Several weeks ago, I sat down for a coaching session with a very senior executive at a Fortune 50 company. Let's call him Richard. He'd invited my company in to help his team better manage the overwhelming demand he believed was taking a toll on their productivity and their satisfaction.

I began by asking Richard to describe his own workday. He told me that he arrived at the office about 7:30 a.m. and worked virtually straight through until 9 p.m. He consumed his lunch in less than 5 minutes at his desk. If he went out to dinner, it was for a business meeting.

"That's pretty typical of people at my level, isn't it?" he asked me.

Sadly, it just may be.

What set this executive apart from most I meet is that he recognized this way of working wasn't serving him well. In recent years, he'd stopped exercising and put on considerable weight. He loved his work, and felt energized by it, but he worried that pushing himself so hard was taking a long term toll.

I suggested he begin with a couple of very simple changes. The first was to schedule a time at least three times a week to work out. He did that almost immediately, and successfully — at 6 pm, as a break before returning to work.

The second change I suggested was to get outside for lunch at midday, for at least 30 minutes. He agreed, and we actually scheduled the time in his calendar, with his assistant, but I could tell he wasn't confident he'd make it happen.

I wasn't entirely surprised. The Energy Project, the organization I run, recently conducted a poll on the Huffington Post about people's experience in the workplace. Sixty per cent of 1200 respondents told us they took less than 20 minutes a day for lunch. Twenty per cent took less than 10 minutes. One quarter said they never left their desks at all.

That's consistent with a study by the American Dietetic Association, which found that 75 per cent of office workers eat lunch at their desk at least two to three days a week.

Those poll findings were the inspiration for a movement The Energy Project is about to launch. The concept couldn't be more straightforward. We're calling it Take Back Your Lunch. It begins this Wednesday, between noon and 2 p.m., in locations around the country, and continues every Wednesday this summer. Find out where people will be gathering — or organize a Take Back Your Lunch Meetup in your city or town.

Far too many of us — managers and employees alike — have bought into the belief that the best way to keep up with demand is to be working all the time.

What if you set an example for the people you manage by taking back your own lunch - and by encouraging them to do the same?

At the most practical level, leaving the office for lunch is an opportunity to relax, let go of whatever stresses you've accumulated during the morning, and return to work feeling more energized, more focused and more engaged in the afternoon.

Taking back your lunch is the first step in taking back your life.

It's been three weeks since Richard made his own commitment to take back his lunch. Last week he got out twice. Can you commit to at least once? Invite your whole office starting Wednesday.

Tony Schwartz is president and CEO of The Energy Project. Tony is the author of the June, 2010 HBR article, "The Productivity Paradox: How Sony Pictures Gets More Out of People by Demanding Less," and coauthor, with Catherine McCarthy, of the 2007 HBR article, "Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time." His new book is"The Way We're Working Isn't Working: The Four Forgotten Needs that Energize Great Performance" (Free Press, 2010).

Taken from
http://www.medpagetoday.com/PrimaryCare/Smoking/17860

Positive Messages may be the key to getting smokers to start Behaviour Change

Telling people about the benefits of quitting is more likely to help smokers break the habit than scaring them with the dangers of continuing, researchers found.

Callers to a tobacco quitline were nearly twice as likely to stop in the short term when they got positive messages rather than negative ones in a randomized trial led by Benjamin A. Toll, PhD, of Yale University School of Medicine.

The effect lasted less than three months, Toll's group reported online in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Still, that's a good start, although one or two years is the ultimate test of cessation, said Thomas J. Glynn, PhD, of the American Cancer Society.

"It's a taste for what we might be able to do with positive encouragement," Glynn told MedPage Today. "It's like a lot of other therapies, we get the hint at the beginning that there is some germ of effectiveness and then . . . tweak that to try and make it last longer."

The notion that positive messages are more motivating shouldn't be a surprise, considering findings from other branches of medicine, Glynn said.

Furthermore, the very fact that people call the quitline suggests that they are already aware of the risks of smoking and may not need them reiterated, he said.

His organization and agencies in all 50 states have some type of free, telephone-based counseling program to help smokers quit, but the call centers typically employ a mix of positive and negative messages -- determined by the individual counselor, Glynn noted.

These results suggest that "going right into positive mode may be best," he said, a strategy that physicians should also consider adopting when faced with a patient who's thinking about quitting.

Quitlines reach only about 1% of the nation's smokers, but the technology is fairly new, Glynn said: "They've really only come into their own in the last decade."

Research has been far outpaced by rapidly evolving programs, which now may include Internet and even text messaging components, added Robert T. Croyle, PhD, of the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md.

In an accompanying editorial, Croyle cautioned that the study results were weakened by confounding since the duration of the positive messages was longer.

The trial included 28 counselors working at the New York State Smokers' Quitline who were randomly assigned to provide standard or "gain-framed" counseling and print materials to the 2,032 callers between March 10 and June 13, 2008.

All medically-eligible callers were mailed a two-week starter pack of a nicotine replacement system.

Standard messages included both a discussion of the costs of smoking and the benefits of quitting whereas the gain-framed version focused on positive effects of quitting.

For example, "If you quit smoking you will be more likely to resist colds and flu" was the gain-framed variation of "Smokers are more likely to get colds and flu."

