Zombie Fud

HOW TO RECOGNIZE TENSION

It is not unusual for you to be unaware of the presence of tension. Many people develop great tension when they sleep. They even grind their teeth while sleeping. While sleeping, it is possible for your eyes to be tense and strained. When you wake up with tired and smarting eyes, it is because of that tension while sleeping. As you learn to relax more effectively, you will find that you not only read much more effectively, but all areas of your life will be positively affected because of your learning the relaxation skill.
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CHAPTER 22 Other Potential Promemory Agents

MANY OTHER MEDICATIONS have been proposed as treatments for mild memory loss, or as part of an antiaging regimen. These agents include DHEA, hormones and related peptides, and metallic elements. Although several of these substances are intriguing, the knowledge base is currently insufficient to include them in the Memory Program. Nonetheless, knowing the basic facts will give you a better understanding of the stories that you are likely to hear in the media about one or more of these agents as potential cures for memory loss.
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6.8.1. In Action

Have a go at the following tests to determine which is your dominant hand and just how dominant it is. Do each test twiceonce with each handand record your score, in seconds, both times. You don’t have to do all of them; just see which you can do given the equipment you have on hand.

Darts
Throw three darts at a dartboard. (Be very careful when doing this with your off-hand!) Add up the distances from the bull’s-eye.

Handwriting
Measure the time that it takes to write the alphabet as one word, six times. Start with the hand you normally write with and rest for 1 minute before starting with the other hand.

Drawing
Measure the time that it takes to draw a line between two of the lines of some lined paper. Add a penalty of 2 seconds for each time your line touches one of the ruled lines.

Picking up objects with tweezers
Using tweezers, measure the time that it takes to pick up and transfer 12 pieces of wire from one container to another.

Stoppering bottles
Measure the time, in seconds, it takes to put the lids on five jars, the corks back in five wine bottles, or the cap back on five beer bottles.

Here’s how to calculate your handedness quotient:
(Left-hand score - Right-hand score) / (Right-hand score + Left-hand score) x 100

You can now see how the score differs for the different tasks and take an average to see your average dominance. Negative numbers mean right-handedness, positive numbers mean left-handedness. Bigger numbers mean greater dominance by one hand.

Taken from : Mind Hacks

There are two types of relaxation

There are two types of relaxation: “Dynamic” and “Passive.” When muscles are completely relaxed and simply dormant, it is called PASSIVE RELAXATION. When the muscles are relaxed, but moving smoothly and easily, it is called DYNAMIC RELAXATION. The latter is best illustrated by an athlete running easily in a relaxed manner.
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Hack 68. Test Your Handedness

We all have a hand preference when undertaking manual tasks. But why is this so? And do you always prefer the same hand, or does it vary with what you are doing? Does the way people vary their hand preference differ between right- and left-handers?

The world is a right-handed one, as will be obvious to left-handers. Most tools are made for right-handed people. Implements such as scissors, knives, coffee pots, and so on are all constructed for the right-handed majority. In consequence, the accident rate for left-handers is higher than for rightand not just in tool use; the rate of traffic fatalities among left-handers is also greater than for right.1

The word “sinister,” which now means “ill-omened,” originally meant “left-handed.” The corresponding word for “right-handed” is “dexter,” from which we get the word “dexterous.”

T.S.

Nine out of 10 people are right-handed.2 The proportion appears to have been stable over thousands of years and across all cultures in which handedness has been examined. Anthropologists have been able to determine the incidence of handedness in ancient cultures by examining artifacts, such as the shape of flint axes. Based on evidence like this and other evidence such as writing about handedness in antiquity, our species appears always to have been a predominantly right-handed one.

But even right-handers vary in just how right-handed they are, and this variation may have a link to how you use the different sides of your brain [Hack #69] .

Taken from : Mind Hacks

Hack 67. Objects Ask to Be Used (3)

So, objects can produce movements within our mind, but just how do they do so? We don’t know the answer to this yet. One possibility is that these effects happen automatically, as Gibson suggested. Our system for visual perception has two routes [Hack #66] : the ventral (or “what?”) route, concerned with the identity of the object and the dorsal (”where?” or “how?”) route, concerned with location and action. Affordances may act directly on the dorsal stream, without relying on any higher processing; information about the type of movement might be extracted directly from the shape or location of the object.

