The BrainWays Tool Box

This blog has a new home

noreply@blogger.com (Sandi Smith) — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 17:16:00 +0000

Hi! Thank you for visiting The BrainWays Tool Box.

We have moved. Please come visit us at http://www.sandismith.com/blog/ and remember to bookmark that page.

With Happiness,

Sandi

What lesson is there in a millionaire’s ring tone?

noreply@blogger.com (Sandi Smith) — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 12:00:00 +0000

When I realized how all of us in my coach’s million-dollar mastermind had default ring tones on our iPhones, I thought how boring we all must be.

I wondered if wealthy people, or at least the people in this group, lacked creativity and individualism? But that wasn’t it. On the contrary. These were amazingly creative, fun, and sharp minds that I was privileged to spend 2 days with at the Ritz in Miami.

And then it hit me. How can you make money by changing your ring tone? You can’t. You don’t.

In any business owner’s day, there are a million things to do. We all have so many choices about what to do first, what to do at all, and what to delegate. It’s a really simple concept: the millionaires don’t do “ring tone” tasks. They don’t do the tasks that don’t yield them a healthy return.

How do you organize your day? Do you work on the things that scream at you the most? Do you work on the things you like the most? Do you work on the things that you are most comfortable with? Or do you have some other method for working your inbox and your to do list?

Because successful people organize their days differently from all that. They work on the highest payback tasks. They don’t even bother with the tasks that don’t net them a return.

Take a look at your own to do list. How can you prioritize it in a way that brings you the most return? What “ring-tone” tasks do you have on your to do list that you can get rid of?

When you can reorganize your day to match the habits of multi-millionaire business owners, you come that much closer to becoming one yourself.

What do the rich successful, and happy do that average people don't?

noreply@blogger.com (Sandi Smith) — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 17:08:00 +0000

You might already have an answer in mind. My students have given me many answers to that question over the years. Some people feel there is a hidden formula that only high achievers understand. Most people feel like you need to be driven to work hundred-hour weeks. Others feel like you are either born with it or you aren’t.

But there isn’t any magic to being a high performer, you don’t have to work your fingers to the bone, and you don’t have to be born with something special. Anyone can be a high performer.

The reason that most people are not high performers is not only simple to understand; it’s the key to becoming a high performer. I believe you’ll love the answer because every single one of you can do something about it as soon as you realize it.

Take dieting. Why do people have so much trouble losing weight? There are only two possible actions that result in dropping pounds: 1) eating less, and 2) exercising more. Why can’t people shed their excess weight quickly and simply?

The answer to that question is the same as the answer to my first question: Why aren’t we all successful, high performers?

Before you can be successful as a high performer or a dieter, you have to get a handle on your emotions. High performance is emotional. Dieting is emotional. There is an emotional component that people don’t recognize, don’t understand, and have no idea what to do with.

Inside our brains, our emotional and logical wiring are so interconnected, it’s impossible to separate them. Your decision-making system is like an iceberg; a little bit is visible from the surface, but the bulk is underwater or subconscious. A big factor in why we underperform has to do with the emotion of fear – fear that we might not even realize we have.

The key to high performance is in understanding how our brains are wired as human beings. Our brains control everything we do, think, and feel. You may feel your heart flutter, but it’s your brain that sent the signal to your heart to beat fast. You may be aware of a gut feeling you have, but your brain initiated that feeling before it reached your gut. You may be able to wiggle your toes, but your brain first sent the command to start wiggling to your toes from its motor cortex. Your brain is your master command center for everything.

Throughout history, our brains have been wired by default for survival ; success as we tend to measure it in our contemporary society is simply not in our natural wiring. Our wiring dates back thousands of years and was brilliantly designed to keep us alive at all costs in our cave man days.

Once you understand why this cave man wiring causes you to act the way you do in today’s modern world, you can decide if you want to “override” your default wiring so you can live more powerfully as a high performer. The good news is that it takes only a little bit of understanding and knowledge – and actually a lot of fun – to adjust the natural wiring so that we can become the successes – the high performers – we want to be.

In future issues, we’ll go more in depth on how to rewire your brain to win instead of just survive. For now, start becoming more aware of how you make decisions and when fear (or just hesitation) comes up for you. With this increased awareness, you’ve mastered the first step of rewiring your brain to win.

Secrets from the Olympians

noreply@blogger.com (Sandi Smith) — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 14:00:00 +0000

Peter’s boss had quite a reputation of being hard to please. Peter’s co-worker, Molly, had just been yelled at and was developing a fear of him. She was assigned to develop a presentation for him and was scared.

Peter learned about motor imagery a few days before Molly was to present. He asked Molly to visualize every detail about the way she wanted the presentation to go: seeing how it would start, practicing what she would say, visualizing how she would gesture, crafting what the slides looked like, noticing the pleased look on the boss’s face, listening to his praise about how well she did during the presentation, answering questions well, and walking out with a smile on her face. She imagined this mental rehearsal in her mind over and over again the night before the presentation.

On the day of the presentation, Molly nailed it. Peter’s boss melted and felt Molly did an outstanding job, increasing his confidence in her and her credibility in his eyes. Molly felt competent and gained confidence as well. Peter was very pleased that the whole thing worked out so well for all.

What Peter showed Molly how to do is motor imagery, and it’s something you can learn too. Motor imagery (MI) is defined as a mental representation of movement without any body movementⁱ. It’s also called mental imagery and mental simulation of action. Motor imagery has been shown to be very effective in motor skill learning.

Here are a couple examples of how it’s been studied in the lab.

One scientist had new piano players try this method. The imagining players were as accurate after two hours of practice as ones who actually practiced for five days.ⁱⁱ

MI has been used to helped paralyzed individuals become more independent by designing machines that can read their thoughts.

When one scientistⁱⁱⁱ had subjects imagine running on a treadmill at speeds of 5, 8, and 10 kilometers per hour, both heart rate and breathing rate went up relative to the imagined speed, powerful evidence that imagery alone can engage the autonomic nervous system.

Olympic gold medal winner Peter Vidmar spent years visualizing the same scenario every morning. He would imagine himself walking into the gymnasium, performing his routine, hearing the crowd cheer, seeing his judge’s score, and accepting the gold medal. It happened as he imagined it.

How can you apply motor imagery to your life for improved learning and performance when it counts?

ⁱ Guillot, A. and Collet, C. (2005). Contribution from neurophysiological and psychological methods to the study of motor imagery. Brain Research Reviews, 50, 387-397.
ⁱⁱ Norman Doidge. (2007). The Brain that Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science. Viking, New York, 201-207.
ⁱⁱⁱ Decety, J., Jeannerod, M., Germain, M., and Pastene, J. (1991). Vegetative response during imagined movement is proportional to mental effort. Behavioral Brain Research, 42, 1-5.

