Silva Method and the Ultimate Mind

“He makes me sick” is not usually a statement about the flu. It’s a judgment about someone’s behavior, a sentence delivered with complete disgust about one of our fellow human beings who doesn’t know how to behave properly.

It’s interesting that this metaphor for disapproval can also be very real.

When we see bad behavior, we often do feel sick. The hand goes to the mouth, the nausea sets in, and we turn up our noses as if something foul just walked by. Researchers at the University of Toronto have also just discovered that people react to repulsive photographs, unpleasant liquids, and moral disgust with similar facial movements — the curled upper lip and wrinkled nose.

Read the entire article here Disgust Makes Us Truly Sick

(Via LiveScience.)

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Try the following experiment with two young children. To one child, hold a toy out just beyond their grasp and watch them bounce all over the place trying to reach it. With the second child, just hand the toy over to them. Is the first child likely to find the toy more interesting than the other child? When we are pursuing a goal, we need to carefully consider the best ways of achieving it. If we come across something very difficult, how will that affect our ability to meet our goal? University of Chicago psychologists Aparna A. Labroo and Sara Kim investigated the extent that subjective feelings of difficulty are associated with an increased appeal towards a product.

Read entire article here Is difficult better? Study reveals we tend to ignore simple items while pursuing goals.

(Via EurekAlert!.)

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SEATTLE – Participating in certain mental activities, like reading magazines or crafting in middle age or later in life, may delay or prevent memory loss, according to a study released today that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s 61st Annual Meeting in Seattle, April 25 to May 2, 2009.

The study involved 197 people between the ages of 70 and 89 with mild cognitive impairment, or diagnosed memory loss, and 1,124 people that age with no memory problems. Both groups answered questions about their daily activities within the past year and in middle age, when they were between 50 to 65 years old.

The study found that during later years, reading books, playing games, participating in computer activities and doing craft activities such as pottery or quilting led to a 30 to 50 percent decrease in the risk of developing memory loss compared to people who did not do those activities. People who watched television for less than seven hours a day in later years were 50 percent less likely to develop memory loss than people who watched for more than seven hours a day.

People who participated in social activities and read magazines during middle age were about 40 percent less likely to develop memory loss than those who did not do those activities.

“This study is exciting because it demonstrates that aging does not need to be a passive process. By simply engaging in cognitive exercise, you can protect against future memory loss,” said study author Yonas Geda, MD, MSc, a neuropsychiatrist at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, and a member of the American Academy of Neurology. “Of course, the challenge with this type of research is that we are relying on past memories of the participants, therefore, we need to confirm these findings with additional research.”

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The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health, Robert H. and Clarice Smith and Abigail Van Buren Alzheimer’s Disease Research Program and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Additional audio and video resources, including excerpts from an interview with Dr. Geda describing the research, are available on the Mayo Clinic News Blog at: http://newsblog.mayoclinic.org/2009/02/09/exercise-your-brain-to-prevent-memory-loss/. These materials also are subject to embargo, but may be accessed in advance by journalists for incorporation into stories. Please contact the AAN Media and Public Relations Department for the password to this post.

The American Academy of Neurology, an association of more than 21,000 neurologists and neuroscience professionals, is dedicated to promoting the highest quality patient-centered neurologic care. A neurologist is a doctor with specialized training in diagnosing, treating and managing disorders of the brain and nervous system such as multiple sclerosis, restless legs syndrome, Alzheimer’s disease, narcolepsy, and stroke.

For more information about the American Academy of Neurology, visit www.aan.com.

Read the article here Can exercising your brain prevent memory loss?

(Via EurekAlert.)

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Dreams might mean nothing, but many people take them seriously nonetheless, as Sigmund Freud did, new research finds.

People in at least three countries, including the United States, believe dreams contain important hidden truths, said researcher Carey Morewedge, an assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

In six different studies, Morewedge and his colleagues surveyed nearly 1,100 people about their dreams. The results are detailed in the February issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

“Psychologists’ interpretations of the meaning of dreams vary widely,” Morewedge said. “But our research shows that people believe their dreams provide meaningful insight into themselves and their world.”

In one study that surveyed general beliefs about dreams, Morewedge and co-author Michael Norton, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School, surveyed 149 university students in the United States, India and South Korea. The researchers asked the students to rate different theories about dreams.

Read more here Most People Believe Dreams Are Meaningful

(Via LiveScience.)

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The article “A Quantum Threat to Special Relativity” by David Z. Albert and Rivka Galchen discusses how the quantum phenomenon of entanglement overturns our intuition that the world is “local”. That is, we can directly affect only objects we can touch, and indirect effects must be transmitted by means of a chain of events that each act locally. The great physicists Niels Bohr and Albert Einstein clashed over the implications of apparent nonlocalities in quantum mechanics, but neither imagined the universe could actually be nonlocal. Yet work by theorist John S. Bell in the 1960s and by experimenters beginning in the 1980s has conclusively confirmed the nonlocal quantum nature of the world.

As Galchen and Albert describe here, scientists were haunted by apparent nonlocalities centuries ago, and thought they had successfully banished them from physics.

Read the entire article here Nonlocality from Newton to Maxwell

(Via Scientific American.)

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In this study about insomnia and tension-type headaches, the researchers suggest that “napping to relieve headaches could serve as a behavioral link between headache and sleep disturbance.” What is napping, might you ask?

Napping or sometimes called “power napping” is a short sleep during which your brain waves are slowed to the Alpha level with short bursts into the Theta level. Napping or its equivalent can be achieved with a short Silva relaxation where you go to Alpha and relax your brain waves for the purpose of re-energizing yourself.

