Dig the crrrazy dancing bird.



And read about the implications of this here.

Labels: brain science, research

Here’s a bit of holiday-related neuroscience research, about the importance the smells of the holidays are to our ability to makes sense of the holiday experience.

“If, for instance, you walk into a room with a nice, fresh evergreen tree and there is no odor to it, or the odor is not what you expect, that experience will not make as much sense to you.

“You might not be able to put your finger on what’s wrong, but you would know that something about this scene wasn’t quite right,” he says. “There is a whole constellation of stimuli that are part of our sensory world, especially at the holiday season. We put those things together in context automatically.”

Fair enough. We have a little fake tree, but Tom is out right now looking for fresh garland to hang in the living room so we have the scent of evergreen in the house. The holidays aren’t right without it, although it is kind of a stretch to link the holiday with this very general research.

But then Dr. Lorig goes on to say:

“…we are actually trained to ignore odors in most settings. 'You can be in a room that is full of books and computers and telephones and all these things that emit odors, but you probably don’t notice,' he says. 'Despite the fact that the air around us is full of molecules that we can smell, most of the time we don’t. We tend to smell only those things when specifically ‘looking’ for a smell or when something isn’t quite right.'”

I think we smell those things, don’t you? The minute he mentioned the smells of books and computers and telephones, I knew what they smelled like. If someone says “office” to you, doesn’t your mind invent a distinctive smell of plastic, paper, carpet fiber, cubicles, toner, electronics and people? We must be noticing on some level. Maybe, just like the smell of evergreen and vanilla makes us feel festive, like lavender and eucalyptus relax us and tomato soup and sour milk make us nostalgic, the smell of office makes us feel efficient. Or perhaps bored.

That is all. Here’s a random cartoon for you. Made me laugh. Your mileage may vary.

Labels: brain science, holidays, research

Research shows that the older we get, the happier we are. I know, it sounds counterintuitive. You never see old folks flailing around with uncontrolled glee in Mountain Dew commercials. At best, you might see them in Cialis ads, doing a gentle waltz before doddering off for a little missionary position. Sometimes you see them on sailboats because they’ve retired filthy rich by selecting the right investment counselor.

But as I enter my doddering missionary years, I find that I am, in fact, generally happier than I have ever been. Sure, I still wake in the middle of the night filled with free-floating anxiety and dread, still find myself racked with feelings of inadequacy, still fret far too much over the impression I make on others, but those are just hobbies. For the most part, when I step back and survey the life I’ve created, I have to say, “Not bad.”

In a way, though, this new found satisfaction is a liability because I'm increasingly impatient with gloomy people who have locked themselves into a misery schtick and don’t seem interested in finding their way out. This is a particular problem because in the past, these were kind of people I chose as friends. Misery does, in fact, like company. But now that I'm no longer miserable, I have a handful of friendships I don't know how to continue.

I’m not talking about people who, like me, enjoy recreational bitching and moaning. Again, I consider that a perfectly viable hobby, although I now prefer it be diluted with occasional happy talk. I’m talking about people who are chronically dissatisfied with their lives and refuse to take hold and make changes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. People suck. Life is disappointing. Money is tight. We haven’t lived up to our potential. Relationships are hard. George Bush is a butthead.

But the temperature here in Dallas probably won’t hit 100 again this year. The State Fair starts Friday. Sarah Palin provides ample fodder for recreational bitching and moaning. And there’s a new episode of Mad Men on Sunday night.

Life ain’t so bad in the day-to-day.

OK, I do feel bad about eating Popeye’s for dinner last night but this, too, will pass.

I’m sympathetic to misery. I’ve been headshrunk and medicated and self helped and group therapied and all that over the years. And it all works. So does exercise. So does identifying goals and working towards them. So does stepping back and taking inventory. (The expression “count your blessings” makes me want to hurl, so I won’t say that.)

I’m sure I’ll be unhappy again. I am genetically and temperamentally disposed to recurring unhappiness. But when I feel it coming on, I rally all the resources I’ve gathered over the years and fight back.

You can too and probably should because I promise you: If you’ve been unhappy for a long time, you’re friends are tired of hearing about it.

(Hm, I’m griping about gripey people. How confusing.)

