If you want to get rid of unwanted, negative thoughts

If you want to get rid of unwanted, negative thoughts

Article from: http://www.newswise.com/articles/bothered-by-negative-unwanted-thoughts-just-throw-them-away Newswise — COLUMBUS, Ohio -- If you want to get rid of unwanted, negative thoughts, try just ripping them up and tossing them in the trash. In a new study, researchers found that when people wrote down their thoughts on a piece of paper and then threw the paper away, they mentally discarded the thoughts as well.

On the other hand, people were more likely to use their thoughts when making judgements if they first wrote them down on a piece of paper and tucked the paper in a pocket to protect it.

 “However you tag your thoughts -- as trash or as worthy of protection -- seems to make a difference in how you use those thoughts,” said Richard Petty, co-author of the study and professor of psychology at Ohio State University. Some types of psychological therapy use variations of this concept by trying to get patients to discard their negative thoughts. But Petty said this is the first study he is aware of that has validated that approach. “At some level, it can sound silly. But we found that it really works --

 by physically throwing away or protecting your thoughts, you influence how you end up using those thoughts. Merely imagining engaging in these actions has no effect.”

The findings suggest that people can treat their thoughts as material, concrete objects, Petty said. That is evident in the language we use. “We talk about our thoughts as if we can visualize them. We hold our thoughts. We take stances on issues, we lean this way or that way. This all makes our thoughts more real to us.” Petty conducted the research with Pablo Briñol, Margarita Gascó and Javier Horcajo, all of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid in Spain.

The results are published online in the journal Psychological Science and will appear in a future print edition. For the study, the researchers conducted three related experiments. In the first experiment, 83 Spanish high school students participated in a study they were told was about body image. Each participant was told to write down either positive or negative thoughts about his or her body during a three-minute period. All the participants were asked to look back at the thoughts they wrote. Researchers told half of the students to contemplate their thoughts and then throw them in the trash can located in the room, “because their thoughts did not have to remain with them.” The other half were told to contemplate their thoughts and check for any grammar or spelling mistakes. The participants then rated their attitudes about their own bodies on three 9-point scales (bad-good, unattractive-attractive, like-dislike).

 Results showed that for those who kept their thoughts and checked them for mistakes, it mattered whether they generated positive or negative thoughts about their bodies. As would be expected, participants who wrote positive thoughts had more positive attitudes toward their bodies a few minutes later than did those who wrote negative thoughts. However, those who threw their thoughts away showed no difference in how they rated their bodies, regardless of whether they wrote positive or negative thoughts.

 “When they threw their thoughts away, they didn't consider them any more  whether they were positive or negative,” Petty said. In a second study, 284 students participated in a similar experiment, except this time they were asked to write negative or positive thoughts about something most people believe is good: the Mediterranean diet (the diet emphasizes high consumption of fruits, vegetables, legumes and unrefined cereals, with olive oil as the basic fat). In this case, some threw the thoughts away, some left them on their desk, and some were told to put the paper in their pocket, wallet or purse and keep it with them.

All participants were then asked to rate their attitudes toward the diet and intentions to use the diet for themselves. As in the first study, those who kept the list of thoughts at their desk were more influenced by them when evaluating the diet than were those who threw them away. However, those who protected their thoughts by putting them in a pocket or purse were even more influenced than those who kept the thoughts on their desk. In other words, those who wrote positive thoughts about the Mediterranean diet and put those thoughts in their pocket rated the diet more favourably than those who wrote positive thoughts and simply kept those thoughts on their desk. And, those who wrote negative thoughts and put them in their pocket rated the diet more negatively than those who kept their thoughts on the desk. “This suggests you can magnify your thoughts, and make them more important to you, by keeping them with you in your wallet or purse,” Petty said. But how important is the physical action of throwing these thoughts away or keeping them in your pocket? To find out, the researchers conducted a third experiment using computers. In this case, 78 Spanish college students wrote their thoughts in a computer word-processing document.

