#cognitive tricks

[themorningnewsinformer]

Cognitive Tricks to Improve Focus in 2025 That Actually Work

Introduction: Why Focus Is the Superpower of 2025 Staying focused in 2025 is tougher than ever. Digital distractions, remote work stress, and endless notifications have made it nearly impossible to concentrate. But with the right cognitive tricks to improve focus, you can fight back and regain control over your mental clarity. 1. Cognitive Trick #1: Mindfulness Meditation Mindfulness…

[adulthoodisokay]

having OCD is wild because sometimes you just stare at a glass and have to reassure yourself “it’s okay to have an odd number of ice cubes” over and over again

[chicago-geniza]

the problem is that in a climate of "rampant misinformation" (the term 'misinformation' carries with it a host of implications, political and otherwise, that are baked into its intellectual history and as is often the case, relate to the cold war, so i don't generally like it). BUT. in such a climate you need to be able to independently evaluate information and "truth-claims" for veracity (not the same as legitimacy, which in my understanding is a function of source evaluation, not content evaluation--and as institutions become less reliable, the authority conferred on individuals by institutional credentials/credential-conferring systems in and of themselves come into doubt, as merritt noted MDs post junk science under their professional accounts etc., as others have said papers of record deny genocide or "just ask questions" in plainly spurious ways that undermine their journalistic integrity, etc.)--BUT. you need to be able to independently evaluate information and i CAN'T because i am STUPID in certain, specific ways. i need some types of information to be interpreted for me--e.g., statistics!--or i will come to incorrect conclusions, because i lack both the knowledge and the cognitive capacity (i have particular developmental + learning disabilities re: math and abstract reasoning that impair me here, more than the average non-specialist). this is the gap into which a lot of people who "do their own research" fall, and i am sympathetic, because like--if you can't trust the papal authorities, so to speak, to interpret the texts for you, then surely one's own take on the scriptures must be sufficient for daily life. but it isn't a lot of the time. because you can't be Protestant about public health data, or about the nuts and bolts of the global economy, or the law, or a bunch of other things. idk where i am going with this, briar was thinking along similar lines with genAI the other day too, i am just rambling. OGRE CANNOT EVALUATE INFORMATION. OGRE ONLY PICK UP SURFACE-LEVEL THEMES

[kneelingshadowsalome]

Okay but does recruit!König have a praise kink? Because it sounds like our boy has a raging need to be praised and loved even if he shows it in fucked up ways. Also, I wanna overstimulate the little brat until he's shaking and crying all while telling him he's such a good boy, so handsome and strong with such a lovely cock for me to play with

Stop it, both of you!!!

You're gonna make him cry :((

[lightblueminecraftorchid]

My roommate and I had a conversation last night and I keep rotating it in my brain and I Don’t Like It

[echthr0s]

I am pretty sure I've never actually met a high-affective-empathy person -- everyone I know who has claimed this has turned out to be high-anxiety, and since popular understanding of empathy is... lacking, this always goes unexamined >_> -- but I thought about it and I think I could imagine what an actual high-empathy person would be like. and the answer is... spooky.

they'd be spooky. if this was the olden days, people would call them a witch. hell, people might still do it. they'd seem to have an uncanny intuition. their party trick would be to look at you, take a sip of their drink, take a deep breath, and then tell you something about yourself that would immediately piss you the fuck off and you'd never speak to them again. because they're wrong! they tried to psychoanalyse you like a fucking Crane brother and they were so blatantly wrong! ...a few years and 100 therapy sessions later, you think back and you're like "oh my god. how the fuck did they know."

my blueprint for what an actual high-empathy person is like: Heather Havrilesky ("Ask Polly"). I've been reading her for years and she has told stories like the above -- stories of alienating people with her weirdly invasive commentary, which she offered freely and with great enthusiasm, not always realising how hidden or suppressed the stuff she was revealing actually was. people generally Do Not Like having their inner worlds put on display like that, especially at large-scale social functions, and they found it suspicious and manipulative besides. to Heather, this was just her way of connection-seeking, of saying, "I see you!" fortunately, she figured out how to use this power for good -- she writes an advice column. and she always seems to get to what the Letter Writer is actually saying, which I always thought was... well, spooky.