OK, here’s some food for thought. My second-favorite podcast (after This American Life) is called All in the Mind. It’s an Australian radio show about all things related to the brain and mind. Natasha Mitchell is a wonderful interviewer, the topics are fascinating, the guests are top-of-the-line.

The show recently had a two-part series of brain plasticity, which is the ability of our brains to change even into adulthood. In Part 2 (here), Mitchell talks to psychiatrist Dr Norman Doidge about plasticity as it applies to psychotherapy. Think therapy is just a lot of self-indulgent blah-blah? Scientists are beginning to home in on actual neurological changes that take place in the brain as you do the work. (And yeah, it is work. Hard work.)

So there.

Get happy, people. Or risk getting on my nerves.

Labels: brain science, personal growth, psychology

Who knew?

I was hanging out with friends yesterday and somehow the topic turned to perception, dreams and such. (Sunday afternoon, a patio and beer—conversation can take all kinds of odd turns.)

I was startled when a friend described something I’ve experienced but to which I’ve never given a second’s thought. Sometimes, as I drift off to sleep, I hear a loud BANG that wakes me with a start. It doesn’t hurt, it’s just loud and it’s entirely in my head.

Susan described the same thing happening to her. Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle—this strange experience has a name. It’s called, colorfully, exploding head syndrome. It’s a known, if not entirely understood, phenomenon. I suppose nobody is studying it because it's not harmful unless it badly interferes with sleep. At least that's what they say.

Brains are so innnnnnnnteresting. So are lazy Sunday afternoon conversations.

I've also had moments when the inside of my brain seems to get really, really big. As if all kinds of space has suddenly opened up inside it. I googled "expanding head syndrome" and didn't find anything.

I shouldn't tell you about how I sometimes hear a radio on in the other room. That's probably entirely due to the transmitter martians planted in my head.

Labels: brain science

Alrighty then, lots of flotsam for your procrastinators today. A little something for everyone. (Maybe. I don’t know.)

I am happy to report that the incorrigible Jack has become partly corriged. He has adjusted to the electric fence and no longer wanders at will. No more crossing the creek and coming home muddy, no more chasing off the mailman, no more patrolling the alley and riling up the other dogs. He doesn’t seem particularly traumatized by the limits. Perhaps the responsibility of patrolling so large an area weighed heavily on his burly shoulders and troubled his large noggin. His own yard is large enough. So many squirrels, so little time. And so much napping to be done. How is one dog to do it all without some limits?

Now I need an electric fence for the sofa. He is not allowed on the sofa and knows it, but at night, after we go to bed, he helps himself. At the suggestion of one of his many trainers, I tried booby trapping it last night by covering it with newspapers and balancing a couple beer cans filled with coins on the papers, which were supposed to fall off and make noise and either frighten him off or wake us up. They did neither. He managed to fit his large tuchus between the cans, barely even disturbing them. So, back to shutting him out of the living room at night. He hates that. The other night, I had to put his leash on him and drag him out. Literally drag him—he put that aforementioned large tuchus on the floor and wouldn’t move it.

Brat.

***

Slate has a special issue on procrastination (speaking of blogging) which includes this story, asking the question What is the difference between severe procrastination and writer's block?

So, I have this novel I’ve been working on for about three years. I’m in revisions. Ten painful pages at a time. And a half-finished book proposal that’s been collecting cyber dust for more than a year. So slow. I could do better. I know it. I’m not blocked, I’m procrastinating, Because as long as these remain remain unfinished they might be brilliant. If I finish them, their lead feet will be obvious.

Says one expert: "The chronic procrastinator knows he's presenting a negative image, but he'd rather be perceived negatively for lack of effort than for lack of ability."

***

The research corner:

Important news about men and their thingies: First, the International Society for Sexual Medicine has only just come up with (no pun intended) a formal definition of premature ejaculation. I know, can you believe it? I personally have never encountered this particular problem but in case you’re wondering, it is now defined as: “a male sexual dysfunction characterized by ejaculation which always or nearly always occurs prior to or within about one minute of vaginal penetration; and, inability to delay ejaculation on all or nearly all vaginal penetrations; and, negative personal consequences, such as distress, bother, frustration and/or the avoidance of sexual intimacy.”

