25 Random Facts About Psychology
Anger Management
Anonymity and Faith
Anticipation of Pain
Are You Worried Yet?
Art of Napping
Autism
Chill of Loneliness
Cosmology and the Bible
Depression: An Introduction
Domino Effect
Emotional Intelligence
Female Brain: A Book Review
Guilt: An Introduction
Happiness
Healthy Painful Emotions
Inauguration Day
Learned Helplessness
Learned Optimism
Marshmallow Test
Memory
Panic Attacks, Part 1
Panic Attacks, Part 2
Predicting the Future
Psychology - What Is It? Really?
Psychology and the Brain
Q&A #1
Q&A #2
Resiliency
Science Doesn't Know Everything
Shyness
Six Unhealthy Emotions
Sleep Deprivation, Part 1
Sleep Deprivation, Part 2
Start of a New Year
Stress Management: Overview
Stress Management: Natural Breathing
Temper Tantrums, Part 1: Understanding
Temper Tantrums, Part 2: Prevention
Temper Tantrums, part 3: Management
Using 10% of Your Brain
Weight Loss
What's Good About Good Friday
What We Don't Know Can Kill Us
Worry
Worry Cycle, the
Your Comfort Zone
Feel free to suggest any topic to us you would like to see.
Friday, October 10, 2008
The Chill of Loneliness
I enjoy reading journal articles not only because they teach me so much, but also because I admire the cleverness of the researchers in how they design their research. One such article that hit me recently was published in the journal Psychological Science. Authors Drs. Chen-Bo Zhong and Geoffrey Leonardelli from the University of Toronto studied the relationship between emotions and body temperature.
They wondered if there was a relationship between body temperature and such painful emotions as loneliness, despair and sadness. Their interest was aroused by the phrase often used by people when they are describing their loneliness, the "chill of loneliness." People are not merely exaggerating when they speak of being cold when they are lonely or sad. Drs. Zhong and Leonardelli conducted two experiments to see if there was a relationship between emotions and physical sensations.
The first experiment asked one group of people to ponder a time in their lives when they experienced a sense of loneliness. The other group was supposed to think about a past experience when they felt accepted. Then both groups were later asked to estimate the temperature of the room they were in. The group that had thought about acceptance estimated the room to be, on average, 76 degrees. Those who remembered and thought about a time when they were feeling lonely estimated the room temperature to be 71 degrees.
Another, different experiment was done to see if similar results would occur. About 50 people engaged in a computer-based, ball-tossing exercise. Each person would catch a ball and then throw it to anyone they wanted. Over the course of time, most people would expect that everyone would get a ball tossed to them about the same number of times as everyone else.
What the participants didn't know was that the game was designed so that some people would get the ball tossed to them much less often than other members of the group. When the exercise was finished, the participants were then asked to rate the desirability of certain foods: hot coffee, crackers, an ice-cold Coke, an apple, and hot soup.
As you might guess from the results of the first experiment, those who were "ostracized" from the game had more of a desire for the hot coffee or soup. The researchers understood this to mean that a preference for hot liquids was the result of feeling colder because they had been excluded from full participation in a group effort.
So, the next time you feel chilly in a crowd of people, it is probably not your imagination. You may actually be feeling isolated or rejected. If this is the case, you would be wise to think about the cause of the loneliness to see if there is anything you can do. Loneliness is a "healthy" human emotion in that it can move you forward by possibly telling you it is time to learn some new coping skills for loneliness.
They wondered if there was a relationship between body temperature and such painful emotions as loneliness, despair and sadness. Their interest was aroused by the phrase often used by people when they are describing their loneliness, the "chill of loneliness." People are not merely exaggerating when they speak of being cold when they are lonely or sad. Drs. Zhong and Leonardelli conducted two experiments to see if there was a relationship between emotions and physical sensations.
The first experiment asked one group of people to ponder a time in their lives when they experienced a sense of loneliness. The other group was supposed to think about a past experience when they felt accepted. Then both groups were later asked to estimate the temperature of the room they were in. The group that had thought about acceptance estimated the room to be, on average, 76 degrees. Those who remembered and thought about a time when they were feeling lonely estimated the room temperature to be 71 degrees.
Another, different experiment was done to see if similar results would occur. About 50 people engaged in a computer-based, ball-tossing exercise. Each person would catch a ball and then throw it to anyone they wanted. Over the course of time, most people would expect that everyone would get a ball tossed to them about the same number of times as everyone else.
