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personalcoachingcenter · 4 years

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Learn How Habits Change Your Brain

New Post has been published on https://personalcoachingcenter.com/learn-how-habits-change-your-brain/

Learn How Habits Change Your Brain

What if I told you that the reason you had minty-fresh breath this morning was because 100 years ago an advertiser named Claude C. Hopkins was having trouble selling a brand of toothpaste? He needed to convince people that brushing their teeth should be a daily routine, and back then, it wasn’t for most people.

In the end he was able to get half the American public to pick up a new behavior and repeat it every single day, and pay money for his toothpaste. How did he do it? By tapping into neuroscience and decoding the awesome power of habits.

Habits. We’ve all got ‘em. You can probably think of a few of your own. I always seem to tap my feet when I’m trying to sit still. And I find myself biting my nails whenever I’m focused on reading or watching a movie.

I don’t consciously think about doing these things. That’s because I’ve done them so often that they’ve become a habit. We know habits as things we do automatically; tasks we do subconsciously, like walking or high fiving.

And there’s a ton of things that technically count as habits, and they can be good or bad. So why do we form habits? And how do we learn new ones, or un-learn old ones? If you’ve ever taken the same path to school or work, then you likely have that pathway burned into your brain.

You can probably walk it without really paying attention. Habits are built in a similar way. New neural pathways are formed when you repeat a behavior. And the more a brain circuit fires, the easier it becomes for our brain to do whatever that circuit controls, without conscious thought.

Think back to how you learned to ride a bike. At first, riding a bike is tough. You’ve got to learn how to pedal and balance and turn all at the same time. You have to consciously think about each action.

This happens in an area of your brain called the prefrontal cortex, the part associated with complex thought. But eventually, after you ride enough, you no longer have to consciously think about each individual action.

Riding a bike has become a habit, and now it’s controlled by different parts of your brain. One area involved in habitual behavior is the striatum, which actually releases chemicals that inhibit the complex thinking part of your brain for that task.

This is your brain being efficient. By turning down your brain’s thinking requirements for bike riding, it’s free to think other things, like ‘how exactly do igloos keep you warm?” Let’s go back to Claude Hopkins and his toothpaste scheme.

Claude realized habits have three key ingredients. A cue, a behavior, and a reward. A cue is something that triggers a behavior, like how the alarm clock triggers you punching the snooze button, and this is followed by the reward – 9 sweet extra minutes of sleeping in.

Claude got people thinking about that slimy film on your teeth in the morning, thanks to bacteria that colonize your mouth overnight. The sticky film is the cue that triggers brushing behavior. What was the reward? Claude convinced people this film would make their smile look ugly and a prettier smile was the reward for brushing.

Claude understood that with the right cue and the right reward, you could entice people to do just about whatever behavior you wanted. But what he didn’t know was that rewarding a behavior can actually create a craving, and this is what makes habits so strong.

Scientists now know that special neurons in the brain can fire and give us chemical rewards. But what’s weird is that once a habit and a reward are tied together in our brain, those reward neurons start firing even before you do the behavior.

This is what causes craving, and it’s why you want popcorn when you go to the movies, why you pick up your bad habits when you see other people doing them, and why habits are so hard to break. Claude knew a prettier smile would be a reward that would make people brush, but he didn’t anticipate that over time people would subconsciously start craving the minty tingle that Pepsodent left in their mouths.

People’s brains actually started to crave toothbrushing. So how can you train yourself to pick up a new habit, like eating an apple a day. And if you’ve got a bad habit, can you break it, or are you stuck with it forever? Scientists used to think that our brains didn’t change all that much once we reached adulthood, like concrete once it’s solidified.

But it turns out your brain is much more like clay – it’s a super flexible organ. The chemistry of your brain is constantly changing as you go about your day, in response to everything from learning to moving to hunger.

These chemical releases are short lived, but over time, if the same behaviors are repeated, the physical structure of the brain is actually changed. You create new neural pathways. And because the neural network has changed, so does the way the information flows.

When a behavior is repeated often enough, a habit is formed. There’s a famous idea that a new skill is learned by putting in 10,000 hours of work, but it’s not that simple. The amount of time differs hugely between tasks and between people.