When the Engine Stops at 19,000 Feet over the Atlantic

noreply@blogger.com (Sandi Smith) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 15:45:00 +0000

It really did happen when I was flying around the world in 1995. The small airplane engine stopped while we were over the 50-degree waters of the Atlantic Ocean, 1,000 miles from any land. Silence. Nothing.

My heart started racing so fast, and for a split second I didn’t know why. My conscious brain hadn’t caught up with my body’s survival response. I immediately went into checklist mode, like any good pilot would (like Scully did – he was pretty much just running a checklist and did everything perfectly). Number one is always the same thing:

1. Fly the airplane.

So many accidents occur when pilots are distracted by any number of things: a red light in the cockpit, a weird Air Traffic Control instruction, even a passenger. In an emergency, the best thing to remember first is to fly the airplane.

It’s not a bad lesson to remember for 2010. We can get so distracted with the economy, the government’s messes, a needy client, a too close for comfort bankruptcy of a friend, and our own fears that we forget to “fly the airplane.”

Where in your life do you need to remember to get back to just flying the airplane? Your business, your marriage, your life’s purpose? I’ll leave it to you to apply where it resonates most.

Sometimes, we need a jolt to get re-aligned with our core. Even though we fight it tooth and nail while it’s happening, we end up growing so much from a really good scare. I don’t necessarily recommend you cut the engine when you’re over the Atlantic. I do recommend you take some risks that scare you once in a while. There’s nothing wrong with getting good at flying the airplane.

How Can We Be Happy While Haitians Are Suffering?

noreply@blogger.com (Sandi Smith) — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 18:38:00 +0000

Every Sunday, Star and VIP American Happiness Association members receive an Action Plan. I thought we should share this week's AHA action plan in light of world events. Please liberally forward this message to your friends who need to hear it, keeping the spirit of a Creative Commons Copyright and the source of American Happiness Association intact.

Happiness Action Plan - January 17, 2010 - January 23, 2010
Topic: How Can We Be Happy While Haitians Are Suffering?

There are no words to describe the tragedy in Haiti. Many of our members are wondering how in the world we can be so selfish as to think of our own happiness while there is so much death, pain, fear, and destruction. It's not easy, but we do have some answers.

Immediately take whatever action you can, then let go

If you can give money, do so. If you worship or are a healer, you can pray, light a candle, or send healing thoughts. If you are part of an emergency team, you can go there. Do what you can, then let go of the outcome.

Increase your happiness practice

Most of us will need to increase our happiness practice. Those of us who are ultra sensitive or highly emotional will need to significantly boost our practice during this time. Some of the tools and practices that work especially well:

Love - Let the people around you know you love them. Tragedies help us stop taking things for granted.
Compassion - magnify your compassion for others. Strengthen your empathy muscle.
Acts of kindness - a perfect way to show we care and can be caring to strangers and friends. You never know: your act of kindness in Canada may be "paid forward" all the way down to Haiti.
Gratitude - for our loved ones, our own safety, our country, even our government.
Perspective - If you are spiritual or religious, acknowledge that there is a big picture plan we don't fully see or understand.
Courage - If you feel fearful, work on building and practicing courage.
Turn off the news - reduce the negative impact to your brain. Remember your brain is a sponge and the news will literally put you into a depression if you repeatedly watch it. If you feel the need to stay caught up, set a 5 minute timer, go online and get your fix, and keep everything off the rest of the day.
Social - Surround yourself with positive family and friends and increase your social time. (correspondingly reduce your isolation right now)
Grieve - If you still feel sad, you may need to move through the grief process: denial, anger, sadness, acceptance. Watch a really sad classic movie where someone dies like Saving Private Ryan or Love Story, and cry your eyes out. Then move on.

Areas of your life that this affects:

Your empathy and compassion "muscles" and a chance to grow them
All of your emotions
Your level of courage and a chance to boost it.

Questions to consider:

Have you done everything you can to help, then let go?
What tools and practices above do you need to boost to maintain your self-care?
What people do you have in your community that can be with you and support you?

Action steps for this week:

Immediately take whatever action you can for the Haitians, then let go.
Increase your happiness practice in the ways that resonate best with you.

Happiness Action Plans are AHA member benefits of the Star level and above and are distributed every week on Sundays.

Quick Link...

http://www.americanhappiness.org

BrainWays 30-Day Brain Health Challenge Update

noreply@blogger.com (Sandi Smith) — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 22:15:00 +0000

Today is the last day of Brain Awareness Week, but only Day 7 of our BrainWays 30-day brain health challenge.

For those of you who are playing along, how did you do this week?

Take a look at your brain activities list. http://www.sandismith.com/brainchallenge.html
How many can you check off and say you did this week? Congratulations!

Let's keep doing great things for our brains! Your brain is grateful.

It's time to plan for next week. Choose your healthy brain tips wisely, update your calendar, and then do it!

I'll check up on you again next week to see how you're doing. In the meantime, let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks for making Brain Awareness Week fun.

The closest thing your brain has to superpowers – part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Sandi Smith) — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 20:05:00 +0000

Gladwell talks about the 10,000 hour rule, the amount of time experts put in to hone their craft and reach the pinnacle of their field. His book Outliers is brilliantly written, smooth as top self tequila, and highly entertaining. He also missed a golden opportunity to go deeper, where the real human performance payback is.

Gladwell may have gotten the idea for the book title in K. Anders Ericsson’s and Neil Charness’s August 1994 article, “Expert Performance: Its Structure and Acquisition,” published in American Psychologist, where the word “outlier” is italicized on page 731.[i]

The research on expert performance is nothing new; it dates back to the 1950s. I am delighted that it is being illuminated now; it’s my mission to get these pearls out of the research labs and into the workplace so we can all experience a higher quality of life.

But wait: just put your 10,000 hours in and you should be successful, right?

There are people who have put their 10,000 hours in and are not at the top of their field. For example, you can teach for 20 years and still be a bad teacher. What I didn’t hear from Gladwell loudly enough is that the key to excelling is not simply practice, it’s a special kind of practice.

The superpower takeaway is that the top performers studied by K. Anders Ericsson practice differently. They engage in a “constant innovation” feedback loop that gives them a chance to change and improve their performance by revising their practice methods.

Let’s take the mediocre teacher mentioned above. If she records herself and listens to her lectures, makes adjustments to the boring parts, hires coaches for an outside view, evaluates her performance based on her student’s progress, asks the students what they think she should do to improve, and puts her 10,000 hours in, she is far more likely to improve her performance to an expert level.