What the participants didn't know was that the game was designed so that some people would get the ball tossed to them much less often than other members of the group. When the exercise was finished, the participants were then asked to rate the desirability of certain foods: hot coffee, crackers, an ice-cold Coke, an apple, and hot soup.
As you might guess from the results of the first experiment, those who were "ostracized" from the game had more of a desire for the hot coffee or soup. The researchers understood this to mean that a preference for hot liquids was the result of feeling colder because they had been excluded from full participation in a group effort.
So, the next time you feel chilly in a crowd of people, it is probably not your imagination. You may actually be feeling isolated or rejected. If this is the case, you would be wise to think about the cause of the loneliness to see if there is anything you can do. Loneliness is a "healthy" human emotion in that it can move you forward by possibly telling you it is time to learn some new coping skills for loneliness.
If you would like to leave a comment, click on the comments link below
For an index of all blogs, go to Blog Index
For an index of all blogs, go to Blog Index
Monday, October 6, 2008
Stress Management: Natural Breathing
Natural Breathing is an effective, quick technique that can be used literally anywhere and any time. If you have ever hyperventilated, Natural Breathing will keep you from ever doing this again for the rest of your life. This is because hyperventilation and Natural Breathing are incompatible—they cannot happen at the same time. You cannot sit and stand at the same time because they, too, are incompatible. When you master Natural Breathing, you won't ever have to carry a paper bag with you again! Natural Breathing has three components: deep breathing, slow breathing, and discontinuous breathing.
Deep breathing. To learn to breathe deeply, you first need to check how you currently take a deep breath. Do this now by standing in front of a mirror. As you take a really deep breath, watch what happens to your upper body and your stomach. You may notice that your upper body will move—if you took a really big breath, you may have raised your shoulders—and your stomach will be drawn in. Although the vast majority of the human race takes a deep breath in this way, it is wrong. It is wrong because it is backwards.
For a truly deep breath to occur, there must be little or no movement in your upper body—and at the same time your stomach must be pushed out. (This "belly breathing" is used by professional musicians.) To learn how to breathe deeply properly, put your hands on your stomach, directly on top of your navel. Now push in. While you are pushing in, push your hands away from your body with your stomach muscles. Then, as you relax your stomach muscles, let your hands push your stomach back in again. This in-and-out movement of your stomach muscles is the same movement that should occur when you breathe deeply.
Now that you have experienced this movement in your stomach muscles, you know which muscles to use for deep breathing. To learn the complete technique of natural deep breathing, follow this simple four- step procedure. (This procedure should always be done by inhaling and exhaling through your mouth.)
Deep breathing. To learn to breathe deeply, you first need to check how you currently take a deep breath. Do this now by standing in front of a mirror. As you take a really deep breath, watch what happens to your upper body and your stomach. You may notice that your upper body will move—if you took a really big breath, you may have raised your shoulders—and your stomach will be drawn in. Although the vast majority of the human race takes a deep breath in this way, it is wrong. It is wrong because it is backwards.
For a truly deep breath to occur, there must be little or no movement in your upper body—and at the same time your stomach must be pushed out. (This "belly breathing" is used by professional musicians.) To learn how to breathe deeply properly, put your hands on your stomach, directly on top of your navel. Now push in. While you are pushing in, push your hands away from your body with your stomach muscles. Then, as you relax your stomach muscles, let your hands push your stomach back in again. This in-and-out movement of your stomach muscles is the same movement that should occur when you breathe deeply.
Now that you have experienced this movement in your stomach muscles, you know which muscles to use for deep breathing. To learn the complete technique of natural deep breathing, follow this simple four- step procedure. (This procedure should always be done by inhaling and exhaling through your mouth.)
- Push your stomach in again with your hands.
- Let the air out of your lungs (be sure to keep your stomach pushed in).
- Now "breathe in, push out" and then
- "breathe out push in."
When you do this for the first time, it should feel different from any other kind of breathing you have experienced before. It may feel either labored or easy depending on how quickly you can adjust to the new coordination of your stomach muscles with your breathing patterns.
Do this several more times so that you can get the feel of what is happening to you. Don't despair if it doesn't come easy. If you are a woman, you have two strikes against you in learning this procedure. First, you must counteract years of physical conditioning. You have been breathing incorrectly for many years, and it may take some time for you to coordinate your muscles.
