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Can Doodling Improve Memory and Concentration?


An experiment suggests doodling may be more than just a pleasant waste of time and paper.

All sorts of claims have been made for the power of doodling: from it being an entertaining or relaxing activity, right through to it aiding creativity, or even that you can read people's personalities in their doodles.

The idea that doodling provides a window to the soul is probably wrong. It can seem intuitively attractive but it falls into the same category as graphology: it's a pseudoscience (psychologists have found no connection between personality and handwriting).

Although it's probably a waste of time trying to interpret a doodle, could the act of doodling itself still be a beneficial habit for attention and memory in certain circumstances?

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The Neuroscience of Regret

A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams.  ~John Barrymore 

We often associate regret with old age – the tragic image of an elderly person feeling regretful over opportunities forever missed. Now, groundbreaking new brain research shows how this stereotypemay be true, at least for a portion of the elderly who are depressed. On the other hand, healthy agingmay involve the ability to regulate regret in the brain, and move on emotionally when there is nothing more that can be done. If we can teach depressed, older people to think like their more optimistic peers, we may be able to help them let go of regret. Read on to find out how the human brain processes regret.

How Our Brains Process Regret

Studies have used functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to scan the brain in real time while participants performed computer tasks that asked them to choose between different options for investing money. When participants were shown how they could have done better with alternative strategies (to prime regret), there was decreased activity in the ventral striatum, an area associated with processing rewards. There was also increased activity in the amygdala, part of the brain’s limbic system that generates immediate emotional response to threat. Interestingly, when the experiment was done with a computer making all the choices, these regret patterns were not found, suggesting that a sense of personal accountability is necessary for regret

 

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Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Depression

 

In this age of advanced modern medicine, it is a depressing fact that not all people suffering with a depressive illness respond to antidepressants.

The mental health charity Mind UK recently highlighted their concern that there is a serious need for a range of therapies to be made available to depression sufferers.

According to the best psychological working practices, medication is now considered to be only one option for effectively treating the illness.

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8 Tips for Setting Nourishing New Year’s Resolutions

Most resolutions have a similar trajectory: kick off the first week of January and fade away in February. That’s because most resolutions also have a similar foundation: They start with a “should.”

Many of us set resolutions that we think we should. We should lose weight. We should diet. We should make more money. We should have a super clean, clutter-free home. We should strive for wanting less — or wanting more.

So it’s understandable why most resolutions stay unresolved. But by shifting how you view, and act, on resolutions and act on them, you can set goals that genuinely nourish you and contribute value to your life.

Below, two experts share eight suggestions for setting authentic and achievable resolutions.

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Collective Consciousness


Introduction

Have you ever experienced a time when the collective enthusiasm of a large event seemed to rise to such a peak that you could almost feel a crackle in the air? Or felt a haunting sense in the air while visiting a place that caused sadness or suffering for thousands of people? Provocative evidence suggests that there are significant departures from chance expectation in the outputs of random number generators (electronic devices that produce truly random bits, or sequences of zeros and ones) during times of collective upheaval, global crises and major celebrations

This year, the Institute of Noetic Sciences, along with several collaborators, conducted an exploratory experiment at Black Rock City, the temporary city created each year in the Nevada desert for the festival known asBurning Man. Burning Man is a week-long event that attracts upwards of 50,000 people. It is unique in its concentrated intensity, isolation, and collective intention, culminating with the burning of a large man-shaped effigy at the center of Black Rock City on Saturday night. See this article in the Atlantic magazine to get a feeling for the event, or these pictures in Rolling Stonemagazine.


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The Neuroscience of Regret

A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams.  ~John Barrymore 

We often associate regret with old age – the tragic image of an elderly person feeling regretful over opportunities forever missed. Now, groundbreaking new brain research shows how this stereotypemay be true, at least for a portion of the elderly who are depressed. On the other hand, healthy agingmay involve the ability to regulate regret in the brain, and move on emotionally when there is nothing more that can be done. If we can teach depressed, older people to think like their more optimistic peers, we may be able to help them let go of regret. Read on to find out how the human brain processes regret.

