7 Depression Busters for Men

This article is taken from

http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2010/06/14/7-depression-busters-for-men/

7 Depression Busters for Men

By Therese J. Borchard

In Spring 2006 the depression of two very successful men made newspaper headlines in Maryland: Phil Merrill, a renowned publisher, entrepreneur and diplomat in the Washington area took his own life. Eleven days later Montgomery County Executive Douglas Duncan withdrew his candidacy for governor of Maryland because of his struggle with depression. For weeks, newspapers covered male depression, including the stories of Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, Archbishop Raymond Roussin, Mike Wallace, William Styron, Art Buchwald, and Robin Williams.

That was unusual. Because, in the majority of media stories and infomercials, depression is regarded as a feminine thing … a result of all of the hormonal shifts and baby-making stuff. The reality? Six million men, or seven percent of American men, suffer from depression, and millions more suffer silently because they either don’t recognize the symptoms, which can vary from women’s, or they are too ashamed to get help for what they see as a woman’s disease. These 7 techniques were written for men to address the hidden desperation so many feel, and to expose the truth about mood disorders and gender.

1. Get a male perspective.

When I hit bottom after the birth of my second baby, I was lucky enough to see Brook Sheild’s beautiful face on “Oprah” describing how I felt. In her book, and in Kay Redfield Jamison’s “An Unquiet Mind” and Tracy Thompson’s “The Ghost in the House,” I found female companionship, as they articulated what was happening to me. That alone made me less scared.

There are some wonderful books tackling the male perspective of depression. Among them: “I Don’t Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression” by Terrence Real, “Unmasking Male Depression” by Archibald Halt, and, of course, the classic, “Darkness Visible” by William Styron. There are also an array of blogs by men on the topic of depression and mental health. For example, check out “Storied Mind,” “Chipur.com,” “Knowledge Is Necessity,” “Lawyers with Depression,” “Midlife-Men.com,” “Finding Optimism,” and “A Splintered Mind.”

2. Identify the symptoms.

Part of what makes male depression so misunderstood is that a depressed guy doesn’t act the way a depressed lady does, and the feminine symptoms are the ones most often presented in pharmaceutical ads and in glossy brochures you pick up at your doctor’s office . For example, it is not uncommon for a man to complain to his primary care physician about sleep problems, headaches, fatigue and other unspecified pain, some or all of which may be related to untreated depression. In her Newsweek article, “Men & Depression,” Julie Scelfo writes, “Depressed women often weep and talk about feeling bad; depressed men are more likely to get into bar fights, scream at their wives, have affairs or become enraged by small inconveniences like lousy service at a restaurant.”

3. Limit the alcohol.

An interesting study by Yale University discovered that men and women respond to stress differently. According to lead scientist Tara Chaplin, women are much more likely to feel sad or anxious as a result of stress, whereas men turn to alcohol. “Men’s tendency to crave alcohol when upset may be a learned behaviour or may be related to known gender differences in reward pathways in the brain,” she said. The tendency, however, puts men at more risk for alcohol-use disorders. And since alcohol is, itself, a depressive, you really don’t want a lot of it in your system. Trust me on this one.

4. Watch the stress.

You can’t drink away your worries, so what DO you do? I offer ten stress busters. But I imagine the most important way to manage stress for men is to work in a job and environment that isn’t … well … toxic. Unfortunately, the more impressive your title, the more stress brewing underneath your skin. Dr. Charles Nemeroff, a psychiatrist who treated both Tom Johnson (president of CNN during the 90s) and philanthropist J.B. Fuqua says stress is a major factor in male depression and a CEO’s (or any executive’s) higher stress level makes them more vulnerable to the illness. The pressure can become unbearable. Unfortunately, some men will have to choose between good mental health and the corner office.

5. Help another dude.

At age 46 Philip Burguieres was running a Fortune 500 company. Now he lends a hand to CEOs who are living lives of quiet desperation and have nowhere to turn. In an interview with PBS, Burguieres said, “I am open about my own experience, and I share my story with other CEOs in lecture settings several times a year [because] I have found that helping other people helps me, and keeps me healthier.” Art Buchwald, another very successful depressive, said in a “Psychology Today” interview some years back that talking about his depression helped him as much as the people he was talking to. It seems to me that the more misunderstood the illness, the greater the need to reach out and help each other.

6. Find an outlet.

One of my male friends who is a tad depressed right now says all he needs to feel better is 18 holes of golf. I’m not sure that chasing the little white ball has the same therapeutic faculties as a high-impact hour of counselling, but I trust that he knows himself better than I know him. What I do know without a doubt is that men are much happier when they can retreat into a “man cave” or a safe corner of the world and do their thing. Some might need a little assistance finding that happy place. So keep trying on those pastimes until one fits and lets you take a deep breath.

7. Tend to the marriage.

Depression leads women into affairs and divorce. But I suspect there are even more casualties with men’s depression. In a poignant blog post, John A. discusses his longing to leave a good marriage as the “active” face of the illness. He writes, “We often focus on the passive symptoms, the inactivity, the isolation, sense of worthlessness, disruption of focused thought, lack of will to do anything. But paradoxically the inner loss and need can drive depressed people to frenzied action to fill the great emptiness in the centre of their lives. They may long to replace that inadequate self with an imagined new one that makes up for every loss.” Yet, by loving the partner beside you, even though it can feel counterintuitive and unnatural, you can protect yourself (to a certain extent) from the blows of depression and make yourself more resilient to future episodes.

Click here for even more depression busters for men.

Thanks for Tapping

To all my friends at http://weedle.com

 http://weedle.com/arthur.partridge

Ghost Indian

Two Ponca men were sitting out on a back road visiting.
All at once there was a tapping on the window.

"Ah Hoh!" "Hey guy!" "I think there is a ghost tapping on the window!"

Sure enough a wizened face with long flowing white hair was there just out side the window.

The Ponca man driving shoved his foot down on the gas and immediately was doing 60 miles and hour.

"Step on it!" "He's still out there!" and sure enough, there was another tapping at the window.

The driver shoved his foot to the floor again! This time he was doing ninety (90) miles an hour. Still the ghostly figure tapped on the window.

"You better giver' er some more gas!"
"He's still out there."

"I can't go any faster, I've got her up to 120 miles an hour.

About that time the little old man motioned for the passenger to roll the window down, which he did.

"Say Boys!" "I was wanting to know, do you need a shove to get out of this mud hole?"

http://www.jokebuddha.com/Tapping

Memory Improved By Saying Words Aloud

This article is from http://bit.ly/dC2HZa

Memory Improved By Saying Words Aloud

New study finds memory improved by vocalising or sub-vocalising words.
Committing words to memory is a notoriously hit-and-miss business. Over the last forty years psychologists have found three methods which consistently improve memory for words:

1. Imagery: recall is aided by creating an image of what you want to remember.
2. Elaboration: thinking of associations helps anchor words in your mind.
3. Generation: memory is improved when you have to put some work in to generate the target. E.g. guess the name of your favourite blog from this cryptic clue: _sy_log.

In research on trying to remember lists of words, these three methods have each produced memory improvements of 10% over simply reading words once.
That might not sound much, but it is an average over many studies and often for things that are hard to remember. Psychologists like testing people with non-words like 'trackle' or 'nosting' that could be words, but aren't.

