There are many times in American culture when we know something is better left unsaid or when we are certain someone else’s life is none of our business.  However, sometimes this bleeds into too familiar territory, and we miss out on chances to say what needs to be said, to intervene to help someone we care about, or to solve an important problem.

It is not easy task to find the balance between stepping in because you care about someone and staying out of the way because you trust them to make a choice on their own.  There is never a clear cut answer.  The media illustrates these competing ideas all the time. Super hero productions  epitomize the idealistic view of intervening to solve other peoples’ problems while stern, silent leads keep out of the spotlight and preach about staying out of other people’s business.

Science traditionally isn’t much help either.   In the prominent  interpretations of Richard Dawkins’s selfish gene and Charles Darwin’s origins theories as survival of the fittest, people may have a cynical view of humanity.  People may misinterpret what they are meant to do.  I heard one psychology student adamantly defend the idea that every act is a selfish act shaped by societal expectations.

However, there is a new idea of the biological value of connectedness and compassion which paints a drastically different picture.  Continue reading →

It may be stifled in some environments, but getting comfortable with touch is certainly worth your while.

Some primates spend 20 percent of the day touching and grooming each other, and in doing so, they bolster community, security, and physical health. Humans unfortunately don’t come close. Americans in particular are noted as being particularly uncomfortable with touch. While we may scoff at these new ideas of the effectiveness of physical touch and our need for it (thanks to our super touch-averse Victorian ancestors), at some level we know we need it. As skin expert Nina Jablonski points out, nail and hair salons and massage therapists have thriving industries for a reason.  We just like to have a practical excuse for it.

However, we don’t need to look far for reasons that legitimize our need for physical contact. As the oldest sensory system known to mankind, touch is vital to our well being, and stress ensues if our need  for it isn’t met.

*Sources for this information come from Berkeley researcher Dacher Keltman http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/hands_on_research and Penn State University anthropologist Nina Jablonski’s book skin

Selfish

1. Those with greater social touching experience less stress.
2. In growing years, tactile satisfaction is critical for behavioral development and a greater sense of self-efficacy. Those deprived of nurturing touch but subjected to routine physical punishment  are prone to serious behavior disturbance, drug addiction and physical violence.
3. The skin contains the first line of immunity and social touch helps build its strength.

Many athletic teams have started encouraging more cooperative touch among teammates since the NBA study correlated touch with winning.

Athletic

1. An NBA team success increases with more touch- the amount of high fives, fist and chest bumps, embraces, pats on the back, and other tactile encouragement can predict a team’s success rate. Higher rate of touch equals more success.
2. Trust and cooperation increase with touch.

Social

1. Provides feelings of reward- activates frontal cortex, the site of reward and compassion in the brain
2. Reinforces reciprocity- builds cooperative relationships, grooming builds cooperative alliances
3. Signals safety and trust
4. Soothes- Activates vagus nerve, leads to oxytocin release, calms cardiovascular response, makes people more cooperative

Regular social touching results in elderly with alertness, vitality, and humor. It also reduces signs of senility.

Therapeutic

1. Touching premature babies helps premature babies gain weight and infants who are touched more frequently grow faster.
2.  Patients with Alzeimer’s and engaging them in social touch decreases their depression and symtoms of disease.
3. Teachers who pat students on the back in a friendly way get students to respond and participate more.
4. Librarians who touch students on the hand have students who view the library as more enjoyable and are more likely to come back.
5. Doctors who touch patients in friendly way have higher patient survival rates.

Anyone else feel like a hug?  Damn those stoic Victorians! The good news is that by simple practices, we can build a culture around us that supports our need for touch.  Hugs and kisses on the cheek when greeting friends, high fives and fist bumps for affirmation, touches on the arm and hand for comfort, and pats on the back for encouragement are all natural ways to incorporate touch into your relationships of any sort.

Close your eyes and imagine standing in the grass with your bare feet.  Now go and actually take off your shoes and stand in the grass. Thanks to our recently-developed prefrontal cortex, the human mind has powerful capabilities both to imagine and to gain pleasure from imagining desired events.  However, imagination can only take us so far. Chances are, the sensations realized are different and more vivid when you actually experience wiggling your toes in the grass than they are when you just think about doing it. The same is true for therapy and learning.

