guide
Resist. Your efforts will be rewarded.
Recent experimental psychology […] suggests that the best leaders — both male and female — seem to have relatively high testosterone, which is linked to decreased fear and increased tolerance for risk and desire to compete, and low cortisol, which is linked to decreased anxiety. Effective leadership is associated with hormone levels, and with this hormone profile, leaders are confident and willing to take risks, but not overly threatened or reactive to stressors. [..]
It turns out these two hormones, testosterone and cortisol, are very touchy, sensitive to social and physical cues and fluctuating a great deal over the course of a single day. As Sandberg mentioned in her book, our research shows that people can change their own hormone levels and behaviors, by “faking it” — by “power posing,” or adopting expansive, open nonverbal postures that are strongly associated with power and dominance across the animal kingdom (imagine standing with hands on hips and feet spread, like Wonder Woman). By holding these postures for just two minutes before entering a high-stress situation, people (both men and women) can increase their testosterone by about 20% and decrease their cortisol by about 25%.
{ Harvard Business Review | Continue reading | Thanks Tim }
Death by misadventure
We all know that smoking is bad for our health and that eating vegetables is good for it. Yet how bad and how good are they? […]
To answer his own question, Spiegelhalter converted reams of statistical risk tables into a simple metric: a microlife—30 minutes. If you smoke two cigarettes, you lose 30 minutes of your life. Exercise for 20 minutes, and you gain two units of microlife.
‘We are always getting ready to live, but never living.’ –R. W. Emerson
“Married people are happier than unmarried people. They are healthier, live longer, have more sex,” and do better on nearly every indicator of happiness, Gilbert noted. […]
“Of course money buys happiness,” he said. “A little money can buy you a lot of happiness, though a lot of money buys you only a little more happiness.” […] What’s the sweet spot where each dollar buys the most happiness? Gilbert cited a per capita income between $50,000 to $75,000. […]
Time spent resting, for example, the dream of so many working people, simply doesn’t deliver happiness. “People are happiest when the mind is engaged,” Gilbert said, whether talking, creating, or having sex (another point for marriage). “People are [also] happier when they give money away rather than spending it on themselves.” […]
“[Children] are not a source of happiness. […] Once people have kids, there’s a downturn in happiness.” […] “Of course we love our kids,” said Gilbert. “I never said don’t have kids,” but the scientific data is tough to refute.
The obstacle is the path
Convincing somebody to follow your advice can be a grueling task. Though it may often seem like the only thing to do is continue stating your spectacularly rational argument and hope they eventually see the light, some new research suggests a counter-intuitive twist on that strategy: Initially recommending what you don’t want them to do and then contradicting yourself.
But when the sun went down, the rapid tempo of the music fell
I’m pretty mediocre. I’m ashamed to admit it. I’m not even being sarcastic or self-deprecating. I’ve never done anything that stands out. No “Whoa! This guy made it into outer space!” or, “This guy has a best selling novel!” or, “If only Google had thought of this!” I’ve had some successes and some failures but never reached any of the goals I had initially set. Always slipped off along the way, off the yellow brick road, into the wilderness.
I’ve started a bunch of companies. Sold some. Failed at most. I’ve invested in a bunch of startups. Sold some. Failed at some, and the jury is still sequestered on a few others. I’ve written some books, most of which I no longer like. I can tell you overall, though, everything I have done has been distinguished by its mediocrity, its lack of a grand vision, and any success I’ve had can be put just as much in the luck basket as the effort basket.
That said, all people should be so lucky. We can’t all be grand visionaries. We can’t all be Picassos. We want to make our business, make our art, sell it, make some money, raise a family, and try to be happy. My feeling, based on my own experience, is that aiming for grandiosity is the fastest route to failure. For every Mark Zuckerberg, there are 1000 Jack Zuckermans. Who is Jack Zuckerman? I have no idea.
photo { Martin Stöbich }
Burn it with fire
Let’s cut the crap. Life is short, you have less time than you think, and there are no baby unicorns coming to save you. So rather than doling out craptastic advice to you about Making!! It!! To!! The!! Top!!™, let me humbly ask: do you want to have a year that matters — or do you want to spend another year starring-slash-wallowing in the lowest-common-denominator reality show-slash-whiny soap opera of your own inescapable mediocrity-slash-self-imposed tragedy? […]
Do you want this to be another year that flies by, half-hearted, arid, rootless, barely remembered, dull with dim glimpses of what might have been? Or do you want this to be a year that you savor, for the rest of your surprisingly short time on Planet Earth, as the year you started, finally, irreversibly, uncompromisingly, to explosively unfurl a life that felt fully worth living?
