fear

Four tips to practice good mental hygiene during the coronavirus outbreak

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Just a few days ago my son’s col­lege, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton, announced it would be can­celling all in-per­son class­es and finals to help con­tain the spread of the coro­n­avirus. One con­firmed on-cam­pus case prompt­ed the university’s response.

Though the uni­ver­si­ty will incur high costs—they have to deep-clean the whole cam­pus, for example—I, for one, am tru­ly grate­ful for their swift action and putting stu­dents first. It’s one of the many ways that I feel cared for in the midst of this cri­sis, and one of many car­ing acts that I expect to see in the weeks ahead.

Why expect more coop­er­a­tion and com­pas­sion in the face of an epi­dem­ic? [Read more…] about Four tips to prac­tice good men­tal hygiene dur­ing the coro­n­avirus outbreak

Four “Inside Out” insights to discuss and improve our kids’ emotional lives (and our own)

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Inside-Out.

Since its release in June, Inside Out has been applaud­ed by crit­ics, adored by audi­ences, and has become the like­ly front-run­ner for the Acad­e­my Award for Best Ani­mat­ed Feature.

But per­haps its great­est achieve­ment has been this: It has moved view­ers young and old to take a look inside their own minds. [Read more…] about Four “Inside Out” insights to dis­cuss and improve our kids’ emo­tion­al lives (and our own)

Lie to Me, Paul Ekman and Biofeedback

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You may have watched the new series Lie To Me, with Tim Roth, based on the work of Paul Ekman.

The sec­ond episode, which you can watch for free via Hulu.com Here, is pret­ty inter­est­ing, but the best part hap­pens in the begin­ning, so you only need to watch a few min­utes to learn why what are called “lie detec­tors” are noth­ing but biofeed­back sys­tems that mea­sure phys­i­o­log­i­cal anxiety.

Biofeed­back can be a very effec­tive train­ing tool for emo­tion­al self-reg­u­la­tion and stress man­age­ment, pre­cise­ly because it enables a faster feed­back-based learn­ing loop. Indeed, we are see­ing a grow­ing num­ber of appli­ca­tions in the mar­ket, with names such as EmWave, StressEras­er, RES­PeR­ATE, Jour­ney to the Wild Divine, and others.

Sim­ply, don’t believe the tech­nol­o­gy is an effec­tive lie detector.

Car­o­line and I wrote an arti­cle on Paul Ekman’s work a cou­ple of years ago — let me repub­lish it now, giv­en his work has made it all the way to main­stream TV!

braintop Paul Ekman has con­duct­ed exten­sive research on iden­ti­fy­ing emo­tions through facial expres­sions. As part of that research, and as part of the pow­er of dis­ci­pline and train­ing, he learned how to con­scious­ly manip­u­late 42 facial mus­cles, includ­ing many that in most of us are beyond our con­trol, and even awareness.

In the 60s and 70s when Ekman began look­ing into the uni­ver­sal­i­ty of facial expres­sions, all the major con­tem­po­rary social sci­en­tists, like Mar­garet Mead, believed that expres­sions were cul­tur­al­ly learned, not innate. He trav­eled all over the world with pic­tures of peo­ple mak­ing dis­tinct facial expres­sions and found peo­ple in cul­tures every­where, from mod­ern to stone age, agreed on the emo­tion behind the expres­sion. He then turned to [Read more…] about Lie to Me, Paul Ekman and Biofeedback

Manage Stress for Your Brain Health

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We just received this very insight­ful essay on stress man­age­ment and brain health writ­ten by Lan­don, a home­school­er and par­tic­i­pant in Susan Hill’s writ­ing work­shop. Susan asked Meditation School Studentsher stu­dents to write about impli­ca­tions of recent brain research.

Enjoy the arti­cle and the long week­end (at least here in the US) and Relax…

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Stress Man­age­ment for Your Brain Health 

– By Lan­don N

Thou­sands and thou­sands of web-like neu­rons linked togeth­er form a spongy mass inside a skull. This mass, called the brain, is what con­trols the body and the thoughts that run threw it have a notable effect on the heath of an indi­vid­ual. In addi­tion to thoughts, fear, stress, and emo­tions also have a strong effect on health. So then, health depends on more than just eat­ing right and exer­cis­ing; it depends on our men­tal state as well.

[Read more…] about Man­age Stress for Your Brain Health

Emotional Intelligence and Faces

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braintop Paul Ekman has con­duct­ed exten­sive research on iden­ti­fy­ing emo­tions through facial expres­sions. As part of that research, and as part of the pow­er of dis­ci­pline and train­ing, he learned how to con­scious­ly manip­u­late 42 facial mus­cles, includ­ing many that in most of us are beyond our con­trol, and even awareness.

In the 60s and 70s when Ekman began look­ing into the uni­ver­sal­i­ty of facial expres­sions, all the major con­tem­po­rary social sci­en­tists, like Mar­garet Mead, believed that expres­sions were cul­tur­al­ly learned, not innate. He pro­ceed­ed trav­eled all over the world with pic­tures of peo­ple mak­ing dis­tinct facial expres­sions and found peo­ple in cul­tures every­where, from mod­ern to stone age, agreed on the emo­tion behind the expres­sion. He then turned to study­ing the pro­duc­tion of these expres­sions and the 43 facial mus­cles that can cre­ate 10,000 expres­sions, which form the basis of his training.

He found sev­en uni­ver­sal emo­tions with unique facial expres­sion. The emo­tions are: anger, fear, sad­ness, dis­gust, hap­pi­ness, sur­prise, and con­tempt. At least five of these are shared with non-human pri­mates as well. Inter­est­ing­ly, the smile is the eas­i­est expres­sion to rec­og­nize, and the eas­i­est to iden­ti­fy from afar. These emo­tions have a spe­cif­ic [Read more…] about Emo­tion­al Intel­li­gence and Faces

Can a brain fitness program help me become more creative?

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Creative BrainHere is ques­tion 20 from Brain Fit­ness 101: Answers to Your Top 25 Ques­tions.

Ques­tion:
Can a brain fit­ness pro­gram help me become more creative?

Key Points:

  • Cre­ativ­i­ty can be trained, like oth­er men­tal muscles.
  • Set up struc­tured time, places, or rou­tines that pro­vide a frame­work for cre­ativ­i­ty to happen.
  • Reduc­ing your stress helps to keep your brain more flexible.
  • Using many parts of the brain as well as try­ing new things will stim­u­late the areas of your brain involved in creativity.

Answer: [Read more…] about Can a brain fit­ness pro­gram help me become more creative?