What’s for sure is that when it comes to making a habit, whether it’s learning guitar or meditation, there’s simply no substitute for repetition. The reason bad habits are so hard to break is because you have literally woven new neural networks into your brain.

That doesn’t go away overnight. So give yourself a break. And if you’re trying to change a habit, know that it’s usually best to try and replace bad behavior with a new behavior instead of just trying to erase the pattern altogether.

The good thing is that now you know you have the power to change your brain. It’s as easy as brushing your teeth. And if you haven’t already made it a habit – Stay Curious.

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jam2289 · 5 years

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Lack of Consistent Goal Pursuit

I'm going to try to understand my own lack of consistent goal pursuit in this article. We must start by realizing that the odds that I will be very insightful or successful in this endeavor are low. I will approach it from two perspectives. I will lay out the ideas first and then see how they apply to my story.

First, a unique view that's no longer in favor from phenomenology and existentialism. The idea is that there is no unconscious. There is no repression. Instead, there are just things that we are not conscious of. There are things that we don't know. Instead of the idea that there are things that we were aware that were too painful, this idea says that we never really examined them in the first place.

Let's use an analogy. Imagine you're standing in the middle of a room looking towards one wall. Let's call that wall your conscious awareness. You can't see the wall behind you. With the more traditional idea of the unconscious and repression you aren't aware of the wall behind you because in your past you examined it and found that you didn't like it. Maybe it has black mold on it and you don't want to deal with the problem because it's such a big scary problem. Fair enough.

In the less traditional view the problem is that you haven't examined the wall yet. Maybe you haven't looked at it at all. Maybe you haven't looked at it in a long time. Maybe you passed by it but weren't really paying attention because you were focused on other things. It's not that you've repressed this problem into your unconscious, it's that it never really was in your conscious awareness.

This process of not paying attention to something could be reinforced by a light awareness. Let's say you turn around a bit and take a glance at the wall. It doesn't look that great. Well, you don't need to examine it right now. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe the next day. Maybe next week. Maybe next month. Maybe next year. You still haven't examined it enough to really know the extent of the problem. You're not repressing it, you're just moving your attention away from it because it's uncomfortable. You have other things in life to deal with anyway.

If you do that enough then this pattern will become automatic. The process is even called automaticity. Your brain neurons fire in a certain sequence. Things called glial cells are floating around in your brain. They detect this firing and wrap themselves around the neuron. The glial cells harden into myelin. It's like insulation. The creation of this myelin sheath is how you develop habits, patterns, and skills of all sorts. The ends of your neurons also reach out with dendrites and axon terminals and make stronger and more complex connections to reinforce these pathways. Once you've built this pathway it's very hard to break it down. That's part of why habits are so hard to break and part of how addiction works. The myelin sheath will break down if you don't fire it for a long time, or in special circumstances like multiple sclerosis. But, that neural highway wants to be fired. It tries to get you to fire it. If it's something that makes you feel good, if it's something that releases dopamine into your system, then it's really going to pester you to fire it and it's going to be almost impossible to stop.

So, if over your life you deny truly examining and focusing on what you truly want to do then neural circuits will be made that move your awareness away from that option. It will become an automatic habit for you to not focus on what you actually want. You don't have to repress it, you never really examined it.

If you've built that neural circuitry then maybe you won't even be able to answer the question of what you really want.

You could do the same thing with valuing. You repeatedly choose one value over another, for whatever reason. You do this for months, years, decades. What are the odds that you're going to be able to rewire all of these neural pathways wrapped in all of these huge myelin sheaths in your brain? How long would it take? You're stuck.

What would happen if you had this automaticity built in where you didn't pay attention to what you really wanted because you were doing something else right now, and you consistently chose one type of value over another? Depending on what those choices were you might have built neural circuitry that stops you in your tracks.

The second view that I am going to look at is dissociation. It actually goes with what we've been talking about nicely. It doesn't really have to be separate, they can be combined, I think.

We view ourselves in different ways. I defined myself as an intelligent adventurer at one time. I had this symbolic image of a quite resourceful person in my head. I also held several images of myself in the future as what I might become.