Some later used a mouse to drag the file into the computer recycle bin, while others moved the file to a storage disk. Just as in the previous studies, participants made less use of negative thoughts that they had trashed -- by dragging them to the recycle bin -- than did those who saved the thoughts by transferring them to a disk. In one other condition, some participants were told to simply imagine dragging their negative thoughts to the recycle bin or saving them to a disk. But that had no effect on their later judgements.

 “The more convinced the person is that the thoughts are really gone, the better,” Petty said. “Just imagining that you throw them away doesn't seem to work. “Of course, even if you throw the thoughts in a garbage can or put them in the recycle bin on the computer, they are not really gone -- you can regenerate them. But the representations of those thoughts are gone, at least temporarily, and it seems to make it easier to not think about them.” Petty said the researchers plan to see if this technique could work to help people who have recurrent negative thoughts that are intrusive and bothersome, such as thoughts about the death of a loved one. “It is often difficult to get rid of these thoughts.

 We want to find out if there is a way to keep those thoughts from coming back, at least for longer periods of time.” The study was supported by grants from the U.S. National Science Foundation and the equivalent agency in Spain.

In the 1960s and 1970s, classic social psychological studies were conducted that provided evidence that even normal, decent people can engage in acts of extreme cruelty when instructed to do so by others. However, in an essay published November 20 in the open access journal PLOS Biology, Professors Alex Haslam and Stephen Reicher revisit these studies' conclusions and explain how awful acts involve not just obedience, but enthusiasm too -- challenging the long-held belief that human beings are 'programmed' for conformity. This belief can be traced back to two landmark empirical research programs conducted by Stanley Milgram and Philip Zimbardo in the 1960s and early 1970s. Milgram's 'Obedience to Authority' research is widely believed to show that people blindly conform to the instructions of an authority figure, and Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE) is commonly understood to show that people will take on abusive roles uncritically. However, Professor Haslam, from the University of Queensland, argues that tyranny does not result from blind conformity to rules and roles. Rather, it is a creative act of followership, resulting from identifying with authorities who represent vicious acts as virtuous. "Decent people participate in horrific acts not because they become passive, mindless functionaries who do not know what they are doing, but rather because they come to believe -- typically under the influence of those in authority -- that what they are doing is right," Professor Haslam explained. Professor Reicher, of the University of St Andrews, added that it is not that they were blind to the evil they were perpetrating, but rather that they knew what they were doing, and believed it to be right. These conclusions were partly informed by Professors Haslam and Reicher's own prison experiment, conducted in 2002 in collaboration with the BBC. The study generated three findings. First, participants did not conform automatically to their assigned role; second, they only acted in terms of group membership to the extent that they identified with the group; and finally, group identity did not mean that people simply accepted their assigned position -- it also empowered them to resist it. Although Zimbardo and Milgram's findings remain highly influential, Professor Haslam argue that their conclusions do not hold up well under close empirical scrutiny. Professor Reicher concludes that tyranny does not flourish because perpetrators are helpless and ignorant; it flourishes because they are convinced that they are doing something worthy. S. Alexander Haslam, Stephen. D. Reicher. Contesting the “Nature” Of Conformity: What Milgram and Zimbardo's Studies Really Show. PLoS Biology, 2012; 10 (11): e1001426 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1001426 ScienceDaily

How microglia works to repair the brain

European Molecular Biology Laboratory

Like emergency workers rushing to a disaster scene, cells called microglia speed to places where the brain has been injured, to contain the damage by ‘eating up’ any cellular debris and dead or dying neurons. Scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, have now discovered exactly how microglia detect the site of injury, thanks to a relay of molecular signals. Their work, published today in Developmental Cell, paves the way for new medical approaches to conditions where microglia’s ability to locate hazardous cells and material within the brain is compromised.

“Considering that they help keep our brain healthy, we know surprisingly little about microglia,” says Francesca Peri, who led the work. “Now, for the first time, we’ve identified the mechanism that allows microglia to detect brain injury, and how that emergency call is transmitted from neuron to neuron.”