The training for counselors appeared effective, as those who were to provide gain-framed statements actually did so significantly more often than the control group counselors (3.9 versus 1.4 mean messages on achieving benefits and 1.5 versus 1.0 mean gain-framed messages for avoiding negative consequences, both P<0.001).

Callers appeared to benefit as well.

When surveyed two weeks after their initial call, 23.3% who got the positive messages had been tobacco-free for the prior 24 hours compared with just 12.6% in the standard message group (odds ratio 2.1, P<0.001).

Quit attempts, whether successful or not, were more common as well at two weeks (31.1% versus 16.7%, P<0.001).

However, the effect of positive messaging was short-lived.

By the three-month follow-up, abstinence rates over the prior seven days was similar between groups (28.4% gain-framed versus 26.6% standard messages, P=0.48). Use of nicotine replacement therapy was likewise no different between groups at three months (P=0.25).

"Multiple messages may be necessary for longer-term impact," Toll's group wrote.

The researchers noted that the results would need to be replicated by other quitlines.

They cautioned, too, that the gain-framed group got an extra 2.5 minutes with the counselor (mean call length 14 minutes and 37 seconds versus 12 minutes and 8 seconds, P=0.001).

Other limitations included the low intensity of the intervention due to the brief contact, low follow-up rates, and potentially limited generalizability.

Obesity Rates Hit Plateau in U.S., Data Suggest

   By PAM BELLUCK
Published: January 13, 2010

Americans, at least as a group, may have reached their peak of obesity, according to data the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released Wednesday.

The numbers indicate that obesity rates have remained constant for at least five years among men and for closer to 10 years among women and children — long enough for experts to say the percentage of very overweight people has leveled off.

But the percentages have topped out at very high numbers. Nearly 34 percent of adults are obese, more than double the percentage 30 years ago. The share of obese children tripled during that time, to 17 percent.

“Right now we’ve halted the progress of the obesity epidemic,” said Dr. William H. Dietz, director of the division of nutrition, physical activity and obesity at the disease control centers. “The data are really promising.

“That said, I don’t think we have in place the kind of policy or environmental changes needed to reverse this epidemic just yet.”

Dr. Dietz said the data probably reflected increased awareness of the obesity problem, especially among women, “who buy food, prepare it and see it, and they’re making changes for themselves that they’re also making for their kids.” He also cited a reduction in “less healthful foods” at school.

Some experts, though, were not optimistic that the leveling off was a result of improved eating and exercise habits.

“Until we see rates improving, not just staying the same, we can’t have any confidence that our lifestyle has improved,” said Dr. David Ludwig, director of the Optimal Weight for Life Program at Children’s Hospital Boston.

Dr. Ludwig said the plateau might just suggest that “we’ve reached a biological limit” to how obese people could get. When people eat more, he said, at first they gain weight; then a growing share of the calories go “into maintaining and moving around that excess tissue,” he continued, so that “a population doesn’t keep getting heavier and heavier indefinitely.”

Furthermore, Dr. Ludwig said, “it could be that most of the people who are genetically susceptible, or susceptible for psychological or behavioral reasons, have already become obese.”

The numbers, published in The Journal of the American Medical Association, are based on national surveys that record heights and weights of a representative sample of Americans. People are considered obese if their body mass index — a ratio of height to weight — is 30 or greater. Someone five and a half feet tall is obese at 186 pounds; a six-foot person is obese at 221 pounds.

Even though the data show an overall plateau for obesity rates, they indicate an increase from 1999 to 2008 in the heaviest boys, ages 6 to 19, primarily whites. Experts speculated that heavy children in environments of unhealthy food and physical inactivity might simply be shifting into the top weight categories because their situation had not improved.

African-American adults have the highest obesity rates — 37 percent among men and nearly 50 percent among women. For Hispanic women, the rate is 43 percent. Hispanic and black children have higher rates than non-Hispanic whites.

Federal health officials had set a goal a decade ago that no more than 15 percent of people would be obese in 2010.

“We aren’t near that, and we haven’t moved in that direction,” said Cynthia L. Ogden, an epidemiologist at the National Center for Health Statistics and an author of the reports.

In addition, 68 percent of adults and nearly one-third of children are considered at least overweight, with a body mass index of 25 or higher. For a 5-foot-8 person, that would be 164 pounds.

Dr. Dietz said he hoped the obesity data would follow what happened with smoking rates, which leveled off before declining. But he said obesity was difficult to address because while “tobacco is a single source, obesity is both physical activity and diet.”

Experts like Steven Gortmaker, a Harvard public health professor, said obesity would decline only with new policies, like penalties and incentives to promote healthier foods and exercise.

“If you look at the reversal of the smoking epidemic,” Dr. Gortmaker said, “substantial change didn’t really happen until there were bans on advertising and limits on consumption through things like taxation. We have to make some substantial changes.”

Is this a sign that wellness is on the improve?