However, our knowledge about objects must play a role. We certainly couldn’t have evolved to respond to everyday objects of todayprehistoric man didn’t live in a world filled with door handles and coffee mugs! These automatic responses must be learned through experience. Recently, Tucker and Ellis4 found that merely seeing an object’s name was enough to speed reaction times to produce the relevant size of grasp. Thus, our previous experience and knowledge about acting upon objects become bound up with the way that we represent each object in our brains. So, whenever you see (or simply consider) an object, the possibility of what you might do with it is automatically triggered in your mind.

One point to remember from this research is that objects will exert a constant “pull” on people to be used in the ways that they afford. Don’t be surprised if people who are tired, in a hurry, or simply not paying attention (or who just have a lack of respect for how you wanted the object to be used) end up automatically responding to the actions the object offers. One practical example: if you don’t want something to be used by accident (e.g., an ejector seat), don’t have it triggered by the same action as something else that is used constantly without much thought (e.g., have it triggered by a twist switch, rather than by a button like the ignition).

T. S.

6.7.3. End Notes
Tucker, M., & Ellis, R. (1998). On the relationship between seen objects and components of potential actions. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 24, 830-846.

de’Sperati, C., & Stucchi, N. (1997). Recognizing the motion of a graspable object is guided by handedness. NeuroReport, 8, 2761-2765.

Grezes, J., & Decety, J. (2002). Does visual perception of object afford action? Evidence from a neuroimaging study. Neuropsychologia, 40, 212-222.

Tucker, M., & Ellis, R. (2004). Action priming by briefly presented objects. Acta Psychologica, 116, 185-203.

Ellen Poliakoff

Taken from : Mind Hacks

THE GREATEST ENEMY TO READING: TENSION

Most people say they don’t read more than they do because it gives them a headache, or they just can’t keep their eyes open, or they just can’t develop and keep their interest level up, or something similar. The people who are having these thoughts and problems believe that these are an inseparable part of reading.
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Why Other Medications Did Not Make the Cut

The cholinergic compounds lecithin and Alcar just missed the cut because the data are much weaker than for Aricept (or Exelon or Reminyl). DHEA (discussed in the next chapter) is not on my list, not only because its efficacy against memory loss has not been established, but also because it is more toxic than the medications that are on the list. The data on hydergine and the nootropics do not suggest sufficient action against memory loss. The COX-II inhibitors did not make it to the list either, mainly because they have just been released and we have no information on their use against memory loss. Ongoing and future clinical studies may demonstrate significant antimemory-loss properties for the COX-II inhibitors, in which case Celebrex or Vioxx might well vault to the top of the list.
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ALPHA-NETICS RAPID READING PROGRAM A BASIC COURSE FOR EVERYONE PART TWO

“Cod be thanked for books. They are the voices of the distant and the dead, and makes us heirs of the spiritual life of past ages.”
William Ellery Channing
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Hack 67. Objects Ask to Be Used (2)

Effects of object affordances have been found in experiments: Tucker and Ellis1 asked subjects to press a button with their left or right hand, to indicate whether a picture of an object was the right way up or inverted. Even though subjects were not thinking about the action they would use for that object, it had an effect. If they saw a cup with a handle pointing toward the rightevoking a right-hand graspthey were faster to react if their response also happened to require a right-hand response. That is, the reaction time improved if the hand used for the button press coincided with the hand that would be used for interacting with the object. This is called a compatibility effect. (The Simon Effect [Hack #56] shows that reaction times improve when stimuli and response match in the more general case. What’s happening here is that the stimulus includes not just what you perceive directly, but what affordances you can perceive too.)

The graspability of objects can affect judgments, even when people are not making any kind of movement. de’Sperati and Stucchi2 asked people to judge which way a moving screwdriver was rotating on a computer screen. People were slower to make a judgment if the handle were in a position that would involve an awkward grasping movement with their dominant hand. That is, although they had no intention to move, their own movement system was affecting their perceptual judgment.

6.7.2. How It Works
Brain imaging has helped us to understand what is happening when we see action-relevant objects. Grèzes and Decety3 looked at which brain areas are active when people do the Tucker and Ellis judgment task. Bits of their brain become active, like the supplementary motor area and the cerebellum, which are also involved in making real movements. In related research in monkeys, cells have also been discovered that respond both when the monkey sees a particular object and also when it observes the type of action that object would require.

People with damage to their frontal lobes sometimes have problems suppressing the tendency to act upon objects. They might automatically pick up a cup or a pair of glasses, without actually wishing to do so (or even when they’re told not to). It is thought that we all share these same tendencies, but with our intact frontal lobes, we are better at stopping ourselves from acting them out. (Frontal patients can also have trouble suppressing other impulses; for instance, some become compulsive gamblers.)

Taken from : Mind Hacks