Speak it...

Now, in a new series of studies published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, there's solid evidence for a fourth which could join the other big three memory enhancers (MacLeod et al., 2010).
And, you'll be happy to hear, it's very, very simple. It only involves saying the word you want to remember out loud to yourself. It doesn't even seem to matter if you don't vocalise the word, it only has to be mouthed. That's it.
According to MacLeod et al., saying a word out loud, or at least mouthing it, improves memory by increasing its distinctiveness, i.e. making it unusual compared to others.
Across 8 experiments in which participants were asked to read and remember lists of both words and nonwords, the researchers found memory improvements sometimes greater than 10%. They also ruled out some alternative explanations, finding that improvements were not:

• At the expense of unmouthed words. The effect was all benefit for the mouthed words and didn't decrease performance on unmouthed words.
• A result of "lazy reading" of words read silently.

...but be selective

Of course just reading all the words out loud would destroy the effect because then there's nothing for words said out loud to be distinctive in comparison with. It's only going to work when some words are said out loud compared with others not.
So if you're revising, or reading a report or a book and want to retain more of the important points, the key is to identify the right words and vocalise or sub-vocalise them.
This finding ties in with the general idea that we tend to remember people or things that stand out from the crowd. One gentle reminder though: if you are spotted mouthing random words in public, it's you that will stand out from the crowd.
Image credit: Florian Seroussi

Do you remember Topo Gigio?

 

This small, endearing mouse started out on Italian TV in a children's puppet show (hence the cute Italian accent), but was picked up on by Ed Sullivan's weekly US TV show and made hugely popular in the 70s. Topo Gigio was voiced by actor Giuseppe Mazzullo. The mouse not only made it on to TV, but also into magazines and cartoons, plus a pile of mouse-inspired merchandising. He was even mentioned in the hit film Being John Malkovich. He is still a massive cult star in Italy, which goes to show that having big ears doesn't always hold you back!

http://www.doyouremember.co.uk/memory.php?memID=9315

 