Taken from
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/17/technology/17distracted.html?th&emc=th

Driven to Distraction
SAN FRANCISCO — On the day of the collision last month, visibility was good. The sidewalk was not under repair. As she walked, Tiffany Briggs, 25, was talking to her grandmother on her cellphone, lost in conversation.
Phones aren't just distracting drivers; they make pedestrians inattentive too.
“I ran into a truck,” Ms. Briggs said.
It was parked in a driveway.
Distracted driving has gained much attention lately because of the inflated crash risk posed by drivers using cellphones to talk and text.
But there is another growing problem caused by lower-stakes multitasking — distracted walking — which combines a pedestrian, an electronic device and an unseen crack in the sidewalk, the pole of a stop sign, a toy left on the living room floor or a parked (or sometimes moving) car.
The era of the mobile gadget is making mobility that much more perilous, particularly on crowded streets and in downtown areas where multiple multitaskers veer and swerve and walk to the beat of their own devices.
Most times, the mishaps for a distracted walker are minor, like the lightly dinged head and broken fingernail that Ms. Briggs suffered, a jammed digit or a sprained ankle, and, the befallen say, a nasty case of hurt pride. Of course, the injuries can sometimes be serious — and they are on the rise.
Slightly more than 1,000 pedestrians visited emergency rooms in 2008 because they got distracted and tripped, fell or ran into something while using a cellphone to talk or text. That was twice the number from 2007, which had nearly doubled from 2006, according to a study conducted by Ohio State University, which says it is the first to estimate such accidents.
“It’s the tip of the iceberg,” said Jack L. Nasar, a professor of city and regional planning at Ohio State, noting that the number of mishaps is probably much higher considering that most of the injuries are not severe enough to require a hospital visit. What is more, he said, texting is rising sharply and devices like the iPhone have thousands of new, engaging applications to preoccupy phone users.
Mr. Nasar supervised the statistical analysis, which was done by Derek Troyer, one of his graduate students. He looked at records of emergency room visits compiled by the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
Examples of such visits include a 16-year-old boy who walked into a telephone pole while texting and suffered a concussion; a 28-year-old man who tripped and fractured a finger on the hand gripping his cellphone; and a 68-year-old man who fell off the porch while talking on a cellphone, spraining a thumb and an ankle and causing dizziness.

Young people injured themselves more often. About half the visits Mr. Troyer studied were by people under 30, and a quarter were 16 to 20 years old. But more than a quarter of those injured were 41 to 60 years old.
Pedestrians, like drivers, have long been distracted by myriad tasks, like snacking or reading on the go. But the constant interaction with electronic devices has made single-tasking seem boring or even unproductive.
Cognitive psychologists, neurologists and other researchers are beginning to study the impact of constant multitasking, whether behind a desk or the wheel or on foot. It might stand to reason that someone looking at a phone to read a message would misstep, but the researchers are finding that just talking on a phone takes its own considerable toll on cognition and awareness.
Sometimes, pedestrians using their phones do not notice objects or people that are right in front of them — even a clown riding a unicycle. That was the finding of a recent study at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Wash., by a psychology professor, Ira Hyman, and his students.
One of the students dressed as a clown and unicycled around a central square on campus. About half the people walking past by themselves said they had seen the clown, and the number was slightly higher for people walking in pairs. But only 25 percent of people talking on a cellphone said they had, Mr. Hyman said.
He said the term commonly applied to such preoccupation is “inattention blindness,” meaning a person can be looking at an object but fail to register it or process what it is.
Particularly fascinating, Mr. Hyman said, is that people walking in pairs were more than twice as likely to see the clown as were people talking on a cellphone, suggesting that the act of simply having a conversation is not the cause of inattention blindness.
One possible explanation is that a cellphone conversation taxes not just auditory resources in the brain but also visual functions, said Adam Gazzaley, a neuroscientist at the University of California, San Francisco. That combination, he said, prompts the listener to, for example, create visual imagery related to the conversation in a way that overrides or obscures the processing of real images.
By comparison, walking and chewing gum (that age-old measure of pedestrian skill at multitasking) is a snap.
“Walking and chewing are repetitive, well-practiced tasks that become automatic,” Dr. Gazzaley said. “They don’t compete for resources like texting and walking.”
Further, he said, the cellphone gives people a constant opportunity to pursue goals that feel more important than walking down the street.
“An animal would never walk into a pole,” he said, noting survival instincts would trump other priorities.

For Shalamar Jones, 19, the priority was keeping in touch with her boyfriend. Last month while she was Christmas shopping in a mall near San Francisco, she was texting him when — bam! — she walked into the window of a New York & Company store, thinking it was a door.
“I thought it was open,” she said, noting that no harm was done. “I just started laughing at myself.”
The worst part is the humiliation, said Christopher Black, 20, an art student at San Francisco State University who 18 months ago had his own pratfall.
At the time, Mr. Black said, the sidewalks were packed with pedestrians. So he decided he could move faster if he walked in the street, keeping close to the parked cars. The trouble is he was also texting — with a woman he was flirting with.
He unwittingly started to veer into the road, prompting an oncoming car to honk. He said he instinctively jumped toward the sidewalk but, in the process, forgot about the line of parked cars.
“I splayed against the side of the car, and the phone hit the ground,” he said. He and his phone were uninjured, except for his pride. “It was pretty significantly embarrassing.”

Dr Ad's comment
Just another study that shows being Present and focused helps our brain be more productive and helps us get better performance.