When an emergency occurs, cries can alert bystanders, who will dial the emergency number. A call will go out over the radio, and ambulances, police or fire engines in the area will respond as needed. In the brain, Peri and colleagues found, injured neurons send out their own distress cry: they release a molecule called glutamate. Neighbouring neurons sense that glutamate and respond by taking up calcium. As glutamate spreads out from the injury site, this creates a wave of calcium swallowing. Along that wave, as neurons take up calcium they release a third molecule, called ATP. When the wave comes within reach, a microglia cell detects that ATP and takes it as a call to action, moving in that direction – essentially tracing the wave backwards until it reaches the injury.

Scientists knew already that microglia can detect ATP, but this molecule doesn’t last long outside of cells, so there were doubts about how ATP alone could be a signal that carried far enough to reach microglia located far from the site of injury. The trick, as Peri and colleagues discovered, is the long-lasting glutamate-driven calcium wave that can travel the length of the brain. Thanks to this wave, the ATP signal is not just emitted by the injured cells, but is repeatedly sent out by the neurons along the way, until it reaches microglia.

Dirk Sieger and Christian Moritz in Peri’s lab took advantage of the fact that zebrafish have transparent heads, which allow scientists to peer down a microscope straight into the fish’s brain. They used a laser to injure a few of the fish’s brain cells, and watched fluorescently-labelled microglia move in on the injury. When they genetically engineered zebrafish to make neurons’ calcium levels traceable under the microscope, too, the scientists were able to confirm that when the calcium wave reached microglia, these cells immediately started moving toward the injury.

Knowing all the steps in this process, and how they feed into each other, could help to design treatments to improve microglia’s detection ability, which go awry in conditions such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. 

Watch Francesca Peri, Dirk Sieger and Christian Moritz discuss their work and its implications in this short film produced as a Cell video abstract: youtu.be/fbdT_-yhakQ.

Source Article

http://www.embl.de/aboutus/communication_outreach/media_relations/2012/120524_Heidelberg/index.html

Sieger, D, Moritz, C., Ziegenhals, T., Prykhozhij, S. & Peri, F. Long-range Ca²⁺ waves transmit brain damage signals to microglia.Developmental Cell, published online 24 May 2012.

Peacemakers war…

Something that I have found very common when working as a volunteer is the subliminal silent internal war over everyday activities within any particular organisation.

Veterans vs. Cadets

People with more experience are very protective over their positions and about the “way that things must be”.

Most veterans got their “medals” doing hard jobs at a time when no specialization was available or even necessary, all they had was the rule book and they did very well at that time.

Today we are living in an era of the most explosive scientific discoveries and it is pushing the more conservative approach to review positions.

Daily and sometimes hourly science reviews mean that people are constantly having to change their positions. There is no longer just one possibility and there is no more space for inflexibility.

The tactical and strategic attack and defence of the veterans is maintained by “how things must be done” and “how to follow the rules”.

Doing it they are absolutely shielded. It means that communication only flows if everything is perfect, and by “seeking the perfection”.  Mainly it is a contradiction; there is no perfection in a sea of variables.

The tactic of newcomers is to reduce the work of the veterans by exposing them to their lack of specialization and new knowledge of resources by spreading rumours and gossip or trying to ensure the veterans are unable to form polarized groups which in turn could affect the unity of the organization. 

The only conversation allowed at the veterans HQ will be the selfish overconfident like: “I do it by the book, so, you must do the same”. Then it gets sick by promoting the conversation to the level of “look how wrong people do it”. The gas grenades of patronizing people are a tactical action to ensure that the veterans’ positions are safe, so the attachment to the book becomes powerful and can be continually used against the cadets.

The other powerful weapon on both sides of this war is that of gossip, the low voices tingling at environment corners, the silent criticism of the body language disapproving things as they are not in the “perfect order” or if they are not in the way that both sides wants to see things done.

Gossips are a clear sign of lack of professionalism and maturity. Each side needs to consider that devaluing each other spreading rumours causes damage to the entire system.  Devaluation devaluates everything. Both sides are reducing each other powers by devaluation and the end result will be a much devaluated organization with no confidence in itself and it will be spread to the public knowledge and concept of it.

The only way to the centre of a blank is the mistake, if you don’t experience the acceptance of the mistake you are never going to correct the position to the centre. If you agree with this logic, that means that you will need to put a stop to criticism of others’ mistakes. We all mistaken.