And, says the study’s main author, “The hope is that more people with these symptoms will understand this is an actual health condition and seek treatment. They no longer need to suffer in silence.”

In related thingie-research: Gastric Bypass Surgery Restores Sexual Function in Morbidly Obese Men—Losing weight may help resolve erectile dysfunction in obese men.

Mostly, it helps them get laid more, I assume.

Having just experienced a highly unpleasant allergic reaction to a drug (my friends got all the gory details, I spared most of you) I was drawn to research into why scratching helps an itch. The study involved 13 healthy participants who underwent testing with functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology that highlights areas of the brain activated during an activity. Participants were scratched on the lower leg with a small brush. The scratching went on for 30 seconds and was then stopped for 30 seconds – for a total of about five minutes.

“To our surprise, we found that areas of the brain associated with unpleasant or aversive emotions and memories became significantly less active during the scratching,” said Yosipovitch. “We know scratching is pleasurable, but we haven’t known why. It’s possible that scratching may suppress the emotional components of itch and bring about its relief.”

So scratching is not really physical relief, it’s emotional. Which, when you think about it makes sense. Itching is so miserable … a persistent itch makes you want to scream, cry, bang your head repeatedly against a wall. Finally succumbing to the urge to scratch? Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. It’s more than physical relief. It’s bliss—however short lived and guilty, since we know we shouldn’t scratch.

The rash is fading and I will never take Aleve again.

Here’s a fun read from the Wall Street Journal, about retail therapy. Yup, psychologists and neuroscientists are studying that, too. Not to help us, mind you. To help retailers.

But keep this in mind—just like those little 100-calorie size snack packs of cookies and other treats can help us eat less, how we carry money can help us spend less, according to one study: Students were given $100 in pretend cash to participate in a gambling study. Some students received one sealed envelope with all the money, and others got 10 sealed envelopes that each contained $10. Individuals with multiple envelopes tended to spend less, sometimes half of what the people with the single envelope spent. "The power of partitioning can reduce spending by 50 percent," Cheema said.

I don’t like carrying lots of cash for this very reason. If I have it, I spend it. If I have to go back to the ATM, I become more aware of my spending. (And I am on near-lockdown on credit cards right now. Not complete, but I’m staying careful. Baby needs a new tank of gas…)

***

Dunno why it’s taken me so long, but I’d like to point out a new blogroll link—to the blog of my friend Jenna and her friend Rachel. The Haiku Diaries is commentaries on life entirely in the 5-7-5 format. It’s so much fun. I like to comment in haiku when I’m feeling sharp enough.

***

This week instead of just a list of google searches, a little commentary on a select few.

I find a lot of searches that look like this: 2008 contact emails of the doctors @yahoo.com in Florida; email contact women's america 2008@yahoo.com

I was baffled until learning that these are the kinds of searches used by spammers to harvest email addresses. OK, that would explain the ever-thickening blizzard of spam I receive.

Three of my photos have become very popular: the one of a pyramid at Teotihuacan, the portrait of a xoloescuintle and the plastic army men war atrocities. These turn up so often, I assume someone is using them for something somewhere, but I can’t figure out how to figure it out.

Someone searched hillary jillette cunt which I suppose relates to Hillary Clinton and Penn Jillette. I know he called her a bitch. Did he call her a cunt, too? What a prick.

Someone searched Elizabet gilbert eat, pray, love review childfree, which is a little confusing.

Chelle, someone searched you. Someone searched my brother Oliver. And someone searched "black and blue" "rolling stones" tribute band dallas, texas myspace which had a very happy ending, since it resulted in a job for Black and Blue. May 31, Tolbert’s in Grapevine. Glad to help…

And that's Friday.

Labels: blogging, brain science, dallas morning news, dog training, dogs, google, jack, photography, psychology, research, sex, sexism, shopping, writing

So you know that old head game, don’t think about a white bear?

No? Well, don’t think about a white bear...

...now, what are you thinking about?

I’m trying not to think of the poor little poochy, but damned if that image isn’t locked and loaded into my head. It. Just. Won’t. Go. Away.