There has to be a feedback loop. The best kind of practice is what Ericsson calls deliberate practice in which the feedback loop is an integral component.[ii]

Dr. Ericsson has studied chess masters, Scrabble players, medical professionals involved with diagnoses and surgical procedures, musicians, writers, painters, ballet dancers, athletes in numerous sports, and individuals considered savants with exceptional memory.[iii] I design and teach deliberate practice in my high performance coaching and training classes with transformational results.

The research has seen very little limits. This is where the superpowers really come in. Ericsson and Charness write “Savants who can name the day of the week of an arbitrary date ( e.g., November 5, 1923) generate their answers using instructable methods that allow their performance to be reproduced by a college student after a month of training.”[iv] You too, can display superpowers with a little work. Cool.

As a function of this deliberate and extended training, the brain and body actually change and adapt in functional and anatomical ways.[v] A great example of this is Lance Armstrong. He is widely known for having larger lung capacity than other cyclists and especially other individuals. Many people believe he was born with this extraordinary capability; however, Dr. Ericsson’s research demonstrates that Armstrong’s intense training modified his physiology by pushing his body beyond its limits. Therefore one could argue for the case that the great cyclist was made, not born, even those expanded lungs of his.

Tiger Woods is another example of an individual who others feel is “gifted.” Having started working at his expert domain at the age of three, being supported by an extraordinary father and perfect environment for achieving excellence, and using deliberate practice are three “secrets” to Woods’s success in golf that are much more significant than any innate talent.

To excel in your field, seek out training situations that give you immediate valid feedback so that you can constantly innovate your expertise and improve your performance. Ericsson cites the example of the radiologist who studies and makes diagnoses of hundreds of old X-rays that can then be compared to the documented outcome from surgery or other medical history in the file.[vi]

Gladwell is highly popular, a brilliant thinker, and a great idea guy. To go deeper in the field of expert performance, the body of work to pour over for high payback superpower pearls is K. Anders Ericsson’s at Florida State University http://www.psy.fsu.edu/faculty/ericsson.dp.html.

What miracles can deliberate practice enable in your brain? Send us your questions, comments, or workplace stories.

[i] K. Anders Ericsson and Neil Charness. (1994). “Expert Performance: Its Structure and Acquisition,” American Psychologist, 49:8, 725-747.
[ii] Christopher Percy Collier interviewing K. Anders Ericsson. (2006). “The Expert on Experts.” Fast Company, Issue 110, November 2006.
[iii] Ericsson, K. Anders and Ward, Paul. (2007). “Capturing the Naturally Occurring Superior Performance of Experts in the Laboratory,” Current Directions in Psychological Science, 16:9, 346-350.
[iv] K. Anders Ericsson and Neil Charness. (1994). “Expert Performance: Its Structure and Acquisition,” American Psychologist, 49:8, 725-747.
[v] Ericsson, K.A. (2007). “Deliberate practice and the modifiability of body and mind: Toward a science of the structure and acquisition of expert and elite performance.” International Journal of Sport Psychology, 38, 4-34.
[vi] Ericsson, K. Anders and Ward, Paul. (2007). “Capturing the Naturally Occurring Superior Performance of Experts in the Laboratory,” Current Directions in Psychological Science, 16:9, 346-350.

How you can raise your intelligence. Really.

noreply@blogger.com (Sandi Smith) — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 18:17:00 +0000

It’s easier than you might think and totally within the realm of possibility. Luckily, science has shown us we’re not stuck with what we’re born with. There are many ways we can improve our brainpower, and some of them are amazingly fun.

Get out of your rut and learn something new

One of the top ways to grow new brain cells (a good thing, fights aging) is to learn something brand new. Play a musical instrument for the first time, learn a new language, take a college course on something that interests you, visit a new place, or start a new hobby. All of these activities build new pathways in your brain and that’s a good thing.

This is especially important right now as many people have hunkered down, stayed home, and perhaps even shut down a little as a result of the economy. Please … for your brain’s sake … turn off the TV, and find a new activity that you can get immersed in and that gives you pleasure.

You might sense your brain struggling a little when you feed it something new. That’s normal; you’re just feeling the extra resources it takes to build these new pathways, and your brain is designed to resist this. That’s why you don’t like change (no one does).

Do the new thing anyway.

Don’t give up.

Working your working memory

Your working memory is the part of your brain you use when you need to remember a phone number. It only lasts a few seconds, and most people have a capacity to remember 2-3 things (common myth is that we can remember 7 things, but this has been debunked).

It makes sense when you think about it that your working memory is pretty much the bottleneck of your whole thinking/learning process. So if we can expand this bottleneck, then we end up expanding our intelligence.

How do we do that? There are many ways. One of the best ways is to play chess, believe it or not. The act of memorizing all of your piece’s positions and planning out your moves several chess boards in advance is excellent brain food.

Another tip is to get your working memory and your long term memory working together in concert so that your working memory acts like it’s expanded to remembering far more than a few things. What’s really happening is you’re tapping into your long term memory and leveraging what you already know while learning new things.

For more memory tips, try out my product, The Top Twelve Tips to Strengthen Your Memory at Any Age, http://www.sandismith.com/memoryaudio.html

Stop stressing

There are many activities you can pursue to improve your intelligence, and there are also lots of things we need to stop doing that kills brain cells. I probably don’t need to mention obvious ones like alcohol, and drugs. Stress may be a non-obvious one. The chemicals created by stress actually kill brain cells, so it makes sense to work on lowering your stress level as much as possible.

Learn to relax (biofeedback is great for learning if you don’t know how), take yoga, do meditation, exercise, and sleep. All of these things will help you to lower your stress.

Coming into focus

One last area that can yield amazing brain benefits is to learn how to manage those random, crazy thoughts that run through your mind. Buddhists call this the monkey mind. If you have negative thoughts running rampant through your mind all day, one of the best ways to quiet the thoughts is by practicing meditation.

Start with the easiest form which gets you to focus on your breathing. Let go of any thoughts that come into your mind and gently keep putting your focus back on the breath. Just like exercise, it takes constant practice, and just like exercise, you will begin to see beneficial changes in a matter of weeks.

Try some of these ideas for not only great brain health but to experience increased brainpower and intelligence.

The Closest Thing Your Brain Has to Super Powers – Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Sandi Smith) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 17:49:00 +0000

Brain research on a topic called motor imagery (MI) reads like something that could happen at Hogwarts.

What it is

MI is defined as an intentional thought about moving your body without actually moving[i]. MI is imagining movement and actions, but not actually performing the actions.

Here’s the cool part: when you simply think about exercising (without moving), you get stronger. It works because the part of your brain that plans movements is highly interconnected with the part of your brain that executes movements.

MI has been shown to increase autonomic nervous system responses, such as breathing, heart rate, skin conductance (perspiration), and blood pressure.