Taken from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/17/opinion/17kristof.html?th&emc=th

Our Basic Human Pleasures: Food, Sex and Giving

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: January 16, 2010

Want to be happier in 2010? Then try this simple experiment, inspired by recent scholarship in psychology and neurology. Which person would you rather be:

Richard is an ambitious 36-year-old white commodities trader in Florida. He’s healthy and drop-dead handsome, lives alone in a house with a pool, and has worked his way through a series of gorgeous women. Richard’s job is stressful, but he spent Christmas in Tahiti. Unencumbered, he also has time to indulge such passions as reading (right now he’s finishing a book called “Half the Sky”), marathon running and writing poetry. In the last few days, he has been composing an elegy about the Haiti earthquake.

Lorna is a 64-year-old black woman in Boston. She’s overweight and unattractive, even after a recent nose job. Lorna is on regular dialysis, but that doesn’t impede her active social life or babysitting her grandchildren. A retired school assistant, she is close to her 67-year-old husband and is much respected in her church for directing the music committee and the semiannual blood drive. Lorna believes in tithing (giving 10 percent of her income to charity or the church) and in the last few days has organized a church drive to raise $10,000 for earthquake relief in Haiti.

I adapted those examples from ones that Jonathan Haidt, a psychology professor at the University of Virginia, develops in his fascinating book, “The Happiness Hypothesis.” His point is that while most of us might prefer to trade places with Richard, Lorna is probably happier.

Men are no happier than women, and people in sunny areas no happier than people in chillier climates. The evidence on health is complex, but even chronic health problems (like those requiring dialysis) may have surprisingly little long-term effect on happiness, because we adjust to them. Beautiful people aren’t happier than ugly people, although cosmetic surgery does seem to leave patients feeling brighter. Whites are happier than blacks, but only very slightly. And young people are actually a bit less happy than older folks, at least up to age 65.

Lorna has a few advantages over Richard. She has less stress and is respected by her peers — factors that make us feel good. Happiness is tied to volunteering and to giving blood, and people with religious faith tend to be happier than those without. A solid marriage is linked to happiness, as is participation in social networks. And one study found that people who focus on achieving wealth and career advancement are less happy than those who focus on good works, religion or spirituality, or friends and family.

“Human beings are in some ways like bees,” Professor Haidt said. “We evolved to live in intensely social groups, and we don’t do as well when freed from hives.”

Happiness is, of course, a complex concept and difficult to measure, and John Stuart Mill had a point when he suggested: “It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.”

But in any case, nobility can lead to happiness. Professor Haidt notes that one thing that can make a lasting difference to your contentment is to work with others on a cause larger than yourself.

I see that all the time. I interview people who were busy but reluctantly undertook some good cause because (sigh!) it was the right thing to do. Then they found that this “sacrifice” became a huge source of fulfillment and satisfaction.

Brain scans by neuroscientists confirm that altruism carries its own rewards. A team including Dr. Jorge Moll of the National Institutes of Health found that when a research subject was encouraged to think of giving money to a charity, parts of the brain lit up that are normally associated with selfish pleasures like eating or sex.

The implication is that we are hard-wired to be altruistic. To put it another way, it’s difficult for humans to be truly selfless, for generosity feels so good.

“The most selfish thing you can do is to help other people,” says Brian Mullaney, co-founder of Smile Train, which helps tens of thousands of children each year who are born with cleft lips and cleft palates. Mr. Mullaney was a successful advertising executive, driving a Porsche and taking dates to the Four Seasons, when he felt something was missing and began volunteering for good causes. He ended up leaving the business world to help kids smile again — and all that makes him smile, too.

So at a time of vast needs, from Haiti to our own cities, here’s a nice opportunity for symbiosis: so many afflicted people, and so much benefit to us if we try to help them. Let’s remember that while charity has a mixed record helping others, it has an almost perfect record of helping ourselves. Helping others may be as primal a human pleasure as food or sex.

Dr Ad's thought
Makes you think how does this affect your culture at work?  I am sure the fallout would be greater engagement, culture and work place performance.By focusing and engaging with others at work we increase our level of happiness!!

Taken from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/annie-toro/a-flexible-workplace-is-a_b_342260.html

As National Work and Family Month and Mental Health Awareness Month draw to a close, it's a good time to reflect on the impact of flexible work arrangements on the health and well-being of employees and their families.

Years of psychological research provide a strong foundation for flexible work arrangements, demonstrating the benefit to employees' physical and mental health, as well as their family life. To promote this knowledge, the American Psychological Association created an Office on Work, Stress and Health that promotes research, training, practice and policy addressing these matters, including:

a) Promoting understanding of work stress and its impact on the well-being and productivity of workers;

b) Exploring organizational and behavioral interventions to reduce stress, illness and injury in the workplace;

c) Studying the impact of changing work force demographics (e.g., aging workers, increasing proportions of ethnic and racial minorities and women) on health and safety in the workplace; and

d) Building collaborative partnerships among psychology, industry, labor and federal agencies to reduce stress and health and safety risks in the workplace.

For APA, issues impacting work, stress and health are of utmost priority. Our dedication to furthering initiatives that lead to a healthy workplace environment stems from our association's mission to advance the creation, communication and application of psychological knowledge to benefit society and improve people's lives.

These issues are particularly important under the sustained pressures of global competition on the U.S. work force. Psychologists are uniquely trained to address the behavioral aspects of change faced by our work force.

