Wow, this really drives home the power of positive thought!

Low self-esteem ’shrinks brain’

By Pallab Ghosh, BBC Science Correspondent

People with a low sense of self worth are more likely to suffer from memory loss as they get older, say researchers.

The study, presented at a conference at the Royal Society in London, also found that the brains of these people were more likely to shrink compared with those who have a high sense of self esteem.

Dr Sonia Lupien, of McGill University in Montreal surveyed 92 senior citizens over 15 years and studied their brain scans.

She found that the brains of those with low self-worth were up to a fifth smaller than those who felt good about themselves.

These people also performed worse in memory and learning tests.

Retraining

Dr Lupien believes that if those with a negative mind set were taught to change the way they think they could reverse their mental decline.

He said: “This atrophy of the brain that we thought was irreversible is reversible – some data on animals and some data on humans shows that that if you enrich the environment if you change some factors this brain structure can come back to normal levels”

Researchers are studying which psychological treatments work best.

According to Dr Felicia Huppert of Cambridge University – the early signs are that fairly simple techniques can have an enormous impact:

“There are interventions which talk about focusing on positive things in everyday life and savouring good moments even at times when life is difficult little tiny things may give you pleasure so there are skills involved in how to derive pleasure from the ordinary things in life”.

‘Reversed’

According to Dr Lupien, the fear of memory loss may be a self fulfilling prophesy as anxiety leads to negative thinking which leads to mental impairment.

“If you always think it’s normal to lose something, then you will never work to increase it because doctors have always told you that. I’m saying that it is not normal.

“So this might impact positvely (sic) on the public by saying that its possible to impact on increasing your memory performance and by saying that it is normal to have a fulfilling life, we may be able to increase self esteem among the general public – and prevent a lot of these deficits related to age”.

(read the full article here)

From Personal Achievement with Kyle Edginton…

Have You Changed Your Mind?

You may have heard, the areas of personal growth, development and achievement are based on “mindset”.

Part of that mindset is figuring out how to cope with the world around you and to  achieve your growth and development…inspite of it ALL!

To build a successful mindset, you will need to go step-by-step.  You will need to start with small changes to train your mind to adapt to this new way of life.

The purpose of your mind is first and foremost…

…PROTECTION!

Protection from what you may ask.  Well that can be difficult to answer and basically, it is protection from the outside world and…

…YOURSELF!

That’s right, protection from yourself.  You can be a danger to yourself, especially if you are doing things differently than you have been conditioned your entire life.

Your mind has been conditioned by all of the different experiences you have had in your life.

Now that you have taken on a life of self-improvement, you will be venturing outside of your comfort zone.  Your mind’s job is to keep you in that comfort zone and it will do anything it must to achieve that purpose.

So you mission, if you choose to accept it, is to recondition your mind to accept this new way of life and to make it natural so that your mind can become a partner as opposed to an adversary.

So how do we do this?

We must police our thoughts so that we can start to see the patterns that are preventing us from moving forward.

Only once you find the problems, can you begin to create the solution.

Like me, you probably have a few self help books lying around. You have probably even read most of them. But even if you don’t, and even if you haven’t, you may well recognize a famous title such as Steven Covey’s ‘Seven Habits of Highly Influential People’. Beth Lisick started out slightly skeptical about the idea of self help, until she tried it and discovered the benefits for herself.

It is a fun, light-hearted and inspiring story of how, despite herself, self help changed her life for the better…

Emily Wilson asked the question: "Self-help is everywhere, but does it work?"

Self Help: $10 Billion for What?

Emily Wilson, Alternet.

When performer, rock musician and writer Beth Lisick woke up Jan. 1, 2006, and the only New Year’s resolution she could think of was learning to do the splits, she decided to aim a little higher.

Instead, she spent the year availing herself of all the advice out there to better her character, physical fitness, parenting and sex life, along with her financial, organizational and time management skills. Lisick read Chicken Soup for the Soul, by Jack Canfield, and The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen Covey; she went to seminars with John Gray of Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus fame and financial superstar Suze Orman; she consulted with Oprah Winfrey’s organizational advisor; learned about giving her child time-outs from a book called 1-2-3 Magic; gave Deepak Chopra (who she had previously considered ’spirituality lite") a chance, and went on a "Cruise to Lose" with fitness guru Richard Simmons.

During the year, Lisick tried to put aside her cynicism and refused to dismiss Covey for his Mormonism or Canfield for his love of golf and fast cars. Now she can always find her keys and ask for things in a direct way, and has embraced the concept of abundance instead of scarcity and negotiated a lower interest rate on her credit card.

Lisick chronicles her yearlong journey through the self-help world in her new book Helping Me Help Myself: One Skeptic, Ten Self-Help Gurus, and a Year on the Brink of the Comfort Zone. She recently shared that experience with AlterNet.

Emily Wilson: Do you think your life is better now after a year of helping yourself?