Sports is a natural application of MI. The Olympic Gold medal winners I know use MI as part of their practice. So do Lance, Tiger, and others who at the very top of their game.

Olympic gold medal winner Peter Vidmar spent years visualizing the same scenario every morning. He would imagine himself walking into the gymnasium, performing his routine, hearing the crowd cheer, seeing his judge’s score, and accepting the gold medal. It happened as he imagined it.

I’ve seen wizardly results when MI has been applied to work activities, so let’s see how we can apply this to our lives beyond sports. But first, I think it’s important to look at the research results.

Imaginary exercise can strengthen muscles

Researchers have demonstrated that mental practice can actually make a person stronger. Yue and Cole had one group of subjects perform finger exercises and another group perform mental imagery only. The first group increased strength 30 percent, while the second group increased strength 22 percent.[ii] Strength increases can be achieved without muscle activation and appear to result from practice effects on central motor commands[iii] (Yue, Wilson, and Cole, 1996). This means that motor imagery and motor action share some of the same brain correlates.

Alvaro Pascal-Leone set up an imagining experiment on beginning piano players. One group imagined playing piano and hearing themselves play two hours a day for five days. A second group physically played, practicing the same amount of time. Both groups learned to play and showed similar brain changes throughout the process. The imagining players were as accurate after two hours of practice as the practicing ones were at the end of the five days.[iv]

At Duke University, Miguel Nicolelis and John Chapin learned how to read the thoughts of a rat pressing a bar to get water.[v] Machines that can read animals’ and people’s thoughts have helped paralyzed individuals become more independent.

Jean Decety and associates[vi] had subjects imagine running on a treadmill at speeds of 5, 8, and 10 kilometers per hour. Both heart rate and breathing rate went up relative to the imagined speed, powerful evidence that imagery alone can engage the autonomic nervous system.

In summary, mentally practicing a motor skill:

Influences performance[vii]
Can make a person stronger[viii]

WIIFM (What's in it for me) – Using MI to excel at work

Although there is no research on using MI to improve certain workplace skills, there’s no reason why we can’t be creative and try it. My coaching clients have had tremendous success with MI. Here’s one story:

Michael’s boss had quite a reputation of being hard to please. Michael’s subordinate Kris, had just been yelled at and was developing a fear of him. She was assigned to make a presentation to him and was scared.

Michael learned about motor imagery a few days before Kris was to give her speech. He asked Kris to visualize every detail about the way she wanted the meeting to go: walking in, preparing the computer, explaining each slide, watching the pleased look on her bosses’ bosses’ face, listening to his praise about how well she did during the meeting, and walking out with a smile on her face. She imagined this mental rehearsal in her mind over and over again the night before the presentation.

On the day of the presentation, Kris nailed it. Michael’s boss melted and felt Kris did an outstanding job, increasing his confidence in her and her credibility in his eyes. Kris felt competent and gained confidence as well. Michael was very pleased that the whole thing worked out so well for all.

Different from visualization

Notice the difference between MI and visualization. MI is imagining and thinking through the detailed steps on a specific task. Visualization is imagining a scene or future outcome. Where visualization is like seeing a painting, MI is like being in an entire movie.

Let us know how you use MI. Post your story here.

[i] Guillot, A. and Collet, C. (2005). Contribution from neurophysiological and psychological methods to the study of motor imagery. Brain Research Reviews , 50, 387-397.
[ii] Yue, G. and Cole, K.J. (1992). Strength increases from the motor program: Comparison of training with maximal voluntary and imagined muscle contractions. Journal of Neurophysiology, 67, 1114-1123.
[iii] Yue, G.H., Wilson, S.L., Cole, K..J. Darling, W.G., and Yuh, W.T.C. (1996) “Imagined muscle contraction training increases voluntary neural drive to muscle,” Journal of Psychophysiology, 10(3), 198-208.
[iv] Norman Doidge. (2007). The Brain that Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science. Viking, New York, 201-207.
[v] Norman Doidge. (2007). The Brain that Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science. Viking, New York, 201-207.
[vi] Decety, J., Jeannerod, M., Germain, M., and Pastene, J. (1991). Vegetative response during imagined movement is proportional to mental effort. Behavioral Brain Research, 42, 1-5.
[vii] Feltz, D.L. and Landers, D.M. (1983). The effects of mental practice on motor skill learning and performance: A meta-analysis. Journal of Sport Psychology,5, 25-27.
[viii] Yue, G. and Cole, K.J. (1992). Strength increases from the motor program: Comparison of training with maximal voluntary and imagined muscle contractions. Journal of Neurophysiology, 67, 1114-1123.

noreply@blogger.com (Sandi Smith) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 01:10:00 +0000

It’s Brain Awareness Week!

Why not do something good for your brain? How about the BrainWays 30-day Brain Health Challenge? http://www.sandismith.com/brainchallenge.html

It's really easy and requires very few IQ points (after all, it is Monday.)

Pick an item on the list, and do it. For the first one, go easy on yourself and pick a fun or yummy one!

Tonight, plan what you’re going to do for the rest of the week. Write right on your calendar an item from our challenge list. And then do it!

Your brain will thank you.

Job-seekers: take some time to seek happiness

noreply@blogger.com (Sandi Smith) — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 02:16:00 +0000

The last boss I had in the corporate sector was born the same day as Hitler. So maybe it wasn't so bad when I got laid off 15 or so years ago. That's when I started my own business.

Finding yourself unemployed can be serious business. Do take extra measures during this time to stay happy. Here are my top happiness tips for today's job seekers:

1. Surround yourself with supportive friends and family. Plan time for socializing and avoid isolating yourself. Get a best friend if you don’t have one and hang with them.

2. Set new goals for yourself. Plan your job search, update your resume, and let your friends and acquaintances know what you’re looking for and what you have to offer. Accomplish something toward your goal every day.

3. Make a gratitude list to help lift your spirits. Do you have your health? The support of friends and family? A set of marketable skills? A comfortable home to live in? Food on the table three times a day? Keep it going, and create a practice for yourself daily to remind yourself of what you have.

4. Educate yourself on which industries are hiring and which jobs are in demand: nursing, physicians, accountants, green energy, oil and gas, health care managers, and IT jobs are in demand. Is there a way you can easily retool? For example, if you are in construction, how can you retool yourself for green construction where the jobs are?

5. Surround yourself with positive activities and avoid negative ones. Listen to uplifting music and turn off the economic news. Watch comedies instead of tearjerkers. Meet with hopeful friends and avoid negative people.

6. If you need to, scale down. Eat at Subway instead of Morton’s. Turn the thermostat lower in winter and higher in summer. Postpone purchases. Meet people at coffee places instead of lunch places. Trade with people instead of paying cash.