Research provides us with essential information regarding changes in our society that speak to the critical need to prioritize workplace flexibility. However, public policy has not kept up with the realities of working families. Today's families are more likely to include single parents, unmarried couples, same-sex couples -- sometimes with children, and stepchildren.

One of the most striking changes in U.S. families in the past 30 years is the increasing number of working women and the rate of mothers who work, especially mothers of infants and young children. Recently, California first lady Maria Shriver and the Center for American Progress released a provocative report entitled "The Shriver Report: A Woman's Nation Changes Everything" on the status of women in the United States and the drastic changes that have taken place in our country as a result of women's entrance into the work force. The study is aimed at inciting what it calls "a national conversation about what women's economic power means for our way of life."

Research tells us there is a positive connection between workplace flexibility and an individual's work-life balance. For instance, employees who work in environments that provide flexible work hours also tend to experience fewer conflicts within their work, family and personal lives. However, when a workplace does not provide adequate flexibility, women are more likely than men to experience work-family conflicts and health-related distress, some studies show.

Another key factor is employee perception of workplace culture. Many employees do not use such policies, even when they are available, because they are concerned that taking advantage of parental leave or flexible work schedules, for example, may be perceived as a lack of job commitment and could negatively affect their career advancement. Thus, it is imperative that employers not only support the employees by promoting their company's flexible schedule options, but also create and maintain a culture that encourages use of these policies.

Research shows that employers benefit from offering greater workplace flexibility. When employees receive the flexibility they need, there is less absenteeism and greater job satisfaction. Employees are more motivated to adopt healthier behaviors, sleep better and be involved in employer-promoted health education programs. Additionally, employers have lower health care utilization costs.

Given the interest in issues affecting working families demonstrated by the Obama administration through the development of initiatives such as the White House Middle Class Task Force and the first lady's efforts to bring much-needed attention to issues involving work-family balance, we hope to see the development of sound federal policies and initiatives that will lead to positive outcomes for employees, employers, families and our country as a whole.

to find out more about culture and engagement go to http://www.dradamfraser.com/CustomContentRetrieve.aspx?ID=216930

Taken From
http://www.consultant-news.com/article_display.aspx?p=adp&id=6258

Due to greater pressures from work 40% of women who earn in excess of £40,000 don’t feel equipped with the skills to achieve a work/life balance, according to new findings.

40% of women won’t achieve a work/life balance due to stress at work

The research by Morgan Redwood, a leading expert in talent development, is based on 237 detailed online interviews with women from a range of backgrounds across the UK.

With National Stress Awareness Day taking place next week (4th November) these recent findings just underline even further how stress at work is affecting women in achieving a work life balance.

The study was designed to determine to what extent women of working age in the UK agree or disagree with a range of attitude statements and determine their levels of contentment towards life, work, relationships and future prospects. Throughout the study women frequently experienced negative and stress related feelings, with 39% highlighting this fact further, by saying they are constantly feeling anxious.

Janice Haddon, Managing Director of Morgan Redwood says: “With the economic climate as it is many companies are looking to save money, one way of doing this is obviously to add to the workload of their staff. However by doing this, it is having a major knock-on effect. Pressure from work is increasing, meaning stress levels are getting higher. And when this is happening, particularly with women, as this survey shows, a work life balance is not being achieved.” This obviously also affects their work place performance and work place productivity.

The research also identified another interesting fact. For those women who have had children, they had experienced a loss of confidence when returning back to the workplace. Two fifths of women with children who were surveyed said they had lost confidence as a result of having a family.

Haddon comments: “Having children is life changing. With the pressures of returning back to work, and the worry of performing well after time off, it’s not surprising that women lose confidence after having a family. This can add to stress levels, making it harder to achieve that work life balance, as more time is needed in the office to prove their worth and build their confidence up.”

Haddon continues: “We’ve just launched a new series of workshops to help women and men achieve a work life balance and help them deal with stress. Our one-day workshops, self-titled ‘Creating My Future,’ will help individuals find the confidence and sense of purpose to get their lives back on track, stress free.”

For more info on getting control back visit: http://www.dradamfraser.com/CustomContentRetrieve.aspx?ID=187950

Taken From the New York Times

By BENEDICT CAREY

Published: October 5, 2009

In addition to assorted bad breaks and pleasant surprises, opportunities and insults, life serves up the occasional pink unicorn. The three-dollar bill; the nun with a beard; the sentence, to borrow from the Lewis Carroll poem, that gyres and gimbles in the wabe.

An experience, in short, that violates all logic and expectation. The philosopher Soren Kierkegaard wrote that such anomalies produced a profound “sensation of the absurd,” and he wasn’t the only one who took them seriously. Freud, in an essay called “The Uncanny,” traced the sensation to a fear of death, of castration or of “something that ought to have remained hidden but has come to light.”

At best, the feeling is disorienting. At worst, it’s creepy.

Now a study suggests that, paradoxically, this same sensation may prime the brain to sense patterns it would otherwise miss — in mathematical equations, in language, in the world at large.

“We’re so motivated to get rid of that feeling that we look for meaning and coherence elsewhere,” said Travis Proulx, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and lead author of the paper appearing in the journal Psychological Science. “We channel the feeling into some other project, and it appears to improve some kinds of learning.”