Veterans are important, they are the living experience and columns of everything, they did suffer things unimaginable today and they kept the name of their organization at the top.

Learning is a fantastic process, there is nothing better than learning from someone who has experience, people that have a wealth of information at their fingertips because they have lived and breathed it. They are masters of transferable skills.

Again, if new cadets look at the veterans only as something that need to be replaced it will again show lack of intelligence, respect, professionalism etc. Again, it will bring contradiction to the level of the helpers, volunteers that don’t understand their first priority.  Helpers must think about what they are…

… “We are helpers, people who understand situations and deal with it so we can make things better, more peaceful, etc. we bring a solution.”

New cadets are not at the level of replacing everything, and the idea of complete replacement is never achievable.

Nevertheless, there are new techniques, new materials, technologies, new concepts of leadership, new knowledge, new devices to teach better, something new every day. Veterans must know that if they do not allow new things and new people to do better it will discourage them and those people who have the potential to bring enthusiasm and bring new life into the organisation will be gone forever as they will find a different organization to empower. By stopping these very people,  the organization will lose expertise and specialists within their field. Protectionism damages powerful organizations.

When an organization that is in dire need of a changeover for a new generation, it is essential this is done using the wisdom of discipleship. If you gain respect it will be appreciated by others. It is much better to be an empathic teacher than a commander.

Cadets are Veterans of the past; remember that it wasn’t easy on you, so how do you make their path easier today? Friendliness is much more likely to go down well than bossiness.

So, veterans who are on duty need to respect the new generations and vice-versa, otherwise it will lead to dispute.

Voluntary jobs are services, so we are servants of others by free will. Volunteers do things freely, with generous hearts for helping others. So if volunteers do not help and do not highly value their colleagues there is no point in serving anybody else. The best training in an organization that offers services is first of all to be internally-minded, the first motivation is that staff, whether they are volunteers or not, should be the highlight of team attitude.

The anti-war weapons are still super effective.

Things like:

“Would you mind helping me with this?”

“Could you please?”

“Thank you”

“You are VERY welcome”

“Let me show you how it could be better”

“Please, show me how you could do better than me”

“I do appreciate that”

“Could I?”

“May I?”

“Nice job, well done”

“I am sure that you can do this better, is there anything I can do to help?”

“Is there someone better than me that I could ask to help?”

Sure there are many other phrases that you may know.

Let me finish this blog page with one of my quotes and a better famous one.

“When your knowledge makes you proud there are no more spaces to fulfil. It is a feeling of completeness.

When your knowledge makes you humble it shows that no matter how much you know,

You already had learned that you are going to find space to learn something new, different or better.”   Paul McCullough

“You may say I'm a dreamer But I'm not the only one.
I hope someday you'll join us And the world will be as one” John Lennon

By Paul McCullough

There is no supermarket for emotions…

There is no supermarket for emotions…

Something about our brain is that when we talk about it looks like we are talking about a different entity living inside of us.

True, but not completely true.  Brain thinks by it self and it self is you... Looks like a paradox but it isn’t.

Let’s just assume that your brain is kind of a living entity that controls you even when you don’t realise it.

Our brain is very selfish and never cares about irrelevant things such quality, almost never.

Brain likes to be completed, if brain needs something it goes for it.

For example food, if your brain needs proteins, you are going to be compelled to find the proteins, but your brain will not tell you where or what it the best source, your brain will tell you: “go, and find it.”

If your brain needs water it will push you to drink, brain doesn’t really cares where you are going to find water; the only think that it cares is that you obey the command “go, find water now”.

That is why people get over weighted. Brain needs to make sure that lipids and proteins, glucoses etc are always available; it will store loads of metabolised food on your body, the reason is that food should be there “just in case” your brain needs more. As your brain is selfish and it wants really to make sure of things… you going to get more than you need.

Your brain doesn’t really cares about your beauty, or the quality of the food that you are eating.  Everything that a matter is you has to supply your brain needs and that is it.

Your part on the process is your conscientiousness, you have to think, where is the good water, what is the best food, what is the right amount of this and that.

That is why supermarket exists, we classify and organize things to better supply our brain needs.