What were you TV favourites?

~~~~~~~~~~~

The dentist and the manicurist

Did you hear about the dentist who married a manicurist?

They fight tooth and nail!

http://www.jokesgalore.com/thejoke.php?id=38409&sql=cat%3D%27Relationships%27+and&flag=2

What is Touch for Health Kinesiology?

I am about to embark on Kinesiology training with Geoff Rolls (see my post http://wp.me/pOj1e-9b) which is going to allow me to add a whole new dimension to my Coaching and NLP practice.

The following is written by the founder of Touch for Health, John F Thie and is taken from http://www.tfhka.org/founder.htm

 

A System of Muscle Testing and Re-Balancing

Re-printed with permission of Massage Magazine Jan/Feb 1997
1315 W. Mallon, Spokane, WA 99201-2038
Tel: (509) 324-8117 • Fax (509) 324-8606

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The Touch for Health System is a practical guide to natural health that utilizes acupressure and massage to improve postural balance, and reduce physical and mental pain and tension. It is an approach to restoring natural energies that combines ancient Chinese energy therapies with recent Western developments in kinesiology. It is a very practical tool for the massage therapist: it can be used along with other massage techniques or as a stand-alone methodology for improving health and enhancing health that utilizes acupressure and massage to improve biological recovery.

This article will outline the basic muscle testing diagrams and reflex points, which you can then apply in your practice. The five methods tension. In addition, a brief history of Touch for Health will describe how this technique developed.

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West meets East: energy balance

When Western chiropractic ideas regarding posture and muscle testing procedures are combined with Eastern energy-flow ideas of chi, or life energy, a new tool for the massage therapist or bodyworker becomes available.

The Touch for Health System encompasses the vitalistic world view that humans' natural birthright is to be able to use touch to activate their own bodies' natural recuperative powers, or energy. These natural recuperative powers are enhanced or inhibited by daily activities. In response to those activities, changes occur within muscles and skin--and the way we feel and function is affected as we become more, or less, vulnerable to injury and disease according to the balance of our energy. This energy may be called chi, as in the Chinese world view; ki, from the Japanese; prana, from the Indian; and innate intelligence in the Western chiropractic tradition. In each case we refer to the power of the intelligently designed human body to come into harmonious balance as a whole person.

Your massage clients need to restore their energy and muscular balance daily to overcome the normal stress of gravity on the body causing shrinkage. Yes, in the course of the day we actually tend to shrink. And as we shrink, our life energy becomes unbalanced, and chronic tension and rigidity set in-which gradually reduces the full range of movement that allows us to function most effectively.

Think about when you have gotten into an automobile after a great night's rest, feeling really good about starting out the day's activities. You adjust the rear view mirror. Then you drive off. You arrive at your office and things start to go less than desirably. People around you seem to press your emotional buttons and you need to control yourself physically and emotionally. The food you have for lunch isn't well-prepared and you have a physically tiring job to do in the afternoon. Then when you get into your car you look into the mirror and it needs to be readjusted. It seems like somehow it raised itself up. You have shrunk. The average person is one inch taller in the morning than in the late evening. This physical constriction causes fatigue, a sense that our physical parts are somehow foreign to us, and diminishes self-esteem. This condition develops day by day, no matter what the age of the affected person. By the end of each day we are all shorter than when we awoke after a good night's rest-and if we don't manage to get a good night's rest, the effect can be cumulative. Do you know any 80-year-old who isn't shorter than when he or she was younger?

Maintaining clients' height and flexibility through the Touch for Health System will give them better health-and getting them to stay in balance will help them to minimize the shrinking process. Touch for Health reverses the shrinking process, because by relieving chronic muscular tension and/or spinal curvatures due to muscular imbalances, the body is allowed to relax and expand.

Touch for Health leads clients to relax at least some of the inappropriately contracted muscles. They then feel the exhilaratingly greater range of motion that increases their sense of grace, presence and spontaneity. They literally become taller.

Massage therapists can teach clients the Touch for Health System during their sessions while the therapist balances the client's energy. This balance is achieved by using specific muscle testing procedures to determine if chi energy is in balance. By using this system, therapists can help clients have peak performances more often. Clients who are in a rehabilitation program, are post-surgery, or receive treatments along with a chiropractic adjustment will recover more quickly.

An overview of the system

"I couldn't get out of bed for up to an hour after I awoke, due to severe back pain and spasm-and now I have no problems most of the time," said the owner of a health club after learning and using the Touch for Health methods for less than two months. He had been to several health professionals and was able to get only temporary relief. It wasn't until he and his wife learning how they could help each other with Touch for Health methods on a daily basis, in addition to professional health care, that permanent relief came about.

Headaches, arm pain and stiffness, stomach and intestinal complaints, menstrual problems, dizziness, difficulty in lovemaking, and problems with decision-making and goal-setting have all be improved by using the Touch for Health methods.

Touch for Health was designed to be a complementary methodology-it does not help any and every human situation all by itself. Clients could need drugs, surgery, vitamins, minerals, psychological counseling, family therapy or chiropractic, in addition to Touch for Health treatments.

Using Touch for Health methods can improve clients' function. The flow of energy in each client's meridians can be evaluated by using this system. This is done by testing the relative strength of a particular muscle that is related to a particular meridian. Whether the muscle locks within a specific range of motion indicates the flow of energy to the muscle through its related meridian. By balancing the energy flow through the use of acupressure you can assist clients' healing. Touch for Health is immediately available for use to enhance your performance as a bodyworker.

Of the people with specific symptoms, the ones who benefit most from Touch for Health methods are those who have been to a professional and have been told that there doesn't seem to be any organic cause for the suffering. The professional recognizes that the patient has a genuine complaint, but is unable to pinpoint a specific cause. Touch for Health's energy balancing begins by setting a goal. what outcome is desired? What performance does the client want enhanced? Next comes testing of the muscles related to each of the 26 meridians. Then acupressure is used to stimulate the flow of energy and the indicator muscles are retested for positive responses. This simple technique often gives dramatic improvement.

For example, a person who is a weekend athlete developed groin pain that was diagnosed as arthritis, and was told to take drugs (which gave only temporary relief) and to take shorter steps when running or stop running altogether. In just one session using Touch for Health to balance the meridians and muscle functions, the client reported a 90 percent improvement of his condition.

How to incorporate Touch for Health into a massage session

The Touch For Health system is a valuable addition to any massage session-and if a client has been told that he or she must learn to live with the limitations of age or a physical condition, the massage therapist could benefit the client greatly by incorporating the Touch for Health approach into his or her sessions.

First, the therapist needs to learn how to test a muscle. It takes some practice to develop the sensory-motor skills to feel the slight difference between a muscle that locks into position, and an inhibited muscle. Referring to the chart of muscle tests in Figure #1, notice how the body is positioned so that individual muscles are isolated in a position of maximum contraction. The muscle is then gently moved through its full range of motion to prepare the client for the test as well as to cue up the meridian related to the muscle being tested.

The therapist then pulls or pushes against the muscle with about two pounds of pressure, for two seconds, in a range of motion of about two inches. Meanwhile, it is often important for the therapist to counter-balance the client so as not to push him or her off the massage table. It is not necessary to apply more than two pounds of pressure, as the test is used to indicate subtle differences in muscle response-not to see whether the therapist can overpower the client.

Likewise, testing for more than two seconds can often fatigue a muscle in isolation and cause it to give way. If the muscle response seems wobbly or mushy, or the muscle does not seem to lock into place within about two inches, this indicates that energy probably is not balanced within the related meridian.

Once testing skill is acquired, then (using the chart or pictures from the
Touch for Health book) you can massage the corresponding points on the body to restore the normal locking of the muscle in its maximum contracted position, and retest the muscle to reset the proprioceptive mechanism.