It’s not like I’ve never seen roadkill before. And it’s not like I’ve never seen an animal die before—Tom and I have had to euthanize four pets over the years and we wouldn’t dream of not being right there with them. I was even with my friend Russell when they turned off the respirator. I saw my brother in his coffin (he looked handsome and just like himself) and my mother (not good).

Nothing has haunted me like this little pup.

It was partly the violence of the moment. I won’t say more about what exactly haunts me because I find the thoughts so painful …

But I've been thinking now about soldiers. How do they ever recover from the experience of war? I guess they don’t, not really or completely. They must carry the images forever, if they don’t manage to repress them. (Yes, it's possible.)

This interesting article from Stanford discusses how women’s memories of disturbing, emotional images is stronger than men’s—that women tend to store the emotion of a memory in the same place in the brain as the memory whereas in men, the emotion and the memory activate different parts of the brain.

So I guess that might mean women wouldn’t make good killing machines, eh? Is that a good thing or bad? Discuss.

I am distracting myself as much as possible from the memory of that miserable moment Tuesday night. Lunch with my client yesterday was a lot of fun and productive. I held it together just fine. It’s only at quiet times that the image pops back up. I started crying during the final relaxation in yoga class this morning.(In unrelated good news, my tree pose was fine today so I seem to have recovered some balance.) However, it was good mental exercise to tear my mind away from the bad thought and bring it back to the moment—the music, my own breath. By wrestling my mind back to the here and now instead from the there and then, I felt immediately better.

Maybe little pup’s last moment has a little lesson for me. One I’d really rather have skipped. And so would he, I’m sure. If he’d had a chance to think about it.

Labels: brain science, death, psychology, the meaning of life, yoga

This NYT article asks, “Can you become a creature of new habits?” It ran in the business section but it’s so much more than that—it’s about opening our minds to their full capability.

The article says

… the more new things we try — the more we step outside our comfort zone — the more inherently creative we become, both in the workplace and in our personal lives.

And…

“The first thing needed for innovation is a fascination with wonder,” says Dawna Markova, author of “The Open Mind” and an executive change consultant for Professional Thinking Partners. “But we are taught instead to ‘decide,’ just as our president calls himself ‘the Decider.’ ” She adds, however, that “to decide is to kill off all possibilities but one. A good innovational thinker is always exploring the many other possibilities.”

Yeah, I’ve always been puzzled by the accusation of “waffling” as a bad thing. What some see as waffling, I see as thoughtfulness and an open mind. I’m a big “on the other hand” thinker. (And writer. I have to watch myself when it comes to that phrase—my first drafts are often terrifying multi-handed monsters.) What’s wrong with taking an idea and turning it around and around in our minds, reviewing pros and cons and even—horrors!—changing our minds in light of new information and perspective? That has to be better than locking into an idea and closing off all other possible views.

Still, although pushing ourselves into new patterns of thought is good, we are best if we respect our own ways of learning. I like learning quietly, on my own, with books and through trial and error. Some people prefer picking the brain of a mentor. Some people study best in groups, I study best alone in a quiet room. Different strokes … don’t make me do it your way and I won’t make you do it mine.

I’m also a visual learner. I took copious notes in my classes and sometimes during tests could actually conjure the image of a page to “see” the answer. Don’t even try to give me verbal driving directions. I need a map, or at the very least, turn-by-turn written directions. This is why I never stop to ask for directions. The minute someone starts explaining, my mind goes completely blank and the words sound like the grown-ups in a Charlie Brown cartoon. Wa-wa-wa-wa-wa.

Another fascinating concept from the article:

Ms. Ryan and Ms. Markova have found what they call three zones of existence: comfort, stretch and stress. Comfort is the realm of existing habit. Stress occurs when a challenge is so far beyond current experience as to be overwhelming. It’s that stretch zone in the middle — activities that feel a bit awkward and unfamiliar — where true change occurs.

Learning new stuff is really scary. Starting college in my 40s may be the bravest thing I’ve ever done. (Here’s an essay I wrote on the topic.) But it was in the stretch zone. It was uncomfortable, but involved books and ideas and writing, so it wasn’t too far fetched. Writing is definitely the comfort zone. The stress zone? Hm…probably that hang gliding lesson. No friggin’ way, thank you very much.

Finally, let’s contemplate the idea of kaizen, which calls for tiny, continuous improvements.