Second, social conditioning has taught you that, as a woman, "you must never push your stomach out." Let me reassure you that the first problem will take care of itself very quickly. The second is really nonexistent. When you learn to do this naturally, you can deep breathe and nobody will notice it.
Breathing slowly. Now that you have learned to breathe deeply, you must also learn how to breathe more slowly. If you breathe quickly and deeply, you will not get the full benefit of Natural Breathing. You can learn to breathe slowly by simply spelling the word "R-E-L-A-X" to yourself as you breathe in and again as you breathe out. Spell the word silently at the rate of about one letter per second. In this way it will take you about five to six seconds to inhale and the same amount of time to exhale. A total breathe cycle will last about ten to twelve seconds (which means about five or six breaths a minute).
This will probably feel a lot slower than the breathing you are used to. Try this now (using the four-part procedure for deep breathing you just learned) and see how slowly you can breathe. It would be unusual for you to get past the "L" in relax," because most people take in a quick breath and then try to slow it down for the remaining four seconds.
Musicians know that the secret to slow breathing is something called "breath control." When you begin to inhale, do it very gently and gradually, moving your stomach very slowly. You will probably find that controlling the speed of exhaling will be easier than controlling the speed of inhaling.
Breathing discontinuously. Finally, you need to learn how to breathe discontinuously. Listen to your breathing for a few seconds as you normally do it. You will notice that your exhaling and inhaling flow from one to the other. To breathe naturally, you must learn to pause after you exhale and before you take in another breath. How long this pause takes is insignificant. The important factor is that you put a discrete, specific pause between the exhale and the inhale. This pause will help you to further slow down your breathing.
Remember, the pause is the opposite of holding your breath. When you hold your breath, you stop breathing while your lungs are full of air; when you pause, you stop breathing when your lungs empty.
I have named this type of breathing "Natural Breathing" for a good reason: this is the way you naturally breathed when you were born. If you watch a baby on its back, you will notice the little tummy going slowly up and down as it breathes. When the stomach comes down on the exhale, there is a long pause before another breath is taken. So, you see, you are not learning anything new. Rather, you are relearning how to do something that your body considers natural and that which you have been taught not to do.
Now that you know how to breathe naturally, it is imperative that you also learn how to do it automatically. When you are stressed, it can be extremely difficult to remember a half-learned skill. To make Natural Breathing a regular part of your life, you need to practice this skill on a consistent basis.
If you would like to leave a comment, click on the comments link below
For an index of all blogs, go to Blog Index
Thursday, October 2, 2008
The Domino Effect
As we mentioned in our previous article on happiness, everybody wants to be happy. The pursuit of happiness is a right guaranteed in the constitution. But most people don't realize that there are two kinds of happiness: Happiness (with a capital H) and happiness (with a small h).
Happiness (big H) is something that runs very deep and is quite profound and long lasting; much more than its cousin, happiness (little h). Real Happiness goes by many names: tranquility, inner peace, serenity. Many other words also come to mind: calm, placidity, quiet, stillness, composure, poise, equanimity, repose, harmony, and peacefulness.
Unfortunately, people keep fooling themselves into thinking that happiness is merely feeling good. Not that feeling good is wrong or bad. It just don't happen to be the same thing as the big H. Little h happiness occurs when we can get rid of pain and suffering. Big H happiness is not the absence of conflict or pain, but rather the ability to cope with both.
B-E-S-T
Happiness is not a goal in life but is rather a by-product of something else. That something else is self control. Perhaps a good way to understand self control is in the sense of self management. Rather than let your life run you, you need to learn the skills to manage (control) your life so that you can experience it the way you want it. By controlling four specific components of your life, you can find your pathway to Happiness. These four parts are what comprise human nature. The more you can control each of these elements, the closer you are to the big H.
This is different from New Age beliefs that promise you the ability to "feel good" no matter what is happening to you. Happiness (with the big "H") doesn't rule out suffering, pain and emotional distress. What it does give you is the ability to cope during such times. It gives you the self confidence that no matter what happens, you will eventually make it through and be a stronger person for it.
These four keys to Happiness are not independent of one another. They constantly interact with and affect each other. The chain reaction that is seen with dominoes is a good way to understand your life. Imagine a set of 5 dominoes where each one represents an important aspect of control. The diagram to the left shows what this might look like.
The first domino represents everything outside of you that triggers off the second domino. This could include weather, people, health, work and any other event that you encounter in your life.
The second domino stands for your thought life. Feelings (emotions and sensations) are the third domino and the fourth is your behavior domino.