Beth Lisick: I actually do. Like I said in the book, I thought it would be funny, in a way, if nothing changed. I don’t feel like I am a totally different person than I was before I started the book, but I think that if you immerse yourself in anything for a year, it’s going to change you, and it definitely did change me for the better. I feel like I am more organized, and I do have a better grasp of time management and organization that I really didn’t before. I started thinking about goals, and I had never had done that before in my life. And it was weird because it wasn’t like I was a person who could never get anything done. I do a lot of stuff, but I just think I did so much stuff it was almost like I was spreading myself too thin. That was probably the big one. I feel like I’m more organized and more focused.

You talk about reviewing the day before you go to sleep at night, which is something Jack Canfield and Deepak Chopra do. What are some other concrete things you do now?

I’m a lot better at looking around my house and if I see something and I’m cleaning up, just saying, ‘Where does that thing go?’ Before, a lot of things in our house, we just didn’t have a place for them, and we were always losing certain things like the digital camera, or my keys. Now when I’m cleaning up, I can say, ‘Where does that thing go?’ or if that thing doesn’t have a home, then I have to sit there and think, ‘OK, where can be a place for this thing that we just move from desk to table to couch?’ So that’s something I do differently. Those were my favorite things. Like the 1-2-3 Magic thing with Gus — the things where I could see immediate benefits. I could see immediate results with that.

You say early on in Helping Me Help Myself that you are a Godophobe. A lot of these books are very focused on God or a higher power. How did you deal with that?

I think the first thing I did was I realized the Godophobe part of me was really a holdover from adolescence. It was just when people would talk about their higher power and I would be like, "Can’t you figure out another way to talk about it without saying that," and then as I was reading these books, and it was just everywhere; it was impossible to escape. Then when I started thinking of those synchronicities and things I thought were cool, I was like, "Well, I’ve known for a very long time people substitute the word God for something bigger than me, something I can’t control, something that is mysterious and out there." And then I mention in the book a big thing for me is my friends who were recovering drug addicts or alcoholics, who, for so long, were unable to do the 12 steps because they could not accept the higher power part, and it just held them back for so long, and once they decided just to surrender that and say, "OK, I don’t even know what that means, I don’t understand, but I can think of it as this or that," then they were able to get sober and healthy, so I think about it in that way too.

You say you were surprised by how much you liked The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and that you have no interest in slamming Stephen Covey because he’s Mormon.

Yeah, I’m over that. I mean, I don’t think of myself as a journalist. I think my approach was to be like anybody else who reads the books and goes to the seminars and tries to figure out what it all means and how it all can work for them.

What am I going to do, go into some in-depth analysis of Mormonism? I felt like I don’t want to be another person who has those two paragraphs that talk about all the ridiculous things about Mormonism. I feel like I’ve read those two paragraphs everywhere, you know, about the special underwear. It just seemed boring to me. I mean, when I read longer articles about Mormonism, I find it totally fascinating, but I didn’t think anybody needed me to sum up the weird things about Mormonism. That’s kind of how I decided to start at the place where we all know these self-help people are cheesy. I mean, sometimes I couldn’t help myself and had to point out things that were so weird or funny, but I think the idea of writing some sort of expose of how it’s all a scam is just like, "Really? In 2008? I don’t think so." There are people out there who do that and are researchers or want to expose everybody for how much they make per talk and what their credentials are, but I don’t think that belongs in this book.

You had a hard time with John Gray and his whole Mars/Venus thing. Why was that?

I put my prejudices right out there because I was kind of a tomboy growing up, and maybe it was just the time and place, but there was never any moment in my entire life that I felt like there was anything I couldn’t do because I was a girl. So, to me, that whole idea of gender stuff is so fluid, and the blatant stereotyping drives me nuts. I just can’t get behind it — that men’s chemistry is one way and women’s chemistry is another. I think all of our chemistry is all over the map and, yeah, there are two sides of it that he exploits for his purposes, but I think people really like to buy into it, and they think, "Oh, I do love my chocolate. and I do love to go shopping, and I do hate it when my man goes into his man cave." It’s like we want to feel like individuals, but then there’s the sense of belonging to something. It just made no sense with my relationship with my husband, and it was just confusing to me. … It was almost not fair to choose him because I had such a huge prejudice, but I felt like I was cutting him slack the whole time.

Did you feel like a lot of these self-help movements are based on the personality of the leaders?

Yeah, the personality aspect is huge with the gurus because the ideas are very old and have been around forever, and so what it is is the personality of the guru and how they are putting their message across. You can say something like, ‘Do unto others,’ and we’ve all heard it a million times, but if somebody comes along and can say it in this way that is a little bit different and has a little bit of a different twist on it, all of a sudden it seems new and exciting again. Like, I was at a bookstore recently for one of my readings, and there’s a new Montel Williams self-help book, and I picked it up and I swear to God, the first thing I read is, "Drink six six- to eight-ounce glasses of water every day." So here’s this piece of advice that’s in every issue of every women’s magazine that ever comes out every single month. So it’s all about the personality. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, because some people will listen to what Montel has to say because they’re a fan of his show. But that’s why it’s perpetuated in so many different ways with so many faces and hairdos and teeth; selling this thing is all about personality in the commercial sense. It’s not about the advice, because the advice has been around forever.