The human design is such that the same reflex point that is massaged to strengthen a muscle can also be used to challenge the muscle and indicate an imbalance in another, deeper energy system. If an inhibited muscle locks into place after massaging the corresponding reflex point, you can test for further imbalance by placing your hand, or the client's hand, on the just-massaged reflex and retesting the muscle. If the muscle becomes inhibited again (only while touching the reflex point) this indicates that another subtle energy is out of balance. This procedure is called "challenging" the previous reflex. There are at least five types of energy systems addressed in the Touch for Health System.

The spinal reflex is the first one tested. We say that imbalance in the spinal reflex is present when the same muscle on both sides of the person is inhibited. To challenge these reflexes, retest the muscles on both sides of the person and, if both are strong, no further reflex tests are needed. If one side is weak then the first step is to utilize the corresponding neuro lymphatic reflexes, tender points specifically related to individual meridians and organ functions. Massage these tender points (see Figure #2) for 10-60 seconds and retest the muscle that was inhibited. Look for small improvements in the locking-in, maximum contraction position.

When you have observed an improvement, put your hand, or the client's hand, on the reflex point and retest the muscle. If it is inhibited again, this indicates that another reflex energy point is still inhibited. If no improvement is found after massaging the neuro lymphatic point, then you need to find the more tender area and massage for a little bit longer. In some cases this massage may be for several minutes before some improvement is found. If a point becomes too tender, or no improvement results, hold the tender point lightly and also hold the beginning- or end-point of the associated meridian. Look for slight improvement and then challenge that improvement. Once you've given it a second or third try, you may want to skip to the next technique and return to this reflex later.

The next system to look at is the neurovascular system. The reflex points for this system are all located on the head. These points are held lightly. At least two points are held until a slight pulse is felt, and the pulse synchronizes under both points. The challenge to the first neuro lymphatic point is then done again. An absence of muscle inhibition indicates that the neurovascular reflex point has been facilitated. The neurovascular point is then challenged by placing your hand, or the client's hand, on the neurovascular points and retesting the muscle. If the muscle does not become inhibited you can continue on to another muscle.

If the muscle becomes inhibited when challenging the neurovascular points, it will be necessary to utilize the reflexes related to the meridian for that muscle. The same procedure is followed. The reflex we prefer for the meridians is tracing the meridians from beginning to end three times on both sides of the body (see Figure #3) and then retesting (other meridian facilitation methods also balance this energy). When the muscle tests strong on challenging the neurovascular point, the challenging procedure for the meridian is to touch the beginning- or end-point to see if inhibition returns. If inhibition does not occur then you can move on to the next muscle.

If inhibition returns upon touching the end of the meridian and retesting, then the reflexes in the muscles need to be activated by massaging the origin and insertion of the muscle involved. After massaging the origin and insertion of the muscle and finding the most tender points (see Figure #4) the meridian is challenged. If the inhibition has been eliminated, then the origin or insertion of the muscle is challenged by you, or the client, touching the points and retesting the muscle.

Most clients do not have inhibited energies of all five types and rarely does testing go beyond the neuro lymphatic and neurovascular points during normal balancing procedures. Most practitioners using the Touch for Health System can check and balance muscles for all 26 meridians in less than 20 minutes, malting this an add-on procedure or a short massage procedure that gets great results and adds to the massage therapist's repertoire of bodywork techniques. The changes that the client feels immediately after a Touch for Health System energy balance are truly amazing. Inhibited muscles become relaxed when the inhibited muscles are restored to function, allowing tight, painful muscles to release.

There are many additional techniques utilized in the Touch for Health System, which are described in the Touch for Health book and demonstrated in the Touch for Health classes for those who desire hands-on education. Working with emotional stress, balancing with Tibetan energy flows, working with the meridian laws of the East, enhancing learning skills, and nutritional and allergy. correction procedures are all part of the Touch for Health System.

Development of Touch for Health

I developed and perfected these methods in my private chiropractic practice over a 35-year period (with the help of over 5,500 certified Touch for Health trainers, who shared their experiences with me).

The Touch for Health methodology was developed from applied kinesiology techniques first developed by chiropractor George Goodheart. In 1964 Goodheart, practicing in Detroit, Michigan, made a discovery that revolutionized health care and the treatment of disease: He discovered that tight or spasmed muscles are caused by opposing, or synergistic, muscles that are inappropriately inhibited. The inhibited muscles, which would normally balance the contraction of their opposing muscles, allowed those opposing muscles to continually contract and subsequently spasm.

This discovery was followed by the finding that chiropractic, osteopathic, meridian therapy and other touch/massage methods could turn the inhibited muscles on, which in turn allowed the inappropriately facilitated muscles to relax-and thereby improve the functioning of the whole person. And when the whole person functions in a harmonious manner, no matter what the complaint was or what performance improvement was desired, everything seems to feel and work better.

I met Dr. Goodheart in 1965 and was so excited by his discovery that immediately started using his methods in my chiropractic practice. I found that these safe, simple methods could be taught to patients to complement my chiropractic care. I suggested to Dr. Goodheart that his original observations should be made available to the general public. Dr. Goodheart told me that if I wanted to spread the word about the methods that he and many others were developing under the banner of applied kinesiology, then I should write a book for the general public. So Touch for Health began with Dr. Goodheart's challenge to me to follow up on my desire to make the methods available to a much wider audience.

At the same time as I was writing the methods down for the general public, several other chiropractors and I recognized the need for a professional organization for those utilizing the methods in their practices. Together we formed the International College of Applied Kinesiology (ICAK), which restricts its membership to licensed professionals, who have the right to make medical diagnoses. I served as its founding chairman, although I disagreed with the premise that membership should be restricted to licensed health professionals.

My book, Touch for Health was completed and published in 1973. Next, a school that trained people to be Touch for Health instructors was formed. The Touch for Health Kinesiology Association also certifies Touch for Health instructors.

In 1990 the Touch for Health Foundation's functions were turned over to its faculty, and the International Kinesiology College was founded as college without walls with its headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland. The college has two divisions: one for training certified Touch for Health instructors and one for training health professionals in kinesiology.

The North American Touch for Health Association headquarters in Malibu, California, was formed by the Alumni of the Touch for Health courses and certified Touch for Health instructors.

In other countries around the world, particularly Holland, Germany, United
Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Belgium, Switzerland, Poland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, South Africa, Brazil, Israel and several others, Touch for Health associations (sometimes called kinesiology associations) had been formed prior to 1990. Kinesiology institutes that educate and provide therapy were developed by many people who had taken Touch for Health classes. These institutes usually give people their first understanding of observations of how people function as whole persons rather than only as parts.

Over the years, numbers of new observations have been made and several systems of muscle testing have been developed throughout the world. The Touch for Health System remains a method for the general public to enhance their own performances and give them the ability to have more peak performances. In addition, the muscle testing & reflex procedures taught in the Touch for Health book form the foundation of many of the other types of kinesiology used by many health care professionals as adjunctive methods in their practices.

Touch for Health/kinesiology and applied kinesiology have been written up as successful methods that the public needs to know about in many books on alternative and complementary therapies. Thousands of health professionals-including physicians, chiropractors, osteopaths, naturopaths, nurses, physical therapists, occupational therapists, psychologists, dentists, nutritionists and dieticians--have added Touch for Health methods to their practices.

Professionals using Touch for Health in all of these fields find it to be a valuable tool. Millions of lay people utilizing the methods throughout the world have benefited.