The choice is yours. And it always has been.
{ Umair Haque/Harvard Business Review | Continue reading | Thanks Tim }
photo { Stephen Shore }
Let’s hear the time. The treble.
Problem #1: Inability to Focus
“The average office worker changes windows [on her computer] 37 times an hour,” Headspace’s head of research Nick Begley says in a meditation tutorial. According to Begley, when your mind changes gears that rapidly, part of your brain is still engaged in the previous task and you don’t have all of the attention and resources necessary to concentrate on the current task. […]
Problem #2: Stress
When people get stressed, there is a part of the brain called the amygdala that fires up the “fight or flight” part of the nervous system that helps you make quick, impulsive decisions. “It signals to our hormonal system to secrete adrenaline and cortisol and increases our heart rate, respiration, and blood pressure, so we can escape this immediate physical danger,” says Begley. The problem arises when there is no immediate physical danger–when, say, you’ve forgotten to hit “save” on an important document and your computer crashes, or you arrive unprepared for an important business meeting. […]
The Solution
Refreshing your brain is easier than you think. Here’s the first and only step: Do nothing. […] 10 minutes each day to quiet your mind. Practice observing thoughts and anxieties without passing judgment–simply experience them.
photo { Philip Lorca Dicorcia }
Mangy ravenous brute sniffling and sneezing all round the place and scratching his scabs
Scientists have struggled to understand the correlation between cold weather and the flu. […] The researchers found the virus survived best at humidity below 50%, similar to the conditions found indoors in “a really heated building,” says Dr. Marr. […] “It’s also fine in humidities above 98%, which you find in the rainy season in the tropics,” she says, where the conditions outside resemble the environment the virus finds in the body. “But in between, in a humidity of 50% to 98%, the virus doesn’t survive very well.”
The presence of influenza is quite rare in the spring, summer and fall, when people don’t use indoor heating as much and the humidity tends to be in the comfortable 50%-to-70% range. […]
A humidifier might be the best product to keep the flu at bay, Dr. Marr says. “If you can humidify to about 50%, but not above 60% [which can cause mold], you might reduce your chances of getting the flu,” she says.
Flamenco sketches
Are there any side effects to cracking knuckles?
There is no evidence that cracking knuckles causes any damage such as arthritis in the joints. However, a couple of reports in the medical literature are available associating knuckle cracking with injury of the ligaments surrounding the joint or dislocation of the tendons ( attachments of muscles to bones) which improved with conservative treatment. A study found that after many years of cracking habitual knuckle crackers may have reduced grip strength compared with people not cracking their knuckles.
photo { Irving Penn, The Hand of Miles Davis, New York, 1986 }
Four abreast, goose stepping, tramp fast past in noisy marching
Stretching before exercise is a sacred ritual, but researchers have been finding that it actually slows you down. Florida State researchers recently showed that stretching before a run makes you about 5 percent less efficient, meaning you have to burn more energy to run at the same pace. This year, Italian researchers studying cyclists discovered why stretching is counterproductive. They found evidence that toe-touching stretches change the force-transmission properties of muscle fibers and alter the brain signals to muscle, reducing exercise efficiency by about 4 percent. Furthermore, there’s insufficient scientific evidence that pre-exercise stretching reduces injury risk.
photo { Geof Kern }
The warmth of her couched body rose on the air, mingling with the fragrance of the tea she poured
The more alcoholic drinks people consume, the more attractive they perceive themselves to be. […]
First, women with high levels of estrogen feel prettier, and second, smoking causes a lowered presence of estrogen in your body. So if you’re a female smoker and want to feel more attractive, boost your estrogen levels and stop smoking. Additionally this hormone helps maintain your female features and is vital to your body’s fertility.
photo { Bill Brandt }