You’re fairly indifferent to money. You do talk about wanting a dishwasher, and visualizing getting one, but how was it for you to read about people who talk about having hundreds of thousands of dollars or aspiring to have a mansion?

Jack Canfield had a lot in his book about visualizing yourself behind the wheel of a red convertible. Even go to a dealer and sit in it, visualize yourself on those golf courses around the world or having vacation homes. That was stuff like with the Mormonism or whatever that I had to let it go. Because I think once you’re at the level those people are at — you know, in Jack Canfield’s defense, he’s got those things, and I’m sure he can’t imagine his life without them, so he’s saying to these people, ‘All right, you can come along.’ But, for me, it’s always been such an unattractive quality in a person when they wanted a lot of material things or a lot of money. So that was a hard one for me, and I think a lot has to do with my background of being raised without any want for money. Growing up, we had everything we needed. There were things we didn’t get, but we lived a very solidly middle-class life. I think part of it too is being a writer; I just thought, I’m never going to have money. So yeah, money is a huge issue for me, and I have to really edit myself to not obsess over it.

It seemed like a hard year because you and your husband were really struggling with money and then there was this relentless self-examination. What was the hardest thing about the year?

I think the hardest thing when I first started reading these books was facing up to these faults and shortcomings that I had previously overlooked. Now that I’m aware of what they are, it’s hard to imagine I wasn’t paying attention. And I was perfectly happy not paying attention. I’m an optimistic person — I’m a happy person — and so there wasn’t a huge struggle I was trying to get over. The hardest part reading some of these books was realizing some things. It wasn’t like, "Oh I don’t have the convertible and the mansion," it was, "Oh, I don’t manage my money well and, wow, I don’t always do what I say I’m going to do." So it was pointing out all these things in my personality that were kind of depressing.

What was the funniest thing about it?

I think the fun part for me was knowing your life can be an experiment and that you can just decide to do something and do it. I think, generally, in our lives, you want to walk around with that feeling that it’s your life and you can do whatever you want, but it was cool to put it to the test. So even in the darkest hours I was like, all right, I’m doing this thing.

I also really enjoyed the people that I met. Because, in the Bay Area, when do you ever meet a person who’s never had a cappuccino in their life? And you’re sitting next to them the moment they decide to have their first cappuccino. That’s so great. I mean, when I was at the FranklinCovey seminar and I was talking to the woman who is an event planner for industrial laundries, I was like, "God, what kind of events do you plan?" You’re given the opportunity to talk to people from all over the place, and I really liked that. I think I just have fully admitted I love people so much, and I love being around them.

(this story was sourced here)

Emily Wilson is a freelance writer and teaches basic skills at City College of San Francisco.

I stumbled across the following entry on positivityblog.com 

‘Self Pursuit’ is also about the pursuit of happiness and fulfillment in life, which doesn’t necessarily come only from having money, or the perfect wife, or the dream job…

I really felt like sharing this because it has some pretty wise gems on happiness and what it means to us. To read the full blog entry, click here.

Seneca’s Top 10 Fundamentals for Finding Happiness

1. Happiness is optional.

“A man’s as miserable as he thinks he is.”

What you think about most of the time you become. If you see the world and yourself through a lens smudged by negativity then you’ll find much misery. If you look outwards and inwards through lens brightened by positivity you’ll find much to be happy and appreciative about.

So being happy or miserable is seldom so much about the external circumstances at the moment. It’s more about how you look at them, yourself and your world.

Now, thinking about things with a positive attitude is easier said than done. But you can shift a negative attitude into a more positive one. It will probably not happen like flicking on a light switch, but gradually you can spend more time with a positive attitude than a negative one.

A few starting points for adopting a more useful attitude are Take The Positivity Challenge! and Top 5 Ways to Live a More Positive Life.

2. You don’t have to create anger and other negative feelings.

“A quarrel is quickly settled when deserted by one party; there is no battle unless there be two.”

Sometimes it is of course necessary to bring up and resolve a conflict. Often though, conflicts or quarrels are just a waste of time and good way to create negativity within and in your environment. Perhaps someone wants to be right. Or release pent up emotions created elsewhere.

Avoid taking such bait by others or giving in to temporary negativity in yourself. Just let it go.

3. Grow and deepen.

“As long as you live, keep learning how to live.”

Each day, month and year we can learn more about how to live in better way. Getting to know yourself and the world around you is simply an awesome way to find more depth in yourself and to handle and manage your life and happiness better and better.

How can you learn to live?

