the wrong things. Either way, the result is the same — we keep to ourselves.

Psychotherapist Lena Aburdene Derhally, MS, LPC, worked in oncology for years. She noted that the best way we can support someone who's grieving is simply by being there.

The same is true for most things someone is struggling with — whether your friend is having marital problems, your cousin had a miscarriage or an acquaintance opens up about being overwhelmed.

Jennifer Kogan, LICSW, a psychotherapist in Washington, D.C., stressed the importance of listening with empathy. Empathy is key for meaningful relationships. And it's a skill we can learn. Kogan cited the four attributes of empathy, identified by nursing scholar Teresa Wiseman. Researcher and bestselling author Brené Brown incorporated Wiseman's definition in her own work. Brown writes about empathy in her book I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn't): Telling the Truth About Perfectionism, Inadequacy and Power.
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Light Saber

Possessing an internal locus of control improves our ability to cope with adversity

Lauren Suval
World of Psychology
Mon, 15 Jun 2015 00:00 UTC
Control
For me, one of the hardest facets of stress is relinquishing control. And though there is control in how I personally react and choose to respond to circumstances, there's also a feeling of helplessness; a feeling that control is not completely present.

I don't have complete control over genuine and natural shifts in relationships — the progression of people growing apart. New perceptions affect awareness; they affect how connections are conceived.

I don't have complete control of the past, and all the baggage that comprises such chapters.

I don't have complete control over nodules in my thyroid that may or may not get bigger; that may or may not require a biopsy or further treatment.

I don't have complete control over a competitive job market or a profession that may not lend itself to a stable, sufficient income.

From an evolutionary standpoint, the desire for a sense of control is a profound psychological need.

"If we are in control of our environment, then we have a far better chance of survival," an article on changingminds.org stated. "Our deep subconscious mind thus gives us strong biochemical prods when we face some kind of danger (such as the fight-or-flight reaction)."

Interesting. Though life is renowned for unpredictability, individuals crave a sense of control. Some factors, though, are simply uncontrollable.
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Info

Understanding the five-step series of fear / defense responses

Traci Pedersen
Psych Central
Sat, 13 Jun 2015 00:00 UTC
fear
When a person or animal experiences a dangerous situation, each will typically react with an inborn fear/defense mechanism, such as the well-known "fight or flight."

In a new article, published in the Harvard Review of Psychiatry, researchers offer a detailed framework of the "defense cascade," a five-step series showing different types of fear/defense responses.

Although both humans and animals react to fear in similar ways, animals are able to return to their normal mode of functioning once the danger has passed.

However, "Humans often are not, and they may find themselves locked into the same, recurring pattern of response tied in with the original danger or trauma," said researcher Dr. Kasia Kozlowska, a child and adolescent psychiatrist from the Children's Hospital at Westmead, Australia.

Comment: According to Dr. Peter Levine, the reason that animals in the wild do not experience ongoing trauma from dangerous encounters is that they have a spontaneous capacity for self-paced termination of the state of immobility induced by fear responses. When an animal comes out of the frozen state, it usually shakes and trembles, literally shaking off the state of immobility. However, when humans perceive they are in danger, their bodies assume specific defensive postures necessary for protection which are powerfully energized to meet extreme situations. When activated to this level and then prevented from completing the course of action - as in fighting or fleeing - our systems move into freeze or collapse, and the energized tension remains stuck in the muscles. In turn, these unused or partially used muscular tensions set up a stream of nerve impulses ascending the spinal cord to the thalamus and then to other parts of the brain signaling continued presence of danger and threat.

Fortunately, there are methods that can help to release stored trauma. Dr. Levine describes exercises that can help with the process in his book In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness. Another excellent method is the Éiriú Eolas breathing and meditation program that helps to effectively manage the physiological, emotional, and psychological effects of stress and helps to clear blocked emotions.

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Heart - Black

Masculinity is killing men: The roots of men and trauma

Kate Holloway
Alternet
Sat, 06 Jun 2015 16:26 UTC
We begin the damaging process of turning boys into men long before boyhood ends.
"The three most destructive words that every man receives when he's a boy is when he's told to 'be a man,'" —Joe Ehrmann, coach and former NFL player
Image

If we are honest with ourselves, we have long known that masculinity kills men, in ways both myriad and measurable. While social constructions of femininity demand that women be thin, beautiful, accommodating, and some unattainable balance of virginal and fuckable, social constructions of masculinity demand that men constantly prove and re-prove the very fact that they are, well, men.

Both ideas are poisonous and potentially destructive, but statistically speaking, the number of addicted and afflicted men and their comparatively shorter lifespans proves masculinity is actually the more effective killer, getting the job done faster and in greater numbers. Masculinity's death tolls are attributed to its more specific manifestations: alcoholism, workaholism and violence. Even when it does not literally kill, it causes a sort of spiritual death, leaving many men traumatized, dissociated and often unknowingly depressed. (These issues are heightened by race, class, sexuality and other marginalizing factors, but here let's focus on early childhood and adolescent socialization overall.) To quote poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, "tis not in death that men die most." And for many men, the process begins long before manhood.
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Eye 1

Electricity can make you see hovering shapes

Esther Inglis-Arkell
io9
Fri, 12 Jun 2015 12:33 UTC
Eye
© Tiago Sousa
There is a term for the little glowing shapes that temporarily appear when you rub your eyes or bang your head - phosphenes. In the 1930s, a German scientist found ways to make them appear via the use of electricity, and later the use of drugs.

Phosphenes can be caused by all kinds of things. The simplest ones are the little points of light that appear whenever you rub your eyes. Things get a little more complex when you take a hit to the head. Smacks to the visual cortex tend to result in people "seeing stars."