I retired from my chiropractic practice in 1992. I now devote my life to serving the public by teaching and lecturing on the subject of Touch for Health. I hope that readers will be able to add the Touch for Health methods to their massage therapy practices, to enable clients to have more peak performances and personal bests, more rapid recovery from injuries, more effective relief from chronic problems and to have more exciting, enjoyable, graceful lives.

John F. Thie, D. C., founded Touch For Health in 1970. He is the founding chairman of the International College of Applied Kinesiology and has sat on the International Examining Board of Applied Kinesiology since its founding in 1975. Thie is the author of the book Touch For Health, and is the president of Touch for Health Education, an organization through which he writes and distributes a newsletter and gives seminars, workshops and lectures. Thie also directed the Thie Chiropractic Clinic in Pasadena, California, for 35 years. Dr. Thie passed away August 3, 2005 in Malibu, California. His wife Carrie is still living in Malibu, California.

John F. Thie's website: www.touch4health.com

What is PNI?

The following is from my Mentor and Coach Tina Taylor, from her blog at http://tina-taylor.blogspot.com/2010/01/what-is-pni.html

What is PNI

Psychoneuroimmunology explores how our psychological conditions and neurological processes effect our immune system. How our thoughts and beliefs can affect our health.

Centuries ago it was believed that when we became ill that we had a dis-ease of the mind and at that time apothecaries dealt with the four humours of the body; believing that once they had everything in balance that the body would heal. With the advent of allopathic medicine this kind of practice died out, which for many people was a god send as the apothecaries of the time were believed to have killed as many of their patients as they “healed” with their methods of purging and blood letting to get the bad humours out of the body.

The Chinese, for centuries, have believed that disease takes place when there is disharmony in an organ or within an organs system. They say that this affects the flow of Qi; the energy flow through the meridians of the body. Eastern healers look for a reason why the Qi is blocked; looking to diagnose the nature of the disharmony so that they can then correct the imbalance so that the Qi can flow freely again and the individual can heal.

Roger Callahan, creator of TFT, has noticed that when people are ill they suffer from a reversal of the flow of energy within the meridians. He noticed this whilst his wife was having chemotherapy that whilst she felt the affects of the drug in her system that her energy flow was blocked and that by working with her to get the energy flowing freely she felt no effects from her chemo. How do you test your flow of energy I hear you ask; thats one of the questions I will answer and demonstrate on our PNI course on March 13th.

 

Since the 1980’s we have begun to look at how our brain and immune system interact with each other. It is now readily accepted that stress and emotional responses change the chemical levels in the blood stream that in turn effect the efficient functioning of the immune system; supporting the concept of a direct relationship in between our central nervous system and our immune system. For example; it is now believed that some cancers can be triggered by extreme stress.

Over many years of being a hypnotherapist I have noticed how my clients come to see me for one problem and by helping them overcome this their health improves; how can this happen?

 

A few of my clients who have come to see me for help conceiving using IVF, as they have been told that they will never be able to conceive naturally due to medical problems, have conceived naturally and their medical problems have cleared up as we have dealt with the issues they had around parenthood and pregnancy.
Medical science has provided us with various cures for illnesses that at one time were incurable; and throughout the history of medical research we have also discovered factors such as the placebo effect. People being given what was probably basically sugar pills and being told that they were a super drug that would heal them and they heal. Against all odds their disease goes away.

Back in 1994 Barbara Stepp attended a workshop run by Richard  Bandler; Richard was demonstrating his “beautification” technique and choose Barbara as one of his demo subjects.  What Richard didn’t know at this point was that Barbara had cancer; and to both their surprise her cancer went away. What do we mean when we say things like the cancer went away? We all have cancer cells within our bodies , we actually need some to stay healthy so we obviously have a way of keeping those cells at the right level.

How do we do this?

Richard Bandler’s web site http://www.richardbandler.com/

Information about Barb Stepp can be found at http://www.selfgrowth.com/experts/barbara_stepp.html

Love is blind; friendship closes its eyes

"Love is blind; friendship closes its eyes."

http://www.friendship.com.au/quotes/quopro.html

Do you think that technology should determine our biology? asks James

James presents his argument about genetic technology.   
What are you views?

This articles is from James at http://james.healthkicker.com/ and appears at  http://bit.ly/b7UEYO

 

I Have The Perfect Body. I Have a Perfect Mind. I Never Get Sick. I'm Just Perfect.

Genetic engineering. It seems a little scary if you ask me. Movies like Gattaca, The Island, and I-Robot always make me wonder just how far off this technology is. Not too long ago, the plots in these thought-provoking movies seemed far-fetched. Now it seems like they could actually happen in today’s world. Remember it was only 1997 when Dolly, the first sheep cloned from an adult somatic cell, made a big splash on the international scene.

Fast forward to 2010, to date, there is not a cloned human in existence (that we know about). Regardless, we’ve made some major progress when it comes to understanding DNA and manipulating an organism’s genes. Have we made too much progress?

Soon, very soon, your neighbourhood pharmacy will carry a personal genetic test. That’s right, your very own personal genetic test. Walgreens was about to sell the product but yanked the order after the FDA wanted to know more about the procedure.

The soon to be released product, made by Pathway, tells you what specific diseases you’re susceptible to in your lifespan. It also identifies the reactions that you may have to certain types of drugs, and informs you what genes may mutate to cause diseases in your offspring.  All that in a drug store product. What’s next, identifying the genes that yield red heads, overweight people, homosexuals, and anyone with ADD?  Why don’t we just identify all the “undesirable” traits and get rid of them? Then, and only then, will it be a perfect society. Now that’s scary.

I like technology. I consider myself a fan. I get paid to create content for websites, I own an iPhone, I love new gadgets, and I am always online. From computers to sustainable energy, I think technology is going to bring about enormous amounts of positive change within the next decade. However, there is a downside to all this technology. Do I really need to know my DNA?  Do I need to know if my offspring will have disease X? Do they need to identify undesirable traits? Do they need to create a cloned human? I think not. I think Mother Nature is the last person we should mess with.

I think that our DNA plays a role in the order of things. We are supposed to have death, just like we are supposed to have birth. Its nature and I think if we start marking, manipulating, and toying with DNA we’re going to throw off the balance of life. Who knows… worse things could happen when you mess with biology and Mother Nature.

Maybe it’s too soon to talk about this. Could you just imagine what would happen if big business got involved in genetic engineering? They could use your genetic information to sell you all the drugs and medical care you need for the ailment you’ll have in 10 years time. There would be companies that would assist you when you are ready to pick out the traits of your offspring.

Fast forward to 2030. Gyms and healthy websites like Healthlicker.com would be a relic of the past because most, if not all diseases have been eliminated. Everyone is healthy, buff, and perfect. It turns out that blonde hair and blue eyes was a desirable trait after all. In 2030 it is the most desirable trait when designing your new child.

Maybe I am going a little overboard with the outcome of the technology but you have to admit, it doesn’t seem too far off.  I am just a little concerned about technology when it’s used to determine our biology. Don’t get me wrong. We should study everything about DNA for scientific advancement and disease-curing purposes. But when it comes to genetically engineering our genes… I say no way!

How much genetic engineering is too much? Do you think it’s a good thing or bad thing?

The power of present moment

This is from a web page that I often like  to visit at http://onepowerfulword.com

There is only Here and Now and from Here and Now you get to choose whatever future you like, free from past conditioning.

Have a GREAT DAY!

AyPee

Posted by Ash at Friday, August 03, 2007

The power of present moment !

“Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.” – Buddha

“The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.” – Buddha

 

“The point of power is always in the present moment.” - Louis L Hays

“You'll seldom experience regret for anything that you've done. It is what you haven't done that will torment you. The message, therefore, is clear. Do it! Develop an appreciation for the present moment. Seize every second of your life and savour it. Value your present moments. Using them up in any self-defeating ways means you've lost them forever.” - Wayne Dyer

 

“Present-moment living, getting in touch with your now, is at the heart of effective living. When you think about it, there really is no other moment you can live. Now is all there is, and the future is just another present moment to live when it arrives.” - Wayne Dyer

“The ability to be in the present moment is a major component of mental wellness.” – Maslow

 