• Learn from others. There is a vast selection of books, CDs and DVDs from all ages on what people have found out throughout their own lives. Make it a habit of exploring such material – you can find a selection of recommended products here – and talking to people around you about what they have learned about life.

• Learn from yourself. What you learn from others can have a bad habit of not sticking so well. But if you are open to what you can learn from your own mistakes and successes then there is much to be found there. And lessons to revise over and over again as you discover new things and that your old assumptions may not have been as correct or useful as you believed.

4. Will more solve your problems?

“For many men, the acquisition of wealth does not end their troubles, it only changes them.”

“It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.”

“What difference does it make how much you have? What you do not have amounts to much more.”

Society is to a large degree built on getting more.

Of course, to a degree this is very useful. But it may not be the thing that will solve all your problems.

You may not find your answer or happiness in more. It may just alter your troubles and problems. And/or give you more of them. What is already there inside of you perhaps gets highlighted and magnified when you get more. Instead of getting whatever you want when finally making all that money your wanted you may find that greed, jealousy and selfishness within you and in your world increases.

You may have thought that when you finally arrived at that place your problems would just disappear. But the ego always wants more and is never satisfied.

So trying to fill yourself up with more – money, power, smartness, prettiness, a feeling of being more enlightened than others – and then finally becoming happy may become like trying to fill a bucket with a hole in the bottom.

5. Give without wanting something in return.

“He that does good to another does good also to himself.”

“It is another’s fault if he be ungrateful, but it is mine if I do not give. To find one thankful man, I will oblige a great many that are not so.”

Shared joy is increased joy. And one of the best ways to become happier is simply to make others happier. When you do that positive feelings seem to be generated from within.

And when you make someone else happy you can also sense, see, feel and hear it. And that happy feeling flows back to you.

And since the Law of Reciprocity is strong there is another upside. People will feel like giving back to you. And so the two – or more – of you keep building an upward spiral of positivity and happiness.

Seneca has a very good point here about how it is your responsibility to give and the receiver’s responsibility to be thankful. But just because s/he may not be thankful doesn’t mean that you can’t feel happiness or should stop giving.

I also think it’s important to try and give without wanting something in return (something that is not always easy though).

Why?

Because if you give something but your mind and body says that you are just doing it to get something in return then that will often shine through. People will see and feel it in your reactions and your general vibe. And so they are less likely to be thankful or reciprocate. Giving, at it’s finest and for maximum usefulness for all involved, has to be genuine.

6. Know what you are looking for.

“If a man knows not what harbor he seeks, any wind is the right wind.”

If you don’t know what you are looking for you probably won’t wind up finding it. You’ll just drift along with different currents and winds.

So you need to know what you actually want. Then set a direction and keep your focus on that direction. Then it will not only be easier to reach your destination but also to use the focus system in your mind – your reticular activation system – to help you filter out information and opportunities that can help you along and that previously may have just blended into the background of your world.

7. Laugh

“It is more fitting for a man to laugh at life than to lament over it.”

“No one is laughable who laughs at himself.”

Taking things too seriously can make life a lot harder and painful than it needs to be. It may be a common or “normal” way to look at things. But you are always free to choose how to view, react and think about things.

Taking things and yourself less seriously can really help you to decrease conflicts, anger, sadness and anxiety. And laughing at the life and yourself releases tension and tends to make you less susceptible to the gray and dreary clouds of negativity that may plague others. Check out Lighten Up! for more on this.

8. Excess may not be the key.

“It is quality rather than quantity that matters.”

“It is the sign of a great mind to dislike greatness, and to prefer things in measure to things in excess.”

I guess this one ties in to # 4: to seek happiness in more.

An excess of things may often look wonderful when you imagine it. But when you actually get it and are taking it all in then it loses the magic you imagined. So quality and moderation may bring more joy than an excess.

The first five pieces of candy always taste better than the rest. And if you eat the whole bag of candy you often wind up feeling a bit nauseous and sick.

One awesome gadget or tool is often better than five OK ones. One great looking shirt or skirt often brings more joy than five OK looking ones.

9. Be in charge of yourself and do a great job.

“Life’s like a play: it’s not the length, but the excellence of the acting that matters.”

“Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.”

“Wisdom allows nothing to be good that will not be so forever; no man to be happy but he that needs no other happiness than what he has within himself; no man to be great or powerful that is not master of himself.”

Just going along with whatever happens and just doing your job may not bring much happiness.

But taking control of your own life – instead of floating along – and doing a great job brings satisfaction and joy. Not just from the people around you but from within. When you feel like you are in charge of your own life and that you are doing your best there is an exhilaration and happiness that you create inside of yourself. Such a self-generated happiness makes sure that external circumstances – that always fluctuate – have less of an impact on how you feel.

10. Live in the present.

“There is no person so severely punished, as those who subject themselves to the whip of their own remorse.”

“True happiness is… to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future.”

“There are more things to alarm us than to harm us, and we suffer more often in apprehension than reality.”

What is there?