In the 1930s, one scientist found a more reliable, and less bruising, way to produce phosphenes. An electrical engineer by training, he found he could use electromagnetic waves to stimulate the brain. By varying the frequency of the waves by less than ten percent he found he could produce a "great number" of forms.

Eventually, he came up with fifteen different shapes that most people were likely to see. They could be variations on circular shapes, like radials, concentric circles, or spirals. They could also lines arranged in patterns like lattices, waves, and poles. (Personally I think he's being too vague when he gets to the eighth group, which he just classifies as "odd figures.")
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Butterfly

How to be assertive without being aggressive

Sarah Newman, MA
Psych Central
Fri, 12 Jun 2015 00:00 UTC
assertive, aggressive
Have you ever been told you need to be more assertive? Do your needs get bulldozed or do you often capitulate to keep the peace? Sure, we would all love to be more self-confident, but there's a fine line between being firm about our needs and being petulant. How do we tell the difference?

If you're like me you're ready to live your truth, but you don't know where to start. I grew up in the South, in an authoritarian household. Women in my family weren't given a say in anything — I mean quite literally women remained silent at the dinner table while the men spoke. Women were considered silly, frivolous things that should neither be financially independent or self-reliant.

Fifteen years and three degrees later, I still find it difficult to find my voice — especially with new people. It could be something as simple as telling the movers I want my sofa against the south wall, not facing the fireplace. I don't spit it out, they put it in the wrong place, and then I just figure "I'll move it later." If I order the wrong thing at a restaurant, I may not bother the waitress to change it. With work, I tend to do the grunt tasks that others shrug off and if someone needs to work the weekend, I'm your woman.

I wish that I could set myself on a direct course for happiness and stop feeling waylaid by the needs of others. I'm taking my name off the sign-up sheet for thankless living, how about you?
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Info

Creativity and psychosis share a genetic source


ABC Science, Australia
Tue, 09 Jun 2015 02:22 UTC
Creativity and Psychosis
© agsandrew/iStockphoto
Artistic creativity may share genetic roots with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, a new study suggests.

The research, published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, delves into a well-known genetic database -- the deCODE library of DNA codes derived from samples provided by the population of Iceland.

The authors first compared genetic and medical data from 86,000 Icelanders, establishing a DNA signature that pointed to a doubled risk for schizophrenia and an increase of a third for bipolar disorder.

The next step was to look at the genomes of people engaged in artistic work.

Those samples came from more than 1000 volunteers who were members of Iceland's national societies of visual arts, theatre, dance, writing and music. Members of these organisations were 17 per cent likelier than non-members to have the same genetic signature, the researchers found.

The finding was supported by four studies in the Netherlands and Sweden covering around 35,000 people, comparing individuals in the general public and those in artistic occupations.

Those investigations used somewhat different parameters but found the probability was even higher, at 23 per cent.

"We are here using the tools of modern genetics to take a systematic look at a fundamental aspect of how the brain works," says the study's first author Dr Kari Stefansson, head of deCODE Genetics.

"The results of this study should not have come as a surprise because to be creative, you have to think differently from the crowd, and we had previously shown that carriers of genetic factors that predispose to schizophrenia do so," he says.

Source: Agence France-Presse
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Heart

All by myself: "Alone time" can be good for you

Dr. Mercola
Mercola.com
Thu, 04 Jun 2015 17:03 UTC
alone on beach
© Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Eighty-five percent of Americans believe it's important to have times when they are completely alone and away from anyone else, according to a recent Pew survey. Another 55 percent believe this is very important while 30 percent say it's somewhat important.1

This desire for occasional solitude gives your body and, perhaps more importantly, your mind space and time to just be in the moment, experiencing it with your full attention and focus. It turns out alone time of this sort is highly rewarding.

If you've ever hesitated to spend time alone, perhaps believing you won't enjoy it, a recent study found that people have just as good of a time engaging in fun activities alone as they do when they're with others. The only down side came when the loners worried about how they would look to others, perhaps appearing they had no one to spend time with.2

This latter issue is easily overcome by positive thinking and directing your focus to your activities at hand and the enjoyment it brings. However, aside from enjoyment, spending time alone offers may additional benefits.

Comment: Along with practicing meditation techniques or yoga, sometimes it can be good to just dance by yourself:



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Info

Researchers find ability to delay gratification linked to how specific structures of the brain are connected and communicate


Science Daily
Thu, 04 Jun 2015 00:00 UTC
brain scans, delay gratification
© The Royal SocietyPictured are a series of 12 serial views of a chimpanzee's brain, projecting from the base of the brain, showing the white matter connectivity between the caudate and the dorsal prefrontal cortex. The scans were projected onto a standard chimpanzee template brain.
The ability to delay gratification in chimpanzees is linked to how specific structures of the brain are connected and communicate with each other, according to researchers at Georgia State University and Kennesaw State University.

Their findings were published June 3 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

This study provides the first evidence in primates, including humans, of an association between delay of gratification performance and white matter connectivity between the caudate and the dorsal prefrontal cortex in the right hemisphere, said Dr. Robert Latzman, assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at Georgia State, who led the study with Dr. William Hopkins, professor of neuroscience at Georgia State.

The researchers found higher white matter connectivity between the caudate and dorsal prefrontal cortex in the right hemisphere of the brain was associated with the learning of delay of gratification.

Delay of gratification, the need to control emotional and behavioral impulses, is one of the earliest demands placed on individuals and is of critical importance, Latzman said.

"Delay of gratification or self-control is core to a number of different types of mental illnesses, most notably ADHD (attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder)," said Latzman. "This ability and the developmental process that occurs when children learn to delay gratification and inhibit an immediate want for a longer-term goal is a hugely important developmental milestone."

Comment:

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