Reality Upgrade

I have not tried this yet, but only because I have not had to study for anything in a while. However, with school starting around the country, this may be very useful to some of you.

This is a great article on how your brain works, and how to take advantage of it in order to study more effectively, especially when it comes to studying information gathered from the internet.

Thanks to Lifehacker for turning me on to this article!

If any of you end up using these techniques, please comment and share how they worked for you!

Self control. We exhibit self control all the time, in all sorts of ways.

When I sit down to watch a movie, I really enjoy eating a bowl of ice cream while I watch, even though I know how bad it is for me. Sometimes I know I should go to bed and get some sleep, but I stay up watching TV instead. And sometimes, I just want some french fries.

What is interesting is when I am able to resist the temptation, and when I give in. When I have a long exhausting day at the office, chances are I am going to be busting out the ice cream scoop when I get home. On the other hand, if I have a nice easy day at work, I might cut up an apple instead, or skip the movie completely and go running.

As it turns out, the reason I fail to resist temptations sometimes is because I have used up my self control, or will power.

There have been many studies done on this subject, but in this particular study test subjects are given two plates, one with radishes and one with chocolate chip cookies. One group of subjects is told to eat only the radishes, and solve a complicated (and unsolvable) puzzle. Another group was told to eat the cookies, and solve the puzzle.

On average, it took the cookie-eaters 19 minutes to give up, and it took the radish eaters 8 minutes.

This is because the radish-eaters were using up their willpower on resisting the cookies, and therefor had less to spend on trying to solve the puzzle.

By remembering that willpower/self control is a limited commodity, it is possible to make decisions about where to spend it. If you have a big test tomorrow, maybe tonight you should let the house cleaning go. If you don’t want to drink too much at a party, maybe you should not go window shopping before hand. And whatever you do, don’t go car shopping if you have used up any of your willpower at all.

On the other hand, willpower can be trained, just like muscles.

The idea of exercising willpower is seen in military boot camp, where recruits are trained to overcome one challenge after another. In psychological studies, even something as simple as using your nondominant hand to brush your teeth for two weeks can increase willpower capacity. People who stick to an exercise program for two months report reducing their impulsive spending, junk food intake, alcohol use and smoking. They also study more, watch less television and do more housework. Other forms of willpower training, like money-management classes, work as well.

- NY Times

So start with small changes, something as small as brushing your teeth with your opposite hand, and slowly build up to bigger challenges, and your willpower will increase over all.

I have talked about this before, here, and mentioned another article about it from the NY Times.

This is a fantastic video about the true nature of freedom of choice, or rather our shocking lack thereof. As Dan says, we are good at coping with our physical constraints…stairs, clothes, etc. But we are not so good at dealing with, or even acknowledging, our mental constraints.

Dan Ariely is the author of Predictably Irrational, a great book that I am reading right now, and which I highly recommend.

If the video below does not work for some reason, the original is at TED.com

This is a great video about the surprising science of motivation by career analyst Dan Pink, thanks to one of my favorite websites, TED.

This video is only about 18 minutes long, and is a must for anyone who owns, manages, or ever plans on managing a business.

If you have any trouble playing the video, click here for the original on the TED website.

Gmail recently added a feature called “Undo Send”, which actually holds your email for 5 seconds before it sends it. In the mean time, you can press the “Undo” button, and potentially save yourself some embarassment.

As it turns out, 5 seconds is just long enough for most people to realize that they made a mistake, and hit the Undo button.

Wouldn’t it be great if we had a Undo Send button in real life?

Well, maybe we do. All you have to do is wait five seconds to respond to something, especially if you are upset. In the typical conversation, a five second pause is just that, a pause. It won’t seem strange to the person you’re talking to, and it might just prevent you from telling your boss where to shove it.

(continue reading…)

What makes us happy? Not happy in the I-just-got-some-chocolate temporary way, but really, truly happy in the long term. The kind of happy where you die at 87, with your great-grandchildren around you and think, “I had a good life, and wound not change anything.”

Is there some formula, some magic mix of psychology, upbringing, career, and love that lead to a good life?

For 72 years, researchers at Harvard have been trying to find out. (continue reading…)

Google and I, well, we’re involved. 

Ok, not so much, but having everything I need in one place, for free, is pretty awesome, and now that Google Calendar has integrated a task feature, I may well never use outlook again.

Learn all about it on this article by Google Operating System.

I first understood the power of the body to affect the mind when I was sitting in a yoga class many years ago. I was in the class after a very long day, I was tired, and I did not want to be there. I was grumpy, annoyed, distracted, and sleepy. Not the best disposition for a class about relaxation.

The teacher said “Take a deep breath.” I did not really want to, since I was feeling somewhat rebellious. But I was already there, so…..

I took a deep breath, and like magic, I calmed down. My frustration and tension and distraction melted away, and suddenly I was ready to do yoga.

The best way for you to know what I felt is to try it yourself. So take a deep breath.

Go ahead. I’ll wait.

See how that felt? It had nothing to do with your mind…that was your body taking over, relaxing for you.

The deep breath is a great example of how breathing can contribute to relaxation, but there is much more to this concept. By understanding how the subconscious mind uses the body to communicate,

Nervousness, confidence, shyness, anger, fear, discomfort, sexual attraction; all of these are communicated by body language, and for many of us this happens without our even being aware of it. But for those of us who are aware of it…knowledge is power.

Not only is it possible to bypass the subconscious signals and intercept that communication, but it is even possible to change our own moods and feelings. Act confident, and you will become confident. Act fearful, and you will be fearful. More than what you eat, you are what you do.

In this series on body language, we will explore together several aspects of body language, the subconscious signals that each bit of body language demonstrates…and how to fake it till you make it.

After all, in the words of the great psycologist Carl Jung: “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life, and you will call it fate.”

Direct your own life. Be your own fate.

Welcome to Reality Upgrade.

The entire history of human evolution (or Divine will, or aliens, whatever) has been slowly distilling the very best traits of mankind, carefully weeding out the weak or useless parts. Generations of your ancestors struggled and lived and had hot wild sex, all for the purpose of making you the best that you could be.  You are the absolute top of the line, cutting edge, best of the best human that there could possibly be.  (Well, you might be the cheaper, generic brand version, but you’re still pretty awesome.)  

Your ancestors went through a lot of effort to give you the very best hardware that you could possibly have.  Shit, some of your ancestors probably had to fight saber toothed tigers in order to pass on their genes to you.  The least you can do is update your software.

Upgrade your reality here.