The thing is, these ideas the self and the future conceptions were destroyed and left an unfilled vacuum. It wasn't a fast process. It's not so much a traumatic problem as a long, slow, painful destruction.

I had a misadventure in Kenya a few years ago. It was bad, I was told I was going to die, I thought I was going to die, I was locked inside of a room from the outside with bars on the window, with no money because mine had been stolen, vomiting blood and hallucinating, after being poisoned and having a bacterial infection. I ended up getting out alive. That's a chaotic story. But the real problem was what came after.

It took six months and three antibiotic treatments to kill the bacteria. I still didn't get better and found out I have four major spinal deformities. One bone in particular was pressing against my brainstem, which was why I was losing my short and long term memory, had a really high heart rate, an insane migraine for many, many months, and other unfun things.

Over the next couple of years as I struggled forward my ideas about myself and my future slowly died. Failure by failure, my future possibilities were erased. This decreasing ability was devasting. I got a job, couldn't do it. Did it again. And again. And again. I had never had to quite a job because I couldn't do it before. My memory had been above average, I watched it decrease, and decrease, and decrease, until it was well below average. I had had near perfect reading comprehension. Then, I watched myself struggle to understand what I was reading more and more.

I had already chosen to pursue more experiential values over my life and leave creative values until later in life. Now it was only logical to choose quick experiential values. When you don't know if you're going to have a future there is no point in planning for one. Not that that happened right away. I made plans, then realized that it was probably pointless to be making future plans when I did something that made me realize my quite limited abilities and health. Then I would repeat the process. How many repetitions do you need before you just stop thinking about building the future?

Over the last couple of years I've started to rebuild my health. My mind, memory, and reading comprehension are strong. My body is fairly strong. But I'm having a hard time focusing on and doing things that would really build my future.

It's not that I'm not doing anything. I'm editing an international flash fiction horror anthology with my Russian friend Oleg. I contributed a story and we're publishing it later this year. I'm officiating my cousin's wedding next month. I teach English online to kids in China every morning. I'm giving speeches at a Harry Potter festival this summer. I'm writing a comic book with an illustrator. I write articles analyzing lyrics for 88.9 Hey Radio. I have other things in the works. But that's not good enough. It's not good enough by a long shot.

What should I really be doing? I'm not sure. What should I really be pursuing? I'm not sure. What should I really be making? I'm not sure. That's an issue. I'm not sure what I want to make, create, or build to make money. That's a major issue. I still have some limitations physically, so I can't go lift boxes all day, and I need weekly chiropractic adjustments. I also haven't structured my life to have a bunch of third party credentials, i.e. degrees. That means I can't do nothing and fall back on what I've got and coast, because nothing's there to fall back on and there's no momentum to coast on.

I have to be active, and I am active, but I'm still mostly active in the collecting of interesting life experiences rather than the pursuit of a longer term creation. That needs to change, and I know it needs to change, and nevertheless I've been having a hard time doing anything about it for the last 6 months.

One of the problems is inconsistent goal determination. A business owner named Grant Cardone recommends writing down your goals every morning and every night. Other successful people do this too. You start with a fresh sheet. One of the issues that I encountered with this is that my goals switch around a lot. You would think this would resolve itself over some time, but with me it does not. That falls right in line with my personality traits, but I need to transcend those to overcome this barrier to further advancement.

Another thing that is coming into play here is that there are two types of trying. You can try to achieve some specific thing. Or, you can try something out. That's the difference between a static state value and a process value. Some people exercise because they want to be a certain weight or have a certain amount of strength. Other people exercise because they like to exercise. I mostly do things because I like the doing, I like the experience, I mostly have process values. Maybe that's an issue. I'm not fully sure.

Over all of these years of choosing process values and experiential values maybe I've built the neural circuitry that moves my awareness away from state values and creative values. Maybe that keeps me from making things and finishing them. I think that's true. These circuits need to be rewired and rebuilt.

Over the last few years I've lost the projection of myself into the future. Maybe that's part of why my values about things in the future don't stabilize. I think that's true. I think it's also a natural tendency because of my personality traits. That combination is devasting to consistent goal pursuit and accomplishment.

