Social commentator speaks out
Posts tagged Neuroscience
Thinking Positive
Apr 15th
Neuroscientists have discovered that if you want to break a habit, stop trying to.
AN interesting thing happened recently. After two years of being over my desired body weight, I suddenly lost the weight very quickly. Of course, as the weight started falling off, I went to the doctor, who ordered all the mandatory tests. But I’m happily healthy.
So what happened? It’s a psychological phenomenon. There’s an old adage which is one of my favourites: ‘‘What we resist persists.’’ I had decided to go on a diet and a health kick. Which — as those who diet know — just puts on more weight. You are always going to ‘‘start tomorrow’’, which gives full licence to eat a lot today; and tomorrow never comes. And if it does then the feeling of deprivation hits so hard, you binge-eat. You ‘‘forget’’ to exercise because it’s hard carrying all that weight.
The attempted diet lasted two years. But then I gave it up.
So here’s what happened. I changed my goal. By going for something far bigger and more positive than losing weight, I stopped focusing and lost interest in the whole thing — thus not needing to eat to placate myself.
Let me explain. We develop an obsession when are trying to give something up. It becomes the whole focus of our being, making us feel powerless and out of control. More >
Happiness & It’s Causes
May 2nd
2010 Happiness & It's Causes Conference
AN ESTIMATED 3000 PEOPLE will gather at the Entertainment Centre in Brisbane next month, to attend one of the greatest shows on earth, the annual Happiness and its Causes Conference. The brightest minds in philosophy, psychology, science, religion and the arts come together each year for three conferences held in three locations around the world London, San Francisco and an Australian city to explore the age-old question – “How can we lead a happier, more meaningful life?”
With depression now effecting 1 in 10 people in the western world, there is an ever increasing hunger for solutions to our suffering. The star of the show in Brisbane this year will be the happiest man in the world, His Holiness The Dalai Lama, happy not because of his external circumstances but the way he looks at life.
System overload
Apr 3rd
DURING the first few days of the Japanese disaster, I was disturbed at some of my own behaviour.
Like most of us, I watched unfolding events with horror and many tears. But then my focus changed. When it came time to make dinner, the focus of my obsession became the process of cooking. My emotions were frayed – however this time it was because there was no garlic. And I was angry that my daughter didn’t want pasta after I’d put the pasta on. Moments before, I’d been trembling in front of the TV watching apocalyptic scenes of devastation, and the possibility of a nuclear holocaust. Suddenly the only thing consuming me was garlic. More >
Kids in Cyberspace
Jul 22nd
Posted by Ruth Ostrow in All Posts
12 comments
YOU only have to be the parent of a child over the age of seven to know what I’m talking about: the vacant eyes so preoccupied by what’s on screen that they can’t focus on your face for more than a few seconds before being drawn back into the cyberworld.
As you talk, your little darling types or toggles. “Are you listening to me?” you ask, only to be told in a precocious tone: “Yeahhhh. I’m multitasking, Mum.”
It gets worse. By 16, girls no longer seem to have use of their tongues. “Text it to me, Mum,” quips my daughter, barely able to contain her contempt that she has to speak and breathe at the same time. I know one mother who got her daughter to the dinner table by posting the request on Facebook. It was so like social death for the girl that, like, she never failed to come to the table again. Technologies such as Twitter are alarmingly succinct. If you can’t say it in two lines, don’t bother. Luckily, I come from the dinosaur era of the telegram: “Come home (stop) Finish homework (stop) Or no mobile (stop).”
More >