How Our Brains Process Regret

Studies have used functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to scan the brain in real time while participants performed computer tasks that asked them to choose between different options for investing money. When participants were shown how they could have done better with alternative strategies (to prime regret), there was decreased activity in the ventral striatum, an area associated with processing rewards. There was also increased activity in the amygdala, part of the brain’s limbic system that generates immediate emotional response to threat. Interestingly, when the experiment was done with a computer making all the choices, these regret patterns were not found, suggesting that a sense of personal accountability is necessary for regret

 

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7 Tips To Boost Kids’ Confidence Back at School

As parents, we invest thousands upon thousands of dollars on providing our children with the latest video games, toys and computers. This year, why not take steps towards investing time into your child’s emotional development?

In today’s world, with instances of bullying occuring at all ages, healthy emotional development is critical to seeing our children become successful as preschool, elementary, middle school and high school students.

As a parent, I’m guilty of buying my children materialistic items. After all, I’m human and I want to give my children the best things in life. I’ve now realized that the best thing I can give my children is a good sense of self. When the latest video game becomes a fad, my children will still have their self-esteem.

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8 Tips for Setting Nourishing New Year’s Resolutions

Most resolutions have a similar trajectory: kick off the first week of January and fade away in February. That’s because most resolutions also have a similar foundation: They start with a “should.”

Many of us set resolutions that we think we should. We should lose weight. We should diet. We should make more money. We should have a super clean, clutter-free home. We should strive for wanting less — or wanting more.

So it’s understandable why most resolutions stay unresolved. But by shifting how you view, and act, on resolutions and act on them, you can set goals that genuinely nourish you and contribute value to your life.

Below, two experts share eight suggestions for setting authentic and achievable resolutions.

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The Anxiety of Awareness

matthew.crompton's avatarGoing Around Places

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“Being awake in a condition such that your conscious awareness does not often lapse, perhaps the most natural reaction is also the most paradoxical: anxiety, verging onto moments of near-panic. To be temporarily lost in the contents of consciousness is really just a kind of comfort blanket, allowing you to forget your true identity, and thereby freeing you from the responsibilities of high consciousness itself. As Soren Kierkegaard observed, this is a natural reaction to the initial realization of freedom. The antidote, if practiced diligently, is quite useful: Simply remember to keep breathing.”

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Energy Psychology: The Future of Therapy?

Modern psychotherapy’s enfant terrible, Energy Psychology, has been alternately praised and ridiculed, extolled and rebuked. EP modalities have been called “a major breakthrough,” “the power therapies for the twenty-first century,” and “the most significant development in personal growth since the Buddha taught meditation.” Critics have labeled these modalities a “sham,” “therapeutic snake oil,” and worse. One skeptic wrote, “Any purported effects attributable to EP are likely due to features it shares with more traditional therapies.” Some practitioners practice EP “in the closet,” refraining from telling colleagues what they’re doing out of fear of censure. The American Psychological Association has taken the unusual step of refusing to grant CE credits for EP trainings.

The term energy psychology describes a new field of innovative interventions that balance, restore, and enhance human functioning by stimulating the human subtle energy system. These techniques have spread throughout the world—largely via the Internet—and have been observed to catalyze rapid, dramatic, and lasting changes in feelings, beliefs, mental states, and behaviors. Just as we have a physical anatomy—consisting of our skeleton, organs and glands, muscles and connective tissue—we also have an energetic anatomy—consisting of the acupuncture meridian system, chakras and nadis (energy centers and channels), and the human biofield/s. The common denominator underlying EP techniques involves stimulating energy, whether by tapping, touching, or intention.

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Quantum Psychology

In 1933, in Science and Sanity, Alfred Korzybski proposed that we should abolish the “is of identity” from the English language. (The “is of identity” takes the form X is a Y. e.g., “Joe is a Communist,” “Mary is a dumb file-clerk,” “The universe is a giant machine,” etc.) In 1949, D. David Bourland Jr. proposed the abolition of all forms of the words “is” or “to be” and the Bourland proposal (English without “isness”) he called E-Prime, or English-Prime.