What to do? I have several ideas. I'll cover just a couple here. One, I've designed a system for tracking values across multiple time periods and categories. It seems to have some utility. Also, I've been incorporating some of the parts of my personality that I seem to have symbolically dissociated in my past. That definitely has utility. Now, I need to use a similar technique oriented towards my future.

I think it's possible that these things can be part of rebuilding what I need to find consistent goal pursuit and incorporate it into my life. Time will tell.

________________________________________________

You can find more of what I'm doing at http://www.JeffreyAlexanderMartin.com

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livingwellcounselling · 4 years

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Psychology Mind Map

Mind mapping is the brain-based psychology of interacting with other people. It’s the brain’s ability to make a mental map of another person’s mind. Mind mapping is an intuitive process, and it satisfies our inherent desire to figure out other people. Whenever you interact with people, your brain automatically creates mental pictures of their minds. What does he want? What is she like? Is he smart? Why is he looking at me, or not looking at me? Can I trust her? Should I be afraid of this person? Is he sexually attracted to me? Is she enjoying my presence? Does he think he’s superior to me? It then looks at these pictures and makes inferences about them. Then your brain uses these attributions to predict what other people are going to do and adjusts your agendas and behaviours accordingly. First and foremost, mind mapping is about predicting other people’s behaviour, whether it’s a stranger, or someone you interact with regularly, like a boss or co-worker, or personally, like a child, spouse, or parent. For example, if you’re walking towards someone on the street, you observe their clothes, their gait, where they’re looking, and their expression, paying particular attention to their eyes and mouth. You start attributing a personality to them. And within seconds you’ve gleaned enough information to determine if you’re going to keep your head down and ignore them, to avoid something unpleasant, or meet their gaze in anticipation of a friendly smile.

mind mapping psychology

Mind mapping is an intrinsic part of being human, and quickly develops in children. Signs of mind mapping emerge soon after birth. Babies begin sharing eye contact (“mutual gaze”) with caretakers when they’re 3 months old. Another shared experience is directing their parents’ attention toward objects that interest them (“declarative pointing”). By 18 months, babies can follow someone’s attention to objects outside their own visual field, such as monitoring the eyes of someone seeing an object hidden behind a screen. In other words, by this age a baby can track something in another person’s mind. From this point until they’re about 4 years old, children demonstrate “implicit” mind mapping ability, meaning they clearly have mind mapping ability, but lack the verbal skills to reliably demonstrate it. As children’s verbal skills improve, they demonstrate “explicit’ mind mapping ability. Around the age of 4, children can understand that what people do is directly connected to what’s in their minds. They know that, if they can figure out what’s going on in your head, they can predict what you’re going to do. 4 year olds have enough mind mapping ability to detect lying and false beliefs, and from that can determine if someone is trustworthy or worthy of respect, and if and how they can be manipulated to get what they want. Around age 11, a child’s mind mapping ability reorganizes into adult form, allowing the child to understand sexual motivations and complex social interactions. They can detect if you’re not being completely honest with them. Teenager’s disrespect toward their parents often stems from disappointment seeing how their parents lie and act blind to themselves.

Knowing how early mind mapping abilities develop, it’s not surprising how early children shape stories about people and the world around them, based on what they mind map in parents, caregivers, siblings, and other influential people around them. And these early neural pathways develop a large core of how we interact with others later in life, whether we tend to be open, assuming others are generally loving, or tend be closed, assuming others are generally manipulative and/or not trustworthy. The primary purpose of mind mapping isn’t to facilitate bonding, it’s about survival. Growing up in an unstable environment with poor or less than nurturing parenting, often produces excellent mind mappers. For example, if someone grows up with a father who goes from calm to violently angry in seconds, they’re going to hone their mind mapping abilities to improve their chances of predicting when he might blow. Or if mother is an alcoholic, they’re going to map her all the time to identify triggers that push her to drink, so that they can steer her away from them.

Another level of mind mapping, involves mind masking, which is the ability to screen your mind from other people, making it more difficult for them to accurately and rapidly detect your inner mental states. This could involve shielding what you actually want, know, think, feel or believe. Mind masking always entails some degree of deception, but that doesn’t mean that it’s always antisocial. There are times where mind masking facilitates positive intent, like waiting for a private moment to share bad news with your partner, or avoiding controversial topics at the family gathering, or ignoring a dangerous-looking stranger trying to get your attention.