The moment we let go of the idea that we must fix/know/accomplish everything right away, now, not later NOW NOW NOW, we can begin the journey to accomplishment with that one, tiny step. When I decided to go to college, I started with “developmental” algebra (algebra for dummies). Just one class, at a community college. Scary—I long ago decided I can’t do math—but necessary and, one equation at a time, do-able. When I got through that, I was ready for step two. And then I kept going. And all sorts of new pathways developed in my brain.

Labels: brain science, learning, personal growth, psychology

So, I’ve been thinking about bullies and narcissists a lot, as they’ve been a recurring theme the past few years in various contexts.

Lara raises an interesting conundrum in her recent blog post about social/relational aggression, which is behaviors—rumor spreading, exclusion—we typically attribute to teenaged girls. A school principal recently told Lara that she was seeing a sharp and surprising increase in social/relational aggression from boys.

So, Lara speculates, is it possible that zero-tolerance anti-bullying programs are not eliminating bullying but just pushing it underground, into the guerrilla bullying we usually associate with girls?

And I wonder: Is it possible that aggression—physical or relational--can’t be stopped because it contributes to our emotional and/or moral development? Does it teach us lessons about survival? After all, the world is full of people who suck. We need to know how to recognize aggression and protect ourselves from it.

That’s what people who are bullied learn—if they survive the bullying. I know not all do, or they are wounded. Here we are yet again, at my favorite words for living: That which does not kill us makes us stronger. Because the first time you stand up to a bully and watch him or her shrink back, or the first time you realize you can deflect emotional blows with attitude alone, is a powerful moment.

But what of the bullies? If bullying itself is a developmental stage, what is it good for?

Some young bullies learn empathy, I’m sure. Based on nothing but what I would like to believe, I think some young bullies have epiphanies, a moment when they see something in the eyes of a target, or hear their words echoed back to them in a new way, or face a bully themselves and experience a compassionate awakening, when their hearts grow three sizes.

But some young bullies just grow up to be old bullies. These people, I think, are the narcissists. I don’t think all narcissists are bullies but I speculate that all bullies are narcissists because one of the hallmarks of narcissism is lack of empathy and one must be lacking in empathy to be intentionally cruel to another human being.

So thinking about all this got me thinking—can empathy be learned? Is an adult who lacks empathy capable of developing it? Is empathy a behavior, a thought or a feeling? (What is a feeling, anyway? Entire books have been written about that.)

Meandering through these thoughts, I stumbled on this little article about mirror neurons.

Mirror neurons are a type of brain cell that respond equally when we perform an action and when we witness someone else perform the same action.

In other words, when we see someone else do some things, our brains light up as if we were doing that thing ourselves.

The main reason I have trouble watching violent movies is because I have sympathetic pain. If I see hurt, I hurt. Physically. I can’t even listen to people describe dental procedures. And as a child, I was big on sympathetic throwing up. If someone else hurled, I’d hurl in solidarity. Not all the time but it happened. Could that be overactive mirror neurons?

Research on mirror neurons started with monkeys and peanuts (doesn’t everything?) and is now to the point where researchers are looking at whether the neurons are triggered according to the intent of the action witnessed. For example, in one study, participants watched videos of a hand picking up a teacup.

In one video, the teacup sat on a table amid a pot of tea and plate of cookies--a signal that a tea party was under way and the hand was grasping the cup to take a sip. In the other video, the table was messy and scattered with crumbs--a sign that the party was over and the hand was clearing the table. In a third video the cup was alone, removed from any context. The researchers found that mirror neurons in the premotor cortex and other brain areas reacted more strongly to the actions embedded in the tea-party context than to the contextless scene.

Taking this research about a thousand stages from this, we could extrapolate that emotional empathy is also connected to mirror neurons—that thinking about the sadness or pain of someone else would fire up the mirror neurons so we feel the same in us. We would “feel their pain.”

Can this be learned? Now that brain science tells us that the brain is not a locked black box but can grow and change, I suppose this means it can, theoretically. I can’t think how, though. Nor would it would be easy—even if you could find an unempathetic person who believed it something worth learning. If you don’t care, you don’t care, right?

Labels: brain science, bullies, narcissists, neurology, personal growth, psychology