At the supermarket every thing should have excellent quality, validations dates that helps us to select the best elements that supply our needs. Supermarkets are the brain heaven, everything is nice and fine over there, helps you to find the needs, but again, you have to do your part, understanding how to use the goods that your brain needs.

Emotions are also something that your brain does for you.  Brain produces feelings that help you to deal with your life, for ex:  if you are in pain you cry, if you need hug and kiss you are in love, if you hammer your finger with something, you are going to swear nice words with anger. Again and again your brain are behind the feelings saying what is the need and commanding you “go and get It.” or   “careful, it hurts.” or “hey that is fun I want more.” Etc…

But the difference between emotions and food supply are huge, there is no feelings supermarket on real life for build a good diet or to ensure the quality of goods related to feelings.

Your brain will command very selfishly you to “go and get it and do it now.” You the responsible to find good quality and good balance to supply your brain as best as you can, because your brain is quiet blind about quality and so and so. You have to find the good ones, the balance ones, and up to date ones.

Remember your brain likes to store things “just in case…”  Brain never likes to be uncovered. The process with emotions will be the same as food is. You going to buy things that you don’t really need. But your brain likes it because of the “just in case” effect.

Dealing with emotions is really difficult, you have to hunt for the best ones, and there are no markets that supply you with the best.  The best ones are  very difficult to find, and you have to put a great effort to find them.  Your brain doesn’t like to wait, brain time is something that you have to learn how to control.  Your brain will push you to do it now but you have to be responsible to offer good quality.  

Do not pay attention to your brain when it is compelling you to do something, tell it... “Hey you up there… wait a bit, I will find you good things, and so be patient.”

Search for good relationships, it will supply the “store it” effect.

Deal with your bad feelings, they are not good for your brain, don’t buy it or don’t use it. If something does not smell good don’t take it.  Trash it.

If you feel that feelings inside of you are constantly painful or depressing it is very certain that you ate some emotional products with questionable quality. Through out it, because it is going to inflame your emotional system and you going to need help and medicine to cure the inflamed thing.

If you are storing things that you don’t need, you are going to be emotionally fat. It means that to get back to ideal good shape you are going to work it out a lot, or at the contrary it will make you emotionally lazy slow.

As there is no supermarket that preselects things for you, you have to build your own pattern of what is good and healthy.

So, when something new comes to your life… smells it, touch it and shake it. 

Make sure that it supplies you best. 

We are just about

We are just about.

We are just looking at the greatest moment on our history. Science is about to boom again in such marvelous way  and we are ready for most significant moment. Physicists are jumping, neuroscience are flourishing in exuberance, space is our next frontier and it is now and it is for real.  

Shame on us.


We still tolerating war, war of any kind based in filthy's interests. The heavier prisoner black ball of our actual society is not religion as some declares, but it is the tolerance and condescendence with the global economy as it is today and political interests dominium over society as a old heavy stone that never seems to change.
Those are the science and society enemies and we need new a urgent action toward the extinction of it.

misconception

This is a great video, and truly talks about a new age and new concept of life perspective. I would like to share with you. But I have to disagree about the YouTube title, if you mix with the concept of "God" it will be a misconception.

The inner gyroscope

I don’t go deep inside the depth concept of synergy I don’t know that much. I just want to share some words today that my early morning thoughts brought to me.....

I have just started my day thinking about the brain synergies, how some things affects other things, thinking how the seizure disorder works and affects the psychology or the reverse of psychological process affects the brain forces like anorexia etc. ....

So, it came to my mind “The Synergos” (greek), the empowerment that combined forces to produces the homeostasis balance. ....

I have got that tendency to keep looking at, drives my attention, the fight against the Imbalance disturbing the harmony for the whole body and the outcome imbalance that fights to the homeostatic system.

We got that kind gyroscope, but sometimes we push it to its limit or even we push it over, of course I am not talking about illness but about decisions and situations that we make ant it affect that causes.....

So synergy depends on harmony as a paradigm – “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts" my dear Aristotle. There is something in between that’s makes my “gyroscope” good in the flow of energies, so that’s in balance produces good synergy.
Lube your brain today.