This is partly because our brain is heavily adapted to receive information about our sense of touch. After vision, touch is the sense with the most space in the brain devoted to processing its signals. Biologically, it was one of the oldest communicative systems primates had. It is also the first system babies use to process information, and its influence remains throughout human adulthood.  Because of these reasons, it’s long been surmised that people learn more effectively through hands on experience, and many learning institutions strive to provide tactile learning into their curriculum.  In fact, there’s an entirely new area of teaching that incorporates haptics, a way for students to feel what three dimensional objects through robotics and computer tools.  For instance, a dental student can feel what a soft spot in a tooth feels like by holding an instrument that is programmed to relay the same resistance and pressure points that an actual tooth with a cavity would.

Though many aspects of how touch aids learning are just beginning to be explored, many classic therapeutic practices takes advantage of the kinesthetic learning system.  One comes in the form of closure and requires a helium balloon with a string tied to it and a permanent marker.  You write on the balloon whatever it is that you can’t let go, whatever you need closure for. It may be more than one thing. Then you stand outside, hold on to the string, let it go, and then watch the balloon (your trouble) disappear.

Years ago, I struggled with the transition from one very big stage of my life to a new one, and the counselor I saw suggested this practice.  I got four balloons, drove out a dirt  road to the tallest hill I could find, and wrote down one thing I felt was holding me back on each of them. A broken dream, a person I couldn’t forgive, a guy acting like a jerk, and the judgement I felt from others.  All at once I let them go, relishing the feeling of them leaving my hand.  Now I probably wouldn’t do the same because I know what balloon litter can do to unsuspecting birds, but I came up with an alternative of floating a wooden plank or something down a river if I ever needed the same release.  Another tested theory is to practice squeezing and releasing a rope while thinking of holding and letting go of whatever grief you’re holding on to. The point is the same. I can feel the absence, the leaving.  It’s concrete because I was there and can connect to that tactile sensation of release.  While of course some of these things were still around me when I got in my car and drove home, I felt that through this one practice, I could distance myself from them. I felt like it was possible to let them go. This is how I described the feeling at the time.

Banksy’s girl letting go of balloon

Away

I fasten my troubles
To a small wooden raft
Place it in a river
My fingers hold it back
Standing on the shore
Watching the river flow
It takes all my strength
To let the raft go
With one last deep breath
And a lump in my throat
I say goodbye to the raft
And away it flows
 
I pour all my fears
In a helium balloon
Tie a string to the end
That I hold on to
Standing on a hill
Seeing the world I can have
If I release the balloon
Nothings holding me back
So I compose myself
Focus my eyes
Feel the string slip through my hand
And away it flies

This is just one example. Some people wanting to break down the metaphorical walls in their mind will actually take a sledge hammer to drywall. Some people who need to lose control will hold on to an object that can’t be controlled. Some looking to develop trust will walk blindfolded led only by another’s voice or touch.

If you can find a way to connect mind and body to work towards the same goal, you will have a greater chance of retaining the progress you make toward it.

The “Wonder Woman” pose is a favorite among power posers.

Job interviews, first dates, presentations, and important conversations can leave anyone feeling nervous at times.  In some instances, we lose confidence at the moment we need it the most.  However, researcher Amy Cuddy has found a 2-minute solution to the problem.  She has found through various studies and experimentation that standing in what she calls “power poses” for 2 minutes drastically changes hormone levels that affect feelings of confidence.  The effects of such hormonal changes predict how well someone is able to express her thoughts and ideas, and in turn, how others react to her.

However, the trick to Cuddy’s technique is that no one sees the power poses in progress.  You don’t walk up to date in Wonder Woman fashion with hands on hips and legs firmly planted.  Instead, you hold yourself in a pose that stretches you out and makes you look and feel big (like the Wonder Woman pose) before your date comes to pick you up.  Same with an interview or meeting. Sneak in a power pose in the bathroom stall just before you walk in to see your audience.