In adult love relationships, mind masking is a fact of life. We often present ourselves to others as we would like to be seen, which often differs from who we really are, as a way to manage our fear of rejection. But of course, continued mind masking is going to get in the way of real intimacy. Detecting when your partner masks his/her mind is particularly important if you’re in a committed relationship. Mind masking frequently occurs when couples experience serious difficulties that could destabilize their relationship, like medical or financial issues, or infidelity, by putting on a “happy face” to hide their anxieties. Mind masking often leads to suspicion and insecurity. Couples often become so enmeshed in mind masking, it creates an emotional gridlock in which neither partner reveals his or her mind, and both partners are suspicious.

When mind maskers are confronted or questioned they’ll often deflect, respond with a question, steer the conversation a different direction, or in some other way skirt around the question without ever giving a clear answer. Really good mind maskers will hide the fact that they’re masking in a variety of ways, such as:

Substituting false content

Not tampering with more of the truth than necessary

Appearing to be forthcoming, even eager to comply

Showing a picture of their mind they know people want or expect to see

Creating plausible deniability

Taking umbrage when they’re caught withholding important information

Talking obliquely or abstractly and glossing over details

Being convincing or confusing, and not necessarily accurate

Knowing these techniques can help you identify when someone is mind masking in your presence.

As troubled homes create highly skilled mind mappers, so too they create highly skilled mind maskers. If you’re growing up in an unstable household with irresponsible, untrustworthy parents, you get good at mind masking out of necessity. You learn to map other people while looking like you’re not paying attention to them. Mind masking, like mind mapping, is a survival skill. Dysfunctional families will often demand that family members maintain a positive facade in public, hiding the mayhem happening at home. Mind masking becomes second nature. When you grow up in a household that is loving, and nurturing, there’s less incentive to develop mind masking ability because you don’t feel compelled to guard your back at all times.

How well do you mind map those around you? How well do you know yourself? Partners, children, and others can often see us where we may be blind to ourselves. How often are you pretending, being deceptive, or in some other way masking your mind? How might that be impacting your relationships?

For more information on mind mapping and mind masking, as well traumatic mind mapping, read “Brain Talk: How mind mapping brain science can change your life and everyone in it” by Dr. David Schnarch.

Shari Derksen, MA, is a Registered Psychologist with the College of Alberta Psychologists and specializes in the areas of relationship issues and intimacy, as well as many others. For more information on Shari, her work, or other articles she’s written for Living Well click here to link to her full bio page.

Living Well Counselling

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jimwilliamsonblr · 6 years

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Culture | Definition & Analysis

The Oxford English Dictionary defines Culture as:

‘The arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively’.

I have been researching culture through books and articles in the context of differing cultures in other countries and how this can impact on human interaction and interpretation of behaviours and images. As my initial interest is to compare the United States of America and Asia. I have been sourcing literature to inform these choices. This literature will be useful in my Dissertation as an evidence base for cultural differences between countries and it also demonstrates the use and links of Semiotics in academic research related to Culture.

This image is taken from an article by George Raine about a famous California Milk Campaign which was initiated in America with huge success. The slogan “Got Milk?’ resonated with millions of Americans. The campaign was then moved to Spain where the translation ‘Tienes Leche?’ did not quite have the same impact, as the literal meaning of the campaign slogan in Spain was ‘Are you lactating?”. Not quite the desired impact.

Image taken from an article in the Korean Herald

Bill Gates had his hand in his pocket when he shook hands with the President of Korea, it was a very offensive act within Korean Culture, although ‘Many said that Gates had done nothing wrong, as he is an American whose culture is very different from that of Korea.’

This example clearly demonstrates the differences in culture between the USA and Asia.