“Eternity is not the hereafter...this is it. If you don't get it here you won't get it anywhere.” - Joseph Campbell

“The best things in life are nearest: Breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of right just before you. Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life's plain, common work as it comes, certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things in life.” - Robert Louis Stevenson

 

The greatest power inside you can only be realized when you decide to do every little thing with your heart in it. Being focused on it every moment.

Morning - Pray for a day full of strength and blessing to make the right choices and go out there and focus on your action with unwavering faith that success lies in satisfaction and results will show if I focus on doing the best job at hand.

 

Day - Be in the moment, exercise present moment awareness

Night - Before sleeping, read out all your desires and let go with unwavering waith that the power you believe it will MAKE IT SO.

 

Utilize the present moment and learn something everyday, smile, enjoy, be naughty, don't be afraid, follow your fears.

Life is based on the labours of other men

Every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labours of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving ~ Albert Einstein

http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Albert_Einstein/

Why You Procrastinate and What to Do About It

Avoid procrastination by knowing what to do about it by Dr. Bill Knaus, EdD.
Bill Knaus is the author of more than 20 books; one, "Overcoming Procrastination", was co-authored with Albert Ellis. 
This blog post was published on May 24, 2010 at http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/science-and-sensibility/201005/why-you-procrastinate-and-what-do-about-it

The procrastination gamble angle is a wager that you can delay and not pay. Does this gamble predict procrastination? It depends on whose theory of procrastination you follow.
We all have theories about what drives people to procrastinate. For example, a reporter told me space aliens plague humanity with procrastination. I quickly challenged that BS. A radio commentator insisted that fear causes procrastination. But how does "fear" explain hyperbolic discounting? This normal human tendency contributes to procrastination when you go for immediate rewards and discount the future benefits of working to meet priority longer-term goals.
Psychological theories are different from everyday ones. Grounded in observation, they are descriptive, plausible, and have testable hypotheses. These theories guide action. Because of limited blog space, you'll get a segment of my procrastination theory, a description of the procrastination gamble angle, and a corrective action map.
 Procrastination Basics
Procrastination is found in just about every nook and cranny of life. It's on a continuum from a nuisance, to a hindrance, to disabling. It ranges from periodic to persistent.
Procrastination is a problem habit where you put off a timely, relevant, activity until later. This process can be a simple default reaction. You feel uncomfortable. You move away from the discomfort. It can be elaborate: one reason to delay blends into another, as one distraction blends into the next. Both simple and elaborate forms of procrastination can be persistent, change resistant, and continue until the consequences of delays become intolerable. This pattern is normally worth avoiding.
Complex procrastination is putting off curbing a coexisting condition(s) such as anxiety, intolerance for tension, or self-doubts. By simultaneously addressing this form of procrastination and the co-existing condition, you can get a two-for-one benefit.
Procrastination comes in different forms, such as fence straddling on decision-making or dragging your feet to put off something unpleasant but necessary. Deadline procrastination may surface when you have a cut-off date. Personal procrastination is about delaying self-development activities, such as boosting your assertive skills to reduce stress.
Natural Reasons for Procrastinating
If there are natural tendencies that trigger procrastination, this can take procrastination out of a moral category and put it into an ordinary category.
Procrastination exists at different levels from perceptual to conceptual. At the perceptual level, your natural sensitivity for discomfort can trigger avoidance. A low tolerance for tension amplifies your risk for discomfort-dodging procrastination activities. Awareness of sensation sensitivity opens opportunities to get past this barrier.
As a species, we have a proclivity to go for short-term gains over greater longer term benefits (See May 10, 2010 blog). This partially explains why "safe" actions can triumph over challenging productive actions.
You may add a conceptual dimension to low-tension-tolerance by telling yourself you can't stand tension. This intellectually justifies dodging activities you connect with discomfort. Answers to questions like, "why can't I stand what I don't like," can clarify what is going on.
You go through a long socialization process. You learn to live with routines, schedules, and to do time-linked activities. However, your natural impulses will sometimes clash with socially-taught learning and values.
Socially developed doubts, concerns, and fears about what others think also can evoke inhibitions, hesitations, and procrastination. You strengthen your resilience by proactively working to undermine negative beliefs that stir the emotional coals in these procrastination hot zones.
We're an intelligent and creative species. You can invent dangers and fears that don't exist. Driven by these fears, you sidetrack yourself from challenges you associate with the fear(s). Deal simultaneously with both the fear and this self-protective procrastination mechanism, and you can make life-changing gains.
Pleasure (rewards) and pain (penalties) are behavior shaping forces. When the pain of the outcome of delay is in the distant future, you may foolishly ignore this for now. There are at least two possible quick and often repetitive rewards for procrastination. You decide to delay and feel relieved that something will get done later. You may feel relief--perhaps exhilaration--if you finish under the wire, or talk your way into an extension. When you are sometimes successful escaping procrastination penalties, this procrastination gamble angle can feel compelling.
A Cognitive, Emotive, Behavioral System for Change
Evidence-based and intuitively correct cognitive, emotive, and behavioral methods apply to curbing procrastination. Procrastination thinking can evoke procrastination. Rather than act to succeed, you fantasize about doing great things. You doom yourself before you start by telling yourself you'll fail. You concoct an excuse to perfume a delay. You tell yourself later is better. Refuse to take this BS from yourself and you're on track to build follow through skills.
Uncomfortable emotions (sensations) can trigger impulses to avoid tension. This emotive factor is a swivel condition for procrastination. Recognize and teach yourself to tolerate procrastination evoking feelings, and you load the dice in favor of staying off a pending procrastination path.
Behavioral change methods include arranging contingencies of reinforcement. You follow a series of steps with rewards. This sequence of reward can compete with hollow rewards for delay. However, how do you cut through negative emotions, inhibitions, and inertia in the first place? You have to think out how to set the rewards and act responsibly to achieve them. This step can help avoid the procrastination gamble angle.
Execution takes preparation and education. Effective application of clinically-tested cognitive, emotive, and behavior changes predict a shorter time between seeing the task and following-through. Positive changes in one of these areas can affect the others.
Watch What You Do
Eventually, outcome-study researchers will do controlled studies on cognitive, emotive, and behavior interventions for people who struggle with procrastination. Meanwhile, think of yourself as a scientist. The approaches you take are always tentative. The idea is to weed out weaker methods and replace them with more effective ones. If one anti-procrastination measure has no effect, try another.
The everyday scientist approach has added benefits. You are testing the interventions, not your "self." This helps take self-blame out of the picture. The results give you feedback to improve: you know what works, and what doesn't. This approach makes it easier to drop the "procrastinator" label. Taking steps to change procrastination thinking, feeling, and behaving is more productive than pinning a regressive label on yourself. (You are not the same as the label!)
Apply cognitive, emotive, and behavioral methods, and you position yourself to make a radical shift from a self-absorbing procrastination process to a self-observant one. In a self-absorbing state you look inward, focus on your feelings, your place in the sun, or other inner distraction. This is more likely to spur procrastination.
A self-observant approach is a radical shift from procrastination. Following a self-observant way you concentrate on what you're doing to stretch, progress, and lead the life you want to live.You examine the validity of procrastination thinking. Is tomorrow really better? You play out scenarios for the results of both delay and follow through actions. You teach yourself to accept--not necessarily like--tensions that go with certain priority activities. You guide your actions by reason. Sometimes you just do what you don't like because it is a necessary priority activity. A self-observant approach may be easier to do when you remind yourself of the horse and rider metaphor from the March 26, 2010 blog.
End Procrastination Now (Knaus. 2010. McGraw-Hill) centers on cognitive, emotive, and behavioral methods to build self-observant skills. Use it to prepare yourself to avoid the procrastination gamble angle through proactive, productive, actions.

Mens’ Brains Womens’ Brains

My Life

My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I'm happy. I can't figure it out. What am I doing right?