Researchers have long known that people cling to their personal biases more tightly when feeling threatened. After thinking about their own inevitable death, they become more patriotic, more religious and less tolerant of outsiders, studies find. When insulted, they profess more loyalty to friends — and when told they’ve done poorly on a trivia test, they even identify more strongly with their school’s winning teams.

In a series of new papers, Dr. Proulx and Steven J. Heine, a professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia, argue that these findings are variations on the same process: maintaining meaning, or coherence. The brain evolved to predict, and it does so by identifying patterns.

When those patterns break down — as when a hiker stumbles across an easy chair sitting deep in the woods, as if dropped from the sky — the brain gropes for something, anything that makes sense. It may retreat to a familiar ritual, like checking equipment. But it may also turn its attention outward, the researchers argue, and notice, say, a pattern in animal tracks that was previously hidden. The urge to find a coherent pattern makes it more likely that the brain will find one.

“There’s more research to be done on the theory,” said Michael Inzlicht, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, because it may be that nervousness, not a search for meaning, leads to heightened vigilance. But he added that the new theory was “plausible, and it certainly affirms my own meaning system; I think they’re onto something.”

In the most recent paper, published last month, Dr. Proulx and Dr. Heine described having 20 college students read an absurd short story based on “The Country Doctor,” by Franz Kafka. The doctor of the title has to make a house call on a boy with a terrible toothache. He makes the journey and finds that the boy has no teeth at all. The horses who have pulled his carriage begin to act up; the boy’s family becomes annoyed; then the doctor discovers the boy has teeth after all. And so on. The story is urgent, vivid and nonsensical — Kafkaesque.

After the story, the students studied a series of 45 strings of 6 to 9 letters, like “X, M, X, R, T, V.” They later took a test on the letter strings, choosing those they thought they had seen before from a list of 60 such strings. In fact the letters were related, in a very subtle way, with some more likely to appear before or after others.

The test is a standard measure of what researchers call implicit learning: knowledge gained without awareness. The students had no idea what patterns their brain was sensing or how well they were performing.

But perform they did. They chose about 30 percent more of the letter strings, and were almost twice as accurate in their choices, than a comparison group of 20 students who had read a different short story, a coherent one.

“The fact that the group who read the absurd story identified more letter strings suggests that they were more motivated to look for patterns than the others,” Dr. Heine said. “And the fact that they were more accurate means, we think, that they’re forming new patterns they wouldn’t be able to form otherwise.”

Brain-imaging studies of people evaluating anomalies, or working out unsettling dilemmas, show that activity in an area called the anterior cingulate cortex spikes significantly. The more activation is recorded, the greater the motivation or ability to seek and correct errors in the real world, a recent study suggests. “The idea that we may be able to increase that motivation,” said Dr. Inzlicht, a co-author, “is very much worth investigating.”

Researchers familiar with the new work say it would be premature to incorporate film shorts by David Lynch, say, or compositions by John Cage into school curriculums. For one thing, no one knows whether exposure to the absurd can help people with explicit learning, like memorizing French. For another, studies have found that people in the grip of the uncanny tend to see patterns where none exist — becoming more prone to conspiracy theories, for example. The urge for order satisfies itself, it seems, regardless of the quality of the evidence.

Still, the new research supports what many experimental artists, habitual travelers and other novel seekers have always insisted: at least some of the time, disorientation begets creative thinking.

The following was taken from a Harvard Business Review article!

Do you have trouble concentrating? Find yourself easily distracted? Before getting in a tizzy that you have attention deficit disorder or something worse, check your stress level. New research shows that stress interferes with attention. The good news is that easing stress reverses these changes.

In a report in the January 20, 2009 edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Dr. Conor Liston and his colleagues at Cornell's Weill Medical College and The Rockefeller University show that stress blunts the growth and connections of nerve cells in part of the brain that helps keep you focused. The researchers recruited 20 medical students. Each had his or her brain scanned using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while taking a test that gauges the ability to shift attention from one task to another. Think of it as a multitasking test. The students underwent the scan just before taking their licensing exams--a stressful event--and a month later, after a vacation.

Those who were most stressed out by the prospect of taking the licensing exam were the least efficient at shifting their attention back and forth between tasks, the researchers reported. The greater the perception of stress, the poorer the attention to the task. On the fMRI scans, the attention-shifting task lit up several brain regions involved in attention and focus, including the prefrontal cortex. Stress dimmed the connections between these regions. Interestingly, a month of post-exam vacation reversed the disconnects.

Attention is like a Ming vase--highly prized, yet fragile and easily broken.

In a New York Times op-ed piece, columnist David Brooks wrote this gem about attention:

Control of attention is the ultimate individual power. People who can do that are not prisoners of the stimuli around them. They can choose from the patterns in the world and lengthen their time horizons. This individual power leads to others. It leads to self-control, the ability to formulate strategies in order to resist impulses. If forced to choose, we would all rather our children be poor with self-control than rich without it.

Some people are born with this power. Some learn to cultivate it. Others struggle constantly to focus. For many of us, attention is continually shattered by the small hammers of email, IM, a BlackBerry, blogs, YouTube, the Drudge Report, and countless others. Chronic stress helps them knock harder.

Although reducing stress seems to be an obvious solution to improving attention, there's no evidence that popular techniques like meditation, the relaxation response, and others will help you concentrate better. They may, but few studies have tackled this connection.