A few scientists have taken to writing in E-Prime (notable Dr. Albert Ellis and Dr. E.W. Kellogg III). Bourland, in a recent (not-yet-published) paper tells of a few cases in which scientific reports, unsatisfactory to sombunall members of a research group, suddenly made sense and became acceptable when re-written in E-Prime. By and large, however, E-Prime has not yet caught on either in learned circles or in popular speech.

(Oddly, most physicists write in E-Prime a large part of the time, due to the influence of Operationalism — the philosophy that tells us to define things by operations performed — but few have any awareness of E-prime as a discipline and most of them lapse into “isness” statements all too frequently, thereby confusing themselves and their readers. )

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Back From a Vacation? Don’t Waste Your Clear Mind on the Small Stuff

If you are one of those people like me who think for a living, then you’ve probably noticed just how much clearer your mind is after a break of some sort. Especially a break where you haven’t thought about work at all.

It turns out there is now some very good science that explains the value, importance and function of mental rest. In particular the research relates to our ability to have insights, the ‘aha’ moment when something that didn’t make sense suddenly changes. (There is also the idea of just giving overused circuits a rest, but I think the more interesting issue is around how we solve complex problems.)

The research points to the idea of valuing a fresh mind, as this is the time we are more likely to be able to solve tough problems. Instead of valuing times when our minds are quiet, we tend to automatically fill it up with emails or every day challenges that waste a precious commodity.

Research in the lab by Mark Beeman, one of the fathers of neuroscience research into insight, shows that we tend to solve about 60% of problems with the ‘aha’ phenomenon. No one has studied complex real world problems yet, but the figure is likely to be higher than 60% when there is no linear or obvious solution.

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6 Ways Men and Women Communicate Differently

Men and women are different in many ways. They see the world through completely different perspectives. The key to understanding their differences is in the way that men and women communicate.

Here are six important communication differences that you should be aware of, to help improve your communications with your partner and make them smoother and more effective.

1. Why Talk?

He believes communication should have a clear purpose. Behind every conversation is a problem that needs solving or a point that needs to be made. Communication is used to get to the root of the dilemma as efficiently as possible.

She uses communication to discover how she is feeling and what it is she wants to say. She sees conversation as an act of sharing and an opportunity to increase intimacy with her partner. Through sharing, she releases negative feelings and solidifies her bond with the man she loves.

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Is Your Anger a Cleansing Squall or a Destructive Hurricane?

Anger is the emotional energy within each of us that rises up when something needs to change. If you act on the need to create change, your anger can be channeled effectively. If it’s not redirected to something effective, your frustration will build, sometimes to hurricane force.

Anger that is allowed to get out of control is as destructive as a hurricane, but anger that is expressed in healthy ways can “clear the air” just as a mild rainstorm does. If you express your anger clearly and cleanly, without too much drama, it will be like a cleansing rain, leaving you calm and relaxed. The problem will then be solved.

People who have angry outbursts, whether at spouses or freeway traffic, have poor impulse control. They are often emotionally “stuck” in the early childhood temper tantrum stage (about age 2 1/2 to 3) because they never learned to manage their own anger. Whoever was supposed to help them manage their temper, such as parents or teachers, was absent, intimidated or helpless, and allowed the child to grow into a raging adult.

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A Review Essay of Many Worlds in One: The Search for Other Universes, by Alex Vilenkin.


The task of scientific popularization is a difficult one. Too many authors think that it is to be accomplished by frequent resort to explanatorily vacuous and obfuscating metaphors which leave the reader puzzling over what exactly a particular theory asserts. One of the great merits of Alexander Vilenkin's book is that he shuns this route in favor of straightforward, simple explanations of key terms and ideas. Couple that with a writing style that is marvelously lucid, and you have one of the best popularizations of current physical cosmology available from one of its foremost practitioners.

Vilenkin vigorously champions the idea that we live in a multiverse, that is to say, the causally connected universe is but one domain in a much vaster cosmos which comprises an infinite number of such domains. Moreover, each causally connected domain is subdivided into an infinite number of subdomains, each constituting an observable universe bounded by an event horizon. As if that were not enough, Vilenkin also endorses Everett's Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum physics, so that even the infinite multiverse is but one of an indefinitely large class of distinct multiverses. The result is a breath-taking vision of physical reality.

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