Charles M. Schulz

I’m sick of following my dreams

I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're going and hook up with them later.

Mitch Hedberg, Mitch All Together American comedian (1968 - 2005)

http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Mitch_Hedberg/

NLP House Party planned for 20th July 2010

details to follow

• Call
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  arthur.partridge
• Contact Form
  Please click here

What would you like to cover at your NLP House Party?

Drinking coffee doesn't make you more alert, caffeine study reveals

Continuing on from my completely unplanned review of the effects of Coffee, the Guardian released this article on 2nd June, 2010 on http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/jun/02/drinking-coffee-alert-caffeine
My previous blog entries are at:

• 
  Drinking coffee could help to prevent the neural degeneration - 27th May and
  
• 
  Caffeine can cause Hallucinations - 1st June
  

• Data shows coffee addicts only stave off caffeine withdrawal
• Stick with coffee or keep off it altogether, concludes study

• Jacob Aron
• guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 2 June 2010 14.55 BST
• Article history

Coffee drinkers may think they're getting a caffeine boost, but they're no more alert than people who never drink the stuff. Photograph: Getty
The millions of people who depend on a shot of coffee to kickstart their day are no more alert than those who are not regular coffee drinkers, say researchers.
A cup of coffee, suggests a study, only counteracts the effects of caffeine withdrawal that has built up overnight.
"Someone who consumes caffeine regularly when they're at work but not at weekends runs the risk of feeling a bit rubbish by Sunday," said Peter Rogers, who led the research at Bristol University. "It's better to stick with it or keep off it altogether."
Infrequent coffee drinkers who reach for an emergency hit fare no better, experiencing heightened feelings of anxiety - and withdrawal symptoms the next day.
How genetic differences may influence response was also examined. Blood samples were taken from 379 volunteers who were asked to avoid caffeine for 16 hours.
After that period, they were given either a caffeine pill or a placebo. Later, they took a slightly higher dose or another placebo.The researchers then used a standard questionnaire called the Mood, Alertness and Physical Sensations Scales (MAPSS) to measure the subjects' emotional state and alertness.
The participants' response to caffeine depended on their normal consumption. Roughly half regularly used medium-to-high levels of caffeine – equivalent to a few mugs of filter coffee a day – while the rest usually had little or no caffeine at all.
Caffeine did not increase the alertness of any group above the levels of non-users who were given the placebo. But caffeine fiends who were given a placebo after abstaining from coffee for 16 hours felt less alert and experienced worse headaches than those who received their usual dose. Four people had to drop out of the study owing to the severity of their headaches.
Infrequent users had more headaches after taking the caffeine pills, but did not feel any more alert than normal.
Among people who usually consumed little or no caffeine, a dose boosted their anxiety levels. Those participants who had a variant of a gene called ADORA2A, which has been linked to panic attacks, became particularly anxious after a dose of caffeine.
Medium-to-high level caffeine users, however, did not become any more anxious after caffeine, implying that regular consumption helps build up a resistance to its anxiety-inducing effect.
People in this group who were genetically predisposed to anxiety drank more coffee than the rest, suggesting mild feelings of tension might even contribute to their enjoyment of the caffeine buzz.
The research is significant because previous studies into the effects of caffeine have involved far fewer participants.
"It's an interesting piece of evidence, and a very ambitious study," said Lorenzo Stafford, a psychologist at the University of Portsmouth. "Getting the DNA samples of so many participants is a huge effort."
The study was published today in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology.

Shooting From The Belly... “X Isles”. Rossana Chiarelli’s Story..

Rossana Chiarelli has a vision  to build awareness of the benefits of writing one’s story on video and offer a new vehicle for video production and consumption as a tool in coaching.

This article is taken from http://visionwellcoachingclub.blogspot.com/

Video making in Coaching. Producing a diary on video can be a powerful and healing experience more so than just writing a diary. This has been my experience when I produced X Isles, a video diary in the style of visual scrapbook, which is about my perception of life at a particular point in my existence. It is a kind of journey in the private world of a young woman living abroad. Though it is about myself, it doesn’t contain many images of myself – apart from those of my childhood – rather it describes the world as I see it, or saw it at the time, like a visual stream of consciousness.
The initial idea was to explore some of the themes about narrative I was interested in at the time, such as identity and its construction, sense of belonging, global history. The images of the two countries are interspersed together with stereotypes constructed by the mass media. Beginning with old images projected by an old 8mm film, the young woman is going through her childhood memories. A phone rings and the answering voice replies (as if carrying on an ongoing conversation) “no, I’ve said it already. I’m not coming back” in a foreign language. The young woman is talking to her mother who is at the other end of the line and is asking, an all too often repeated question: “When are you going to come home again?”
X Isles is a highly personal work, produced during a period of intense questioning and inner search. I was at the end of my first degree and this was to be the final project. It was not produced with an audience in mind and I myself wasn’t clear about the outcome: I never claimed to want to make it for other people. I was searching for something and wasn’t interested in thinking about audiences! The process of creative filmmaking in itself was the thing that really mattered. Besides, it was a time for experimentation in the craft of storytelling on video, as well as a period of profound identity crisis. I had my head full of fascinating theory which I absorbed and debated in a foreign language for three intense years, an experience that totally change me and left me with an excruciating yearning to find my roots again –through language, through images, through stereotypes, through sound, music, memories, food. But it felt like trying to grab hold of water: I could no longer find what I was looking for in my Italian heritage and in the process I ended up wondering what were there to be found anyway.
This is what X Isles is about, the internal struggle one ends up fighting when one loses perspective of the process of growth and tries to resist change. It can be very messy and one is left feeling raw and vulnerable and, indeed, exposed. Looking back at all this obviously gives me perspective on that period and I can say that, despite the mess, it was all very enjoyable and even therapeutic. Now I’m left with a tangible memory of what was going on in my mind at that time. As I mentioned already, X Isles is a highly personal narrative, at times obscure and even amusing perhaps. It’s an inconclusive narrative that goes in circles and cycles and that’s how I see life. Those who have watched it have been able to enjoy it perhaps because of its innocence and rawness.
I will always look upon X Isles with fondness as it contains memories, my personal memories and images from childhood with people who are no longer with us. I urge anybody to do the same, to use the medium of video as a tool for expression, and I’m keen to help others piecing together their stories through a visual narrative. That’s my aim now, to build awareness of the benefits of writing one’s story on video and offer a new vehicle for video production and consumption as a tool in coaching, through Visionwell ©
Rossana Chiarelli

Part1

Part 2

Touch for Health Kinesiology Level 1 training.

AyPee is looking forward to learning Kinesiology on 26th June

Saturday, 26 June 2010 at 09:30 to Sunday, 27 June 2010 at 17:30 at the Business and Enterprise Suite, Rydens School, Hersham Road, Walton-on-Thames. Surrey KT12 5PY

Whether it is a discipline that you may want to combine with other skills, or you may choose it as a way of working with yours, your family's and friends' energy levels by helping them achieve balance in their lives, Touch for Health Kinesiology is incredibly easy to learn and even easier and fun to put into practice.

Touch for Health Kinesiology is accredited by the International Kinesiology College (www.ikc-info.org), and can be practised worldwide.

You will learn:-
- Accurate muscle testing
- Emotional Stress Release
- Principles of Chinese Medicine and a whole host of other useful techniques that you can put into practice immediately

Normal price £247. Early bird price £217 until 31st May 2010

All NLP Master Classes members only £205
Secured with non-returnable £50 deposit

Price includes manual used for levels 1-4 training and certification
For further details and how to pay, you can send a direct message to Email geoff@geoffrolls.co.uk
Phone 07905 056513

Looking forward to you getting in Touch

Geoff Rolls

I’m confused

Why do toasters always have a setting that burns the toast to a
horrible crisp, which no decent human being would eat?

I wonder

 

 

If Jimmy cracks corn and no one cares, why is there a song about him?

The Secret (and Surprising) Power of Naps

This article is from WebMD.com

http://www.webmd.com/balance/features/the-secret-and-surprising-power-of-naps?src=RSS_PUBLIC 

Need to recharge? Don't lean on caffeine -- a power nap will boost your memory, cognitive skills, creativity, and energy level.

By Jennifer Soong
WebMD the Magazine - Feature

Reviewed by Michael J. Breus, PhD