I also think that most high-empathy people probably aren't announcing it. they've either suppressed it entirely out of social pressure to be less weird and invasive and creepy, or they are grappling with like 5 mental illnesses (due to either people's mistreatment or just the constant overstimulation). I wonder what the combination of high affective and low cognitive empathy is like; I can only imagine the inverse, because that's me, and frankly I think that's the best combination of these traits~ ;)

[tilbageidanmark]

The circles don't move

[welfare-debutante]

OMG YALL

Today I bought a real human skull from the curiosity shoppe downtown. He was ONLY 900$ and Ive named him Justin after several boys I've loved (and lost over the year) and I was SO happy on the taxi ride home telling the cab driver about my new skull...

This skull is a gift from my confident, larger-than-life, charismatic af, impossible to ignore, gorgeous, terrifying and powerful as hell 39 year old self to the painfully lonely, inexpressibly creepy mournful 11 year old only-child-with-no-friends-only-books self, because that yanno that disturbed, morbid, lonely little girl is DEEPLY loved by me, and is protected by me, and Cause tbh if we (entitled communist millennials who hate capitalism and know there are better ways) aren't out here healing our inner child, working on processing and healing those inherited traumas and carefully undoing these nasty inter-generational curses, then WHAT are we doin?

Also!!! If I can give one piece of advice:

heal ur inner child, y'all. Yall motherfuckers need this so bad lmao you might not even KNOW how bad u need it but trust me y'all need this shit..

Tbh, I used to be pretty ableist and think the whole 'inner child' shit was some fake-ass, overly sensitive politically correct granola flavored hippie shit, but NO... It is hella real and hella cathartic and beneficial to do these practices..

THERE IS LEGIT HEALING TO BE GAINED from comforting, loving, honoring and bonding with the child inside you, -THE CHILD U USED TO BE- which, like all esoteric mystical shit is eternal and can be accessed at any time.

When I first started to heal my inner lil kid, I would visualize the following: id envision myself as I was at various ages: a redheaded, dirty eight year old, filthy from playing outside, with a smear of jelly by my mouth from the lunch my stepdad made me, or an overweight, awkward 10 year old in a training bra who just wants to fit in and feel normal.. or my an angry thirteen year old self, freshly pulled out of public school (thanks to my rad af mom for that move) and learning to be an UNSCHOOLER, discovering cute boys, and cigarettes, and telling adults snarkily that I wasn't "rebellious" but SUBVERSIVE and watching those same adults grow pale for lack of good response..

So ANYWAY, I take the small, scared, abused, neglected child that I used to be, and i hold that child tight in my arms (in my minds eye)

I Let them sit on my lap, and I Hug them, and I cuddle and I rock that child, and make them feel safe, and seen, and loved and valued. i Tell my lil baby self that I Love them so much, how happy I am that we've made it this far. I promise to them that NOBODY IS GONNA HURT THEM EVER AGAIN, because they got me NOW and then i assure my inner child that it is safe to feel their feelings, that it's okay to cry, and that adult me won't ever betray the child in me that im working to heal.

Ngl y'all... when I first tried to do this work it was uncomfortable and made me sad and Made . Me . FUCKING. CRYYYYY. So hard. Like legit UGLY CRYIN LMAO but you know what?

I LET MYSELF CRY cause I knew that eventually, on the other side of those tears was something better and that all that pain would purge and lead to something precious. and it did.. and you know what the best, most rewarding fuckin feeling is??

Knowing that the 11 year old me that I once was is TOTALLY in-fucking-love with the 39 year old me That I am, and tbh it feels so good to be the person I've always wanted to be: I am confident and unafraid, a lil scary maybe, I love and honor my intuition, I'm tattooed as all hell, I'm dangerous, sexy, mysterious, intimidating, talented, hilarious, kind, willing to act in solidarity with my comrades, I'm beautiful, able to preform feminity without that performance ruling me n having fun while doing it, I'm capable as hell, humble, comfortable and at ease in my skin (and at any weight) I'm glamorous the way my great wise aunties seemed glamorous to me as a child, shockingly intelligent, super quick witted, eager and willing to learn new skills, fun and relaxed company to be around, a college educated lover of arts and music and books, not afraid to try new things, and always honoring myself...