7. To counter #4, have fun that’s free. Go to the library to check out books, see a $1 movie, take a walk in the park, or have friends come over to chat.

8. Volunteer to help someone who is more in need than you. This is important to keep your perspective and your spirits up.

9. When you’re ready, debrief your layoff and try to be realistic. If you lack a skill most companies need or have a behavior problem that has gotten in the way, fix it. Get schooling or coaching or both.

10. Participate in stress-reducing activities such as exercise, sports, meditation (but not if you’re clinically depressed), and yoga.

11. Listen carefully to the people you trust for advice right now.

12. If you do find yourself slipping into a depression, get professional help. Find a psychologist, psychiatrist, or ask your family doctor for help. In many cases, drug therapy and cognitive-based therapy together make the most potent recovery.

Do you believe you can raise your intelligence?

noreply@blogger.com (Sandi Smith) — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 18:53:00 +0000

About half of the population believes their intelligence is fixed from genetics. Luckily, that is only half the story, and the weak half at that.

Science has shown that when you are talking about cognitive intelligence measured by IQ tests, there is a correlation between parents and their children. But that’s only the beginning of the story.

Science has also shown the brain exhibits plasticity every day of our lives until the second we die. Plasticity means two things: The brain grows brand new brain cells, and the brain constantly grows and discontinues new connections with other cells. On a simplified level, these cells represent new memories and that translates into the fact that we have learned something new.

You can raise your intelligence. Some professionals have written about multiple intelligences: artistic, sports, social, and other forms of intelligence. It doesn’t matter what type of intelligence you’re speaking of; all of them can be increased.

Are you in the half of the population who believes that your intelligence can be raised? Or are you in the half that thinks you are stuck with what you were born with?

Studies show people who believe, as science proves, that we can increase our intelligence are much more successful. Which type of believer are you? Is in your workplace? Teaches your children? Did you marry? Is your boss?

I challenge you this week to really think through your beliefs on intelligence. Every neuroscientist I have ever read continues to be amazed by the brain’s seemingly infinite capabilities.

K. Anders Ericsson is a psychology professor who has spent his career studying how experts work. He says, “With the exception of some sports, no characteristic of the brain or body constrains an individual from reaching an expert level.”[i]

Attention expert Michael Posner says, “We have found no ceiling for abilities such as attention, including among adults. The more training, even with normal people, the higher the results.”[ii]

Imagine a world where half of the population broke free of their perceived limits and began performing at a level they never before imagined. The world’s intelligence would be significantly increased.

The potential and the power starts with you. What do you believe?

In the next day or two, I will blog on how you can raise your intelligence.

[i] Christopher Percy Collier interviewing K. Anders Ericsson. (2006). “The Expert on Experts.” Fast Company, Issue 110, November 2006.
[ii] Alvaro Fernandez interview with Michael Posner. (2008). “Training Attention and Emotional Self-Regulation.” SharpBrains.com Blog, October 18, 2008.

BrainWays 30-Day Brain Health Challenge

noreply@blogger.com (Sandi Smith) — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 23:08:00 +0000

In celebration of Brain Awareness Week, commit to doing something good for your brain every day for 30 days. Most of these take only a few minutes each day. Start on March 16, 2009 and end on April 14, 2009. From the tasks below, put together your own 30-day brain agenda and tape it to your refrigerator door. It's OK to repeat any of the tasks; the brain loves practice.

Enjoy a dish of fresh blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries. Full of brain-loving anti-oxidants.

Meditate on your breath for 15 minutes.

Take a run or brisk walk for 20 minutes. Aerobic exercise is the best kind for the brain.

Get so involved in a work task or hobby that you lose track of time. Good for concentration.

Go dancing. Great for the brain.

Play a round of chess. One of the best activities for building deep thinking and planning skills.

Eat fish today. Wild salmon or whitefish is best. Avoid swordfish and others with too much mercury.

Learn to play a musical instrument.

Socialize with friends. Yep, getting together with friends is great for the brain.

Shut your office door, turn off the phones and email, and enjoy the quiet for 15 minutes.

Read a book.

Fully observe your surroundings. What do you see, hear, smell, taste, feel?

Give a friend a sincere compliment.

Swim a couple of laps in the nearby pool.

Eat a healthy portion of spinach, broccoli, or carrots.

Memorize a passage from a book or several of your friends' phone numbers. This will give your working memory a workout.

Drink a cup of green tea, loaded with anti-oxidants.

Take a yoga class. Good for the body as well as stress-reduction.

Ride your bike for 30 minutes. You can also try the stationary bike at the gym.

Eat a liberal portion of tomatoes.

Meditate on an object for at least fifteen minutes.

Think of three things you are grateful for in your life.

Play Scrabble, work crossword puzzles, or try another word game, but only if you haven't done it before. New activity is the best for building strong brains.

Enjoy nature through gardening or a walk in a park.

Listen to relaxing music to unwind after a stressful day.

Add garlic to your meal.

Spend 20 minutes on the stair machine at the gym.

Keep your mood positive.

Work a math problem in your head.

Be mindful and fully present while doing a task.

Addicted to Distractions

noreply@blogger.com (Sandi Smith) — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 23:05:00 +0000

Workers feel pressured to get so much done during the day that they often multi-task. When you adopt this hurry-up mindset, you can get addicted to it without realizing it is happening. How often have you checked your email (or Twitter or Facebook or etc.) 5 seconds since the last time you checked it? You end up getting less done than ever before when distractions become the habit instead of the exception.

One of the biggest time-wasters on the planet is a feature in Microsoft Outlook where you can set the software to automatically send and receive email every 15 minutes or an increment of your choosing. I believe this is a default setting.

Imagine adding up the cost of this distraction of every employee in your company. Let's say you have 100 employees. An 8-hour day has 32 15-minute increments. Your employee is wasting at least 32 minutes per day when that feature is set at its default level. Let's say you pay a modest average of $20.00 per hour. Tack on a 30% benefits rate, and your 100 employees are wasting $325,000 per year just from that one Outlook feature.

When you consider that it takes an employee 25 minutes (according to one study) to get back to work after being distracted, this figure goes up. When you add in cell phones, the land line, faxes, instant messaging, other email accounts, the Internet, appointments, cubicle visitors, social media, and meetings, no wonder everyone is time-challenged.

First, turn off as many of these interruption features as you can. Second, give yourself a place to go to get your head back together when you need to.

White space

Companies are beginning to see the costs of a distracted performance and are responding to this need with a variety of solutions:

Creating quiet rooms where employees can think and brainstorm creatively without interruption.
Adding meditation practice to its list of benefits.
Adding mindfulness training for employees.
Setting days where no meetings are allowed all day or hours where no one can interrupt anyone else.