What the power poses do is trigger hormonal reactions.  They flood the brain with testosterone, which increases feelings of confidence and power,  and they decrease levels of cortisol, which causes negative reactions to stress.  Cuddy explains that letting your body influence your confidence in certain areas over time allows you to feel comfortable and competent in those areas.  So where you initially feel like you need power poses to help you out, in time will feel like second nature.  She calls this “faking it until you become it.”

If you ever need inspiration for power poses, just look to the rock stars. Here, Gwen Stefani is an image of confidence.

Variations of the pose are arms up over head with legs shoulder width apart, sitting in chair with hands behind head and feet on table, standing behind table with arms wider than shoulder width leaning on table and chest up, sitting in chair with hands behind head and one leg crossed (man-style) over the other, and finally leaning back in chair with arms and legs spread out. After holding these poses for only two minutes, subjects were more likely to gamble and in an interview were chosen by evaluators who were blind to the study.  Conversely, sitting in low power poses (poses that make you look and feel small) made subjects less likely to gamble and less likely to be chosen by evaluators in an interview.

Cuddy’s powerful takeaway is one that goes beyond the obvious implications of her findings.  She is passionate about this study because it can transform you from feeling inadequate, under-qualified, or unworthy to feeling like you belong exactly where you are. Her philosophy of faking it until you become it touched her life personally and is applicable to us all.  We all have moments where we think that maybe we’re in too deep or we don’t know enough to do what we are doing.  However, the truth is that we all have these underlying capabilities and the biggest thing holding us back from fulfilling them is our belief that it may not work out.  So if we can convince ourselves to go for our aspirations with confidence, we can change our lives and contribute more than we ever imagined possible.

Freshen up your math skills and be the first to know the answer.

At some point we all dedicated a significant amount of time to learning about divisors and long and short division. What was that 3rd, 4th grade? Whichever year it was, it’s been a while. While it’s easy to devalue some of those skills the more we use calculators, there are some great advantages to being  able to conduct basic and complex math problems on our own.  Not only do you boost your cognitive ability and increase neural connections, you also expand your capacity for critical reasoning.  So put away whatever technology you us as a crutch, and show off your smarts.

Here are some *divisibility tricks for the numbers 1 through 10 to help you do some quick calculations on your own.

1: any integer is divisible by 1.

2: any integer is divisible by 2 if its last digit is divisible by 2.

3: any integer is divisible by 3 if all of the digits in the number add up to a number that is divisible by 3. For example, 171 is divisible by 3 because 1+7+1 =9, and 9 is divisible by 3.

4: any integer is divisible by 4 if its last two digits are a number that is divisible by 4. For example 612 is divisible by 4 because 12 is divisible by 4.

5: any integer is divisible by 5 if it ends in a 5 or a 0.

6: any integer is divisible by 6 if it is divisible by 2 and 3 (see above tricks).

7: there is no trick.

8: any integer is divisible by 8 if its last 3 digits are divisible by 8. For example, 234,816 is divisible by 8 because 816 is divisible by 8.

9: any integer is divisible by 9 if the sum of its digits is divisible by 9. For example 23,061,141 is divisible by 9 because 2+3+0+6+1+1+4+1=18 which is divisible by 9.

10: any integer is divisible by 10 if it ends in a 0.

*any whole number, or integer, is divisible by a number if there is no remainder when that number is divided into it.

Something to get your neurons firing: neurons fire as thought is processed. The more one neural patway is used, the more it is reinforced and enhanced.

Can you imagine how wonderful it would be to wake up everyday feeling motivated, to follow through with all of your plans, to be content with the decisions you’ve made, and to operate in a way that is healthy both physically and mentally?   Think of a life where you derive pleasure from doing things that you ought to do rather than wishing for the things you know you should stay away from. Think of a life where specific mental exercises gave you control of your thoughts, abilities, and feelings.  Behavioral scientists and neuroscientists are making new discoveries everyday that give us more information which is applicable to achieving this life. Whereas twenty years ago, the world believed that the behaviors and skills that a person had were somewhat stagnant, today scientists are revealing just how plastic the brain is and how much that trait affects the potential individuals have to change their lives. Continue reading →

Can’t wait for their turn! Odds are that these water-skiers anticipating their turn will have a more fun ride than those who went first.

