Making Yourself Happier? #inspiration #science

I came across the article below where a neuroscience researcher,   has investigated the brain and its responses using the latest medical techniques during various states of emotion including happiness, sadness, anxiety, empathy, etc.

It’s a fascinating article and well worth a read.

I particularly like the third action of being decisive as sometimes when in a quandary about an issue and wondering whether you are making the right decision can be very stressful,  but just deciding and accepting a better solution and not necessarily the best solution can help you remove that anxiety.

I hope you find it as interesting and helpful I did.

Here’s a summary of what the researchers say will make you happy.  I’ve attached the more detailed article below.

• Ask “What am I grateful for?” No answers? Doesn’t matter. Just searching helps.
• Label those negative emotions. Give it a name and your brain isn’t so bothered by it.
• Decide. Go for “good enough” instead of “best decision ever made on Earth.”
• Hugs, hugs, hugs. Don’t text — touch.

So what’s the dead simple way to start that upward spiral of happiness?

Just send someone a thank you email.   If you feel awkward about it, you can send them this post to tell them why.

This really can start an upward spiral of happiness in your life. UCLA neuroscience researcher Alex Korb explains:

Everything is interconnected.
Gratitude improves sleep.
Sleep reduces pain.
Reduced pain improves your mood.
Improved mood reduces anxiety.
Reduced anxiety improves focus and planning.
Focus and planning help with decision making.
Decision making reduces anxiety and improves enjoyment.
Enjoyment gives you more to be grateful for, which keeps that loop of the upward spiral going.

Enjoyment also makes it more likely you’ll exercise and be social, which, in turn, will make you happier.

— The full article can be read at the following link

http://www.businessinsider.com/a-neuroscience-researcher-reveals-4-rituals-that-will-make-you-a-happier-person-2015-9?IR=T

A Real Barbarella?

Do you remember the opening to that camp old 60’s movie Barbarella featuring the lovely Jane Fonda?

I remember when I was a kid and seeing these opening titles on late-night tv and thinking ..  WOW!!

Then being sent to my bed!  🙂

But check this zero-gravity photo-shoto with the gorgeous Kate Upton to see the real Barbarella!

And the original with Jane Fonda

Hello Pluto .. Meanwhile on Planet Earth …

Somewhere out there right now Voyager 2 is closing in on the planet Pluto and has started sending back images better than can be captured by the Hubble Telescope.

The last time the probe passed a planet and sent back some imagery was of Neptune in the late 1980s.

To put that distance in perspective,  currently,  Voyager 2 is 115 million km away from Pluto,  equivalent of the distance from the Sun to Venus,   but it will cover that distance between now and July.

So can you just imagine how far is Pluto from Neptune?

Isn’t it amazing that we can push something that far out to space and communicate with it so remotely?

However this communication is far from ideal as passing a radio signal from Earth at the speed of light takes over 4.5 hours to reach the probe.

Hello Pluto .. wait 5 hours .. yes?

To put that in perspective,light travels at 180,000 miles per second,   the distance from the Sun to Earth is 93 million miles, 146 milllion km.

The light from the sun takes just over 8 minutes to reach Earth,  providing us with life,  food, energy and a healthy tan!

I find that incredible ….

However, meanwhile on planet Earth …

There is a global economic recession.

In the UK,  one of the worlds richest countries is in the tail-end of an economic crisis,  people are suffering,  going hungry,  the demand for food-banks offering free food to the needy is increasing.

Tonight there is a collection at Celtic Park organised by the club to mark the birthday of its founder Brother Walfrid for the people in need.

Does it matter what the people who claim that they need to use these facilities circumstances are?   If some are abusing it?

Do you think that because you pay your taxes excludes you from contributing or donating what you can?

I don’t think so.

“Are there no work-houses?” as the Ghost of Christmas Present quoted back to Mister Scrooge.

The spirit finally reveals to Scrooge two emaciated children, subhuman in appearance and loathsome to behold, clinging to his robes, and names the boy as Ignorance and the girl as Want. The spirit warns Scrooge, “Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom unless the writing be erased.” The spirit once again quotes Scrooge, who asks if the grotesque children have “no refuge, no resource,” and the spirit retorts with more of Scrooge’s unkind words: “Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?”

The fact that we need these places at all is shameful.

So although,  I love science,   love how mankind has moved on beyond its beginnings to view other planets.

I’d like to think that if it was a mission to Pluto was proposed today rather than back in the 70s then it would be shelved in favour of feeding the hungry.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-32311907

Code Of A Killer

Did you happen to see the fantastic drama-documentary Code Of A Killer on ITV over the past few nights?

It’s a dramatisation which tells the true story of Alec Jeffreys’ discovery of DNA fingerprinting and its first use by Detective David Baker in catching the double murderer Colin Pitchfork for the murder of two schoolgirls, Lynda Mann and Dawn Ashworth in 1984.

I enjoy crime thrillers but don’t watch a lot of tv.  This is a fantastic,  informative real life drama and can’t recommend it enough.

Its available on the ITV player without the ads,  which is trims each episode to just over an hour from the broadcast length of 2 hours.

Catch up is the way to watch tv.

Right back to the research,  new job in  Glasgow / Edinburgh starts tomorrow.

Informatica Master Data Management whatever that is!!

 

Just Put Your Lips Together And Blow

430am and browsing. …

Came across the following video on Cymatic Sounds by Nigel Stanford.

http://nigelstanford.com/Cymatics/

These are sounds at certain frequencies which cause various wave types to occur in nature.

You’ve possibly down some of these experiments at school, they were big in the 70s with the hippy and new wave movements looking for alternative healing therapies.

http://www.lunarsight.com/freq.htm

I don’t dismiss or buy into that, I just like the visualisation of the sound.

A good example of using sound waves for useful but unexpected purposes is the ultrasound used within hospitals to investigate medical issues mainly pregnant woman and generating graphics from sound.

The technology used with ultrasound has become much more sophisticated over the years producing more detailed 2D images and more recently couples can request 3D videos of their unborn children within the mothers womb.

Isn’t that fantastic.

As a professionally qualified engineer I’m well aware of the destructive impact of resonant frequencies.

Where subjecting an object to a frequency specific to its own circumstances will not only cause the object to vibrate but if can cause the vibrations to increase that the object becomes unstable.

Ever wonder when you’re driving your car and the steering wheel shakes at certain speeds then clears as you speed up or slow down?

That’s a fault in the tracking being exacerbated by driving at a speed where the resonant frequency causes the vibrations to become noticeable.

The classic example of this behaviour is the Tacoma Narrows bridge collapse and is usually taught in universities demonstrating how Mother Nature doesn’t need to try too hard to put mankind in its place.

All she had to do was put her lips together and blow.

Reminds me of that scene from To Have And To Have Not with Humphrey Bogart and the gorgeous Lauren Bacall.

Real beauty like hers is timeless, effortless and refreshing compared to today’s fake tackiness.

Now how did I get from Cymatics to Bacall?

Sleep!!