The Mind Body Connection

“…physical exertion itself has a much bigger influence on the brain than previously thought. Just this week, a survey of existing research published by the Cochrane Library concluded that the same aerobic exercise that is good for your heart also improves cognitive function—specifically, motor function, auditory attention, and memory—in healthy older adults. ” John J. Ratey, author of Spark.

“The magical ingredient here, according to Hillman, is brain-derived neurotrophic factor, or BDNF. It builds up in those who regularly exercise, causing the brain’s cells to “branch out, join together and communicate with each other in new ways. This and other research has shown that physical activity is therapeutic. We now know that brain cells can grow and regenerate as we age, and exercising may encourage this process” Exercise and the Brain

Personal development includes exercise. Exercise affects our brain and mind. I am more than my brain but I am quite dependent on the health of my brain (and the rest of my body). A healthy mind needs a healthy brain.

TAGS: brain and mind, memory, health, mind body connection, brain-derived neurotrophic factor

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How Our Left and Right Hemisphere Process Information Differently

Watch this video by Dr Jill Taylor Bolte - this video has a lot of great information. What really grabs my attention is the description of how our left and right hemisphere process information differently.

“Our right hemisphere functions like a parallel processor (Parallel processing is the ability of the brain to simultaneously process incoming stimuli.) Our left hemisphere functions like a serial processor (Serial processing occurs sequentially.) Because they process information differently, each of our hemisphere think about different things, they care about different things and dare I say they have very different personalities. Our right human hemisphere is all about this present moment. Its all about right here, right now. Our right hemisphere it thinks in pictures and it learns kinesthetically through the movement of our bodies. Information in the form of energy, streams in simultaneously through all of our sensory systems and then it explodes into this enormous collage of what this present moment looks like, what this present moment smells like and tastes like, what it feels like and what it sounds like. I am an energy being connected to the energy all around me through the consciousness of my right hemisphere. We are energy beings connected to one another through the consciousness of our right hemispheres…

My left hemisphere, our left hemisphere, is a very different place. Our left hemisphere thinks linearly and methodically. Our left hemisphere is all about the past and its all about the future. Our left hemisphere is designed to take that enormous collage of the present moment and start picking out details, details and more details about those details. It then categorizes and organizes all that information, associates it with everything in the past we have ever learned and projects into the future all our possibilities.”

There are two almost instantaneous processes. The first involves the sensory input and the second involves interpretation of that data.

It is the interpretation of the data that will shape our life. How we interpret the data will affect our quality of life. Personal development is all about changing how we interpret the incoming data. Did you know that optimism can change your life expectancy? (Go to this site to see how pessimism/optimism affects your life expectancy.

TAGS:consciousness, dr. jill taylor, hemisphere, possibilities

Technorati Tags: personalities, Personal development, optimism

Past and Future Focus with the Law of Attraction

Imagination is what allows us to “see” the future.

Memory allows us to see the past.

Perception allows us to see the present.

The Law of Attraction states that whatever I give my energy, attention and focus to, I receive (attract) more of.

Often we attract more of what we don’t want - by focusing on what has already happened. (Memory). Instead, we need to focus on what we want by using imagination. Visualization is forward focusing.

Often, it is our perception of our present circumstances and focusing on what has already happened that gets in the way of our forward focusing. When we visualize that beautiful new 7 bedroom mansion with jacuzzi hotub and home theater, our perception tries to remind us that we are living in a 1 bedroom apartment and our memory that wants us to focus on the stack of bills.

If we are to move from where we are to where we want to be we need to look forward rather than behind.

“Imagination is the highest kite one can fly.” Lauren Bacall

TAGS: focus, imagination, attention, energy

Technorati Tags: Imagination, Visualization, mansion

Visualizing success by keeping it real

Aaron Potts at Today is that Day wrote a great article about visualization

As I read this article it popped into my head that actors must have an advantage visualizing because acting is about emotion. This brought me to google acting and emotions which brought me to http://redbirdstudio.com/AWOL/essence.html

This part caught my attention: “the actor does not see himself as an actor playing the role of the father. He sees himself as the father . He sees through the eyes of the father. His attention (focus) is on himself as the father; who is experiencing real events; who has a past; who has real desires; who interacts with real people and real things in spontaneous ways (not as scripted words.)”

This is how we must visualize. Not acting but feeling. Not following a script but actually being in that moment. This is what visualization is all about. Creating that experience that you want as real and with emotion. As Aaron says “I keep it real” - This is what visualization is - creating the experience as real as possible in your mind.

“We lift ourselves by our thought. We climb upon our vision of ourselves. If you want to enlarge your life, you must first enlarge your thought of it and of yourself. Hold the ideal of yourself as you long to be, always everywhere.” Orison Swett Marden.

TAGS:acting, emotions, feelings, success, thought

Technorati Tags: emotion, visualize, thought

Gratitude

“We consider enjoyment to have two primary components; appreciation and gratitude. To fully enjoy something, we must first appreciate it, like it, savor it. This is fun, of course, but when we add the second element - gratitude - we add thankfulness to the appreciation and have full, rounded, heartfelt enjoyment.”
Wealth 101: Getting What You Want-Enjoying What You’ve Got by John-Roger and Peter McWilliams

“Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.” Oprah Winfrey

“Who does not thank for little will not thank for much.” Estonian proverb

The Law of Attraction states that you attract to your life whatever you give your energy, attention and focus. With appreciation and gratitude you are focusing on what you have. The more you are grateful, the more you will attract to be grateful for. Look at the people you know that are successful. Is gratitude part of their success?