Employees must do their part to stop the distraction habit. They must take advantage of these programs and practice good brain habits that strengthen concentration rather than detract from it.

If you or your employer has implemented a program to squash distractions, I'd love for you to drop me a line about it. I will write up those I receive into case studies and will post them on my web site.

If your employer hasn't set up a program, interrupt them (!) and send them a copy of this article. Hopefully you will benefit from a future program.

Fearless in Fiji

noreply@blogger.com (Sandi Smith) — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 04:11:00 +0000

On the sunny island of Vatoa in Fiji, I took one step off the boat onto the beach and was immediately kidnapped by giggling Elina, a fourth grader, and bashful Wadolia, a second grader. Each took my hand and led me into and around their lush village. A half dozen children looked on and expressed gleeful shrugs.

Rarely do Vatoans receive visitors on their remote island. Imagine being a child of seven years old and seeing your first white person. I must have looked so washed out to them!

The girls practiced their English on me. Every few minutes, a squeal of joy and excitement came from Elina, followed by giggles. The laughter of the Vatoa children expressed all at once a passionate curiosity, a judgment-free acceptance, an innocent simplicity, and most of all, unadulterated happiness.

The girls led me past several palm-shaded and neatly kept houses that were about the size of a U.S. home's living room and painted blue on the outside. The adults were busy working - cleaning fish, braiding stripped palm leaves, and grating root plants.

I asked the children questions about their lives. What was their best school subject? What did they eat for lunch? What was their favorite game to play? More squeals, and they showed me their school. There were no children inside, but the walls were jammed with art projects, spelling lists, math problems, and English lessons.

There are many things the rest of the world is craving right now that the Vatoans have managed to conquer because they are isolated and off the beaten track. Their environment is quite green, literally and environmentally. They use local resources, little fuel, no cars, and have a very small footprint. They have very little need for money except when they need to buy goods from the outside world. There are no locks and no need to lock anything. They live simply, yet work hard.
They all know and take care of each other, despite the usual personality squabbles. I'm sure it's not always prefect in this paradise island, but there are abundant amounts of trust, love, and fearlessness.

Is there something that Americans can learn from this lifestyle? I hope you won't focus on all of the material things they lack. The biggest thing they lack that we have in abundance, especially right now, is fear. Somehow, we've got to start learning how to turn our negative emotions or fears into positive emotions such as trust, hope, and love.

Here are six things that Elina and Wadolia reminded me to integrate into my life and being:

Develop and practice a passionate curiosity of things and people who are different from you.
Accept things and people judgment-free, unless they give you a reason not to.
Be transparent.
Live green, and keep your footprint small.
Be grateful for the abundance of material wealth we have in this country. Even after any recent decline, we still have an amazing and embarrassing amount of material riches in the U.S.
Above all, giggle.

Now it's your turn. Help spread the fearlessness in Fiji to the rest of the world by practicing in your own neighborhood.

Send us your stories of fearlessness and we'll post them in a new section on our web site.

Can Business Leaders and Neuroscientists Collaborate?

noreply@blogger.com (Sandi Smith) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 05:49:00 +0000

If you put today's best business leaders and neuroscientists in a room together, what would the conversations sound like? What would they be able to offer each other? Here are the potential rewards and the challenges in such a partnership.

What Neuroscience Can Offer Business Right Now

Outside of the medical, bioscience, and brain fitness industries, neuroscience has much to offer business in general across all industries, especially in employee development and the work environment:

An insight into what works and what doesn't in learning (memory formation). Research into learning capabilities and limitations can be used to design stronger formal training programs, manage knowledge transfer technology, and help supervisors coach subordinates more effectively.
Tremendous research into transforming task performance, time management, and multi-tasking. We have come a long way since the discovery of the assembly line; we can help increase productivity by a significant percentage.
A review of employee policies and procedures to see what hinders or promotes employee performance.
A much stronger and less abstract view of emotion and how it impacts job behavior, team relationships, engagement, decision-making, and job performance.
Volumes of information on focus, concentration, flow, and peak performance.
A beefing up of wellness programs by including information on how to optimize employee brain potential.
Much more on high performance using discoveries in motor imagery, plasticity, evolutionary biology, and cellular biology.

A participant quote from the recently ended NeuroLeadership conference in New York: "Bringing in hard science maximizes the potential for self-awareness and 'insight' into oneself."

One thing that I am seeing a lot of in my classes is the high impact of a simple awareness of how the brain works. It's surprising that awareness alone is so powerful, but in this case, it seems to be doing the trick. Telling a person a little bit about the brain gives them the "aha's" into what drives their behavior and how they can modify it. The results are hard to believe -- a person can have a transformational change in as little as three hours of classroom time. It works because:

The material and environment are non-threatening, compared to other training where the participant feels like he is in class because he is "broken" and ends up being defensive the whole time instead of being open-minded. Brain science material allows participants to think, "It's not personal; it's not about me; the whole human race grapples with these issues."
The participant feels more in control after learning the material.
The participant sees immediate benefit to using this information.
The participant feels like s/he has a clear path to mastering the changes s/he wants to make in his/her behavior.
The participant feels happier. (This should not be underestimated.)

Challenges in Neuroscience

The challenges I see on the neuroscience side of neuroscience and business collaborating include:

Bulk of research is on ill brains instead of well brains (this is changing).
One scientist is typically involved in only his/her own research. Many of the best solutions in business come from combining the work of multiple scientists. More collaboration and integration are needed.
Valid study design is critical for accurate findings. Much research is flawed. Great design and accurate interpretation requires special training and much discipline. Conversely, too limited of an interpretation can hamstring great possibility.
Most neuroscientists do not know how to apply their work to business. A new middleman will need to be created that can walk in both worlds. A select few individuals (like me) will get degrees in both fields so that they can cross-communicate.
Scientists have a hard time finding random subjects in a cost-effective manner and often use students. Also, male rats have been used for most of the brain research to-date, limiting findings to one gender.

In spite of these issues, neuroscience has much to offer business, especially in employee development.

Challenges in Business

There are many challenges on the business side of a neurobusiness collaboration.

Neuroscience is not even on the radar screen for most CEOs. They think it's for medical devices, physical or software products, or bioscience. They don't think "competitive advantage" and "neuroscience" in the same sentence.
From what I have seen, even the business thought leaders are asking the wrong questions. They don't know how to approach teh scientists to maximize stakeholder value.
Executives who look only in the Organizational Development field will miss many possibilities. There is much more potential in other fields.
Executives that need to justify return on investment before they see breakthroughs could miss out on a huge competitive advantage. There's just not enough evidence yet. Or the evidence is protected by confidentiality agreements.
Executives who believe that neuroscience is limited to the press releases they hear on CNN will require a mindset change. Correspondingly, hiring consultants who grab onto the hottest new thing and know little about the brain could be peddling inaccurate and potentially damaging data.
Executives must be willing to face some very big ethical issues when they come up.

