Reading List 001

The Power of The Mind: How To Train Yourself To Be More Successful
By Bruna Martinuzzi
(full article)

Bruna takes her readers through the wonderful world of a brain science, the discoveries therein and how these discoveries can be put to use in your daily life.

Use visualization to learn a new skill: Neuroplasticity is the ability of the brain to continuously create new neural pathways. When we repeat a skill that we are trying to master, we strengthen the neural networks that represent that action. The same happens physically in the brain whether we perform the action, or simply visualize it—Your brain cannot tell the difference between an action you performed and an action you visualized.

You’ve undoubtedly tried this before with some level of success. Whether it’s visualizing the big presentation, the next game or just a crucial conversation, visualization is a positive anxiety to have. It’s nice to know the science backs up it’s effectiveness.

Smile to improve your mood: The Facial Feedback Hypothesis indicates that facial expressions representative of an emotion trigger changes in your body that are similar to those that happen when you experience the actual emotion. For example, your brain cannot tell the difference between a posed smile or a genuine smile. A posed smile will elicit, physiologically, the same pleasure or happiness response as a genuine smile. Your facial muscles cue your brain to experience that positive emotion. Taking notice of this, consider how this information can help you to regulate some of your emotional reactions by controlling your facial expressions.

Try this the next time you are in a bad mood: Instead of frowning, which reinforces a negative mood, consider smiling. Research has shown that by doing so, you are likely to experience a more positive mood.

I swear, this works. Give it a shot.

The Power of Sleep
By Robyn Adams
(full article)

I’m always talking to people about the importance of sleep. Good, powerful, restorative sleep is extremely important for our mental health. And not all sleep is equal. Sleep before midnight is more restorative so get as much of it as you can. Also, if you have a smart phone, make sure to look for those “I-can’t-believe-this-actually-works” sleep monitoring apps that gives you a visualization about how good your sleep has been.

Getting good sleep is a habit. It’s easy to let sleep be the first thing to slip in its importance in your life when things get stressful. It’s tempting to stay up an extra hour so you can be more productive. But studies show that finding the right amount of sleep for you will lead to your optimal level of productivity instead.

For Robyn’s advice on becoming more productive by getting better sleep make sure to read the whole article.

The Key to Getting Motivated: Give Up
By Oliver Burkeman
(full article)

Like most things in life, sometimes we just need to let go before we can make progress. Oliver brings this to our attention with a good reminder:

Fortunately, there’s a powerful alternative, crystallized by the psychology writer Julie Fast in a pithy eight-word phrase: “Don’t wait until you feel like doing something.” When you’re mired in negative emotions about work, resist the urge to try to stamp them out. Instead, get a little distance — step away from your desk, focus on your breath for a few seconds — and then just feel the negativity, without trying to banish it. Then take action alongside the emotion. Usually, the negative feelings will soon dissipate. Even if they don’t, you’ll be a step closer to a meaningful achievement.

Why Perceptual Computing Is About to Experience an Upsurge
By Ramamurthy Sivakumar
(full article)

Using a depth-sensing camera such as a Kinect sensor, Personify software lets architects walk clients through a proposed building. Or emergency-management directors guide first responders through a disaster-preparedness map. Or corporate trainers create educational videos without a production room.

We’ve used simulation for a lot of things since the dawn of the computer age. From driving simulators for driver’s education (safety) to war time strategy (life and death) to video games (entertainment). One thing that has always fascinated me is the possibility to use simulation to assist people in coping with their struggles with mental health.

With perceptual computing this ideas seems to be closer than we think.

Bring Sanity to Your To-Do List With the 1-3-5 Rule
By Sam Spurlin
(full article)

I’ve been loving a new to-do system that took me out of the new age and back to the stone age. I’m a sucker for new to-do apps. If I can get it on my phone, iPad or computer I’ll try it. Each time I read about a new app, I buy it. They get me every time. In fact, I end up spending more time trying new to-do apps than actually completing tasks on my to do list.

Well, no more. I went analog with the Bullet Journal method and I’m not going back. But like any concept there can always be tweeks and hacks that make the system better. This is one.

The basic idea is that you pick 1 “big” task, 3 “medium” tasks, and 5 “little” tasks to accomplish in a day. One of the biggest causes of work stress is dealing with long-term projects that suddenly end up behind schedule because they were never urgent enough to get on your radar. By prioritizing ahead of time and making sure some of those long-term projects that just love to go forgotten get on the list you can make major strides in reducing your stress at work.

At the very least, you’ll know what to work on each day and 9 tasks a day, every day, is a whole lotta forward progress.

Why a Reading List? I do a good amount of reading and I‘m constantly finding articles which are informative, entertaining and applicable to my private practice. Instead of hoarding this information to myself, I’ve decided to begin sharing the articles and pull quotes on a semi-regular basis.

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