Tomorrow isn’t here yet. Yesterday has passed. Now is the present moment. And all three of them are always the present moment when we are living in them.

So there is no real space where you and I can change or live in except the one you and me are in right now. And now. And now.

But still we insist to spend much time regretting yesterday. Or fearing tomorrow. That’s normal. But it’s isn’t so useful.

We can’t really do anything about the past. We can learn valuable lessons from it but after that it’s not so important.

And most of the things we fear will happen in the future never really show up. A negative attitude can do wonders to create monsters within the mind to occupy much of your time. So, planning your future is very useful but over thinking it is seldom helpful.

So much time is lost thinking compulsively, over and over again, about things we have little control over. And it can create a huge amount of suffering inside that is projected and acted out into the world.

And it distracts us – blurs our vision and shatters our focus – and keeps us from fully enjoying what is really the most important time.

Now.

(Read this blog entry from The Positivity Blog Here)

I got a few comments following the last post in which I shared with you the study that revealed that A LOT of workers are chronically sleep deprived…

So I thought I’d just share with you just a few pointers to get you on the right track if you are suffering from lack of sleep. Please share your comments at the end of this post

According to Harvard Health Publications’s Press release, Repaying Sleep debt, more than 60% of us don’t regularly sleep the brain’s required seven to nine hours of sleep per night.

This is quite a significant number of sleep-deprived people! But don’t fear, there’s hope. They also say that you CAN ward off the negative effect of sleep loss because you CAN repay even a chronic, longstanding sleep debt.

So how do we counter the effects of chronic sleep loss?

Harvard Women’s Health Watch suggests:

If you’ve missed 10 hours of sleep over one week, make up for it over the weekend and the following week. If you’ve missed sleep for decades, it could take a few weeks to repay the debt. Plan a vacation with a light schedule, and sleep every night until you wake naturally. Once you’ve determined how much sleep you need, factor it into your daily schedule.

BrainBasedBusiness further discussed this in an article last year, showing that this really has been/is an ongoing problem.

Dr. Mercola says in a short article about lengthening workweeks robbing people of their precious sleep:

While sleepy workers know they’re not performing well, work is what’s keeping them up at night. Workdays are getting longer and time spent working from home averages close to four-and-a-half hours each week.The average waking time is 5:35 AM, and the average bedtime is 10:53 PM.

The good news? It’s not all bad news. You can do something about it.

I’ve also compiled a few tips for you, to get you started on helping yourself sleep better, ASAP:

8 tips to better sleep

• Don’t nap too long during the day so you can sleep better at night
• Exercise regularly, earlier in the day, not before you sleep
• Finish eating at least two to three hours before you sleep
• Avoid alcohol, caffeine and nicotine before you sleep
• Maintain a regular sleep/wake schedule, including during weekends
• Make your sleep environment cool, peaceful and comfortable
• Use relaxation techniques if they help you sleep
• Start a relaxing bedtime before-you-sleep routine

 

However, the battle is only just beginning, because:

Bodies don’t ’spring ahead’

By Kim Painter, USA TODAY

A bold prediction: A week from today you will be feeling sleepy, very sleepy.

You will have trouble getting out of bed. If you are a teenager, you will have even more trouble than usual. If you are an early-morning commuter, you may struggle to keep your eyes open as you drive along darkened streets.

What will trigger this mass bout of drowsy driving, this predictably mopey Monday? It will be the first weekday of daylight saving time — that once-a-year "spring ahead" that robs us of one hour of sleep (which is returned when clocks "fall back" in November).

It’s just one hour, but experts in chronobiology — the study of our internal body clocks — say it takes most people several days to adjust. (The fall change also is disruptive, but less so.) One recent study from German researchers, published in the journal Current Biology, found that some habitual night owls have trouble getting enough sleep for weeks after the spring shift — which, in effect, demands that we all go to bed and get up an hour earlier.

At best, "we’ll have a lot of groggy people on the highways the first couple of days," says Michael Smolensky…

……….(click here to continue reading this article)

You can also take a look at:

• Dr. Mercola’s 33 Secrets to a Good Night’s Sleep.
• 25 Tips For a Better Pre Sleep Ritual on Sleepybed.com.
• On Better Sleep by the Better Sleep Council.
• 10 tips for better sleep on MayoClinic.com.
• Tips for a Good Night’s Sleep:Getting the Sleep you Need on Helpguide.org.

A 61 Year Old Farmer Enters The World’s Toughest Race…

There are several legends that share the discovery of a long-sought invention and how it was quickly replicated in only days… after everyone finally knew it was possible.

The fact that someone finally proved it could be done was all the others needed to finally create the invention themselves.

This story goes in a similar vein, but with a twist.

In 1983 a farmer from a sheep ranch entered the world’s toughest ultra-marathon, an 545 mile (875km) run from Sydney to Melbourne in Australia.

Whereas other runners were under 30, trained specifically for this event, and had corporate sponsorships, Cliff Young was 61, ran sheep on a farm, and was laced in his work boots.