Common Challenges:

Finding a common language. A potential solution is to look for someone who walks in both worlds.
Being willing to be wrong - on both sides.

Success Stories

In future issues, I will be sharing examples of neurobusiness success stories: how smart and brave business leaders have brought neuroscience into their businesses and transformed their workplaces.

Conclusion

Business leaders and neuroscientists have a great deal to offer each other, despite the huge hurdles they must overcome to begin to collaborate effectively.

You're Exaggerating

noreply@blogger.com (Sandi Smith) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 05:48:00 +0000

One of our brain's most important functions is to maximize our survival, and the fear system is a major component of that. The whole reason we feel fear is because a threat to our safety has been detected. So fear is really our own alarm system. The problem comes in when we let fear, a system designed in cave man days, hold us back in our 21st century life.

Many people feel that when they feel fear, they need to stop doing whatever it is they are doing. The emotion is so strong that we feel like avoiding situations where we feel fear. This is not the best use of our fear system.

Our fear system is designed to sound the alarm when we feel danger. But most of the time, when it goes off these days, we are not in danger of dying. Your car alarm goes off many times, but your car is not in danger of being stolen. You home security system often generates false alarms.

When our own fear alarm system goes off, we need to do a better job of evaluating the threat and then deciding the best course of action to take.

To make things worse, the intensity of our negative feelings compared to our positive feelings is not the same. In other words, our positive and negative emotions are not symmetrical.

Which feels more intense to you: winning $100 or losing $100?

Most people say that losing $100 feels much worse than winning $100 feels good. In fact, they are right. Negative emotions, including fear, are felt more intensely than positive emotions. Our fear system wants to make sure it has our attention so that we will run from the bear in time to stay alive. So that's likely why our negative emotions developed more intensely over time than our positive emotions.

This may explain a lot to some people. When you fight with a friend, lover, or family member, it feels bad, intense. The reason our fear system is triggered during a fight is that we have this need to stay part of a tribe. Being part of a group, back in cave man days, allowed us a much higher probability of survival than being a loner. Hence, the drive to get along, not make waves, be a follower, and fit into the group is quite strong.

What can we do to feel better? First, we need to see a yield sign in place of a stop sign when we feel fear. Evaluate the source of your fear, then move forward with your best course of action.

Second, increase the number of positive interactions in your life compared to the number of negative interactions. (Listen to soothing music instead of the TV, watch a comedy instead of a horror show, be nice instead of grouchy!)

Speaking in front of a group is a great example of feeling a fear that does nothing but get in our way today. Why in the world does this fear outrank death in every top fears list I have seen?

The cause of this fear is a self-consciousness about how we think we will be perceived in front of a group of people. Our systems are likely designed to help us keep our mouths shut in front of the whole tribe so that we will not say something that could get us kicked out. The chances of survival were much higher if we could remain a good, conforming member of our group or tribe.

Our fear of public speaking remains, but there is no real usefulness to this fear in the 21st century, and it has likely derailed a huge number of career promotions in people who just couldn't muster the courage to develop these skills. If you're ready to conquer public speaking or another skill that is fearful to you, turn that stop sign that you see when your fear rises into a yield sign and proceed with caution to build your skill.

Take a Brain Quiz

noreply@blogger.com (Sandi Smith) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 05:45:00 +0000

How well do you know stuff about your own brain? Take our quiz. Choose an answer to each question: fact (true) or fiction (false).

A. Punishment and reward is the best way for us to learn. Fact or fiction?

B. Men are happier than women. Fact or fiction?

C. We only use 10% of our brains. Fact or fiction?

Ready for the answers? Scroll down.

A. Punishment and reward is the best way for us to learn.

Fiction: Although this research from the 1930s is still widely quoted, it has been overturned. Social modeling is actually the most natural and effective way to learn and was formulated (or discovered) by Albert Bandura in the 1950s. If you have children, you have already figured this out the first time you wondered where they got that horrible behavior from and realized it was you.

Social modeling brings importance to congruence and credibility in the workplace: walking your talk. Your employees will more naturally (and unconsciously) model your behavior than your words, when they are at odds with each other.

B. Men are happier than women.

Fiction. It's the same; men and women are equally happy. This is true despite the list of reasons that men are happier than women that is floating around the Internet right now (Your last name stays put; Phone conversations are over in 30 seconds flat; Men can play with toys all their lives; Men get extra credit for the slightest act of thoughtfulness, etc.). However, women experience higher intensities of emotions, both positive and negative, than men. This explains why women are more predisposed to depression than men.

C. We only use 10% of our brains.

Fiction. We'd be close to dead if this were true. We use all of our brains. Each part has a specific function or memory store that contributes to all the things we do as humans: talking, walking, breathing, sleeping, thinking, smelling, seeing, etc. This myth might have gotten started in reference to the part of our brain that we have access to at any one time; that is, our consciousness. It's clear that our consciousness compared to our subconscious is a much smaller subset of our whole apparatus, akin to an iceberg where the underwater part is our subconscious and the part floating above the surface is our conscious.

How did you do? We'll post another quiz soon, so you'll get a chance to improve your score.

Brain Entrainment: Science or Science Fiction?

noreply@blogger.com (Sandi Smith) — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 17:04:00 +0000

In my last two sessions, the topic of the effect of binaural beats on the brain, also called frequency following response or brain entrainment, came up. So I checked into the research and was surprised at what I found. There is no evidence to support the benefits of binaural beats, and one pilot study showed that it was harmful (Wahbeh, Calabrese, Zwickey, and Zajdel, 2007).

First, what is it? Binaural beats refers to hearing a sound at one frequency in the left ear, then hearing a sound of another frequency in the right ear. The brain averages the signal and supposedly entrains itself to the frequency. When the frequency matches that of a particular brain wave, the brain produces more of that wave.

All of the studies I saw were poorly designed. In order to measure this effect, you need several control groups:

--Several groups that hear the binaural beats, then are measured physiologically for relaxation effects. You’d need one group per frequency range. For example, one group should hear binaural beats at 7 Hz, one at 12 Hz, etc.
--One group that did nothing and was measured for relaxation.
--One group that meditated and was measured for relaxation.
--One group that heard silence and was measured for relaxation.
--One group that heard white noise and was measured for relaxation.
--Several groups that listened to various forms of music: Reiki, classical, rock, etc. and was measured for relaxation.

This type of experiment could measure the comparative effectiveness of how the various sounds relax the people in the groups. There were no such study designs like this one.