In his book Culture Crossing, about making connections in the New Global Era. Landers says that ‘Culture has blazed neural pathways in our brains that trigger automatic responses over which we exert little control.’ He talks about ‘Culture Clashes”, ‘a phenomenon that occurs when someone from one culture unintentionally confuses, frustrates, or offends a person from another culture’. He has lived in Japan and explored the differing cultures. One example is that his father would teach him to look people straight in the eye and yet his Japanese friend was taught by his father to look away when meeting people who were more senior. He has a metaphor for cultural programming ‘Another useful way to wrap your brain around your own programming is to think of it as baggage—cultural baggage. Much like emotional baggage, cultural baggage is something we unwittingly tote around with us at all times, never knowing when or how it may influence our behaviors.’

An essay written by Cambridge explores Barthes’ Semiotic Analysis, Empire of Signs Japan. He gives historical context: ‘In 1603 Japan closed its doors to the outside world as the shogun (military general) united warring factions and instigated a policy of sakoku (national isolation) so rigorously enforced that shipwrecked sailors who washed up on country’s shores were thrown back into the sea’. The issue here is that complete isolation led to the retention of a very pure form of Japanese culture, however in more recent decades there has been external cultural influences. It will be interesting to see if semiotic analysis of film posters demonstrates how far external influences have impacted on Asian culture.

Pavis and Anderson ask if the application of Semiotics are still relevant and if they can be applied to Korea. They make interesting references to the culture in Korea, which might be relevant to my study.

‘Fifty years later, in Japan as in Korea, things have changed a great deal. And yet, Barthes' comment remains relevant, if one continues to compare Japan or Korea with the USA or with the Americanised world. The media and the increasingly insidious forms of advertising and neoliberal ideology have certainly invaded Japanese or Korean culture, but the distinction between sex and sexuality and their usage in different contexts remains relevant and helps us reflect on the other - non-American or non-European - culture.’

‘The limits of the representation of sex seem to be rather clearly defined. The representation of sexual scenes is not controlled by any religion or ideology, but is implicitly regulated through a strict educational grounding that remains Confucian. In the mass media (advertising in public spaces and on television), in songs, K-pop, or musicals, sex is only suggested, and specially prepared for the gaze of middle-aged men. The woman in these arenas is very young - almost a Lolita - and there are few middle aged women to be seen. The media ideal, but also that of companies and large industries is a young woman who is beautiful but voiceless, childless, and with no future on the job market after the age of forty, 'disposable' once used, quickly 'ejected' from the company. A seductive appearance has become a categorical imperative, an obsession justifying all manner of plastic surgery, making Korea a haven for’, "surgery-tourism". (Quote from Lili Barbery-Coulon, Le Magazine du Monde)

Bibliography

Quoting from: George Raine, and Chronicle Staff Writer, “Lost in the Translation / Milk Board Does Without Its Famous Slogan When It Woos a Latino Audience,” August 25, 2001 https://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Lost-in-the-translation-Milk-board-does-without-2884230.php (Accessed 17/10/2018)

Korea Herald, 23 April 2013. Netizens abuzz over Gate’s handshake with president http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20130423000714&ACE_SEARCH=1 (Accessed 17/10/2018)

Landers, M. (2016). Culture Crossing : Discover the Key to Making Successful Connections in the New Global Era. Oakland, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

Lili Barbery-Coulon, "La beauté fait son marché en Corée", Le Magazine du Monde, 9 Novembre 2013, pp. 47-53

CAMBRIDGE, N. A. (2016) ‘High Teas, High Collars and High Rise Buildings in a “High-Context” Culture: The Semiotics of Japan’s Project of Modernity’, Romanian Journal of Communication & Public Relations, 18(3), pp. 11–22. Available at: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=shib&db=sih&AN=120832096&site=ehost-live&custid=s3824264 (Accessed: 17 October 2018).

PAVIS, P. and ANDERSON, J., 2012. Empire of Signs: From Japan towards Korea? Forum Modernes Theater, 27(1-2), pp. 7-15,128.

The Oxford English Dictionary

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personalcoachingcenter · 4 years

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Learn How Habits Change Your Brain

New Post has been published on https://personalcoachingcenter.com/learn-how-habits-change-your-brain/

Learn How Habits Change Your Brain

The good thing is that now you know you have the power to change your brain. It’s as easy as brushing your teeth. And if you haven’t already made it a habit – Stay Curious.

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