One of the techniques we also teach at the Silva Method Course, (the Basic Lecture Series and now the Silva Life System class), is about how to get rid of tension headaches and how to achieve sleep quickly. Both techniques have been fairly well documented by the millions of Silva Method graduates.

Please visit our website at Silva Method Of Florida to find out more about the Silva Method and its techniques, and how to register for the next class scheduled for March 28 and 29 in Fort Lauderdale, FL.

Click here to read more about this study about insomnia and tension-type headaches Study finds behavioral link between insomnia and tension-type headaches

Here’s the beginning of this article on EurekAlert:

Using sleep or napping to cope with chronic pain caused by tension-type headaches could lead to chronic insomnia according to a new study by researchers at Rush University Medical Center. The study, published in the February 15 issue of the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, found that napping to relieve headache pain could serve as a behavioral link between headache and sleep disturbance.

The study compared a group of 32 women who were confirmed to have tension-type headaches, as classified by the International Headache Society System, to a control group of 33 women who experience minimal pain.

Eighty-one percent of the women in the headache group reported going to sleep as a way of managing their headaches; this method was also rated ”

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On this Valentine’s Day, along with the fun and pleasures of being a couple in love, it is also time to reflect on how we can improve our relationships. What better way than to use the Silva Method techniques to achieve that goal with success.

It is a known fact that nobody can change another person. Many couples found that the hard way because it is really up to us, individually, to seek what we want and then make the needed changes. Like the Marine Corps motto goes, we choose to “Adapt, Improvise, Overcome”.

The simplest technique is first to write down what behavior or habit we want to modify. Then, at Alpha Level, use the Mirror of the Mind to program this new behavior you want to modify. Imagine how it feels with this new experience and visualize yourself acting this new scenario of your life.

The Mirror of the Mind is an important technique if the Silva Method and it is easy to use. Find out more about the Silva Method here at SilvaMethodOfFlorida.com and check out for the next class in South Florida.

In the meantime, we wish you a very happy Valentine’s Day,

Jay Feuillet,
Silva Success Coach and Instructor

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I know this article has nothing to do with Mind or the Silva Method, but it is so funny that I had to share it with you. As you may have read Microsoft wants to open retail stores like Apple did. It will be interesting to see which computers they’ll use since they are only a software house while Apple builds its own brand and creates its own OS and applications.

Anyway, this article published this morning in PC World, (yes, I read also PC World to prove to myself that I made the right choice in switching to Mac five years ago), shows what Microsoft may do to not imitate Apple.

Here’s an overview:

“Microsoft announced plans to open retail stores, hoping to boost visibility of many of its products and its brand. The move seems to be an effort to mimic the success that Apple has had with its retail stores. The news is just too tempting not to have some fun with. So here are some yet-to-be-officially-revealed details about the Microsoft stores.

1) Instead of Apple’s sheer walls of glass, Microsoft’s stores will have brushed steel walls dotted with holes — reminiscent of Windows security.

2) The store will have six different entrances: Starter, Basic, Premium, Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate. While all six doors will lead into the same store, the Ultimate door requires a fee of $100 for no apparent reason.

3) Instead of a “Genius Bar” (as Apple provides) Microsoft will offer an Excuse Bar. It will be staffed by Microsofties trained in the art of evading questions, directing you to complicated and obscure fixes, and explaining it’s a problem with the hardware — not a software bug.

4) The Windows Genuine Advantage team will run storefront security, assuming everybody is a thief until they can prove otherwise.”

If you enjoy this article, click here to read the rest 10 Ways Microsoft’s Retail Stores Will Differ From Apple Stores

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ScienceDaily (Feb. 11, 2009) — Mayo Clinic researchers found that healthy, older adults who participated in a computer-based training program to improve the speed and accuracy of brain processing showed twice the improvement in certain aspects of memory, compared to a control group.

“What’s unique in this study is that brain-processing activities seemed to help aspects of memory that were not directly exercised by the program — a new finding in memory research,” says Glenn Smith, Ph.D., Mayo Clinic neuropsychologist and lead researcher on the study.
The research, a controlled, multisite, double-blind study, will be published in the April issue of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. A copy is available online Feb. 9, 2009.

For an hour a day, five days a week for eight weeks, study participants worked on computer-based activities in their homes. The participants, from Minnesota and California, were age 65 or older. No one had a diagnosis of cognitive impairment, such as early Alzheimer’s disease.
The control group, with 245 adults, watched educational videos on art, history and literature topics. They completed quizzes on the content.

Read entire article here Improving Brain Processing Speed Helps Memory

(Via ScienceDaily.)

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NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Eating a Mediterranean-style diet high in vegetables, fruits and nuts, legumes, fish and cereals, and low in dairy products, meat, and fat, with moderate alcohol consumption, is not only good for the heart, it’s also good for the brain, new research hints.

In a study, “following Mediterranean diet-type habits was associated with reduced risk for getting mild cognitive impairment — a transitional stage between normal cognition and dementia/Alzheimer’s disease,” Dr. Nikolaos Scarmeas told Reuters Health.

“Additionally, subjects who already had mild cognitive impairment and had a higher adherence to the Mediterranean diet had lower risk for converting to Alzheimer’s disease,” he noted.

Scarmeas and colleagues from Columbia University Medical Center, New York, used food frequency questionnaires to calculate Mediterranean diet “adherence scores” for 1,393 individuals with no cognitive difficulties at the outset and 482 individuals with mild cognitive impairment at the start of the study.

According to a report in the Archives of Neurology, 275 of the subjects who had normal brain function at the outset developed mild cognitive impairment over an average of 4.5 years of follow-up.

Read more here Mediterranean diet may protect the brain.

(Via Archives of Neurology.)

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