Who doesn’t love/hate a good build up?  Understanding the science behind anticipation can make your parties exceptionally exciting, your dinners unbelievably delicious, and your kisses utterly irresistible. Think of it more as presentation than manipulation as you tactfully play with your subjects’ emotions. This months book, The Optimism Bias by Tali Sharot provides us with inside information on how to use anticipation.  Here’s what you should know:

Just like waiting for Santa to come on Christmas, waiting is half the fun!

Build up is fun! Think about a time when you planned a trip in advance.  Daydreams, excitement, countdowns, and happiness fill days or months leading up to the vacation.  Weekly girls’ night or even traditional Monday night spaghetti dinners give you something to look forward to.

Not only do you have a fun date marked on your calendar, you also experience happiness while waiting for your prize.  According to Sharot, the areas of the brain activated both while imagining something pleasurable and experiencing something pleasurable are the same.  Though the two are not substitutable, the amount of joy we get from them is sometimes very comparable. Sharot gives a few pointers on how to get the most pleasure out of anticipation.

1. Make it great. When a reward is expected to be very great, we get the most joy waiting for it.
2. Paint a picture. “The more vividly we are able to imagine an event, the greater pleasure from anticipating it.”
3. Make it a certainty. “How probable you think the event is influences how joyful anticipating it will be.”
4. Ramp it up. As the event draws nearer, the anticipation and joy should go up.

Best drink ever at best party ever!!! With the right prep, it’s everything they imagined it would be.

People will enjoy something decidedly more when they’ve had time to imagine how great it is.  Don’t worry about over-hyping.  As long as you don’t lie about what’s happening or what’s there, you’re fine.  In fact, the more you sell a reward, the better it’s perceived upon arrival.  People get so much joy from anticipating the reward, they already are biased about how good it is.  So, for instance, once someone has thought about how fun water skiing is for months, and then watched others water skiing before their turn arrives, when they get the chance to water ski, they will perceive it as more fun than they would have if they immediately went water skiing on a whim.  By imagining how fun it is and all the things that make it fun, someone heightens the fun experienced.  It is a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy.

How you do it. Though a lot of how you hype your prize is up to personal style, there are some tricks anyone can use to make the most of the anticipation period.

1. Enhance your excitement. Express your excitement for the event. Include why and how much. I can’t wait for the concert! I’ve wanted to see them live for 10 years. We are so lucky to have tickets!!
2. Descriptors + superlatives + details. This part is easy. Just throw in everything you know and put awesome, great, amazing, fun, hilarious, etc. in as much as possible.  The band is amazing and the show is unbelievable! They move the entire show and half of it they’re in the audience.  I heard they have surprise guests coming too.
3. Pictures worth a thousand words. Send pictures that will elicit thoughts of upcoming event. Send pics of arena, guitars, microphones, tickets, band, music notes, etc.
4. Set a date and time. This. is. happening. Nail down a date and time so the countdown can begin asap. We have tickets!February 28 8pm Hollywood Bowl Row 31 seat 15 and 16!!
5. Friendly reminders.  Take advantage of growing anticipation and text reminders or update Facebook invites. You can add more details of event, note meeting places, update schedule, or suggest what to wear/bring.  3 more days! Bring your Flip camera… we’re gonna need to document!

Building anticipation is a fun and powerful tool.  Be aware that it is great when used for rewards that aren’t always available and that’s value won’t depreciate with a longer waiting period…like a puppy. Don’t make someone wait a year for your puppy. It’s not as cute then.

Use it all you want when appropriate though. Rethink those surprises and consider how much greater your present may be if you add in the value of anticipation. At least consider giving a date and description of your great reward.

Most of all have fun and share all those great expectations, because joy through excitement-filled waiting periods is what anticipation is all about.