While the other runners followed the equation of 18 hours running, 6 hours sleeping per day, Cliff had no idea such a formula even existed.

And while the other runners focused intently, Cliff made time to wave to the onlookers and media cameras.

And with this back drop, how do you think it ended?

Cliff is now a legend.

He won that race not because of determination, cutting edge equipment, or innovative coaching.

He won because he walked up to that race with infinite possibilities.

Nothing was impossible to him.

And with his mind free of mental impediments, he was able to do what everyone else called impossible.

Cliff is someone we could all look up to.

When you look at what is and is not possible in your life, how much of that is real, and how much is simply imagined?

(Click Here to read this amazing story)

Study: Believing in an item’s worth makes us cheery — for a short time

For Ellie Couch, happiness is colored black and red, with a 4-inch heel — she feels it with every glance at her brand-new pair of Christian Louboutins.

Simply put, “you look hot in them,” says Couch, who’s 23 and lives in Dallas. (The shoes were a Christmas gift from her mom, and although she doesn’t know the exact price, the status symbol stilettos usually cost upwards of $600.) “It’s something that sets you apart from everyone and everything else.”

But wouldn’t she feel just as hot in a knockoff pair from Steve Madden? Maybe not, experts say. The more we believe an item is worth, the happier we are with our purchase — at least for a short time, says a study released today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The study’s participants were hooked up to brain scan machines and instructed to take a sip from five glasses of wine, which ranged from $5 to $90 a bottle. When they were told they were drinking a glass of wine from a $90 bottle, brain scans showed increased activity in the medial orbital frontal cortex, the area of the brain that registers pleasure — even if the person was actually knocking back the price equivalent of two-buck chuck.

“It’s very weird, I know,” admits Antonio Rangel, the lead author of the study and an associate economics professor at California Institute of Technology. “But people believe that more expensive prices are correlated with higher quality. So if you believe something better is happening to you, that affects the way your brain handles the experience.”

Rangel says that what his team found to be true with wine is likely true in homes, department stores and closets across the country: You kind of like your Camry, but you’d really love a Mercedes. You’re OK with your Levi’s, but you’d be happier with Citizens. And you’re only happy with your Coach handbag because you don’t have one by Chloe.

Happiness, it seems, is just a purchase away — an idea that’s unsettling to psychologist April Benson.

“So many people want more than they have because they want to be more than they are — so buying more equals being more,” says Benson, who lives in New York City and is the author of “I Shop, Therefore I Am.”

To Benson, what’s particularly troubling about the study’s finding is that some people may be confusing an item’s worth with their own self-worth. These folks, she worries, will always be racing toward their next purchase, always inwardly questioning: Will this make me happy?

The happiness that follows a pricey purchase may be in part an immediate attempt to rationalize the money you just dropped. “We then start to think about it: ‘Huh, I must be worth it. I must be worth a lot if I’m buying this expensive item,’” Benson says.

Not to worry, bargain hunters — there’s joy to be found in Nordstrom Rack, as well. “The fact that you just found a good deal is enjoyable in its own self,” Rangel says. In other words, it’s not the price you pay, it’s what you believe something’s worth.

Sadly, it’s a fleeting kind of glee. The brain scan study showed that the brain’s pleasure centers only reacted to the enjoyment of the pricey wine for a few seconds, or just a few beats longer than it took to swallow. After that, your retail joy is gone. And so is your money.

“You can never get enough of what you don’t really need,” says Benson. “And if people are looking for purchases to meet their psychological needs, it’s not too likely that the purchases can do that.”

But that, emphasizes the Louboutin-clad Couch, is not the point. The real source of her shoes’ power is in their ability to set her apart from the crowd — in a club, in photos from said club and in said photos from said club posted on her Facebook profile.

“It’s so worth the pain, so worth the price, so worth whatever — it’s totally worth it,” Couch says, “cause you look really hot.”

(reference)

The Top Productivity Blogs Collected by Social Rankings!

An incredible new website, Productivity Zen, identifies the top 15 productivity stories and blogs of the day by monitoring the buzz of the productivity blog community.

The developers of the site use a software called SocialRank to monitor each of the best productivity sites and determine the day’s hottest articles and bloggers in the field.

According to the SocialRank team:

This is done by analyzing how sites and users link, connect, and discuss each other’s content. Add a touch of math and what we have is a powerful filter into the hottest stories of the day.

Now you can find better productivity stories, learn more, and get updated… much faster and easier than before.

So far great sites like Zen Habits, Life Optimizer, Matt Idea, and Lifehack have been showing up on the top rankings for the site. But also some new faces that I urge all your productivity junkies to go check out!

It’s so nice to be able to find stuff from within the longtail without having to deal with the complications of technorati and the sheer bias some some social networking sites.

Want to know more about these great sites? Visit the links below:

SocialRank
Productivity Zen

See How Easily you can Overcome Procrastination by Conquering These 5 Battles

 

Are you struggling to overcome procrastination?