The last domino stands for any consequences that happen in the outside world as the result of your behavior. You need to know that these dominoes never change position.
The Big H type happiness occurs when all the dominoes are standing. This is difficult because the first domino, life, has a tendency to keep falling on you (did you notice the round bottom?). So many things can go wrong in life. Yet, we try to keep the dominoes standing by attempting to control the first domino. This is not possible because you have no control over life events.
No matter how hard you try to keep the life domino from falling, it will eventually fall. Every time you set the first domino up it falls again. Then all the other dominoes fall. The trick is to spend less time trying to straighten out life.
You can have the Big H when you have learned to make the second domino immovable. You want to learn how to mentally superglue the second domino to the tabletop. When you can do this by changing your thought life, then you will have Happiness because the rest of the dominoes will remain standing.
In addition to managing your thought life, you also want to learn how to manage your emotions, sensations and behavior. In The Worry Free Life, we show you, step by step how to learn these new skills and apply them to your life.
Cognitive therapy has been one of the most exciting developments in mental health in this century. By discovering that emotions are produced by thinking, psychologists have given the human race a means of finally doing something about such crippling infirmities as depression and guilt.
If you would like to begin a dialogue on the dominoes feel free to click on the comments link below.
If you would like to leave a comment, click on the comments link below
For an index of all blogs, go to Blog Index
Happiness (big H) is something that runs very deep and is quite profound and long lasting; much more than its cousin, happiness (little h). Real Happiness goes by many names: tranquility, inner peace, serenity. Many other words also come to mind: calm, placidity, quiet, stillness, composure, poise, equanimity, repose, harmony, and peacefulness.
Unfortunately, people keep fooling themselves into thinking that happiness is merely feeling good. Not that feeling good is wrong or bad. It just don't happen to be the same thing as the big H. Little h happiness occurs when we can get rid of pain and suffering. Big H happiness is not the absence of conflict or pain, but rather the ability to cope with both.
B-E-S-T
Happiness is not a goal in life but is rather a by-product of something else. That something else is self control. Perhaps a good way to understand self control is in the sense of self management. Rather than let your life run you, you need to learn the skills to manage (control) your life so that you can experience it the way you want it. By controlling four specific components of your life, you can find your pathway to Happiness. These four parts are what comprise human nature. The more you can control each of these elements, the closer you are to the big H.
This is different from New Age beliefs that promise you the ability to "feel good" no matter what is happening to you. Happiness (with the big "H") doesn't rule out suffering, pain and emotional distress. What it does give you is the ability to cope during such times. It gives you the self confidence that no matter what happens, you will eventually make it through and be a stronger person for it.
These four keys to Happiness are not independent of one another. They constantly interact with and affect each other. The chain reaction that is seen with dominoes is a good way to understand your life. Imagine a set of 5 dominoes where each one represents an important aspect of control. The diagram to the left shows what this might look like.
The first domino represents everything outside of you that triggers off the second domino. This could include weather, people, health, work and any other event that you encounter in your life.
The second domino stands for your thought life. Feelings (emotions and sensations) are the third domino and the fourth is your behavior domino.
The last domino stands for any consequences that happen in the outside world as the result of your behavior. You need to know that these dominoes never change position.
The Big H type happiness occurs when all the dominoes are standing. This is difficult because the first domino, life, has a tendency to keep falling on you (did you notice the round bottom?). So many things can go wrong in life. Yet, we try to keep the dominoes standing by attempting to control the first domino. This is not possible because you have no control over life events.
No matter how hard you try to keep the life domino from falling, it will eventually fall. Every time you set the first domino up it falls again. Then all the other dominoes fall. The trick is to spend less time trying to straighten out life.
You can have the Big H when you have learned to make the second domino immovable. You want to learn how to mentally superglue the second domino to the tabletop. When you can do this by changing your thought life, then you will have Happiness because the rest of the dominoes will remain standing.
In addition to managing your thought life, you also want to learn how to manage your emotions, sensations and behavior. In The Worry Free Life, we show you, step by step how to learn these new skills and apply them to your life.
Cognitive therapy has been one of the most exciting developments in mental health in this century. By discovering that emotions are produced by thinking, psychologists have given the human race a means of finally doing something about such crippling infirmities as depression and guilt.
If you would like to begin a dialogue on the dominoes feel free to click on the comments link below.
If you would like to leave a comment, click on the comments link below
For an index of all blogs, go to Blog Index
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