I will be 40 years old in April of 2025, and I've already lived 5 lifetimes worth of doing!! I've been: a clown, acircus preformer, a heroin dealer, a lead singer in a ton of bands, a friendly and reasonable pimp, an alternative model, a part time SW, a burlesque dancer, a professional tarot reader medium and astrologer/, a house wife who was married for a decade, a witch for hire,.. I have legit done And been basically EVERYTHING I wanted to be and do- I wanted to be a good musician so I taught myself to sing and play guitar and ukulele, along with violin, viola and cello, etc.

I wanted to be a successful tattoo artist so I taught myself to tattoo (and now I'm 15 years into a hella fulfilling tattoo career doin what I love)...

I've done so much in 39 years that I'm literally challenging myself to come up with new goals and aspirations and endeavors to learn/conquer cause I've done EVERYTHING I WANTED TO DO. Lol

[loki-zen]

so. thing.

while on the one hand i absolutely respect and get behind the reasoning for wanting to like encourage people to feel free to explore and experiment with their gender presentation, and it’s great if and when younger generations feel freer to think about that more and make decisions on it instead of being restricted by a category assigned at birth, etc…

on the other hand, ‘thinking about your gender presentation’ is literally a subcategory of ‘thinking about how you are perceived by other people’ and most teenagers & many other people do an unhealthy amount of that already.

not sure how to reconcile these.

[viraltrendsspot]

🤓 What details become clearer the longer you look?

[joanofexys]

"i literally felt everything in my brain click into place when i turned 25" you literally didn't cause that's not how brain development works but okay bestie

[itsororomunroe]

Image ID of a previous user’s tags:

Bless people who work with kids doing this. What seems like obvious safety concerns to us looks the same as just flexing authority to kids, and somehow, adults see asking “Why?” as challenging authority, when:

often, kids lack the context to understand why something is how it is;

kids have so little agency, and so, including them in the decision-making helps kids not feel so stifled and like they need to find ways to push back that’ll piss you off so bad.

There was a phrase that I used in my classroom when my students would ask me about doing questionable things, and my response was always, "Technically you can, but should you?"

The reason I used this instead of a simple yes or no answer is because it opened up conversation. Instead of blindly looking for permission, the conversation became more about cause and effect. Usually it navigated the "well you can't tell me what to do I'm going to do it anyway" instinct in kids when I'd say no, because all they were looking for is something to challenge them.

For example: "Can I jump off the slide?"

"Technically you can, but should you?"

If they answer no, I'd ask why. Usually they'd say because it's against the rules or I don't know.

If they say it's against the rules, I'd ask them why they think it's a rule. And if they'd say I don't know, I'd explain that the slide is five feet off of the ground, and jumping that high is a good way to hurt your knees or worse.

And then the most important part: if you did do it, how can you make it safer?

That's when the creativity juices started to flow. I'd get anything from pillows to beds to bouncy shoes to wings to someone catching them (which became a whole different conversation). And I told them since we didn't have those things here, it wasn't safe. And safety is everyone's number one job at school.

It stopped them from doing it behind my back. It got them to engage in critical thinking. And it helped them figure out how to do things without help.

However, there's always been an itching thought in the back of my head. Somewhere out there, did one of my past students drag their mattress out to the slide and jump off of it?

[bodyofbrilliance]

✨ View the full poem on my blog: Unveiling the Minds Tricks: Exploring Cognitive Biases in Everyday Life Poem 💛

[willowsearth]

Persuasion

Persuasion is everywhere—ads, friends, and even parents! Learn how it works, how to spot tricks, and how to use it for good. A fun, simple guide for staying sharp and making smart decisions. #Persuasion #CriticalThinking #LifeSkills #FunLearning

“To swallow and follow, whether old doctrine or new propaganda, is a weakness still dominating the human mind.” — Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Human Work (1904) The Power of Persuasion Persuasion is all around us. Whether it’s a TV ad making you crave a burger, a friend convincing you to try a new game, or a parent encouraging you to eat vegetables, persuasion influences our choices daily. But…

[tilbageidanmark]

Optical illusion:

The vertical blue lines are straight and parallel.

[brightlotusmoon]

Earlier today I ran into notes on a post that said autism and ADHD don't really exist because they "need trauma to be real" and I laughed so hard I hurt my old fractured rib.

October is ADHD awareness month! 🎉

The memory issues ADHD causes are some of the scarier and more frustrating parts of living with it - so here’s a set of reaction doodles that all my fellow ADHD peeps are welcome to use whenever anybody decides to comment on your forgetfulness ^