Do you find yourself festering and stewing without getting anything done?

Procrastinators and Procrastination fit into 3 types:

 

• arousal types, or thrill-seekers, who wait to the last minute for the euphoric rush.
• avoiders, who may be avoiding fear of failure or even fear of success, but in either case are very concerned with what others think of them; they would rather have others think they lack effort than ability.
• decisional procrastinators, who cannot make a decision. Not making a decision absolves procrastinators of responsibility for the outcome of events.

Which type are you? . . . whichever type you are, you can overcome procrastination if you conquer these 5 battles:

5 Battles to Overcome Procrastination

1. Chore versus Pleasure

A phrase I like to use when I’ve seen somebody for the first time in a long time that I’ve enjoyed is . . .

“Always a pleasure, never a chore”

This rings so true when it comes to overcoming procrastination. If you adopt the mindset that a task you’re about to do is a “pleasure” for you, you’ll be more likely to do something about it and get it done with passion and purpose.

2. Finishing versus Beginning

Many procrastinators find themselves overwhelmed with information that they find hard to process and simply see a task as being impossible. You don’t have to finish tasks in one breath or stretch; if you start a task you’re more likely to pick up the pace as you go along.

 

3. Perfectionist versus Productivist

One common trait of procrastinators is that they are perfectionists. If you look above this means they’ll often fit into the ‘avoiders’ category. So many tasks that need to be done simply don’t require perfection and should only be given the time and effort they deserve.

I might have made up a word here in ‘productivist’, it basically means someone who is productive and gets things done. They don’t see too much importance in basic or minor tasks. If something isn’t crucial then don’t strive for perfection – aim to get things done. 

 

4. ‘Time is my Master’ versus ‘Master of Time’

Don’t be a slave to your watch. Don’t feel constrained by time. A clear mind is essential when it comes to completing tasks. It’s natural that your attention wanes after about an hour of solid concentration. Take a break! Have a coffee, a bath, a walk, anything that will clear your mind and let you refocus.

 

5. Eating a Whole Horse versus Bite-Sized-Pieces

As hungry as I get at times, the thought of eating a whole horse is quite daunting. If you’ve got a monster of a task or project don’t try and tackle the beast in one go. If you divide the task into smaller bite-sized-pieces and goals they will be a lot easier to digest.

This method is a great means to an ends to pursue a task. In no time big tasks will not seem so overwhelming and you’ll change your mindset to that of ‘everything is possible’.

Are you a prolific procrastinator? Get the lowdown on everything you can imagine on procrastination with 10 Things You Need To Know About Procrastination

Read some of our featured articles:

The Science Behind Love

18 Wonders of the Human Body

Increase Your Brain Activity with 15 Ways

How can you Make Relationships More Fulfilling? 

 

Are you searching for a way to make relationships more fulfilling? It doesn’t matter whether you’re thinking about sexual relationships, family matters, your friends or people you don’t even know . . .you can make relationships more fulfilling by simply adopting the right mindset and living your life to the full.

So many people don’t live their lives to the full extent and seem to be consumed with fear because they face the prospect of being hurt.

One saying that rings true in all aspects of life and especially powerful in relationships of all kinds is . . .

“A life lived in fear is a life half-lived”

Steve Pavlina in a great recent post illustrated this viewpoint excellently. He puts forward that the key to fulfilling relationships is to have empowered relationships without an ounce of fear.

Here’s what he has to share.

The mindset of empowered relationships

by Steve Pavlina

So what is the mindset that makes it so much easier to relate to people?  Here it is in a nutshell:

Everyone you meet in your life — even total strangers — is already intimately connected to you.  The idea that we are all separate and distinct beings is nothing but an illusion.  We are all parts of a larger whole, like individual cells in a body.

Moreover, everyone and everything you see out there in your world are reflections of you.  Just as the cells in an organism carry the same DNA, other people are walking around with some part of you inside them.  When you look at other people, you’re really looking at yourself.  When you notice other people, it’s just like your eyes observing your hands.  We’re all parts of the same whole.

Here are some facets of this interconnected model of relationships:

• Oneness - Other people are not separate and distinct from you.  In fact, they are you.
• Connectedness – You don’t have to “build” relationships with others because you’re already connected.  You need only tune into the pre-existing connection that’s already there.
• No risk - Little or no courage is required to approach strangers.  You’re never actually building new connections from scratch.  You’re just recognizing what’s already there.
• Equality – You can feel just as close to total strangers as you do to your friends.
• Significance – All relationships are significant; none are irrelevant.  Even the strangers you pass on the street are important parts of you.
• Love without attachment - Letting go of harmful relationships is easier because you’re still unconditionally connected to everyone else.  As you release old relationships that no longer serve you, you’ll attract new ones that are compatible with you.