One study I found that tested subjects at the 7 Hz frequency showed increased depression and poorer immediate memory recall.

The discovery of binaural beats dates back to 1839. The research is dated from the 1960s. My recommendation is to stop wasting your money on meditation aids. You don’t need any commercial gadget to experience the profound effects of meditation. All you need is the will to sit down and shut up for a few minutes each day!

Happiness and the Full Moon

noreply@blogger.com (Sandi Smith) — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 18:38:00 +0000

Just about any police officer will tell you that the craziness in people comes out with the full moon. But it is true that magnetic fields impact our personalities? Is there any scientific basis to it? The answer is yes and no, depending on whom you want to believe.

First a primer on frequencies. All brains emit waves. You’ve probably heard about this: delta waves are for sleep, alpha and beta waves are for activity. These brain waves measure below 70Hz and are mostly below 8Hz. Radio waves, cell phone waves, telephone waves, air traffic control waves, TV, microwave, radar, GPS, wireless LANs, heart rate monitors, etc. all measure at frequencies higher than that, in the KHz to MHz to GHz – kilohertz to megahertz to gigahertz – frequency ranges.

If you are conservative and want to believe the university researchers, the answer is that no harm comes from all of the invisible electromagnetic fields from cell phones, computers, electrical devices that are in our world today. There has been one Dutch study that has measured well-being and exposure at the 2100 MHz level and found a small effect. However, another study could not replicate the findings.

The only studies I know of have measured immediate effects from exposure. No study I’ve seen has been able to measure the long-term effects and here’s why. Good study design requires at least two groups of subjects to be tested: the test group and a control group. The test group gets exposed to whatever is being tested, while the control group doesn’t. If there’s a difference between the two groups, you have an experimental effect. Now how can we design a study where people have no long-term access to electromagnetism, given it is all around us. We could have people live in a Faraday cage – a special environment designed to keep out electricity – but that is impractical. Who would volunteer for that? There is also another type of box that keeps out magnetism. But to ask people to live there would be impossible. So there is no simple way to study the long term effects of electromagnetism on people.

But that hasn’t stopped a couple of scientists, whose work has not been widely accepted by the scientific community. Robert Becker, MD has written a book called The Body Electric that delves into this subject. Dr. Becker feels that the proliferation of electromagnetic devices has contributed to many of our current diseases: leukemia, attention deficit disorder, and cancer, to name a few. Valerie Hunt, PhD, explores the subject in her self-published book, Infinite Mind. She gets into the realm of psychic development, which she links to magnetic fields but not electric fields.

One of the problems I see in humans is we tend to ignore what we can’t see through our five senses. If it’s not there it does not exist. The extreme skepticism is a personality trait a regular scientist needs to succeed – this is good in drug trials so people don’t die needlessly, for example -- but is also a setback in having new discoveries become widely accepted. Take brain plasticity – the brain’s ability to learn and change -- as the perfect example. We all know we can learn and change; science had clear proof of it for 100 years. But it wasn’t until 1998 that most of the mainstream scientists finally accepted plasticity as the predominant view.

Another problem that is bigger is that to truly understand how humans are affected by our world requires deep expert knowledge in at least four different disciplines: neuroscience and all things medical, geology to understand the earth’s magnetic field, quantum physics to understand the observer’s contribution, and electrical engineering to understand the electrical impulses in and around the body.

Lynn McTaggert is one person who has attempted to blend research from all of these fields. Lynne is a reporter who does an exceptional job is distilling complicated scientific information into language most of us can understand. Her books, The Field and The Intention Experiment, are well-written and researched and contain a heavy quantum component; however, some of the research she quotes have been rejected by mainstream scientists.

So I’ll leave it up to you. What are you like when the full moon comes out?

Building Structure and Using Our Time Wisely

noreply@blogger.com (Sandi Smith) — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 00:22:00 +0000

As we look at how we can bring happiness into our lives, one way is to create some routines or rituals and bring structure to our busy lives. Some suggestions from last night’s workshop were very helpful:

-- Mary Ellen sets a timer for 45 minutes to work on a project that she needs to complete, but doesn’t necessarily love. After the timer goes off, she starts on the next task – gardening -- which she does love.

--Ginnie sets internal deadlines and schedules a task she has to do on her calendar. In that way, she is making room for her priorities and not the world’s.

Here are few tips from my archives:

Start the day without first checking your email and calls – wait until mid-morning.
Work on your #1 priority task first thing in the morning. When I do this, I have nearly two blissful, uninterrupted hours to work my to-do list items. I make progress and feel better about my accomplishments.

Trim.
If all of the information you are receiving is not adding value to your life purpose, then cut it out. Cancel the newspaper subscription, unsubscribe to email lists, drop that negative friend, etc. You’ll be amazed at how much time you just gained.

Maximize down time.
Don’t do things at the same time everyone else does. To avoid long lines, I go to the grocery store during the weekday when everyone is at work. I rarely get caught in traffic because of the way I schedule my appointments. When I do get caught waiting, such as at a doctor’s office, I bring the book that I’m in the middle of reading or do simple yoga poses in line.

Share.
Avoid being Superperson, and let someone else help you get things done. Delegate personal as well as business tasks; time is time, no matter how you save it.

Align daily tasks with your life purpose.
Are you working on things that matter, or are you simply doing busy work? It’s easy to stay busy working on all the wrong things. For every task you do, ask yourself if it will move you toward your life goals.

The best resource I’ve seen in this area is David Allen’s book Getting Things Done. Now the challenge is finding time to read it!

Wellness programs are a growing global phenom

noreply@blogger.com (Sandi Smith) — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 19:57:00 +0000

The Society for Human Resource Management just released a report that says 86 percent of North American companies have a wellness program. These programs are designed to help employees stay healthy through good eating, exercise, and overall healthy lifestyles.

Does your company have a wellness program? If so, what does it consist of?

Stress statistics

noreply@blogger.com (Sandi Smith) — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 19:52:00 +0000

The American Psychological Association just released a survey that says 1/3 of people are now extremely stressed. This stress interferes with their jobs, productivity, and eating habits. Some of the stressors are work, money, housing, being single, and being parents of young children.

Stress creates dis-ease in your body so that you actually lose time worrying because you get sick more often.

Does it really have to be this way? Why do you think that people are willing to continue to live like this when there are tools for a better life than this?

What are the best tools you've seen that reduce stress?

Happiness classes in German schools

noreply@blogger.com (Sandi Smith) — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 23:27:00 +0000

The rest of the world is far ahead of the U.S. in the happiness race. Take a look at what's happening in one German school.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/check/player/nol/newsid_7010000/newsid_7011600?redirect=7011620.stm&news=1&nbwm=1&bbwm=1&nbram=1&bbram=1&asb=1.