A proactive approach is unplugging yourself from distractions. A study by Microsoft's Eric Horvitz and Shamsi T. Iqbal of the University of Illinois showed that it took office workers 10-15 minutes to return to an interrupted task after responding to a distraction like an instant message. Their attention wandered to previous unreturned emails, IMs, blog browsing, Web site surfing, checking RSS feeds, and social networking before returning to the task at hand.

After having spent one too many long days at work with little to show for it, I started my own small distraction-reduction plan. Instead of keeping Outlook and my RSS feeds open all day, I now fire them up every couple hours, do what needs to be done, and close them again. It feels like it's working, and I feel a bit less stressed. If Dr. Liston and his gang are right, it could be the start of a feedback loop that will help me harness "the ultimate individual power."

What are you doing to keep office distractions to a minimum?

Posted by Dr Adam Fraser
Taken from http://www.naturalnews.com/025616.html

If you want to stay mentally sharp all your life and haven mental health, new research shows the time to intervene is now. Alzheimer's disease and dementia have complex causes that involve nutritional neglect as well as genetic risk factors and predisposition. Genetic risk factors for cognitive decline may remain dormant and never get switched on unless deficiencies in key nutrients are present. This suggests that nutritional status throughout the lifetime determines cognitive outcome. This is very good news because it means that people willing to make good nutrition a priority may not need to experience cognitive decline and the diseases that go with it.

Study spotlights key nutrients needed to prevent brain damage and improve performance

The importance of early nutritional intervention and prevention of deficits in critical brain nutrients was the finding of researchers at the Center for Cellular Neurobiology and Neurodegenerative Research at the University of Massachusetts. Their study, reported in the January edition of Nutrition Research, hypothesized that a combination of nutritional additives may be able to provide neuro-protection.

They used alpha-lipoic acid, acetyl L-carnitine, glycophosphocholine, DHA, and phosphatidylserine to reduce reactive oxygen species in normal mice by 57%, and prevent the increase in reactive oxygen species normally observed in mice eating a vitamin-free, iron-enriched, oxidative-challenged diet. They demonstrated that supplementing with these nutrients prevented the marked cognitive decline otherwise observed in normal mice maintained on this challenging diet.

The results of this study spotlight what a difference eating a healthy diet and supplementing can make. They also vividly portray the destructive force of a diet lacking in nutrients.

Short-term memory is improved by a supplement regimen

In another study done at the University of Toronto, researchers demonstrated that old dogs can be taught new tricks. Their purpose was to examine whether commercially available dietary supplements thought to be protective of neural tissue could improve mental function in aged beagles. The supplements they studied were phosphatidylserine, Ginko biloba, vitamin E and pyridoxine (a B6 vitamin). As reported in the April, 2008 Canadian Veterinary Journal, baseline data was obtained for nine beagles that were then grouped in a crossover design. One group received the supplements and the other group served as a control, with these conditions reversed for the second phase of the study.

The researchers discovered that performance accuracy on neuropsychological tests of short-term, visual-spatial memory was significantly improved in the supplemented dogs compared with control dogs, and the effect was long lasting. The fact that both groups of dogs could be powered up with the supplements helps make these results particularly conclusive.

These super nutrients for the brain are easily obtainable

Many relatively young and healthy people have digestive systems that work well and are populated by lots of friendly bacteria. These people usually have no problem assimilating an abundance of nutrients from diets consisting of whole foods. But as the bloom of youth is left behind, it becomes more difficult to assure optimal nutrition through food alone.

Production of pancreatic enzymes slows as people age, leaving a lower level of enzymes available to help break down foods for digestion. Intestinal bacteria can be compromised by use of antibiotics, pesticides in food, chlorine in drinking water, and general environmental pollution. A lowered intestinal population means less digestion and assimilation of food. Stress is another factor influencing how well a person is able to digest and assimilate food.

The health of a person's digestive system along with his age is a determinant of how well even the best of food is digested. It is also a criterion for deciding whether to depend completely on the diet for good nutrition or to make the decision to use supplements. Taking supplements of these nutrients will allow assurance that a quantified amount is consumed. Supplements of these nutrients are readily available, but in come cases can be costly. Whether the decision is to obtain nutrients exclusively from diet or to use supplements, it is important to understand what these nutrients do and from what foods they can be obtained.

Phosphatidylserine leads the pack of compounds beneficial to the brain

Used in both studies because of its known effects on the brain, phosphatidylserine (PS) is a member of a class of chemical compounds known as phospholipids. It is present in the inner leaflet of every cell in the body, but the largest amounts are found in brain cells, where it is responsible for keeping cell membranes fluid, flexible, and ready to process essential nutrients. PS has been implicated in a myriad of membrane-related functions.

As a cofactor for a variety of enzymes, PS is thought to be important in cell excitability and communication. It has been shown to regulate a variety of neuroendocrine responses that include the release of acetylcholine, dopamine and noradrenaline. PS has been demonstrated to influence tissue responses to inflammation, and has the potential to act as an effective antioxidant, especially in response to iron-mediated oxidation.