Initially I found this a totally alien mindset.  It was only in seeing the results first-hand that I became a convert.  Interestingly, I wasn’t into subjective reality when I first adopted this mindset, but this is in fact the subjective reality view of relationships in a nutshell.

One of the side effects of this mindset is that Erin and I are constantly meeting people through synchronicities… people we feel we were supposed to meet.  I first read about these kinds of encounters in The Celestine Prophecy.  When you have a certain mindset about relationships, you begin to attract the right people at the right times.  That’s precisely how Erin and I met as well.

For example, Erin and I recently spent several days in Sedona, Arizona.  This was the first time either of us had ever been to that city.  One day we walked into a shop we’d never been to before, picked up a strong vibe from a total stranger, started talking, and 30 minutes later we had become friends and said goodbye with hugs.  This woman also sent us a gift in the mail a week later to thank us for some guidance we gave her.  For Erin and me, this has become an increasingly common event.  And believe me — before I had this mindset I could never walk into some random store and expect to be hugging someone I’d never met only 30 minutes later.

I think the reason this mindset is so effective is that when you assume a pre-existing connection with another person, s/he will tend to respond in kind.  Usually the best way to break the ice with someone is to assume there never was any ice to begin with.

I also like that this is an easy way to identify highly conscious people.  The more conscious and self-aware someone is, the more easily and naturally they’ll respond to someone who relates to them as a real human being right off the bat.

Applying the empowering mindset

When you adopt the mindset that we’re all inherently connected, these are some of the actions and results that will come naturally to you:

• Easy rapport - You’ll connect with strangers almost as easily as you connect with your closest friends, sometimes more easily.  The difference between strangers and friends is intellectual familiarity, but you can tap into an intuitive familiarity even with someone you’ve never met.
• Fairness – You’ll begin to feel a kinship with everyone, regardless of familiarity.
• Attraction – Because you’re always open to connecting with people, you’ll begin attracting new relationships fairly easily.  Compatible people will be drawn to you.
• Synchronicity – You’ll experience a swell in synchronicities that lead to chance encounters, meeting people you feel very drawn to meet.
• Social courage – Have you ever seen someone at a distance you felt you were supposed to meet?  Have you ever run into the same stranger multiple times in the same day?  With the right belief system, you’ll feel confident beginning a conversation with such people, and you’ll find that your hunches were right on — you were supposed to meet.
• Deeper relationships - You’ll enjoy deeper, less superficial relationships, getting to know people at the level of soul.
• Energy - You’ll attract relationships that energize you rather than drain you.
• Reading people – Because we’re all connected, you can mentally connect with other people and literally share the same thoughts in a way that goes beyond words, voice, and body language.  You can even do it at a distance.  With practice you can get an accurate read on someone you’ve never met, picking up specific data about that person that you couldn’t have known in a purely objective sense.  Practice increases both your accuracy and your ability to trust the information you pick up.

These benefits aren’t either-or.  You gradually gain them as your awareness of our spiritual interconnectedness grows.

Fearless relationships

While you can get some of these benefits while still clinging to an objective model of relationships, I think it would be very difficult.  The real key is removing fear from the equation.  When you can relate to people without fear, which is a natural consequence of the belief that we’re all connected, then it becomes much easier to form deep connections with other human beings.

If you’ve been reading my articles for a while, you can probably guess that if you were to meet me in person, you wouldn’t have to begin a conversation with me by chatting about the weather.  We could just talk soul-to-soul about anything, and you needn’t be afraid of me judging you because my belief is that you’re an integral and inseparable part of me.  But that’s because you already know a lot about me and my mindset from reading my articles, so you already have some familiarity with me, and that reduces your social risk with me.  However, the truth is that you can achieve the same level of rapport with a total stranger when you get an intuitive read that s/he will be receptive.  Your social conditioning will cause you to focus on the fear of rejection, but with the mindset of interconnectedness, you’ll focus on the opportunities for connection instead.

My understanding is that the mindset of interconnectedness isn’t only more empowering than the objective mindset — it’s also more accurate.  Our fundamental interconnectedness was one of the most empowering realizations I ever had… and also one of the most humbling.  It keeps my ego in check to know that this Steve person I inhabit is just one cell in a much larger body.  We all are.  And the best we can do with our lives is to achieve the point of optimal balance whereby serving our own needs and serving the whole body are congruent.  A body does not survive by sacrificing the cells that serve it, and a cell does not survive by sacrificing the body that hosts it.

Interdependence is a higher level of consciousness than independence.  Fear serves the latter; fearlessness, the former.

Final Thought

I certainly echo Steve’s sentiments – you can make relationships more fulfilling if you get into the right mindset and eliminate any fear.

Why not follow the advice of Mark Twain and:

“Dance like nobody’s watching; love like you’ve never been hurt. Sing like nobody’s listening; live like it’s heaven on earth.”

So adopt the mindset as soon as possible and make relationships more fulfilling in life!!

Read the full article from Steve on how to make relationships more fulfilling.