Is gratitude part of your success?

TAGS: focus,Law of Attraction, Oprah Winfrey, thankfulness, wealth 101

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Time Marches On

I really like this line from Rudyard Kipling’s poem, If

“If you can fill the unforgiving minute, with sixty seconds’ worth of distance run ”

Each minute in our life IS unforgiving. It goes whether we want it to, or not. Each minute gathers into hours, hours into days and days into your lifetime. Where we are today, WHO we are today, is the sum total of those seconds and unforgiving minutes spent. Who we will be is the sum total of the seconds and minutes we are spending now.

And that is why we must spend each minute with sixty seconds of distance run. Kipling didn’t say 60 seconds of frantic sprint. For me distance run means measured, consistent effort. Not each and every minute of course, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. But in order to become the person we want to be, there must be consistent effort - this is what personal development is all about.

TAGS: personal development, rudyard kipling, lifetime

“If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies, Or being hated, don’t give way to hating, And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream — and not make dreams your master; If you can think — and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two imposters just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with kings — nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run — Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, And — which is more — you’ll be a Man, my son!”

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Success

One of my favorite philosophers/ motivational speaker is Jim Rohn.

Here is a video of Jim Rohn which includes some great quotes on personal development and success, including two of my favorites:

Success is something you attract by the person you become.

Your income is directly related to your philosophy…

Enjoy the video…

TAGS: jim rohn, income

Technorati Tags: personal development, Success

Follow your dreams

When you are clear on your purpose , you can follow your dreams .

In each of us is a quiet voice, telling us to move toward our dreams, to live the life we are supposed to live. What dreams do you have? Is it time to listen to that little voice and move toward your dreams?

“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” C.S. Lewis

TAGS: dreams, C.S. Lewis, personal development,life purpose,Paul Potts

The Next Paradigm Shift

A paradigm is a philosophical and theoretical framework, a viewpoint from which we see the world. What we know about about previous paradigms is that our paradigms are constantly changing. Paradigm shift was first used by Thomas Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions..

“The paradigm shift under way today is not just happening in science. It also extends into society and is powerfully impacting our culture. Perhaps the most important shift that is taking place is personal. Over the last couple of decades, many thousands, maybe many millions of people have undergone dramatic transformations in their values, perceptions, and ways of relating to each other and the world”
William Arntz, Betsy Chasse and Mark Vicente
What the Bleep Do we Know

Let’s look at some paradigms or world views that used to be held. The world is flat.
Can you believe that people used to think the world was flat? Here is another paradigm that used to be widely held. Illness is caused by evil spirits. We now know that illness is caused by germs and viruses. From our viewpoint, its easy to see how we have gained so much information over the last century, we have become so much more sophisticated than our predecessors. This begs the question from a future person’s viewpoint 100 years from now, what will they be saying about us?

“Can you believe that back in the 21st century they believed that ….

What do you think will have changed in our paradigms over the next 100 years? What ideas do you hold as valid, that may be disproved? Are you ready for the next paradigm shift?

TAGS: 21st century, paradigm shift, thomas kuhn, viewpoint

Technorati Tags: paradigm, society, culture, 21st century

Brain Entrainment

Research shows that when two different frequencies are presented to each ear through stereo headphones(binaural beats),the entire brain becomes entrained to a frequency equal to the difference between the two tones. For example, frequencies of 200 hz and 220 hz produce a binaural beat frequency of 20hz.

What can we use entrainment for?

Lucid dreams,altered states, meditative states, increased intuition and awareness, accelerated learning, elimination of insomnia; we can use sound waves to carry us into the higher frequencies of consciousness, where profound personal transformations can take place.

Electrical activity in your brain can be measured by EEG (electroencephalography).

The electrical activity changes depending on what a person is doing.

BETA waves (14 - 100 Hz) dominate the normal waking state of consciousness. When attention is directed towards the outside world.

ALPHA waves (8-13.9 Hz) are present during dreaming and light meditation when the eyes-are closed. Alpha is also the state in which the window frequency known as the Schuman Resonance occurs. This is the frequency of the earth’s magnetic field.(More on this later.)

THETA waves (4-7.9 Hz) occur in dreaming sleep.

DELTA waves (.1 to 3.9 Hz) are experienced in deep meditation and deep sleep.

If you can make your brain wave patterns change at will, you can create conditions that are better suited for certain types of activities.

Meditation

Meditation balances the brain through some form of focusing, such as repeating a prayer or mantra, focusing on breathing, staring at a candle or other point of focus, or by many other techniques. As a person meditates, they move from a beta brain wave to an alpha. With (much) practice, the person meditating moves into the deeper theta and finally delta state and experiences expanded awareness and transcendental states.

Brain entrainment using auditory stimuli allows this process to happen much quicker and easier.

Lucid Dreaming

Lucid dreaming is when a person is aware that he or she is dreaming while the dream is in progress. During lucid dreams, it is often possible to exert control over the dream characters and environment, as well as to perform otherwise physically impossible feats.

“In the lucid dream you look around and realize that the whole world…is all something that your mind is creating”
- Stephen LaBerge.

Lucid Dreaming usually takes place in REM sleep. Brain entrainment can facilitate the brain wave states found in naturally occurring sleep cycles, including REM.

For more information on Brain Entrainment