Signs of reduced PS levels can appear as early as the mid 30s. When PS levels begin to decrease, so do the abilities to learn, remember, and stay mentally alert. Depression may also develop as a result of PS insufficiency. Eating foods rich in PS or taking it in supplemental form may raise the levels in the brain and prevent or even reverse age-related declines in brain function. Numerous double-blind studies have suggested that PS can be used as an effective treatment for Alzheimer's disease and dementia

Parris Kidd, Ph.D., the authority on PS who has written several definitive books about the compound, recommends intake of 300 mg of PS a day. The best dietary source for PS is fatty fish such as mackerel. A quarter pound serving of mackerel will provide about 450 mg of PS. Organ meats are another source, and fermented soybeans contain PS. It is also found in small amounts in some leafy greens.

Alpha-lipoic and acetyl L-carnitine dubbed "fountain of youth" for the brain

A combination of alpha-lipoic acid (LA) and acetyl L-carnitine (ALC) made research headlines recently when it was given to old lab rats that then began acting like young lab rats. In the words of the lead researcher, they "got up to do the Macarena". This definitive study underscored the impact of these key nutrients on the brain.

LA and ALC work in the mitochondria of the cells, where energy is generated by burning food in the presence of oxygen. When cells are fully oxygenated they have a higher level of energy. But this firing process subjects the mitochondria to high levels of free radical damage. As people age, their mitochondria become so damaged by free radicals that they lose their ability to function efficiently, and the result is less energy in the cells of the brain and body resulting in diminished activity. Adding the LA/ALC combo helps prevent oxidative damage and helps restore mitochondrial decay.

Supplementing with LAL/ALC has also been shown to improve spatial and temporal memory by either masking or reversing metabolic problems caused by cellular aging and oxidative stress. Adding AL/ALC as a preventative may increase mitochondrial biogenesis and reduce free radicals, greatly slowing deterioration of the mitochondria.

Dietary sources of LA are spinach, broccoli and other cruciferous vegetables, beef, brewer's yeast, and organ meats. Dietary sources of ALC are meat, fish, poultry, and dairy products. Fruits, vegetables and grains contain very little ALC.

The combination of these compounds as a supplement is available in a patented product. Each compound is readily available separately. When combined, LA and ALC work at significantly lower concentrations than they each do individually.

GPC optimizes mental focus, memory and brain repair

Over twenty clinical trials have been performed on glycerophosphocholine (GPC), and its effects on more than four thousand humans have been studied. Results have shown that GPC is a high effective brain nutrient that supports focus, concentration, recall, and cognitive processing. It was found to revitalize declining mental function and promote healthy mood levels, including positive attitude and sociability. GPC has been used to aid recovery of brain function following injury or circulation deprivation.

In two double-blind trials, GPC was found to restore memory and concentration in young people with drug related memory impairment. Older adults showed improved reaction time when taking GPC, indicating their brains were more alert and focused. Brain wave patterns were improved by the addition of GPC.

Clinical trials have shown that GPC helps the brain recover functions lost during aging, and may benefit those with dementia and Alzheimer's. When given 1200 mg of GPC for six months, Alzheimer's patients showed improvement in cognition, behavior and daily living activities.

An authority on GPC as well as PS, Parris Kidd, Ph.D. says "GPC is unquestionably the most important nutrient for anyone who has suffered a stroke or a brain injury." He refers to five published trials in which GPC was successfully used to enhance stroke recovery. GPC was injected intramuscularly daily for a month and then administered orally for the following five months. In the first phase of treatment, neurological function recovered 20-30 percent, and recovery continued during the second phase.

Food sources of GPC are fish, meat, poultry and dairy products. Dr. Kidd's advice for anyone using the supplemental form is to start by taking 300-1200 mg in the morning. After 1-2 days, the dose can be increased if more mental focus or neuronal repair nutritional support is needed. Taking it within 6 hours of bedtime may make it difficult to fall asleep.

DHA makes people say fish is great brain food

Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) is the building block for the brain and retina of the eye. The brain is 60 percent fat, and DHA is the most abundant fatty acid in the brain, comprising 25 to 35 percent. DHA is essential for supporting a healthy brain and nervous system. It has been associated with memory function, visual acuity, and maintenance of positive mood. It is the only fatty acid associated with reduced risk of age related cognitive decline.

DHA promotes electrical activity at the cellular level. The cells in the brain, retina and other parts of the nervous system have a complex network of connecting arms that transport electrical messages throughout the body. The presence of DHA in nerve cell membranes is critical because this is where messages are transmitted. It is at the membrane that nerve cells perform their unique function of generating electric impulses that are the basis of all communication in the nervous system. When DHA is in short supply, this communication system breaks down or becomes less effective.

DHA is critical for the developing brain, and is found in abundance in breast milk. The young body can synthesize DHA , but as aging beings, this ability declines and DHA must be obtained from food sources or supplements. The richest sources of DHA are fatty fish, red meats, animal organs and high quality eggs. Supplemental DHA can be obtained from fish oil, however cod fish oil is low in DHA.

Sources:

Parris Kidd, Ph.D., Phosphatidylserine, springboard4health.com.

Lipoic Acid, Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University.

Acetyl L-carnitine, Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University.

Parris Kidd, Ph.D., and Suzanne Copp, M.S., GPC: Optimizing Mental Focus, Memory, and Brain Repair, crayhonreseach.com.

Essential Fatty Acids, Linus Pauling Institute at Orgeon State University.