Naps help Constance Kobylarz Wilde, 58, recharge, especially if she takes them right after lunch. Wilde, a marketing manager and health blogger in Mountain View, Calif., is constantly juggling her schedule as a working mom and family caregiver. She's up by 6 a.m. every day and tries to go to bed by 10:30 p.m., but unanticipated issues often push her bedtime later.

"I can't do all-nighters anymore or get six hours of sleep without it beginning to affect me," she says.

So to combat fatigue and stay on top of things at work and at home, Wilde has made power naps a regular part of her routine, setting an alarm for a short snooze.

Naps and Sleep Deprivation

If you can't find extra time at night, daytime naps can be one way to treat sleep deprivation, says Sara C. Mednick, PhD, assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego, and author of Take a Nap! Change Your Life. "You can get incredible benefits from 15 to 20 minutes of napping," she says. "You reset the system and get a burst of alertness and increased motor performance. That's what most people really need to stave off sleepiness and get an energy boost."

The length of your nap -- and the type of sleep you get -- helps determine the brain-boosting benefits. The 20-minute power nap -- sometimes called the stage 2 nap -- is good for alertness and motor learning skills like typing and playing the piano.

What happens if you nap for more than 20 minutes? Research shows longer naps help boost memory and enhance creativity. Slow-wave sleep -- napping for approximately 30 to 60 minutes -- is good for decision-making skills, such as memorizing vocabulary or recalling directions. Getting rapid eye movement or REM sleep, usually 60 to 90 minutes of napping, plays a key role in making new connections in the brain and solving creative problems.

Naps Versus Coffee

Is taking a catnap better than reaching for a cup of joe? Yes, Mednick says, because caffeine can decrease memory performance. So you may feel more wired, but you are also prone to making more mistakes.

"If I don't get my naps, I get cranky and unfocused by the end of a week of short nights," Wilde says. "For me, that nap helps bring back my energy level."

Napping Tips

Napping regularly may reduce stress and even decrease your risk of heart disease, according to research from the Harvard School of Public Health and University of Athens Medical School in Greece. To get the most out of a power nap, follow these quick tips from sleep expert Sara C. Mednick, PhD:

Be regular. Keep a regular nap schedule. Prime napping time
falls in the middle of the day, between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m.

Make it quick. Set your cell phone alarm for 30 minutes or less if
you don't want to wake up groggy.

Go dark. Nap in a dark room or wear an eye mask. Blocking out light helps you fall asleep faster.

Stay warm. Stash a blanket nearby to put over you because your body temperature drops while you snooze.

Dedicated to all those practitioners that have induced me into Trance

I love the lyrics to this song and being a Doobie Brothers fan since 1973, it had to show up somewhere in my coaching practice.

I last used it getting a 1 year old small business unstuck.

It is amazing the power our words have and that we get stuck because we have said something in the past!

 

 Enjoy!

http://www.we7.com/track/Something-You-Said?trackId=3660954&m=0

 

 

 

 Something You Said

 

 

How To See Yourself Through Others’ Eyes

This article is written by Jeremy Dean and appears at http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2010/06/01/how-to-see-yourself-through-others-eyes/

 

By Jeremy Dean
You and I can talk, we can reach out and touch each other on the arm and we can see each other, but we can never know exactly what’s going on in the other’s head.

It’s why psychological science is so hard and it’s why understanding others can sometimes be so hard. It’s also why understanding how we are viewed by others is so hard.
Even the least narcissistic of us spend some time trying to work out how others view us: Do they find us attractive, intelligent, trustworthy, funny?
The news may not always be good, but it still would be fascinating to know.
Research shows that we normally try to work out how we are viewed by others by thinking about how we view ourselves, then extrapolating from that. The problem with this approach is that to varying degrees we all suffer from an ‘egocentric bias:’ we think we’re at the centre of the world and everything is about us. We shouldn’t be blamed for this — it’s a natural consequence of the fact that we’re locked inside our own heads.
The problem is that other people don’t share our own egocentric view of ourselves. They’re not seeing us filtered through our personal beliefs, attitudes and intentions. Instead they see us filtered through their own perceptions. So we find it difficult to see ourselves through others’ eyes.

Thinking Abstractly

Part of the reason we get it so wrong is that we follow the standard advice to put ourselves in others’ shoes in order to understand their perspective. However, as a new study published in Psychological Science shows, this is not always an effective technique.
Instead, based on some recently conducted experiments, Eyal and Epley (2010) recommend using abstract thinking to get a better view of the way others see you.
In one crucial experiment, the researchers split their participants into two groups to compare their ability to view themselves from the outside. Participants were trying to judge how attractive they were to another person. The first group adopted the standard tactic of putting themselves in the other person’s shoes, while the second group was asked to imagine they would be rated by the other person in several months’ time.
People trying to put themselves in the other person’s shoes were awful at the task. In fact, there was no association between how they thought others would rate them and how they actually did rate them. It seems when trying to judge how attractive we are to others, putting ourselves in their shoes doesn’t work.
But when participants thought about their future selves, a technique that encourages abstract thinking, their accuracy increased considerably. They weren’t spot-on, but they did much better.
This experiment suggests that the fine-grained, low-level way we tend to think of ourselves hinders us from understanding how others view us. You would think we would be able to judge how attractive we are to others – after all, we’ve all got access to mirrors – but in reality we find it difficult. In some ways we are blinded by how much we know. Thinking about ourselves in the future, though, moves our mind to a more abstract level, allowing us to better see ourselves through others’ eyes.

Everyday Embarrassment

Although it’s not examined in this research, our relationship with another person affects how accurately we see ourselves through their eyes. We are much more likely to have an accurate view of the way our family sees us. The technique of thinking abstractly is likely to work best for people we don’t know so well.
Still, abstract thinking can be useful in many everyday situations, particularly embarrassing ones (e.g., spilling a drink). We may imagine others will judge us clumsy and reckless but generally observers will take a broader perspective: They know that it’s easily done and in the long run makes no difference whatsoever.
The yawning gap between our experience of ourselves and the way others see us contributes to our trouble determining how others evaluate us. When we look at ourselves we can’t see the forest for all the trees. Thinking abstractly allows us to zoom out and bring the whole forest into focus.
Reference
Eyal, T. & Epley, N. (2010). How to Seem Telepathic: Enabling Mind Reading by Matching Construal. Psychological Science. DOI: 10.1177/0956797610367754.
Flickr photo by Sunny laid back L.A
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Jeremy Dean is a psychology researcher at University College London and the author of PsyBlog. For more on how to understand your mind with the science of psychology, join PsyBlog's 26,000 readers.

The Bio of Richard Bandler.

From http://www.nlpu.com/bandbio.htm

Richard Bandler is a co-founder with John Grinder of the field of Neuro-Linguistic Programming. A student of mathematics, Richard began studying the work of Gestalt therapy founder Fritz Perls when he was asked to edit transcripts of Perls' lectures and workshops for the book Eyewitness To Therapy (1973) for Science and Behavior Books. He also began to work with family therapist Virginia Satir at this time.

Richard met John Grinder, a linguistics professor, as a student at the University of California at Santa Cruz. In 1974 Bandler and Grinder began to make a model of the language patterns used by Perls, Satir and Hypnotherapist Milton H. Erickson, which they published in their books The Structure of Magic Volumes I & II (1975, 1976), Patterns of the Hypnotic Techniques of Milton H. Erickson, Volumes I & II (1975, 1977) and Changing With Families (1976). These books formed the foundation of the field of Neuro-Linguistic Programming.

Richard is an author and co-author of numerous other books on NLP and its applications, including Frogs Into Princes (1979), NLP Volume I (1980), Tranceformations (1981), Reframing (1982), Using Your Brain (1985), An Insider's Guide to Sub-Modalities (1988), The Adventures of Anybody (1993), Time For a Change (1993) and Persuasion Engineering(1996).

Much of Richard's later work in NLP has focused on applications of submodalities, the subtle distinctions one can make in one's sensory experience and internal representations. His background as a musician and his interest in sound theory and the neurological impact of sound lead him to develop the area of Neuro-Sonics, which utilizes qualities of music and sound to create specific internal states. Richard is also the founder of the model and techniques of Design Human Engineering (DHE).

In addition to his creative genius, Richard is known for his sense of humor, his ability to use sophisticated language patterns, and his dynamic training style.

Richard Bandler's website
San Francisco, CA 94104